Tobold agreed to a comment saying "I don't hold anything against them [who don't research their class] -- they’re clearly the sane ones. I just wish I didn’t have to choose between sanity and competence". This is the self-chosen summary of his article.
He also said: "Much of the information in World of Warcraft is not obvious. Everybody "knows" that spirit is good for priests but useless for paladins, but it would take an inordinate amount of time and effort to find that out just by playing the game. Instead there are theorycrafting sites and blogs giving class-specific advice, who'll tell you. It is essentially cheating."
That's completely not true. Let's mouseover "spirit" in the character screen and the priest talent "meditation":
To disprove the "you must do research outside" nonsense I already did my test back when Ulduar was new and the M&S was struggling reaching 1.2-1.5K DPS. I had a warlock alt and created an absolutely unique spec for him reaching 2K DPS on dummy.
Every pieces of information are available in game. Where else do the EJ people find their research material? Competence does not need research. Excellence, maybe. But if you see a hunter in spirit, a warrior in spellpower or an unenchanted-ungemmed 0/0/71 guy, you don't see "uninformed". You see stupid. Correction: you see stupid and uninformed. There is the "stupid and informed" group who spec well because told so and does not know why.
Yes, there are elitists who will not invite you for having Str gem because Arp would give 0.01% more DPS or because you don't reglyph before every fight. There are insane people who claim that you must do everything perfectly on the boss when you see him first. But their insanity is not an excuse for your incompetence. You can:
Tobold's post is a simple re-formulation of the old "lol i haz life" statement of the M&S. I'm sure Tobold is not a moron, but he might protecting some "friends" who are. They are not worth it.
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And someone from Fizzlefire who is completely sane person, just refused to read 100+ pages of EJ. Or something like that:
He also said: "Much of the information in World of Warcraft is not obvious. Everybody "knows" that spirit is good for priests but useless for paladins, but it would take an inordinate amount of time and effort to find that out just by playing the game. Instead there are theorycrafting sites and blogs giving class-specific advice, who'll tell you. It is essentially cheating."
That's completely not true. Let's mouseover "spirit" in the character screen and the priest talent "meditation":
To disprove the "you must do research outside" nonsense I already did my test back when Ulduar was new and the M&S was struggling reaching 1.2-1.5K DPS. I had a warlock alt and created an absolutely unique spec for him reaching 2K DPS on dummy.
Every pieces of information are available in game. Where else do the EJ people find their research material? Competence does not need research. Excellence, maybe. But if you see a hunter in spirit, a warrior in spellpower or an unenchanted-ungemmed 0/0/71 guy, you don't see "uninformed". You see stupid. Correction: you see stupid and uninformed. There is the "stupid and informed" group who spec well because told so and does not know why.
Yes, there are elitists who will not invite you for having Str gem because Arp would give 0.01% more DPS or because you don't reglyph before every fight. There are insane people who claim that you must do everything perfectly on the boss when you see him first. But their insanity is not an excuse for your incompetence. You can:
- choose proper talents
- choose glyphs
- choose gems, enchants, consumables
- create spell rotation
- figure out boss tactics
Tobold's post is a simple re-formulation of the old "lol i haz life" statement of the M&S. I'm sure Tobold is not a moron, but he might protecting some "friends" who are. They are not worth it.
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And someone from Fizzlefire who is completely sane person, just refused to read 100+ pages of EJ. Or something like that:
It is arguably less sane to research a video game in depth than to just play it and do healthier or more important things with more care. But I agree that if you're going to raid, you have homework to do.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree that smart people don't wind up 0/0/71. Sometimes smart people do things that aren't smart. One of the people who recruited me to WoW years ago is a lifelong research scientist and now has a second degree in law at age 60. I don't know why she has several 0/0/71 specs. I don't know how she raids with them; I don't play on her server. I only know she is a very intelligent person.
You can call her a slacker, I suppose, for not doing her homework. But a moron? Not remotely.
That morons screenshot looks strangely familiar. Almost as though you've run several exactly like it before. I even seem to recall one with the same macro.
ReplyDeleteGet a proper guild, explore and learn content firsthand, problem solved.
ReplyDeleteThere is a difference between a complete stupidity and not having all the information available to work with, to an extent of having to go outside of the game for it.
ReplyDeleteIs spirit useless to a holy paladin? well it still regenerates mana while not casting, so it doesn't seem like completely terrible statistic, unlike say strength to a caster where you can read all about physical/melee damage and figure out that as a caster - you don't do that. Its more of a fact that intellect does so much more and yes eventually after fiddling around for a while, you can figure it out. its even less daunting if you have a general understanding of the specific game mechanics of WoW in addition to general understanding of game statistics (in other words someone who has never played an rpg of any sort before will have much harder time figuring itemization, in fact - they probably don't even understand most of not all abbreviations us, gamers are so fond of using)
Do EJ people just look at the character and immediately figure out what's best or do they spend hours upon hours on testing out all the variables in as controlled conditions as they can manage, recording the information and using outside sources to analyze it (Try calculating all the variables as precisely as they do without the use of something that records combat logs to a file accessible outside of the game, not to mention development and use of spreadsheets, damage meters, etc)
Here's another example. Hunters. everyone just loves to talk about melee huntards that always have growl on. Lets see. Some of the earliest abilities you get are melee abilities. Raptor Strike, Mongoose bite, wing clip - all abilities used in melee and all of them are available a lot earlier then most signature shots.
Without outside sources, how are yo supposed to just know that you shouldn't be meleeing? Ranged weapon, you say? other classes can use ranged weapons too and those classes melee plenty. As for growl, nowhere in game does it say that you can disable it by right clicking on it. You might discover it by accident if you are lucky and or exceptionally curious person prone to poking at everything.
It is so very easy to look down on people from the tower of your experience.
I would think that you of all people, the same person who wrote the guild to WoW for a new player would understand it.
Not true. There are plenty of game mechanics that aren't spelt out in game. For example:
ReplyDeleteArcane Focus (Mage Tier 1 talent) - this talent only gives you +1-3% hit chance for Arcane spells, not all spells. Even intelligent gamers don't notice this until they test it out.
Reckoning (Paladin talent) - previously (not sure if it still is), only talent 5/5 displayed that it would proc on hit and block, whereas talents 1-4/5 state that it only procs on hit. In reality, any number of points invested will proc on hit and block.
Paladin abilities - most benefit from both AP and SP. But at no point in game is there any sign that Seal of Vengeance should benefit from SP, whereas Seal of Command should not. Or that Avenger's Shield, Consecration or Judgement should benefit from AP.
Are a hunter's Shots spells or abilities? If you go by the Paladin viewpoint, since abilities like Judgement benefit (as a ranged melee attack that can't be dodged/parried), they should benefit from SP as well, right?
Speaking of Shots and Judgement, do they run off Spell Hit or Melee/Ranged Hit? How about Hammer of Wrath? Why is Judgement considered a ranged attack, but Hammer of Wrath is considered a spell attack? And why do they both gain benefit from AP *AND* SP?
Can a Paladin's Divine Purpose be overcome by +hit rating? The logical person would suggest that the answer is 'yes'. The game mechanics, however, can be demonstrably shown to preserve the hit chance reduction, irrespective of the attacker's hit rating.
Not everything is spelt out in game, and the tooltips aren't always accurate. The way the guys from EJ find their research material is through trial and error and reporting.
Find me an in-game source that tells me how much benefit my Fireball gets from +1 SP. Wait... you can't. Damage SP tooltip used to read something like "Increases the damage caused by spells by up to X", when in reality, it would increase it by more or less than X, depending on the SP coefficient.
Sorry Gevlon, but the main message in your post today is garbage. Every bit of information is available in game, but it requires a lot of testing and trial and error to tease it all out.
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Poor choice of a moron - if you ask me, the bigger moron is the troll who wasted his time engaging in a meaningless discussion with the stupid one.
(Apologies if it's multi-posting - having problems with Blogger today.)
@Squishalot: While no in-game tooltip tells exactly how much a fireball would gain from SP, it is told that it gains. So a mage who stack SP can't be REALLY wrong.
ReplyDeleteI accept that to have the optimal spec/gear one must do research. However simply by using common sense, one can reach 90% of optimal, like the non-hit-capped mage who gems SP instead of hit. Yes, he'll miss some times. But when he hit his spells will hit bigger. Yes, hit would be better. But SP is not bad either. Str or empty slot would be bad.
The thing that strikes me is why do people argue that doing research is such a bad thing?
ReplyDeleteMost hobbies that are worth doing require people to put effort in outside of the hobby, for example my dad is a keen rock climber and if you go round to his house you will find lots of climbing guide books. No-one would accuse him of having no-life because of these books but aren't just the rock climbing version of EJ and Bosskillers?
The problem is that you and Tobold are arguing about different things. Sure, spellpower warriors, unenchanted/ungemmed idiots exist, but Tobold was not referring to them.
ReplyDeleteInstead, he was talking about the casuals who do all the basic things but are called out because they don't have the "optimal" spec/gems/gear or don't take the time to watch youtube videos of bossfights.
You yourself gave a clear example: elitists that won't invite you because you gem str instead of arp or the people who insist on perfection for the first encounter.
Isn't it a fact that beasts are among the few types of mobs that never drop gold?
ReplyDeleteI can understand what Tobold means. If I have to chose between a haste or a crit gem, I need a mathematical model to figure out what will help me most. It is strange that in order to play a game, one must construct a mathematical model or must use a mathematical model constructed by someone else.
ReplyDeleteAlso your example is selective: if I mouse over spirit on my holy paladin, it will tell me that spirit is good for mana regen. IIRC it will even say that for my warrior. Nowhere in-game is it made clear that spirit is much better for priests than it is for paladins.
On my first character, a warlock, I have thought for a while that agi could be useful for my wand damage, since the tooltip said that agi improves my ranged damage. The only way to find out that agi does nothing for your wand damage, is by doing statistical experiments (for which you'd need addons or a whole lot of patience) or by looking it up at the internet. Both of which are different than just playing the game.
In a perfect world, the game would teach you how to spec your character. The least Blizzard could have done, was having the class trainers offer gearing advice through some gossip conversations.
@Zazkadin: you don't NEED a mathematical model to choose between crit and haste gem. If you gem for crit while haste would be optimal, you'd lose 0.1% DPS.
ReplyDeleteAlso, while nothing tells you that agi don't help wand damage, you should figure out that casting spells is better than wanding.
I wonder if all the people saying how the game doesn't tell you that X stat is marginally better for Z class than Y stat, realize that the same "problem" exists in almost every single game ever.
ReplyDeleteIts not always about stats, it can be fight moves, path choices, jump patterns - whatever. In order to beat a game you generally don't need to be playing anywhere near optimally. Most people will beat a single player game once, maybe twice if they like it and then move on. They don't need to beat the game in the best way possible and the game does not expect them to.
WoW started out a lot like that as well - to beat the original 5mens in vanilla you needed some general understanding of the game (like what CC is). And to beat a 40man raid you needed at least half a raid of halfway competent people.
But since people had to do the same content over and over again, they naturally started actively looking into ways to do it better. Ultimately near-optimal builds and tactics were found that trivialized content meant for generic players.
Obviously, the difficulty level had to be raised for at least some of the content.
Enter hard modes.
Now the game has been dissected and to perform in the expected level you need to know things you were never meant to care about.
All those 0.1% dps increases are available in pretty much every game, but WoW is the only one where anyone cares.
Its also the social aspect. 10 reasonably intelligent players could beat most of the normal mode content without ever reading up anything outside the game. But when someone is performing at the top level, it makes the rest look bad and they are forced by peer pressure to read up and improve beyond the necessary.
I like the middle way that you propose here. It happens way too often that I run into people where one can only wonder if they even read the tooltips of their abilities. Of course some times it's misleading but these are really the exceptions.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, cataclysm will reduce the influence of idiotic specs by forcing people to take 80% of a tree and reducing the number of crap talents after all.
Haven't checked it, but can you see miss, dodge and parry rates on boss somewhere in game?
ReplyDeleteI've checked logs of my friend's guild yesterday. I know for sure that i beated dps of those ppl when i was less geared and there were only 5% buff in ICC, not 30%. So they are going at least 30% worse than me. But they are not spirit-gemmed hunters.
You can not get to 90% performance by common sense only. Just can't.
"you should figure out that casting spells is better than wanding"
ReplyDeleteIf you ever level a Shadow Priest, you'll find yourself wanding more often than casting in the early levels. The mana regen that you get from Spirit Tap by staying out of the 5sec rule helps with the downtime caused by drinking.
I see little Gopl had a busy day yesterday, I had a nice chat with it myself. Too bad I hadn't screenshoted poor one's struggle to give me just one good reason to give it gold. Fantastic specimen.
ReplyDelete@Gevlon
"Also, while nothing tells you that agi don't help wand damage, you should figure out that casting spells is better than wanding."
As a matter of fact, if you can get your hands on a good crafted wand early in the game (enchanters make them by dozens while levelling, so even absolutely fresh player can get one easy, or even make one himself), you can be well over 20 when you can get to the idea that spellcasting is more efficient way to deal damage, as wand can outperfom spells before then, and don't use any mana while doing it, which is quite a problem on lower levels.
As far as I know, beasts do not drop gold :)
ReplyDeleteBut the research the "elitist" guys ask for you to know can be easily found in many forums and sites dedicated to your favorite class. It's easily obtainable information. You don't need to waste all your energy&time every day to find the "hidden wealth of mystic knowledge". You need to spend half hour a week, reading the howto:spec,gear,dps,heal,tank.
ReplyDeleteSummary: It is within the abilities of a casual to read the "reasearch".
"Just play the game", Oh Come On! We are not playing counter strike, we are playing a MMO(which means you have to be competitive and be able to fit in a social enviroment) which is (or called) RPG. Remind me RPGs that did not need research or so. They are the type of games with (almost) infinitive progression. Bold the word infinitive and the word competitive. Double bold.
By just leveling a toon from 1 to 80 as a new player, you have already invested much time in the game. The first step to make your invest worth( by enjoying the game alot through endgame PVE/PVP by succeeding your goals) is to know, as much as you can, yourself(character) and your enemies.
There are tons of games with easy mode, you can have fun there too! But there are tons of games that needs you to do more than having fun to have fun. Your choice.
Yfa
Death knights have clearly marked spells, both "frost" (icy touch) and "shadow" (unholy tree).
ReplyDeleteThose spells are checked against spell hit, yet spell power does nothing to increase the power.
Paladin's at least get some increase in their spells from spell power, but I don't think it's obvious as to how little it is from mousing over.
The 'uncrittable' is impossible to figure out without testing. And testing would require many many boss fights, and I'd be surpised if someone can do that with their guild's blessing or if a pug would take such a tank.
I guess +hit is same, but missing won't wipe the raid.
Cool screenshot. Looks like the weekly raid group wiped on T8 content and is LFM :-x
ReplyDeleteYou're right that the game does provide you with some information, but for a genuinely new player there are still a lot of pitfalls.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I first started playing, as a priest, I was always looking at the armour level of items above anything else. At the time it seemed logical to me because isn't the general purpose of armour to protect you from damage? And questing on my own, I was getting hit my monsters quite a bit.
Now I know that priests aren't supposed to be in the front line, and that always focusing on the armour levels likely means missing out on other stats that will benefit me more.
Or to use warriors and spirit - a newbie warrior might see that spirit increases his health regeneration and think that it's good for him. The fact that the health regen gained is miniscule and that other stats would benefit him much more is definitely not easily apparent.
I think you're forgetting how insanely confusing this game can be for true newbies.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started playing years ago, My first spec (up until mid 30's) had elements from all talent tree's. I had no clue what stats were best, mp5 vs spirit? How much time do you spend casting (no clue about 5 second rule, etc.)? Is resilience good? It says it decrease the chance to be crit?
When you first start playing, you're not really even able to understand half the info on websites? What's DPM mean? damage per minute, lol? It doesn't surprise me that a lot of poeple get overwhelmed and settle into their highly sub-optimal talent spec and play style until they're forced to change it. LFG make it very easy not to be forced to change it and get better.
Your post makes me think of LotRO and the new crop of forum posts we are seeing there. They all state first that they have much mmo experience from playing WoW and are not noobs, but they are frustrated because they cannot find a site to tell them what virtues they need, or one that tells how much damage extra one talent giveaway over another. And then the post asking where they could find the strategy for the level 20 dungeon they were running through with half a group. They were aggravated that they kept dying when they would be in a green cloud and best strategy for surviving it. Do people still need to be told that mob aoe's are bad before they will decide to react? Especially if a fellow has died from it?
ReplyDeleteAnd all of these posts said they were playing Lotro until Cataclysm.
Townes wrote "I don't agree that smart people don't wind up 0/0/71. Sometimes smart people do things that aren't smart. One of the people who recruited me to WoW years ago is a lifelong research scientist and now has a second degree in law at age 60. I don't know why she has several 0/0/71 specs. I don't know how she raids with them; I don't play on her server. I only know she is a very intelligent person."
ReplyDeleteThis to me is why it is hard to make generalizations based on in game behavior. While I tend to agree with many of Gevlon's posts with regards to World of Warcraft, I do get annoyed when he tries to take those same observations to say something about the real world.
People behave differently in the game world than they do in the physical one. I'm sure there's lots of psychology to tell us why, but for the moment all we need to know is that it's an observable fact. Someone who is ungemmed/unenchanted and has 0/71/0 clearly is a moron, a slacker, or both when it comes to the game. This does not necessarily translate to their behavior in other parts of life.
I would argue that, at the lower levels of play in WoW (leveling a toon, easy dungeons, farming, daily quests, etc), there is plenty of information EASILY available within the game to help you. If you want to do well at the higher level of play, you might have to put in some effort to learn "not obvious" things...the higher level you go, the more "not obvious" the information becomes.
ReplyDeleteBut this is how EVERYTHING works. In games and real life, whatever you do, researching what you're doing will almost always produce better results. Part of the attraction of WoW over most other MMO games is that while you can play it with very little effort, you can ALSO put in a lot more time and become a much better player...something for everyone, if you will.
So Tobold DOESN'T have to give up "sanity" (as he defines it) for competence. There are many fun things to do in the game that you hardly need to do any research (inside OR outside the game) to do OK at.
But that's not Tobold and the folks like that are arguing. What he's saying is that he doesn't want ANY part of the game to require (or even benefit from) effort...because that requires "insanity" on his part. And the implied argument is that he should be able to participate in any part of the game however he wants to do it.
The other side of the coin is the people for whom research into their class and the game is FUN, not insanity. But apparently they don't count in Tobold's argument...the game shouldn't be broad enough for everyone, it should actively exclude the more serious players.
WoW lacks hard requirements for performance. We'd like to think 5k dps on a target dummy is good enough for ICC, but there's a significant fluctuation in our performance level between even different attempts at the same boss (not to mention different bosses). That fluctuation shows up as statistical noise in our damage meters that force anyone rational to only use them as a "ballpark" estimate.
ReplyDeleteTo pull some statistics out of thin air, 80% of the potential performance of your class can be achieved, in most cases, with about 20% of the effort it would take you to get to 100% (or at least 95%). I found that in WotLK, I could take my sustained DPS, multiply it by about 0.75, and if every other DPS performed at just that level, we would comfortably clear 'normal mode' content, including Icecrown before the nerfs.
To be honest, we like to use gems and enchants as indicators of what someones performance will be to spare us the trouble of having to find out, but we choose it as a measuring stick for lack of better options.
I'd rather take someone who could pull out 8k dps on a tank-n-spank and 6k dps on a really tough fight with lots of movement over an 11k dps arcane mage who either dies or drops to < 6k dps when the content gets tough.
Bringing this back to Gevlon's point, I think that just as many M&S are actually slipping by unnoticed based on their performance on the easy tank-n-spank encounters as they are running around in Dalaran with wrong/missing gems.
Earlier in the expansion, no one understood how ARP worked. You couldn't look at an item with ARP on it and figure out if it was an upgrade for your current item, or even if it was benifical your class/spec.
ReplyDeleteIt got to the point that Blizzard had to release to mathimatical formula they use so theorycrafts could figure it out. And even then, the majority of players still don't understand when they should gem for ARP over Str/Agl.
If you didn't know the "crit cap" was 540 defense, so you could't be crit by the bosses and wiping the raid, how would you find out this information without asking another player or going to a site like tankspot.com?
The wow community is better resource then the in game tool tips.
About the ease of finding information. I absolutely hate it, no loath it when some more experienced players go on and on about "googling it - you'll find all you need in less then half an hour"
ReplyDeleteHave you actually tried googling something from a perspective of a newbie with zero prior knowledge of which information is good and which is outdated/incorrect/bad. Even with first page results of the google, you cannot just click on the first result and immediately get the exact answer to your question, well, maybe if you are very specific with your question, but even then, how can a newbie manage to be that specific.
When I go searching for information now, it DOES take me 20 minutes or less to find an answer. Because I know exactly where to search, because I know which sources are reliable and which sources to avoid. Because I know the gaming lingo and can understand the abreviations.
Try talking to your non gaming acquaintances in a WoW language one of these days (yes, WoW has its own slang, we just don't notice that we speak it most of the time). I will bet you, you'll get a blank stare followed by "I didn't understand a word of what you just said"
I remember vividly how long it took me to figure out certain things about WoW, and I'm the sort of person who actualy feels the need to research more optimal ways of doing things, not just for WoW, for everything I do.
Some people just want to relax and enjoy and it doesn't make them morons, on the contrary. Not every hobby is so serious for everyone that they research it to death, even if they spend considerable time on it.
I very much agree with the comment from Grim
"All those 0.1% dps increases are available in pretty much every game, but WoW is the only one where anyone cares"
While levelling an alt, I have seen a couple of level 25 that hadn't spent a single talent point because they did not even know it existed. Ok, these guys must have been drunk or not so paying attention when reaching level 10...
ReplyDeleteAs a warrior and miner/blacksmith I never cared about enchantments or knew what it did (I only knew it existed) before I reached level 80.
There is a strong difference between understanding and researching... I understand that "axe specialization" will be a gain when using an axe. But figuring out if I have to go with the nice ilevel 35 sword or stick with the ilevel 27 axe, or spend all my gold (coz as a beginner you often suck at making money) on a talent respec?
This whole subject revolves around the differences between :
- playing
- gaming
- HC gaming
Players are sane. They play the game. Gamers and HC Gamers "challenge" the game. They don't play with professions, they "up" professions. In a way... you could consider "gaming" as laughable as "extreme ironing" (youtube joke inside)
I have no problem with people that don't want to, don't have time to, or don't know about doing basic research about their class. People are free to play anyway they like. If they want to solo in a "bad" spec or even 5 man heroics that the group way over gears thats just fine.
ReplyDeleteMy problem is when we talk about endgame content. These players don't "deserve" to be in endgame content if they don't have the desire or curiosity to improve their play. WotLK was a bit strange to me in that it seemed to encourage the idea the everyone should have acccess to the endgame content.
People can defend all the noobs, M&S or just plain uninformed all they want and I won't disagree. But I don't want them around me when we're raiding.
@ Gevlon: "While no in-game tooltip tells exactly how much a fireball would gain from SP, it is told that it gains. So a mage who stack SP can't be REALLY wrong."
ReplyDeleteHow about a DK? Unless you've experimented and realised that Icy Touch and Death Coil are actually ranged attacks, it's pretty easy to consider them 'spells', and thus, benefiting from spellpower. Hence all the spellpower DKs rolling on Holy plate.
Or why a Paladin doesn't stack SP for offense - if so many of his abilities appear to be spells (Seals, Judgement, Consecration, Hammer of Wrath, Exorcism, Avenger's Shield) as opposed to %weapon damage, then he should get huge bonuses from SP, right?
If you see a Ret Paladin or DK with SP gems, you think you see stupid, when you probably actually see uninformed. If he actually knew that a DK's spells don't scale with SP, chances are, he wouldn't gem that way. The problem is, people like you tend to discard him as 'stupid' and kick, ignore and troll him instead, rather than educate him.
Newbie vs M&S? I still think you can't tell the difference as well as you might think.
"About the ease of finding information. I absolutely..."
ReplyDelete@ This Anonymous. Don't google. Ask friends or just other players "Hey i am new to the game, tell me where i can find info about my/your/his class". Most guys will tell you a site or two. Blizzard's forums for each class have stickies with 8/10 of all the PVP/PVE info you need to know.
Come on. Even if you're total newbie, you can browse the official forums of the game. And you can't miss the Stickies!
They got optimal specs and rotations, stats priority by spec, hints and tricks, suggested addons, guides for farming/pvp/dps/HCs. Even in depth analysis of every talent.
"Some people just want to relax and enjoy and it doesn't make them morons, on the contrary. Not every hobby is so serious for everyone that they research it to death, even if they spend considerable time on it."
Again, you don't need to search to DEATH. Of course you can relax and enjoy. But without doing the least of research, which means you don't know vital things about your game, can you really enjoy and relax by wiping and getting killed?
For me, to enjoy and relax by playing a game means that i am well-playing ang have my good/funny moments with my friends. The magic key to me is to play well and the other things will come.
Is it Insane that i just CAN'T enjoy a game where i suck? Is it sane to accept that people are happy and content because they "take it easy" but are horrible gamers?
Is the "enjoy and relax" concept enough to back-up all the people wishing no research was needed to play a RPG which is MMO also?
The only thing I disagree with in this is that boss tactics can be learned in game. There's no where in the game where you can look up the special tricks for any boss. The only way to learn is by trial and error.
ReplyDeleteWhile it might not take too long (10 attempts or so) to figure out all the mechanics, it does mean that the most casual of players would take a relatively long time to complete even 5 man instances. Raids would be out of the question.
This information must be gathered from outside the game. But it could also be argued that this is only true, BECAUSE these sites exist in the first place, creating an environment where players demand harde encounters (further requiring the use of external resources).
@Adenthal
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's important to read up on boss abilities, but I think people cling to tankspot videos and canned strats way too much.
1. Often times strats are assembled on the PTR by very skilled raiders that play together all the time; they may choose the first strategy they're able to use to effectively down the boss... there are usually easier tricks for less coordinated groups.
2. Sometimes strats favor a raid composition you don't have, and you need to adjust strategy based on your own make up.
3. It's actually part of the fun of raiding to strategize and build your tactics dynamically... too many people ignore the "Warcraft" part of the title and focus too much on the "World" part.
"Every pieces of information are available in game"
ReplyDeleteFalse. The formula for Armor pen had to be stated by a blue because it was so complex it was neraly impossible to derive. It's also true about white hit suppression, for which the formula still isn't exactly known, and even Landsoul (the EJ guy for warriors) asked in the DD forums if the formula could be posted.
"While no in-game tooltip tells exactly how much a fireball would gain from SP, it is told that it gains. So a mage who stack SP can't be REALLY wrong."
You can say the same thing about spirit and a pally, like tobold then. They're not really "wrong"
"@Zazkadin: you don't NEED a mathematical model to choose between crit and haste gem. If you gem for crit while haste would be optimal, you'd lose 0.1% DPS."
No, you only need it if you want to pick the better one. Also, pug raid leaders are almost as likely to kick a mage with no +hit as a +str gemmed one.
You're basically saying "the optimal level of figuring things out is the way i do it. If you spend less time, you're M&S. If you spend more, it's not really worth your time because of diminishing returns". Unless you derive some level of enjoyment out of figuring out how certain things in game works, it's not worth the complexity. Most people don't find "elementary math" fun. I wouldn't mind it, but i'm willing to admit i'm in the minority.
Most of you are forgeting that all the sites dedicated to wow are plain old cheats to the game, accepted cheats you don't think about gems/tactics/rotation => you copy and apply them
ReplyDeleteTo all those who think getting info about your class is hard, wake up => you are total morons
The Warlock spec/rotation you came up with was definitely sub-optimal. Where is the line drawn? I've known plenty of bad players to push 2k on a dummy.
ReplyDeleteIf anything your Warlock spec shows that players who don't use the knowledge of other players to will often choose the wrong talents and not even know it until they visit EJ or have someone else correct them.