1 year *Whine*

Dustaz

So its almost a year since WoW came out in the EU region and since there seems to be very little discussion on these boards about actual game issues, i thought id try to stimulate some.

Just before i get to the negatives, Ill lay out some positives. Ive been playing the game since US Open beta and had a 60 druid on US server which i left to play on EU with my n8ys. I have a 60 dorf priest, a 55 gnome mage, a 43 UD rogue a 44 UD mage and about a million other alts. I love the game, just love it. I kicked the habit a few months ago for about a month but came back to play alts. Theres a LOT thats 'right' about the game imo and some things that could do with fixing. For reference, this is my first mmo but i have a large background in MUDs and a lot of the same theory applies.

Anyway, the negatives in no particular order.

1. World of raidcraft. Pre 60, the game is a blast, you can solo, duo or group up with mates anytime and play at your own pace. This ends once you reach 60. To progress in any meaningful way you MUST raid. I did my fair share of raiding and enjoyed it at first. Now it just seems like a job and was half the reason i quit my priest. MC is boring as hell and while the fights in BWL are much more entertaing, You still have to fit into a pretty major schedule which can be hard for people with other commitments. The game BADLY needs some 5-10 man instances which yield decent gear that will progress characters who do not raid and even more importantly give people something to do other than grind or do the same old 5 mans over and over again.

Am i asking for casual epics? Yes, i probably am. Getting epics in raids takes no work. If you have 5 or 6 hours to spare a couple of nights a week and you arent a complete retard - Epics. If someone does not raid and spends 12 hrs a day ingame every day - no epics. One player does 6 hours a week and gets good gear the other does 84 hours and gets nothing. The reputation rewards go some way to solving this problem but at least 2 of them are linked to non-'casual' activities. Apparently there are plans for a teir 2 dungeon set (think Blue class set tier 2) in 1.10, I really hope that helps.

2. Itemisation/MUDflation. This is becoming a pretty major problem. The rate at which damage is increasing is OUT OF CONTROL. When we started a year ago, a 50dps weapon was TEH LEETS. Now, were up to 85 DPS. In less than a year. For ages, this was limited to Melee classes and blizzard evened things up by introducing much better damage caster gear. Now we see a mage with ToEP and ZHC one shotting epic geared warriors regularly. This is wrong wrong wrong (personally i think they should be taken out of the game to highlight the problems with mage damage output). The DPS in pvp has inflated so much that it creates a problem not only with epic vs blue pvp but also with epic vs epic pvp. There isnt a MASSIVE amount of skill involved in wow pvp but you want fights to last a little longer than 3 shots so that SOME skill can be used. Add to this that most of the defensive abilities have NOT scaled to the same extent and it makes the problem worse. for example, A priests shield used to be worth something, now its gone in one hit. About the only area of damage mitigation that seems to have scaled a lot is resistance gear and look at the problem that that is causing high end mages. I dont know what the solution is to this but a good start would be to start thinking about clever procs and equip/use ideas instead of adding 10dps to every new dungeon.

3. Attack of the Clones. Go to IF or Org. Turn off names. How do you tell people apart? You dont. Everyone is wearing the same gear. What little customisation there is in this game ends after you create your character. Dyes would be nice, as would quests for renames etc etc.


4. Pointless timesinks. I know its an mmo and i accept that there must be a grind (well actually i dont fully accept it but im willing to for this argument). Id just like to know what possible benefit is there to crafting taking so long? It takes long enough to gather mats and then you go to craft something and boom, a 60sec cast bar. WHY? Enchanting is instant, why not all other profs. Yes i know im splitting hairs talking about 30secs and 60sec casts, its just the whole idea of it that annoys me. Massively and needlessly long gryphon/bat journeys fall into this category also.


Bring on the TLDRs and l2p

Ivan

Great post.

Will reply more/better when I get some time.

Funky

Great post, Lee. Agree with pretty much everything there.

ps. COME ON 1.10 PRIESTS WOOOH

sunzz

Nice post lee pretty much agree with everything there, hate the ****ing flight path from org to tanaris 7 mins I mean come on.

DEmeant0r

sunzz wrote:

Nice post lee pretty much agree with everything there, hate the ****ing flight path from org to tanaris 7 mins I mean come on.

you could always take up engineering and get a teleporter from anywhere to Gadget

Maximilian

Its fine - learn 2 play

Dcully

Yeah excellent post Dustaz.
Agree also with it all pretty much.
I enjoy the game [when i dont get disconnected that is] but overall i agree the time-sinks issue is annoying and ruins the game for me and is a main reason im leaning towards Guild Wars.
I cant commit lots of time and Guild wars gives me my mmorpg fix so much better than wow as i can pop on and get straight into the action if i have only an hour to spare,with wow its the exact opposite.
I only have 2 chars a lvl 33 Human warrior and a lvl 31 Undead Rogue.
Getting to lvl 60 is always the pressing theme while playing but the vast majority of guys who have lvl 60 chars say the game gets boring very very quick once you hit the magic number.

Jim

It all comes down to the people you play the game with tbh.
For me the game started when I hit 55+.

joe.

/played scare me

Caliden

is it me or does anyone else think the whole idea of collect 800,000 linen bandages to open a high end dungeon to high end guilds is the most retarded thing to date?

i know we have trouble with gold farmers but this wont solve it.
as for the timesinks, totally agree.

imagine making 800,000 bandages at 3 seconds each. thats alot of time wasted.

As the game stands it forces classes to spec thier toon a certain way or they wont get anywhere (priests HAVE to go holy, druids Resto, mages Frost, etc.)

sure you can go other specs but what guild would want you when they are others who can take your place.

Jim

Caliden wrote:

is it me or does anyone else think the whole idea of collect 800,000 linen bandages to open a high end dungeon to high end guilds is the most retarded thing to date?

i know we have trouble with gold farmers but this wont solve it.
as for the timesinks, totally agree.

imagine making 800,000 bandages at 3 seconds each. thats alot of time wasted.

As the game stands it forces classes to spec thier toon a certain way or they wont get anywhere (priests HAVE to go holy, druids Resto, mages Frost, etc.)

sure you can go other specs but what guild would want you when they are others who can take your place.

Disagree.

I like the whole war effort thing, just something else to do in the game. A big Alliance guild on our server actually ran a lottery for people on the Alliance who weren't in guild. I think it was in 2 weeks the 5 people who collected to most materials for the war effort were brought to Molten Core by the guild and were allowed get any items they wanted that dropped. I partically agree that it is alot of time wasted making all those bandages but then again you can say that about flight paths etc...

I'm not sure about other guild's but I'm in the biggest guild Horde side (and maybe Alliance) on Terenas. We've done all of MC and are starting BWL and our guild does no force anyone to spec a certain way, infact most of the our Druid's are spec'd feral after the talent tree changed.

abccormac

I quit back in november before the latest patch came out, but he whole war effort thing sounded really cool. I know it's another empty timesink, but it's one that at least has an effect on the world.

One thing that nobody has mentioned is the state of PVP in the game. I thought the whole honour system was in need of a drastic revamp. I knew that the highest rank I would have been able to get would have been somewhere around rank 9-10. I already had better gear than I would have got from putting in the time to advance even to that level, so I had no incentive to PVP at all. Even the rank 14 stuff is being surpassed by the PVE rewards now, there is no real incentive to pour that much time into a system that gives lesser rewards than raiding, when raiding takes a fraction of the time.


Edit: Oh, and they should either shut down the official forums completely or start banning people left right and centre. That place is a ****ing disgrace, if this thread had been posted there, you would have had 100's of variations of "learn to play" or that ****ing owl by the end of the first page.

DRakE

Funky wrote:

Great post, Lee. Agree with pretty much everything there.

ps. COME ON 1.10 PRIESTS WOOOH

FOR TRUTH!

Horsefumbler

Caliden wrote:

As the game stands it forces classes to spec thier toon a certain way or they wont get anywhere (priests HAVE to go holy, druids Resto, mages Frost, etc.)

sure you can go other specs but what guild would want you when they are others who can take your place.

This is my only gripe with the game at the moment too. I'm a druid myself and I'd much rather go feral at the moment, I could have way more fun in this spec.

I have heard though that will be mobs in AQ that will have to be tanked by a bear as opposed to a humanoid, hopefully this is the case and i can use this an excuse to go feral:D

With regard to the game being a bit of an anti climax after you hit 60 - have to disagree. It changes yes but not by that much. Its just the exploring and stuff that ends. I have no alts and i only play on my druid and I'm never stuck for something to do when I loggin. Infact I never have enough time to do it.

TheDoc

yeah tbh imo the posts on boards wow forum are all noob questions about passes or this that and crpa, n otalk about actual game or class stuff........

Good to see an itneresting post...

Woden

Caliden wrote:

As the game stands it forces classes to spec thier toon a certain way or they wont get anywhere (priests HAVE to go holy, druids Resto, mages Frost, etc.)

sure you can go other specs but what guild would want you when they are others who can take your place.

good guilds, guilds that value the person rather then the spec.

i'm one of the druids that jimeatsmenu refers to and i've been feral since the patch you can see one of the specs i've had here (recently dropped the two points of out of brutal impact for feline swiftness

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druids2/talents.html?01400530100000005052001303222151050000000000000.

tbh everytime i here people whining about having to spec a certain way at the end of the game i just think stfu and get a good guild

Caliden

yeah im sure you really awesome and all that..

BloodBath

I agree with most of your post dusty but this:

2. Itemisation/MUDflation. This is becoming a pretty major problem. The rate at which damage is increasing is OUT OF CONTROL. When we started a year ago, a 50dps weapon was TEH LEETS. Now, were up to 85 DPS. In less than a year. For ages, this was limited to Melee classes and blizzard evened things up by introducing much better damage caster gear. Now we see a mage with ToEP and ZHC one shotting epic geared warriors regularly. This is wrong wrong wrong (personally i think they should be taken out of the game to highlight the problems with mage damage output).

Yes damage output for all classes has been hiked up but our hp hasn't. It's still very hard to get above 3500 hp with a mage where as a well equipped warrior or even warlock will have 5-6k hp The majority of well equipped mages are in the 3000-3500 range. This means almost any class can 2 hit us " all the time ". I don't know what mages you have been fighting but I don't know any that could 1 hit a well equipped warrior without gimping himself. With about +500 spell damage and both trinkets + arcane power it might be possible with a pyroblast crit but only crap mages spec arcane power. Losing ice block is losing the main skill that keeps us alive. I have around +350 spell damage on gear and both trinkets and my frostbolts crit for about 2.2-2.3k. This is once every 2 minutes though. I also have to stand still for 2.5 seconds (3-4 with lag) to do any decent damage. We also get ****ed over with counterspells by 3 classes + shamans shocks stop you casting for 3. What stops melee attackers? Disarm? Our damage output for the majority is around 600-800 frostbolt hits. Mages are not the most imba class in the game atm. Our survivability is crap. The worst of any class. A lock with similar high end gear will be able to hit almost as hard. Yet his hp will be 5k+ with healthstones on top of that + a pet. Seduction ftl I've been 2 hit by feral druids which are by far our toughest opponent and a lot more imba than us with the right gear. Or how about a hunter. With his superior range I can't kite him. In group pvp if I want to get into his dead zone I have to move into the main attacking or defending group which is going to get me killed very fast. So I end up getting a aimed shot crit for well over 2k followed by multi shot and auto shot + a pet to beat me down. They have insane ranged dps yet they wear mail + they have decent melee dps. I've been raptor striked for over 1k.

My point is there are classes that rival our dps yet they have a lot more survivability than us. Being a mage in today's wow is no easy task. Without that nuking ability many classes become practically impossible if the player is skilled. Sure i've had times where i've played with a good raid and have had plenty of healing and support and dominated but this is true with any class. It's easy for warriors to dominate in the likes of ab or even wsg with some healing.

I'm not even going to go into how many of our spells are bugged + the whole resistance thing. Hopefully they rework the class when they get around to fixing mages. I hate being forced into 1 spec and being a 2 minute hero.

Woden

Caliden wrote:

yeah im sure you really awesome and all that..

yay /cheer i address one of the points of the thread in a constructive manner to earn a sarcastic reply gg caliden

no we're not awesome we're just a guild making its way through the end content of the game at a steady pace, with the points myself and jim have highlighted above with the trappings of all these "other" guilds that force things on you.

joe_chicken

Flightpaths are the suckiest thing about this game...

I started a flight from Darnassus to Thereamore yesterday, then I:
Brushed my teeth,
Had a shave,
Watched some tv,
Had a cup of tea,

and when I came back, the flight was STILL going...

its at least 10 minutes and takes the stupidest flight path.....

DRakE

joe_chicken wrote:

Flightpaths are the suckiest thing about this game...

I started a flight from Darnassus to Thereamore yesterday, then I:
Brushed my teeth,
Had a shave,
Watched some tv,
Had a cup of tea,

and when I came back, the flight was STILL going...

its at least 10 minutes and takes the stupidest flight path.....

The Alliance Flightpaths are the suckiest thing.
Horde have camps EVERYWHERE. I mean, Orgrimmar to the Grom'gol in the middle of STV in about 2 minutes. Ironforge (where most people's hearthstone is) to STV means you have to go Ironforge>Stormwind>Duskwood>Mount up and run/Fly to Booty Bay.

How ridiculous is that when you're level 34-39 and you have to run all the way to STV from Duskwood everytime? Sure you could set your hearthstone to Booty Bay, but what about when you need to go to Nesingwary's? Horde clearly have it better re: flightpaths and camps.


Oh and the one in Feralas too.. Horde camp is in the middle of Feralas not too far from Dire Maul... Alliance is on AN ISLAND MILES FROM THE MAINLAND. Boat takes ages to arrive, its just as quick to swim.

/e-sigh

joe_chicken

DRakE wrote:

The Alliance Flightpaths are the suckiest thing.
Horde have camps EVERYWHERE. I mean, Orgrimmar to the Grom'gol in the middle of STV in about 2 minutes. Ironforge (where most people's hearthstone is) to STV means you have to go Ironforge>Stormwind>Duskwood>Mount up and run/Fly to Booty Bay.

How ridiculous is that when you're level 34-39 and you have to run all the way to STV from Duskwood everytime? Sure you could set your hearthstone to Booty Bay, but what about when you need to go to Nesingwary's? Horde clearly have it better re: flightpaths and camps.


Oh and the one in Feralas too.. Horde camp is in the middle of Feralas not too far from Dire Maul... Alliance is on AN ISLAND MILES FROM THE MAINLAND. Boat takes ages to arrive, its just as quick to swim.

/e-sigh

sorry... yeah... havent played horde... i'm only a lvl 40 dwarf hunter noob... and travelling to STV is a pain in the fooken ass cuz i still dont have a mount

I think I've spent 6 hours in total travelling from IF to STV

abccormac

BloodBath wrote:

Stuff about mages and itemisation

The reason for most of the problems you're talking about is badly thought out itemization. Mages were a really powerful pvp class when everyone was in blues and greens, but with people running around with stuff like askhandi or the destroyer of worlds, along with decent spell resist gear you get progressively weaker. It's not a problem with mages per se, it's a problem with end game itemization.

Part of it stems from the attempt to make a game where PVE and PVP are supposed to be equally important. You wouldn't care about having less HP's than anyone else if PVP was of no importance to you. None of the issues with epic geared warriors doing more damage than mages, rogues or other pure DPS classes would matter if there was no PVP. Haveing PVP and PVE alongside eachother in the same game creates a whole host of problems with regards to gear being more important than skill, and with people in blue and green gear coming up against BWL geared teams in battlegrounds.

Dubhthamlacht

I've been playing WoW since last March and for all it's faults it's still the best MMORPG out there. It simply does more things right than any other game of it's type out there.

The initial fun of WoW was the leveling up from 1 -60. Exploring a new worlds, questing, learning to play your class and getting new abilities and the ideal of getting to 60. That is a lot of fun and I sure enjoyed it. I guess a lot of people when they get to 60 miss this as this type of play as this is what kept them interested. I know loads of people that have 3+ level 60's and make more alts rather than raid as leveling is the thing they enjoy the most. When I first got to 60 I was at a bit of a loss with what to do. I did Strat, Scholo etc a few times but didn't really know what was there to keep me going.

But my goals changed then and the excitement was getting to MC/Ony and then the be all and end all was to kill Rag. Thats done and dusted long ago but the be all is to now kill Nef. To get the most out of the game you have to change your goals. That doesn't mean just raiding but e.g. crafting an epic item, getting en epic mount etc.

People complain about the PvP system and yes it does need revamping. I don't PvP for rewards which frankly are sub standard compared to the PVE stuff from raiding. I just like PvP because I really enjoy it. Having a pitched battle at the Blacksmith in AB can be hectic and a blast. Or even just a one v one fight to tag the flag. The battlegrounds do need a revamp. I mean as in a way of guilds being able to play each other. It can be fustrating to be in a bunch of randoms and have a well drilled guild group trample over you in seconds. I dunno, something like a ladder system they had for warcraft 3 that you could enter might work. Not a grind rep thing but a knockout competition. Just an idea. I guess alot depends on what your focus is, loot oriented/achievement oriented

A big complaint is grinding. Grinding for rep is the biggest gripe in the game. I don't think I've ever purposively done that. I'm revered in AB but thats just as a concequence of I like playing it. there's no rewards I want from AB as I've better gear for my hunter. For some people you are not in raiding guilds the AB rewards would be necessary and I guess would seem more a chore getting them than anything else.

I can't be arsed to take part in the whole war effort thing. Damn gates will open themsleves. I'd rather do something I enjoy than make x amount of bandages.

Forcing classes to spec a certain way is a problem. I don't mean guilds forcing someone (althugh that happens a lot) to do it but the game does. Druids were particularly screwed on this. The cenarion/stormrage gear was healing focused which more or less made druids go resto. Any really good Balance/feral gear was few and far between. The same for priests as in that +damage gear always went to warlocks/mages first.

The scaling on damage/survivability needs to be looked at. Mages will hopefully get a reworking in an upcoming patch. They are probably the most gimped class out there now. Sure they can do insane burst damage but even as a hunter I can do as much burst damage and yet have higher survivability.

The game is getting better. The linked auctions houses was good. Class revamps for some classes were have helped. I think over time they'll get it sorted out. some more 5 man instances are needed for sure, PvP needs looked at but fingers crossed it'll be okay

Caliden

i'd like to see some sort of Last-Man Standing BG. Because at the moment its all very linear, i.e. cap this, cap that, hold for 5 minutes, rinse and repeat.

The whole war effort benefits everyone, and yes they will open themselves but only at a rate of 3.5% of the total perday. AQ contains new content for everyone whether is be AQ20 or 40.

I think the main reason people are crying nerf about mages now is because until recently most classes could easily destroy a mage but now our only way ot win is to 'power-up' and do insane damage every 3 minutes. While you many think this is imbalanced most of the mage community would much prefer more steady+controllable increase in damage, as would any other caster

Jim

Aye, I think 5 man instances were my favourite part of the game, but I've done them all to death at this stage, was hoping AQ would contain at least one 5 man but alas.

abccormac

Caliden wrote:

I think the main reason people are crying nerf about mages now is because until recently most classes could easily destroy a mage but now our only way ot win is to 'power-up' and do insane damage every 3 minutes. While you many think this is imbalanced most of the mage community would much prefer more steady+controllable increase in damage, as would any other caster

Thats not because mages are a gimpy class though, it's because itemisation in general is completely screwed. Everyone gets the ability to do massive burst damage with the right gear (with the possible exception of paladins and druids), but mages notice it more than most due to the fact that they generally have very low HP pools. Changing mages won't solve that, changing the way gear works, and the way high end gear gives you such a big boost to damage dealing potential would. Also, none of that would matter if the game was PVE only. The fact is that the game is balanced around PVE, PVP is more or less an afterthought. The only way to make raid encounters harder is to give the mobs more HP and stronger attacks. That necessitates all the DPS classes neading gear which improves damage output, and tanks needing more stamina to survive the damage they are going to take. Thats a large part of why warriors are so good right now, they get great weapons which give them huge damage potential, and get armour with high spell resist, and stamina, meaning they can soak up a lot of damage in PVP, while still dishing it out.

I can't see how to fix PVP balance while continuing to make PVE the main focus of the game.

Funky

WoW definitely isn't a PvP game. After the expansion? Maybe.

Afaik Karazhan in Deadwind Pass is scheduled to be an epic 5 man instance, when it's actually opened is another story though...

Jim

Caliden wrote:

i'd like to see some sort of Last-Man Standing BG. Because at the moment its all very linear, i.e. cap this, cap that, hold for 5 minutes, rinse and repeat.

/me stealths

Kairo

I think Kharazan will be ten man, but it definately sounds interseting. Especially the opera house idea...its a different boss everytime. Another major problem is the gameslack of variety in PvE. They did actually make a good attempt of this in blackwing lair with certain fights (razorgores spawns, thrash mobs vurnabilities, chromagus breaths, brood powers). But these aren't really available to the more casual players. Once 60 hits and you've down your share of scholo/strat/brs/dm ..which vary little. Which is why most people turn towards battlegrounds for some fresh gameplay..(dont get me started on the problems with PvP)

What I'd really like to see are 'smart' PvE encounters. Boss fights which would be similar to PvP fights on a skill level. Fights where conventional Specs are thrown out the window, feral druids and shadow priest running wild! The majority of PVE forces your Players in the most mundane of repetitive tasks. Once you get the 'strat' down, theres very little challenge anymore ;/

@ Lee: your post was too long, so i didn't read it. Learn to play.

sunzz

I came across a post where in grom gol at the arena the horde and alli organized a 1v1 tournament. Names were taken down on a website and you showed up and just 1v1 the guy. The winner got some reward but I heard it all went perfect and there was no mass rumble horde v alli. **** it can't remember the post.

Any way I'd love to see a 1v1 system and a ladder in place with it. Maybe every night a certain amount of places was opened and you would sign up and it would become single elim at the end of the night the winner received x amount of points and at the end of the week *after update* the weekly winner + the runner ups would get some sort of well rewarded prize.

However in order for it to be fair you would perhaps have to base it on a level + items terms?