Synopsis
Yesterday I joined a guild 10 man hardmodes try. To my surprise, I liked it a lot.
I haven't played a lot of 10 man. The days that there is no guild raid scheduled I tend to want to spent otherwise. Invest some time in real life and not play 50+ hours wow anymore. Also 10 man didn't appeal to me. There is nothing to get there. Most of the loot I want is in 25 man.
Since we are struggling with getting 25 man runs going, and some kills (Yogg) are very sucky without 25. So we yesterday (for Europeans last day of the raiding week) skipped 25 man. Left it for what it was and continued the 10 man hardmode run some of us had already started.
2 weeks ago a lot of hardmodes for unlocking Agalon were done already. So this week there were 2 left basically. Freya 3 watchers + Mimiron. How much as I hate Freya 25 man I really loved playing Freya 10 man. The raid consisted of a lot of the top notch best players from our guild. The discipline was amazing! All knew what to do, nobody making much mistakes. A little bit learning there was involved and we killed her.
Now I must say Freya 10 man is quite a bit easier then 25 man. But still.
We went on to try Mimiron. That fight is incredibly hard. I liked to really progress raid here. After 10 tries we managed to get to phase 2 with 10 people alive. We got him to about 40% when only our DK tank was still alive. He actually managed to get him to 33% before he himself died. Which was fun to see. Mimiron vs a DK for 2 minutes long!
Having some bosses left we decided not to wipe there endlessly and killed him normal mode. Nobody touched a mine... but me :( Achievement gone. It was phase 4 and I had seen the gap, went for it but the damn middle and top part obstructed my view. The thing above him there also doesn't count for a wall so you can (not) see right through. I hate the way this fight is in that manner. Next Time I better strafe out.
We then went for Vezax. We did his hardmode really close a few times but it ended up with the MT dying. Not because of mana problems, but because he wasn't healed enough. Sad to not have gotten him, but still amused by the enjoyment we had gotten from the fight, we killed him normal mode and moved to Yogg Saron. After a accidental wipe we then were well adjusted and did him hard mode (within 7 minutes) which wasn't really a chalenge and then went to finish off council, ending up oneshotting them hardmode with the big guy killed last.
Now you are thinking; "Ok. What is this post about?"
In reference to my previous post I am a bit confused. I liked 10 man hardmodes. I don't feel for 25 man hardmodes. Should I stop doing 25 man and only do 10 man? Why did I like 10 man so much? Because it was easy? Because it was attainable?
I think it is the following; We were a group of 10 very good players. If I have to name 6 of the top players in my guild they were all in that group.
So I think the conclusion in respect to my previous post, next to what was said in there (which was true), also the following is contributing to the fact that I dislike Ulduar (or Blizzards way of implementing instances now);
Blizzard made it "easy" for all to clear naxx. A lot of people joined in good raiding guilds, replacing some excellent players that just stop (it happens too), but aren't really that good. My guild tries to have only the best players but since they are spread too thin on my server we have the problem that we don't have the luxury to do it anymore. There simply aren't that many good players.
The one thing to hope for is that my guild holds out and some other top guild doesn't. Hoping a guild will fail is not really nice, but it is the only thing that is a real solution. There are 4 other horde guilds having the same problems we do. Not enough (skilled) raiders. If one of them tumbles we would get a couple of their players and get a full group of good players. I think that is one of the things that would make my joy in 25 man raiding come back.
Still next to the summer and people having vacation time Blizzard is to blame for this too. There is less skill required to play, making "bad" players go unnoticed. Rather then blame the players, I blame Blizzard's current implementation. The players don't have to improve themselves. It is simply not needed. Pre WotLK when we got a new player we knew we had to put some extra time in him/her. You would see him underperform. Currently you don't, meaning the whole group of players performs not as good as they should/could.
Showing posts with label Hard Mode. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hard Mode. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
How Blizzard killed PVE
Synopsis
Lots of players leaving and others not enjoying WoW as much as it could have been. It has been talked about a lot, but I today realized exactly what it is and how. Though it is personal and some of you might have figured this out LONG time ago.
WoW is no longer the game it used to be. My guild has had a lot of people not feeling the drive anymore. As a result they are leaving. There are others that don't feel the drive too. Coinciding with summer (and no longer being locked inside to flee the cold) this is very bad for the raiding communities in WoW.
The reason for it is not that Ulduar is not what we expected it to be. It is exactly what we expect it to be. However WoW itself has changed drastically. WoW have become socialistic bastards. "We want more people to experience end game encounters". In other words; if you suck ass you will one day kill Yogg Saron. This makes good players sad.
It is an attempt of Blizzard to make even more money. However I feel it has destroyed the game completely. The main driving force behind new and more people starting to play WoW, I think, was the mouth-to-mouth talk from friends on how awesome WoW was. At the moment I would recommend nobody to start playing WoW. Try some game that is not dying. The game is dying and it is time for a reanimation force from Blizzard.
Ulduar is a great instance, and yet it sucks monkey balls. The bossfights are awesome, but then again disappointing. There is no progress. Or at least not like it used to be. Previously you would work one week on a boss and finally get him down. Now you work 2 hours on him and he is dead. Then you can spent some time working on hardmode. And this is where it goes wrong. If you raid with 25 people at least a few of them do not really care about hardmodes. This depends on the server though. The top guilds on a heavily populated pve server will get those people. But if you don't you are screwed.
Now as to what this change has accomplished. A lot more people will see Yogg Saron. Basically, if you want to you can. Yay, but it means it is totally unrewarding for anyone skilled.
Pre 3.0 there were no hardmodes. Or rather there were no easy modes. Freya would always have her 3 watchers up. Flame leviathan would be way one of the last (optional) bosses since you need to kill him with 4 towers always. Then downing Flame leviathan would mean something. We last week went for the "easy" achievements and with not even a full raid we got 2 easy achievments done. 3 actually, nobody dying (part of a meta), no repairs and no overload. Where is the challenge?
Pre 3.0 you used to be in a guild and hear some guild took boss x and boss y and you would imagine yourself killing them one day. If your guild would suck you could choose to join an other (how ever hard that choice may be sometimes). If you wanted to you could see all bosses in an expansion. If you were in a top guild you would be walking around with great gear and all would see how great you looked and envy you. That is something that gives satisfaction.
What is the satisfaction now? Everyone looks the same after 2 months of raiding. If you are in a crappy guild you will kill Yogg Saron eventually for sure, as long as you have a PVE focus. There is no room for self improvement. And good players, the ones hooked to WoW are finding less and less enjoyment in it.
This will result in the biggest "Yay! WoW!"-sayers to go: "Yeah... WoW :S"
I don't know about PvP but I think Blizzard should hurry up with the new MMORPG game (non Warcraft) of which I have heard rumors. In my opinion WoW is dying and they need a followup.
As a closing statement;
To reach for a goal is to get the ultimate. The thing you can't get or have to do a lot for to get. Once you have it and you can't set any new goals you get depressed.
WoW has lost any ultimate can't-get factor it had in PvE. No goals so depression sets in.
Lots of players leaving and others not enjoying WoW as much as it could have been. It has been talked about a lot, but I today realized exactly what it is and how. Though it is personal and some of you might have figured this out LONG time ago.
WoW is no longer the game it used to be. My guild has had a lot of people not feeling the drive anymore. As a result they are leaving. There are others that don't feel the drive too. Coinciding with summer (and no longer being locked inside to flee the cold) this is very bad for the raiding communities in WoW.
The reason for it is not that Ulduar is not what we expected it to be. It is exactly what we expect it to be. However WoW itself has changed drastically. WoW have become socialistic bastards. "We want more people to experience end game encounters". In other words; if you suck ass you will one day kill Yogg Saron. This makes good players sad.
It is an attempt of Blizzard to make even more money. However I feel it has destroyed the game completely. The main driving force behind new and more people starting to play WoW, I think, was the mouth-to-mouth talk from friends on how awesome WoW was. At the moment I would recommend nobody to start playing WoW. Try some game that is not dying. The game is dying and it is time for a reanimation force from Blizzard.
Ulduar is a great instance, and yet it sucks monkey balls. The bossfights are awesome, but then again disappointing. There is no progress. Or at least not like it used to be. Previously you would work one week on a boss and finally get him down. Now you work 2 hours on him and he is dead. Then you can spent some time working on hardmode. And this is where it goes wrong. If you raid with 25 people at least a few of them do not really care about hardmodes. This depends on the server though. The top guilds on a heavily populated pve server will get those people. But if you don't you are screwed.
Now as to what this change has accomplished. A lot more people will see Yogg Saron. Basically, if you want to you can. Yay, but it means it is totally unrewarding for anyone skilled.
Pre 3.0 there were no hardmodes. Or rather there were no easy modes. Freya would always have her 3 watchers up. Flame leviathan would be way one of the last (optional) bosses since you need to kill him with 4 towers always. Then downing Flame leviathan would mean something. We last week went for the "easy" achievements and with not even a full raid we got 2 easy achievments done. 3 actually, nobody dying (part of a meta), no repairs and no overload. Where is the challenge?
Pre 3.0 you used to be in a guild and hear some guild took boss x and boss y and you would imagine yourself killing them one day. If your guild would suck you could choose to join an other (how ever hard that choice may be sometimes). If you wanted to you could see all bosses in an expansion. If you were in a top guild you would be walking around with great gear and all would see how great you looked and envy you. That is something that gives satisfaction.
What is the satisfaction now? Everyone looks the same after 2 months of raiding. If you are in a crappy guild you will kill Yogg Saron eventually for sure, as long as you have a PVE focus. There is no room for self improvement. And good players, the ones hooked to WoW are finding less and less enjoyment in it.
This will result in the biggest "Yay! WoW!"-sayers to go: "Yeah... WoW :S"
I don't know about PvP but I think Blizzard should hurry up with the new MMORPG game (non Warcraft) of which I have heard rumors. In my opinion WoW is dying and they need a followup.
As a closing statement;
To reach for a goal is to get the ultimate. The thing you can't get or have to do a lot for to get. Once you have it and you can't set any new goals you get depressed.
WoW has lost any ultimate can't-get factor it had in PvE. No goals so depression sets in.
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