Bob.. the funny part about the graph.. which is actually misleading is the NUMBER of toons per level.. if you scroll over to 80th level, you'll see well over 3 MILLION toons.. I believe that is what the number said.. But if you scroll over ALL the rest of the levels you'll find no more then 100k .. maybe less ...... That graph is NOT a correct representation of the actual numbers.. if it was the last bar (80th level) would be 30 times taller then the rest.....
Look at the bars: spread out evenly from level 10 to level 79. reason: Lots of low level alts are being played daily.
Secondly: a close friend of mine ( playing since 3 years) leveled a new druid class in the past weeks.
Yesterday he turned to level 60, playing for 5 days and 4 hours total. he didn't level his professions and he said he used to do one or two dungeon achievements for each dunegon combined with open world questing.
So he played (with one heirloom) around 124 hours to reach level 60. He plays around 3 hours a day. He has 4 mains at level 80.
It was an interesting stat to analyse:
It shows to me that the total leveling time to reach lvl 80 of someone new to WOW would be the same as the average old time to reach 60 before the TBC patch.
There is only one difference: leveling characters can opt to play in a dungeon now. There is only one problem: now that he reaches Outland he has to put more work into the questing areas as he runs out of Gold (not doing gathering professions and running dungeons costs money).
So the above facts and objective stats (link) prove you wrong I guess.
It would be nice to not have to reroll alts all the time because of an incredibly lacking and repetitive endgame.
When i played WoW Pre-Tbc was so fucking epic that I used the same Undead Warrior (prot) for over two years. TBC releases with its shitty progression reset and bland endgame and I suddenly had 9 70's.
Wanna judge how bad a endgame is? ask people how many alts they have.
The friend mentioned doesn't even run raids. He only does PvP (mainly arena) and he is an incredible player btw. The PVE future of WOW doesn't intrest him much. I can watch for hours at his PvP fights. A single hunter taking on 3 players, it's a must see.
While I agree with you on the pve part, I think the future of WOW stays within the PvP in the upcoming CATA.
The long term playing value of any game is within the e-sport capacity, not within the end game pve part.
Personal opinion of course.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
I give every dungeon at least one wipe before leaving. This applies to my tank and other toons as well. If we do wipe, I evaluate how we did. Taking Halls of Reflection as the popular example, if we wipe before defeating the first boss, I'm out. If we wipe on the hardest/final waves, I'll give it another try and reevaluate the situation (kick as needed, etc.).
As much as I might not need items from the dungeons, I try to keep in mind that I'm here to play the game with other people as well and the dungeon could provide some big boosts to them. At the same time I'm not here to completely waste my time for people who are super behind in gear and hopefully they understand that.
Blizzard employees don't want to play with undergeared players so it's not hard to imagine WoW players having this mentality.
This link rather puts to bed any doubt that the community is bad. When the disease has crept into the house of the devs.. you know it's time to leave if you haven't left already.
Well, I think there needs to be context. A player who is just learning the instance trying to gear up is vastly different from someone who is way undergeared and doesn't listen to simple instructions. Everyone's time is valuable. I agree 100% with the first part of the blue post. If you're in an instance and it's pretty apparent that the group is not working together and you're wiping early, what's the point of continuing on since it's just wasting your time.
I don't like Gearscore either, I think it's a horrible judge on how someone actually plays the game. He kinda contradicts himself in that second paragraph, saying he knows the dungeon could provide upgrades, but at the same time doesn't want to run with super undergeared players. I'm not sure what he means by 'super undergeared' though. I think if a player is in quest greens and trying to run heroic ICC, I'd say that's super undergeared. At that point, that player is a liability, no matter how he plays. It's up to the group whether they want to carry that player.
Bob.. the funny part about the graph.. which is actually misleading is the NUMBER of toons per level.. if you scroll over to 80th level, you'll see well over 3 MILLION toons.. I believe that is what the number said.. But if you scroll over ALL the rest of the levels you'll find no more then 100k .. maybe less ...... That graph is NOT a correct representation of the actual numbers.. if it was the last bar (80th level) would be 30 times taller then the rest.....
Nice try tho
Nope you are wrong.
The total number of lvl 80 chararcter played was 3 millions.
the total number of lvl 10 - lvl 79 characters being played is 2.67 millions.
Meaning almost 50% of the characters actively played didn't reach max level and spred out evenly over 10 to 79 like I stated.
I think you owe me an apology and it shows the 80% at max level of played characters was simply wrong.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
I think you guys are out of subject... let me see Ha! yes! it was Gearscore was made by blizzard employees!
Exactly.. Blizzard didn't create "gear scrore".. no more then Phillip Morris created lung cancer.. HOWEVER, Phillip Morris did create the cigaretted that leads to cancer, no more different then the mechanics and tools Blizzard sells that lead to the cancer in their game.. What do they call it now a days? Cause and effect?
I get what you are trying to say there but your analogy is way off. Phillip Morris did not create the cigarrette are you confusing the definition of "creating and inventing"? Phillip Morris most certainly creates and manufactures cigarettes and while smoking may lead to cancer, it is not cigarettes alone. True and I didn't say Blizzard is alone in the effect of gear score.. But the two have a direct relationship
Look at this way.. IF Blizzard didn't didn't have so many "tiers" of armor from 200 to 277.. Would gear score even exist? I think we know what the answer is..
The fact that each item has its own public index is an open invitation to things like gear score. As I stated, I suspect Blizzard knew(or strongly suspected) how this would turn out. Look at the armory as another example of that. Not to mention their attempts to make Arena an esport. Put it all together, and Blizzard is pandering to some of the base motivations in their player base. Human nature will out.
I would fall into the boat of players that bought WoW at launch and played on and off because my friend just can't get over this game for some reason. April was my last visit to WoW and my friend paid for a realm transfer for my characters off a low pop realm to high pop (biggest mistake ever).
I have a warlock that has cleared 10man and 25man Naxx shortly after WotLK and is in all epic Naxx 10/25man gear. I was refused for every Ulduar 10/25man pug either because my GS was too low or I did not already clear the raid and sometimes both.
Being thrown into this horrid community which doesn't exist on low pop realms I knew I wasn't spending more than the month here and went to level a warrior (more like 'forced' to make an alt I wasn't good enough to even run the new heroics as I also had the people leaving the dungeon happen to me). My warrior hit lvl 80 after a couple weeks with about 150 quests completed. Dungeon tool ftw? This game is a loggy anyone that thinks WoW is still a fully functional MMO is delusional.
So time to gear up my warrior! I'm a tank now they can't deny me? Wrong. My WHR took new heights up to 2.5k ish I forget the exact value but again because I lacked that pivotal hundred points I was denied access to almost every raid. Now please consider in my gear I had almost the literal max score you can obtain from only doing heroics which is all I could do. I was about 50-80 points off because of I think my shoulder wasn't ilvl 245 and helm I went with t9 set instead of the epic ilvl 245 items (which would have gotten me a higher score).
Prot Warrior in full epics t9 can not tank 10man ToC.... WHR is not over 2600. I also wasn't allowed to enter Ulduar either.
Most memorable moment is when someone actually left because I wasn't good enough for them as a tank in heroic DTK.... remember I used to dungeon tool to level I was pretty much in all blues and I couple epics at this point. Heroic... DTK....... A close second is when the 3k WHR did not know how to switch aggro and almost killed me on first boss in TOC and then 3k WHR tank died on the worm bosses and I had to take his place and finished the worms and the yeti boss and did of course because I'm a good player and always have been. (only reason I got in this raid is because after an hour or so I gathered enough people willing to try it)
congratz Blizzard on your new endgame design. Your community is grateful that now 'everyone' can enter endgame raids.
It would be nice to not have to reroll alts all the time because of an incredibly lacking and repetitive endgame.
When i played WoW Pre-Tbc was so fucking epic that I used the same Undead Warrior (prot) for over two years. TBC releases with its shitty progression reset and bland endgame and I suddenly had 6 70's.
Wanna judge how bad a endgame is? ask people how many alts they have.
Edit: Typo
This just proves that personal anecdotes are just personal. In vanilla WoW I had eight level 60 characters that wer Molten Core capable (ie blue gear and some Fire Resist gear) In WotLK I only got five of them to level 80 and the leveling is so much faster now.
So applying your criteria: vanilla WoW = crappy, WotLK = pretty decent.
It would be nice to not have to reroll alts all the time because of an incredibly lacking and repetitive endgame.
When i played WoW Pre-Tbc was so fucking epic that I used the same Undead Warrior (prot) for over two years. TBC releases with its shitty progression reset and bland endgame and I suddenly had 6 70's.
Wanna judge how bad a endgame is? ask people how many alts they have.
Edit: Typo
This just proves that personal anecdotes are just personal. In vanilla WoW I had eight level 60 characters that wer Molten Core capable (ie blue gear and some Fire Resist gear) In WotLK I only got five of them to level 80 and the leveling is so much faster now.
So applying your criteria: vanilla WoW = crappy, WotLK = pretty decent.
Why did you fail so bad in Vanilla progression? Vanilla required much more time investment than todays WoW. I remember farming MC for like 6 months, then BWL for a bit more than that.
I guess if someone wasnt willing to invest their time in raiding back then they would find TBC better due to the lower player cap in raids and how easy it was for players to get geared out after that expansion.
Look at the bars: spread out evenly from level 10 to level 79. reason: Lots of low level alts are being played daily.
Secondly: a close friend of mine ( playing since 3 years) leveled a new druid class in the past weeks.
Yesterday he turned to level 60, playing for 5 days and 4 hours total. he didn't level his professions and he said he used to do one or two dungeon achievements for each dunegon combined with open world questing.
So he played (with one heirloom) around 124 hours to reach level 60. He plays around 3 hours a day. He has 4 mains at level 80.
It was an interesting stat to analyse:
It shows to me that the total leveling time to reach lvl 80 of someone new to WOW would be the same as the average old time to reach 60 before the TBC patch.
There is only one difference: leveling characters can opt to play in a dungeon now. There is only one problem: now that he reaches Outland he has to put more work into the questing areas as he runs out of Gold (not doing gathering professions and running dungeons costs money).
So the above facts and objective stats (link) prove you wrong I guess. I was with the guy yesterday and I asked him to show me the number of players in the Hellfire zone of Outland (4 PM). 34 players were present in that zone in the afternoon.
So no there are far more low level characters being played than you think.
What's wrong with the picture? The core of the problem is that the path from 1-80 *doesn't properly teach someone how to play*. Everything else is a derivative. If I picked up the game for the first time today, and played to 80 in a week, as long as I learnt how to play (relative) it matters not if it took me a month or a year... or two hours.
Part of the 'new characters' being leveled are droves of individuals who have previously leveled to 80 on other toons. The average WoW gamer has 3-4 level 80s... which means after the 1st character, 2-3x they are skewing the conclusion you're implying from your data. Thus, of all 'lowbie' toons, less than 25% are actually new to the game.
The empirical conclusion you've come to about leveling time is false. It's faster today to reach cap than it was in classic/prior to the 'fast leveling BC patch' hit. In fact, I've proven this on 2 toons who have hit 80 in under 6 days (and the day they hit 80, had full epics waiting for them from having farmed badges, and honor, during the leveling process- sidenote). You were hardcore if you could hit 60 in under 10 days in classic. Johanna did this thing where he hit 60 in 5 as the record at the time.
Lastly, your data confirms a spread of individuals across 'lowbie' levels. How does this refute my previous statements on poor implementation of mechanics by Blizz? It doesn't. Strawman.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc. We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be. So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away. - MMO_Doubter
I bet if mid to hardcore raiders had there ui add ons taken away. For 90% of them the gearscore wound matter they would fail without their idiot lights.
I give every dungeon at least one wipe before leaving. This applies to my tank and other toons as well. If we do wipe, I evaluate how we did. Taking Halls of Reflection as the popular example, if we wipe before defeating the first boss, I'm out. If we wipe on the hardest/final waves, I'll give it another try and reevaluate the situation (kick as needed, etc.).
As much as I might not need items from the dungeons, I try to keep in mind that I'm here to play the game with other people as well and the dungeon could provide some big boosts to them. At the same time I'm not here to completely waste my time for people who are super behind in gear and hopefully they understand that.
Blizzard employees don't want to play with undergeared players so it's not hard to imagine WoW players having this mentality.
This link rather puts to bed any doubt that the community is bad. When the disease has crept into the house of the devs.. you know it's time to leave if you haven't left already.
Well, I think there needs to be context. A player who is just learning the instance trying to gear up is vastly different from someone who is way undergeared and doesn't listen to simple instructions. Everyone's time is valuable. I agree 100% with the first part of the blue post. If you're in an instance and it's pretty apparent that the group is not working together and you're wiping early, what's the point of continuing on since it's just wasting your time.
I don't like Gearscore either, I think it's a horrible judge on how someone actually plays the game. He kinda contradicts himself in that second paragraph, saying he knows the dungeon could provide upgrades, but at the same time doesn't want to run with super undergeared players. I'm not sure what he means by 'super undergeared' though. I think if a player is in quest greens and trying to run heroic ICC, I'd say that's super undergeared. At that point, that player is a liability, no matter how he plays. It's up to the group whether they want to carry that player.
Because you mentioned context, I'm willing to wager you an intelligent chap. I'll respond as such.
Number 1: agreed, there must be context. You're absolutely right.
You're still equating gear to skill in your post, which is false. Both your examples are poorly geared. If a group isn't working well, you always have 2 options: teach the group, or bail and requeue. But which, of the two decisions, fosters a positive community (positive, in the sense that the community grows, in quality- quality in this sense being technical know-how, not just social skills)? Bailing doesn't teach anyone anything. Your community is crap if this is the mentality that perpetuates. Is my time valuable? Sure. But investing my time will yield more dividends as well. Ah, dividends... context indeed cher tanoril, context indeed...
The part about gear being a liability- first, it's false, and there is the 'all blues' guild that disproves it. Secondly, where it is true, it shows poor game design, point blank. Everyone on every MMORPG forum you can visit always screams the same thing: the game, any game, should be about skill, not gear. Gear should be a derivative, a reflection of, skill, but not the baseline. The emphasis needs to be pulled FROM gear, not witnessing blue posts, from the house of the makers of the game, that promote gear discrimination.
That's poor play. That's a poor game.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc. We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be. So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away. - MMO_Doubter
Bob.. the funny part about the graph.. which is actually misleading is the NUMBER of toons per level.. if you scroll over to 80th level, you'll see well over 3 MILLION toons.. I believe that is what the number said.. But if you scroll over ALL the rest of the levels you'll find no more then 100k .. maybe less ...... That graph is NOT a correct representation of the actual numbers.. if it was the last bar (80th level) would be 30 times taller then the rest.....
Nice try tho
Nope you are wrong.
The total number of lvl 80 chararcter played was 3 millions.
the total number of lvl 10 - lvl 79 characters being played is 2.67 millions.
Meaning almost 50% of the characters actively played didn't reach max level and spred out evenly over 10 to 79 like I stated.
I think you owe me an apology and it shows the 80% at max level of played characters was simply wrong.
How accurate is your data?
For over a year now, all the numbers I've seen have promoted about an 80% top heavy polling of level-capped characters in WoW.
For a game that focuses nigh exclusively on 'new content' being thrown at the endgame crowd, and a 'popular' approach to feeding their fans... it is safe to assume the population rests where the content is being developped for- and that's at endgame.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc. We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be. So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away. - MMO_Doubter
I have to agree that Gearscore is one of the worst add ons to ever be created for WoW. I myself have ran into a few of those people who will decline you from a raid or leave a random heroic because of "low gearscore". I was also a little put off at first due to how much emphasis was put on having gear that was far above the difficulty of the dungeon so people could breeze through it. Now I just ignore it for the most part.... if you can hold aggro as a tank or keep people alive as a healer, im a happy Lock.
Not everyone is like that though. It also helps to have friends that play WoW, which is the only reason I continue to play it. The only time I ever left a party because of someone having bad gear was a Heroic Violet Hold cause the healer was a fresh 80 druid trying to heal dungeon in almost pure green feral gear. I gave the druid some advice, told him to get some crafted or drop blues from the AH (pretty cheap these days), and run some quests for rewards.
Not to mention it takes barely a week or two to get a decent set of gear with how cheap materials are these days. Hit 80, get some blues / crafted ilevel 245 epic chest / bracers, and start running normal ToC / FoS / PoS / HoR until you get enough to start the heroic badge grind mixed with H-FoS / H-PoS / H-HoR for ilevel 232 pieces.
Bob.. the funny part about the graph.. which is actually misleading is the NUMBER of toons per level.. if you scroll over to 80th level, you'll see well over 3 MILLION toons.. I believe that is what the number said.. But if you scroll over ALL the rest of the levels you'll find no more then 100k .. maybe less ...... That graph is NOT a correct representation of the actual numbers.. if it was the last bar (80th level) would be 30 times taller then the rest.....
Nice try tho
Nope you are wrong.
The total number of lvl 80 chararcter played was 3 millions.
the total number of lvl 10 - lvl 79 characters being played is 2.67 millions.
Meaning almost 50% of the characters actively played didn't reach max level and spred out evenly over 10 to 79 like I stated.
I think you owe me an apology and it shows the 80% at max level of played characters was simply wrong.
How accurate is your data?
For over a year now, all the numbers I've seen have promoted about an 80% top heavy polling of level-capped characters in WoW.
For a game that focuses nigh exclusively on 'new content' being thrown at the endgame crowd, and a 'popular' approach to feeding their fans... it is safe to assume the population rests where the content is being developped for- and that's at endgame.
While the total samples for all servers are not always accurate with that tool (too much servers with too few samples), it shows there is clearly a trend around a 55/45 % ratio between lvl 80's and charcaters in the leveling process. 3 M to 2.7 M leveling.
Those are characters actively "traced" playing recently. Your invented 80% "top heavy" is simply countered by these samples.
Just like many of your assumptions above.
Now....
I don't agree with your assumption "gear" is a bad design too.
Let me explain: You create "levels" and open up "talents" in WOW to advance your character. These 2 are complemented with gear statsand other enhancements.
Once you reach the max level, your gear and gear/and other stat enhancements becomes the main advancing tool.
Gear is very much the BASIC to do certain content. ABOVE the gear you need the playing skills to advance further into heroic Raids.
Gear is a very good game design, because everyone can gather it. So it keeps playing everyone.
But only the skilled players can advance to the more difficult heroic Raid content and get to achievements and awards (before they dissapear and are deleted by Blizzard).
So it is a very motivating drive to play to get the "latest" advancement system and then let playing skill decide how far you can come with said collected gear.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
I won't even consider going with a group that asks for GS. I have been in too many PUG's where we had high gear scores...but no skills. I see the use of GS as far as setting standards, but why not let folks into your group and let them determine their own fate through competancy or the lack thereof. I went back to AoC (and I am loving it BTW) because of things like GS, immature player base, daily quest grind is unbearable now, ridiculous dungeon finder queues, Blizzard's greed for money via store items, and so on...
Number 1: agreed, there must be context. You're absolutely right.
You're still equating gear to skill in your post, which is false. Both your examples are poorly geared. If a group isn't working well, you always have 2 options: teach the group, or bail and requeue. But which, of the two decisions, fosters a positive community (positive, in the sense that the community grows, in quality- quality in this sense being technical know-how, not just social skills)? Bailing doesn't teach anyone anything. Your community is crap if this is the mentality that perpetuates. Is my time valuable? Sure. But investing my time will yield more dividends as well. Ah, dividends... context indeed cher tanoril, context indeed...
The part about gear being a liability- first, it's false, and there is the 'all blues' guild that disproves it. Secondly, where it is true, it shows poor game design, point blank. Everyone on every MMORPG forum you can visit always screams the same thing: the game, any game, should be about skill, not gear. Gear should be a derivative, a reflection of, skill, but not the baseline. The emphasis needs to be pulled FROM gear, not witnessing blue posts, from the house of the makers of the game, that promote gear discrimination.
Bob.. the funny part about the graph.. which is actually misleading is the NUMBER of toons per level.. if you scroll over to 80th level, you'll see well over 3 MILLION toons.. I believe that is what the number said.. But if you scroll over ALL the rest of the levels you'll find no more then 100k .. maybe less ...... That graph is NOT a correct representation of the actual numbers.. if it was the last bar (80th level) would be 30 times taller then the rest.....
Nice try tho
Nope you are wrong.
The total number of lvl 80 chararcter played was 3 millions.
the total number of lvl 10 - lvl 79 characters being played is 2.67 millions.
Meaning almost 50% of the characters actively played didn't reach max level and spred out evenly over 10 to 79 like I stated.
I think you owe me an apology and it shows the 80% at max level of played characters was simply wrong.
How accurate is your data?
For over a year now, all the numbers I've seen have promoted about an 80% top heavy polling of level-capped characters in WoW.
For a game that focuses nigh exclusively on 'new content' being thrown at the endgame crowd, and a 'popular' approach to feeding their fans... it is safe to assume the population rests where the content is being developped for- and that's at endgame.
While the total samples for all servers are not always accurate with that tool (too much servers with too few samples), it shows there is clearly a trend around a 55/45 % ratio between lvl 80's and charcaters in the leveling process. 3 M to 2.7 M leveling.
Those are characters actively "traced" playing recently. Your invented 80% "top heavy" is simply countered by these samples.
Just like many of your assumptions above.
Now....
I don't agree with your assumption "gear" is a bad design too.
Let me explain: You create "levels" and open up "talents" in WOW to advance your character. These 2 are complemented with gear statsand other enhancements.
Once you reach the max level, your gear and gear/and other stat enhancements becomes the main advancing tool.
Gear is very much the BASIC to do certain content. ABOVE the gear you need the playing skills to advance further into heroic Raids.
Gear is a very good game design, because everyone can gather it. So it keeps playing everyone.
But only the skilled players can advance to the more difficult heroic Raid content and get to achievements and awards (before they dissapear and are deleted by Blizzard).
So it is a very motivating drive to play to get the "latest" advancement system and then let playing skill decide how far you can come with said collected gear.
That's funny. Warcraftcensus that is. I've lived on Lightning's Blade, Thunderlord, Aegwynn, Spinebroken, Tortheldrin, Skullcrasher and Lethon across 5 years of play. Not once did that site have anything accurate with regards to something as simple as Alliance:Horde ratio. Take a look, you'll find guild names with full rosters on Warcraftcensus that died months, if not years, ago. That site is far from accurate. Servers listed as 'high pop' who wouldn't have a queue during patch/expansion days, and others that were listed as 'low pop' having queues of over 1000.
Make sure your data comes from a reliable source. Just because it has the name in the title doesn't make it official.
The 'top heavy' 'assumption' stands. Both based on every snipet I've read in MMO Insider and other publications and based on logic as to Blizzard's business model and their target for new content.
Gear, alone, is not a bad game design, no. But when the gear in question scales INSANELY more than things like talents or skills, then hrmm... it seems a little 'lopsided' and not quite 'balanced' in terms of design, yes? Additionally, when gear is put on a treadmill, and things like talents and skills have caps (can't get an extra talent point after level cap, but you can get extra gear after level cap- it's called the 'next tier')... then absolutely gear is a bad design.
1. Review your sources.
2. Make sure you keep topics in context.
Edit: for funsies I played with the data samples on warcraftcensus. What I found HILARIOUS is the almost perfect, as in almost textbook, distribution of population across ALL levels. I'm not talking a normal stastitical readout with blips here and there and an *overall* 'clean' read, I'm talking each and every level is the same height as every other level.
For someone who deals with statistics as part of their job, when you see a reading that is arguably 'perfect', the first thought that comes to mind is: the recording is faulty. Why? Because you have variance, and variance is pronounced. ESPECIALLY when we're talking people, and not arbitrary objects like bridges and stress loadings.
Warcraftcensus seems to be keeping with the reputation they established all those years ago...
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc. We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be. So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away. - MMO_Doubter
I guess most of all people agree, that there is already a wow killer and i guess its called "gearscore".
Not another mmo will kill wow, but wow will kill itself through this gearscore.
I remember the time when i cleared as a tank with only blue/green gear karazan ... and no one complained, except healers as they had actually to play
gearscore has been around for a while now, its become the standard that raid groups are based upon, so either you have it. or you dont, and if your gear isnt up to it, forget raiding, but its not all bad, in acquiring gear to up your score enough to qualify for a raid group, you will learn how to play effectively, getting a raid group wiped will definitely be something you want to avoid..
gearscore has been around for a while now, its become the standard that raid groups are based upon, so either you have it. or you dont, and if your gear isnt up to it, forget raiding, but its not all bad, in acquiring gear to up your score enough to qualify for a raid group,you will learn how to play effectively, getting a raid group wiped will definitely be something you want to avoid..
gearscore has been around for a while now, its become the standard that raid groups are based upon, so either you have it. or you dont, and if your gear isnt up to it, forget raiding, but its not all bad, in acquiring gear to up your score enough to qualify for a raid group,you will learn how to play effectively, getting a raid group wiped will definitely be something you want to avoid..
This made me chuckle.
I almost spewed my drink on the screen, personally.
Long time no see arenasb- how are things?
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc. We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be. So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away. - MMO_Doubter
gearscore has been around for a while now, its become the standard that raid groups are based upon, so either you have it. or you dont, and if your gear isnt up to it, forget raiding, but its not all bad, in acquiring gear to up your score enough to qualify for a raid group,you will learn how to play effectively, getting a raid group wiped will definitely be something you want to avoid..
This made me chuckle.
Me too!
How many times have you seen "effectively geared" Pallies that couldn't hold aggro, or a DK trying to tank in the wrong presence and wonder why he couldn't hold aggro. I personnaly like dungeon finder because it breaks up the grind sometimes, but it is producing a ton of inadequate "effectively geared" players that go from level 15-80 in a week.
Havent you guys /gals outgrown this raiding BS yet?
Farming items just to farm more items to farm more items.
How many times will you replace the same item slot before you finally realize that everything you play for is meaningless every upgrade?
Doing the same dungeons twenty times a week doesnt get boring after a while?
IM sorry but this is straight up addiction, Someone needs to say it.
WoW is so much worse than EQ ever was. You guys play a videogame that sets a carrot on a stick and then resets everything to zero constantly making anything you did before obsolete.
Wake up!
This is how all gearbased games will be. It has nothing to do with raiding because gear progression happens on all levels, solo, group, and raid. I'm not defending WoW raiding, I think it's boring and unchallenging, but I'm going thru the same cycle of gear replacement by raiding in VG just like I did in EQ...all gear based games do it.
ofc, it has everything to do with raiding since that how WoW and similar game are built. Unlike Anarchy Online for example, I remember many many years ago when people could do random easy solo mission and the most awesome stuff could actually drop. That added an element of excitement even to an easy solo mission. But with WoW.. its just blaaah...
I guess most of all people agree, that there is already a wow killer and i guess its called "gearscore".
Not another mmo will kill wow, but wow will kill itself through this gearscore.
I remember the time when i cleared as a tank with only blue/green gear karazan ... and no one complained, except healers as they had actually to play
gearscore has been around for a while now, its become the standard that raid groups are based upon, so either you have it. or you dont, and if your gear isnt up to it, forget raiding, but its not all bad, in acquiring gear to up your score enough to qualify for a raid group, you will learn how to play effectively, getting a raid group wiped will definitely be something you want to avoid..
Dude i had full naxxram set when i stopped playing. Naxx 25 raid clear in 3 weeks after launch of wotlk. I dont lack the effective play style or brain. The gearscore is a killing factor for someone to return back to wow. Even if you got the player skill to compensate the lack of gear you wont have a chance to prove it.
Ive got no problem not to play wow again as ive seen the best of WoW. It was wow vanilla with open pvp and raids which required some brains and organisation not like its now days, addons which say you everything you have to do lol (get out of fire! You are the bomb!) .... please dumb the game even more down.
Comments
Bob.. the funny part about the graph.. which is actually misleading is the NUMBER of toons per level.. if you scroll over to 80th level, you'll see well over 3 MILLION toons.. I believe that is what the number said.. But if you scroll over ALL the rest of the levels you'll find no more then 100k .. maybe less
...... That graph is NOT a correct representation of the actual numbers.. if it was the last bar (80th level) would be 30 times taller then the rest.....
Nice try tho
The friend mentioned doesn't even run raids. He only does PvP (mainly arena) and he is an incredible player btw. The PVE future of WOW doesn't intrest him much. I can watch for hours at his PvP fights. A single hunter taking on 3 players, it's a must see.
While I agree with you on the pve part, I think the future of WOW stays within the PvP in the upcoming CATA.
The long term playing value of any game is within the e-sport capacity, not within the end game pve part.
Personal opinion of course.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
Well, I think there needs to be context. A player who is just learning the instance trying to gear up is vastly different from someone who is way undergeared and doesn't listen to simple instructions. Everyone's time is valuable. I agree 100% with the first part of the blue post. If you're in an instance and it's pretty apparent that the group is not working together and you're wiping early, what's the point of continuing on since it's just wasting your time.
I don't like Gearscore either, I think it's a horrible judge on how someone actually plays the game. He kinda contradicts himself in that second paragraph, saying he knows the dungeon could provide upgrades, but at the same time doesn't want to run with super undergeared players. I'm not sure what he means by 'super undergeared' though. I think if a player is in quest greens and trying to run heroic ICC, I'd say that's super undergeared. At that point, that player is a liability, no matter how he plays. It's up to the group whether they want to carry that player.
Nope you are wrong.
The total number of lvl 80 chararcter played was 3 millions.
the total number of lvl 10 - lvl 79 characters being played is 2.67 millions.
Meaning almost 50% of the characters actively played didn't reach max level and spred out evenly over 10 to 79 like I stated.
I think you owe me an apology and it shows the 80% at max level of played characters was simply wrong.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
The fact that each item has its own public index is an open invitation to things like gear score. As I stated, I suspect Blizzard knew(or strongly suspected) how this would turn out. Look at the armory as another example of that. Not to mention their attempts to make Arena an esport. Put it all together, and Blizzard is pandering to some of the base motivations in their player base. Human nature will out.
I would fall into the boat of players that bought WoW at launch and played on and off because my friend just can't get over this game for some reason. April was my last visit to WoW and my friend paid for a realm transfer for my characters off a low pop realm to high pop (biggest mistake ever).
I have a warlock that has cleared 10man and 25man Naxx shortly after WotLK and is in all epic Naxx 10/25man gear. I was refused for every Ulduar 10/25man pug either because my GS was too low or I did not already clear the raid and sometimes both.
Being thrown into this horrid community which doesn't exist on low pop realms I knew I wasn't spending more than the month here and went to level a warrior (more like 'forced' to make an alt I wasn't good enough to even run the new heroics as I also had the people leaving the dungeon happen to me). My warrior hit lvl 80 after a couple weeks with about 150 quests completed. Dungeon tool ftw? This game is a loggy anyone that thinks WoW is still a fully functional MMO is delusional.
So time to gear up my warrior! I'm a tank now they can't deny me? Wrong. My WHR took new heights up to 2.5k ish I forget the exact value but again because I lacked that pivotal hundred points I was denied access to almost every raid. Now please consider in my gear I had almost the literal max score you can obtain from only doing heroics which is all I could do. I was about 50-80 points off because of I think my shoulder wasn't ilvl 245 and helm I went with t9 set instead of the epic ilvl 245 items (which would have gotten me a higher score).
Prot Warrior in full epics t9 can not tank 10man ToC.... WHR is not over 2600. I also wasn't allowed to enter Ulduar either.
Most memorable moment is when someone actually left because I wasn't good enough for them as a tank in heroic DTK.... remember I used to dungeon tool to level I was pretty much in all blues and I couple epics at this point. Heroic... DTK....... A close second is when the 3k WHR did not know how to switch aggro and almost killed me on first boss in TOC and then 3k WHR tank died on the worm bosses and I had to take his place and finished the worms and the yeti boss and did of course because I'm a good player and always have been. (only reason I got in this raid is because after an hour or so I gathered enough people willing to try it)
congratz Blizzard on your new endgame design. Your community is grateful that now 'everyone' can enter endgame raids.
This just proves that personal anecdotes are just personal. In vanilla WoW I had eight level 60 characters that wer Molten Core capable (ie blue gear and some Fire Resist gear) In WotLK I only got five of them to level 80 and the leveling is so much faster now.
So applying your criteria: vanilla WoW = crappy, WotLK = pretty decent.
Why did you fail so bad in Vanilla progression? Vanilla required much more time investment than todays WoW. I remember farming MC for like 6 months, then BWL for a bit more than that.
I guess if someone wasnt willing to invest their time in raiding back then they would find TBC better due to the lower player cap in raids and how easy it was for players to get geared out after that expansion.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
What's wrong with the picture? The core of the problem is that the path from 1-80 *doesn't properly teach someone how to play*. Everything else is a derivative. If I picked up the game for the first time today, and played to 80 in a week, as long as I learnt how to play (relative) it matters not if it took me a month or a year... or two hours.
Part of the 'new characters' being leveled are droves of individuals who have previously leveled to 80 on other toons. The average WoW gamer has 3-4 level 80s... which means after the 1st character, 2-3x they are skewing the conclusion you're implying from your data. Thus, of all 'lowbie' toons, less than 25% are actually new to the game.
The empirical conclusion you've come to about leveling time is false. It's faster today to reach cap than it was in classic/prior to the 'fast leveling BC patch' hit. In fact, I've proven this on 2 toons who have hit 80 in under 6 days (and the day they hit 80, had full epics waiting for them from having farmed badges, and honor, during the leveling process- sidenote). You were hardcore if you could hit 60 in under 10 days in classic. Johanna did this thing where he hit 60 in 5 as the record at the time.
Lastly, your data confirms a spread of individuals across 'lowbie' levels. How does this refute my previous statements on poor implementation of mechanics by Blizz? It doesn't. Strawman.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
I bet if mid to hardcore raiders had there ui add ons taken away. For 90% of them the gearscore wound matter they would fail without their idiot lights.
Because you mentioned context, I'm willing to wager you an intelligent chap. I'll respond as such.
Number 1: agreed, there must be context. You're absolutely right.
You're still equating gear to skill in your post, which is false. Both your examples are poorly geared. If a group isn't working well, you always have 2 options: teach the group, or bail and requeue. But which, of the two decisions, fosters a positive community (positive, in the sense that the community grows, in quality- quality in this sense being technical know-how, not just social skills)? Bailing doesn't teach anyone anything. Your community is crap if this is the mentality that perpetuates. Is my time valuable? Sure. But investing my time will yield more dividends as well. Ah, dividends... context indeed cher tanoril, context indeed...
The part about gear being a liability- first, it's false, and there is the 'all blues' guild that disproves it. Secondly, where it is true, it shows poor game design, point blank. Everyone on every MMORPG forum you can visit always screams the same thing: the game, any game, should be about skill, not gear. Gear should be a derivative, a reflection of, skill, but not the baseline. The emphasis needs to be pulled FROM gear, not witnessing blue posts, from the house of the makers of the game, that promote gear discrimination.
That's poor play. That's a poor game.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
How accurate is your data?
For over a year now, all the numbers I've seen have promoted about an 80% top heavy polling of level-capped characters in WoW.
For a game that focuses nigh exclusively on 'new content' being thrown at the endgame crowd, and a 'popular' approach to feeding their fans... it is safe to assume the population rests where the content is being developped for- and that's at endgame.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
I have to agree that Gearscore is one of the worst add ons to ever be created for WoW. I myself have ran into a few of those people who will decline you from a raid or leave a random heroic because of "low gearscore". I was also a little put off at first due to how much emphasis was put on having gear that was far above the difficulty of the dungeon so people could breeze through it. Now I just ignore it for the most part.... if you can hold aggro as a tank or keep people alive as a healer, im a happy Lock.
Not everyone is like that though. It also helps to have friends that play WoW, which is the only reason I continue to play it. The only time I ever left a party because of someone having bad gear was a Heroic Violet Hold cause the healer was a fresh 80 druid trying to heal dungeon in almost pure green feral gear. I gave the druid some advice, told him to get some crafted or drop blues from the AH (pretty cheap these days), and run some quests for rewards.
Not to mention it takes barely a week or two to get a decent set of gear with how cheap materials are these days. Hit 80, get some blues / crafted ilevel 245 epic chest / bracers, and start running normal ToC / FoS / PoS / HoR until you get enough to start the heroic badge grind mixed with H-FoS / H-PoS / H-HoR for ilevel 232 pieces.
http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php?serverid=-1&factionid=-1&minlevel=10&maxlevel=79&servertypeid=-1
While the total samples for all servers are not always accurate with that tool (too much servers with too few samples), it shows there is clearly a trend around a 55/45 % ratio between lvl 80's and charcaters in the leveling process. 3 M to 2.7 M leveling.
Those are characters actively "traced" playing recently. Your invented 80% "top heavy" is simply countered by these samples.
Just like many of your assumptions above.
Now....
I don't agree with your assumption "gear" is a bad design too.
Let me explain: You create "levels" and open up "talents" in WOW to advance your character. These 2 are complemented with gear statsand other enhancements.
Once you reach the max level, your gear and gear/and other stat enhancements becomes the main advancing tool.
Gear is very much the BASIC to do certain content. ABOVE the gear you need the playing skills to advance further into heroic Raids.
Gear is a very good game design, because everyone can gather it. So it keeps playing everyone.
But only the skilled players can advance to the more difficult heroic Raid content and get to achievements and awards (before they dissapear and are deleted by Blizzard).
So it is a very motivating drive to play to get the "latest" advancement system and then let playing skill decide how far you can come with said collected gear.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
So gear is the carrot that keeps players playing? I agree.
I won't even consider going with a group that asks for GS. I have been in too many PUG's where we had high gear scores...but no skills. I see the use of GS as far as setting standards, but why not let folks into your group and let them determine their own fate through competancy or the lack thereof. I went back to AoC (and I am loving it BTW) because of things like GS, immature player base, daily quest grind is unbearable now, ridiculous dungeon finder queues, Blizzard's greed for money via store items, and so on...
This used to be an awesome game...and now...
Well said my friend
That's funny. Warcraftcensus that is. I've lived on Lightning's Blade, Thunderlord, Aegwynn, Spinebroken, Tortheldrin, Skullcrasher and Lethon across 5 years of play. Not once did that site have anything accurate with regards to something as simple as Alliance:Horde ratio. Take a look, you'll find guild names with full rosters on Warcraftcensus that died months, if not years, ago. That site is far from accurate. Servers listed as 'high pop' who wouldn't have a queue during patch/expansion days, and others that were listed as 'low pop' having queues of over 1000.
Make sure your data comes from a reliable source. Just because it has the name in the title doesn't make it official.
The 'top heavy' 'assumption' stands. Both based on every snipet I've read in MMO Insider and other publications and based on logic as to Blizzard's business model and their target for new content.
Gear, alone, is not a bad game design, no. But when the gear in question scales INSANELY more than things like talents or skills, then hrmm... it seems a little 'lopsided' and not quite 'balanced' in terms of design, yes? Additionally, when gear is put on a treadmill, and things like talents and skills have caps (can't get an extra talent point after level cap, but you can get extra gear after level cap- it's called the 'next tier')... then absolutely gear is a bad design.
1. Review your sources.
2. Make sure you keep topics in context.
Edit: for funsies I played with the data samples on warcraftcensus. What I found HILARIOUS is the almost perfect, as in almost textbook, distribution of population across ALL levels. I'm not talking a normal stastitical readout with blips here and there and an *overall* 'clean' read, I'm talking each and every level is the same height as every other level.
For someone who deals with statistics as part of their job, when you see a reading that is arguably 'perfect', the first thought that comes to mind is: the recording is faulty. Why? Because you have variance, and variance is pronounced. ESPECIALLY when we're talking people, and not arbitrary objects like bridges and stress loadings.
Warcraftcensus seems to be keeping with the reputation they established all those years ago...
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
I guess most of all people agree, that there is already a wow killer and i guess its called "gearscore".
Not another mmo will kill wow, but wow will kill itself through this gearscore.
I remember the time when i cleared as a tank with only blue/green gear karazan ... and no one complained, except healers as they had actually to play
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gearscore has been around for a while now, its become the standard that raid groups are based upon, so either you have it. or you dont, and if your gear isnt up to it, forget raiding, but its not all bad, in acquiring gear to up your score enough to qualify for a raid group, you will learn how to play effectively, getting a raid group wiped will definitely be something you want to avoid..
This made me chuckle.
I almost spewed my drink on the screen, personally.
Long time no see arenasb- how are things?
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
Me too!
How many times have you seen "effectively geared" Pallies that couldn't hold aggro, or a DK trying to tank in the wrong presence and wonder why he couldn't hold aggro. I personnaly like dungeon finder because it breaks up the grind sometimes, but it is producing a ton of inadequate "effectively geared" players that go from level 15-80 in a week.
ofc, it has everything to do with raiding since that how WoW and similar game are built. Unlike Anarchy Online for example, I remember many many years ago when people could do random easy solo mission and the most awesome stuff could actually drop. That added an element of excitement even to an easy solo mission. But with WoW.. its just blaaah...
Dude i had full naxxram set when i stopped playing. Naxx 25 raid clear in 3 weeks after launch of wotlk. I dont lack the effective play style or brain. The gearscore is a killing factor for someone to return back to wow. Even if you got the player skill to compensate the lack of gear you wont have a chance to prove it.
Ive got no problem not to play wow again as ive seen the best of WoW. It was wow vanilla with open pvp and raids which required some brains and organisation not like its now days, addons which say you everything you have to do lol (get out of fire! You are the bomb!) .... please dumb the game even more down.
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