Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Where nothing really changes...

O hai!

I just wrote a comment over at clearcasting about these badge changes that have got everyone's knickers in a twist. Then I thought hell, if I'm going to go around posting long-winded comments that are basically posts in themselves on other people's blogs, why aren't I posting here?

So, inspired by this, here's my take on the upcoming badge changes. I realise this topic has been done to death, but I haven't heard anyone make this particular point before.

First of all, what other people are saying...

Lots of folks are sore that their gear won't be special anymore. Even more people are upset that there will be noobs running northrend in awesome gear, "taking your raid spot, stealing your lootz" all while standing in the fire because they are -still- crappy raiders, just like they always were.

On the other side of the virtual fence, we see the people who love the change, are looking forward to gearing up their alts, realise they will have all the best gear first anyway because they are successful progression raiders, and are generally in favor.

I obviously lean over to that side. I won't be fooled into thinking someone is awesome because they have great gear. I'm not fooled by gear now, and I don't plan to start anytime soon.

Introducing noobX

A perfect example springs to mind here. There is a rogue who we shall call noobX on my server. I first grouped with this guy when tanking outland dungeons. He was chatty, obviously friended me and was always wanting to run dungeons with me. He was nice enough and I really paid him no mind to begin with.

Then I started noticing his dps was poor. Really poor. Like, you are doing something wrong or you are doing nothing at all poor. Like my pet is doing more dps than you poor. Like is your weapon broken or something poor. Like... anyway you get the picture. It was terribad.

So I mention this to him. Friendly like, because I'm all friendly and stuff. It went something like this:

Zupa: "So mate, your dps is pretty bad. Whats going on? "

noobX: "Oh lol I need some upgrades for my gears. "

Zupa: "Ok link me your weapons." *links 2 blue daggers*

Zupa: "Well, they look fine to me. What items do you need upgraded? I can have a look at my atlasloot mod and help find which dungeon we should run next. "

noobX: "Oh that would be great I need a helm and gloves."

Zupa: "I see, we should be able to find something. Link me what you are using now."

noobX: "I don't have any lol"

Zupa: "Why the fuck not? What the hell man?"

noobX: "I had to solds them to get repair money."

Zupa: "OMFG are you serious? so you have NOTHING? no helm? no gloves?"


noobX: "Yeah lols I need upgrades but dont know which dungeons to get blues from."

Ok thats it. Friendly Zupa has left the building. You-just-wasted-more-than-your-quota-of-my-free-time Zupa will be your host for the rest of this conversation...

Pissed Off Zupa: "Dude that is ridiculous. You have no business in any 5 man group without a full set of gear. Go buy some greens from the AH to use until you get the drops you need."

noobX: "Oh I don't have any money"

Pissed Off Zupa: "Go do some quests or farm until you do then."

noobX: "Id rather do dungeons with you, we never wipe!"

Pissed Off Zupa: "Ok how about this. I'm not doing ANYTHING with you until you at least have a full set of gear. It's just retarded."

*fast forward about 2 months*

Scene: Random group for random heroic with random pugs. I see this rogue (noobX) is in the group. He goes "oh hi remember me?"

LongTermMemory Zupa: "Have you got a helm yet?"

noobX: "Lol you still remember that?"

Like I was going to forget the single most incompetent player I have seen with in WotLK?

Not likely little rogue. Not a chance.

Naturally I check out his gear, and cut off me legs and call me shorty, but this guy is decked. Proper decked. All tier gear and naxx 25 epics and valor badge gear, not a blue item in sight.

WTF?Zupa: "Holy crap man you geared up nice."

noobX: "oh what? yeah I got a naxx run on wednesdays... blah blah." *not listening...*

We start the instance. Things go OK.

So how much DPS does this rogue with the OMG hectic gear manage to pull off? 2k. not 2.1 mind you. not 2050. 2k flat.

WTFBBQ FAILBOAT AHOY


So... he might have talked his way into a guild and a naxx run. He may have kitted up his toon with all manner of sweet gear. But a shit player is still a shit player until such time as they make an effort to not be shit anymore.

Sadly, making an effort was never on this guys agenda. He always wanted someone else to make him not shit anymore, either by me running him in dungeons so he can get loot without pulling his weight to earn it, or by talking his way into whatever raid he is now a part of, regardless of his blatantly poor skills when it comes to playing his own class.

Well, noobX got his gear, but he never got his skills.

Gear means nothing. If you are shit, you are shit.

If you are good then gear is much less of an issue.

The same applies to healers, but that's for another post. There are plenty of healers in full epics who struggle to keep my tank alive in heroic dungeon X, but a healer who knows what they are doing can keep me above 80% all the way through a heroic wearing nothing but the blues they dinged 80 in.

So hows this all actually about the upcoming badge changes in 3.2???

Well, I guess this rogue, noobX, is an example of what the doomsayers are predicting will happen a lot.

Poor player gets good gear and still fails. (omg?)

It's already happening. It may happen more after the patch, but essentially the number of poor players vs good players is a static number, and no amount of welfare epics will change that.

So for me, nothing changes.

Anyway here's my comment from the post over at clearcasting...

I have made it purple because purple is awesome.

How do you feel about people who are unable to obtain tier gear in the current state of play?

There could be any number of reasons for that to be the case. It could be anything from a physical disability that means they simply can’t raid properly or constraints on their game time. Perhaps they cant afford a PC that is stable in a 25 man group. Maybe they don’t speak the native language on their server.

I think these people should be able to get at least some of the best gear around. They pay as much as anybody else to play. I remember very clearly not being able to play properly for a week due to an injury i received. I could still log in and run around but couldn’t do anything that involved pressing two keys at one time.

I’m lucky as it was temporary. Not so for some others.

Lets fast forward to the point where these unlucky players have some tier 9 gear, obtained slowly and painfully over a long period of time.

They still can’t raid for the original reasons, my gaming experience is entirely unaffected, but perhaps they are a little bit happier playing the game in whatever capacity they are able?

Nobody would assume they are more skilled than they are because of their gear. They still wont have a heroic sarth + 3D achievement, but perhaps they won’t feel like second class players anymore?

So while Tier gear is your holy grail, and very important to you, can’t my buddy with the disability get some too one day without it affecting you, your game play, your raid, or your personal sense of achievement?


I think he can. You probably wouldn’t even notice =)

5 comments:

Dark/Soth said...

So, the gist of your argument is because there are bad players who get carried to purples in 10 and 25 mans, Blizzard should give them purples from getting carried in 5 mans instead. To each their own, I guess.

I bet you wouldn't mind when the next patch comes around Blizzard starts giving out Tier 10 for completing a daily for 10 days straight. I mean, bad players are still bad, so why not?

Heck, the following patch, Blizzard should give out Tier 11 for simply logging in and finding your way to a capital city. Why should it matter, bad players are still bad, right? Gear doesn't matter, right?

I'm sure you don't see where this is going, because to you, "nothing really changes..."

Zupa said...

Dark: you may be my first troll. Thanks! Not sure if you really qualify as a proper troll, since you almost made sense and you appear to have read at least half of my post, but I'll take what I can get.

Firstly, I never said blizzard should or shouldn't do anything.

The gist of my argument is that it won't affect me if they make it easier for everybody to obtain good gear.

Thus I don't care if blizzard "give out Tier 11 for simply loggin in and finding your way to a capital city" As long as I get mine too.

And yes. Bad players are still bad. I don't care if they have good gear or not.

So nothing really changes. For me. You might notice that's what I said. "for me, nothing really changes"

It may very well change things for other people. Perhaps some raiders won't feel as superior as they do now as their gear loses its exclusivity.

Perhaps some raiders are afraid of losing their raid spot to someone with better gear? Maybe they can't rely on their skills to keep their place?

Perhaps any number of horrible terrible things will happen because of this change...

I really just can't see it affecting -me- like that.

I really CAN see it having a positive effect on a lot of other people, including my disabled friend.

In short, I think it will breath new life into the game.

Rhii said...

Hear hear!

I like your arguments Zupa. Nothing, I don't think, will change for me either, as most everyone is already better geared than me and will almost certainly continue to be so. This will, if anything, make it *slightly* easier to catch up. If I don't have skill and never get to the top, it wouldn't entirely surprise me (I'm not particularly twitchy, and my sense of timing rather sucks), but at least I'll have something to show for my efforts.

And that's how I'll value it -- MY efforts -- if someone else can do it without effort, awesome for them. I bet they're better at Halo than me too. :P No surprise there...

Nothing really changes.

Dark/Soth said...

Nothing really changes for you. OK, I must of missed the emphasis on "you" before. I am of the opinion that cheapening the value of the some of the hardest to obtain gear hurts everyone. It may not effect you, or me, or whoever. I'm arguing that its bad for the game. Maybe not bad for Blizzard, who stands to profit by giving poor players shiny i232 epics for completing i200 content, but certainly bad for the player base as a whole, and terribly bad for anyone within the skill range of "Capable Naxx 10 contributor" to "cleared a few Ulduar 25 bosses".

ByStander said...

@Dark , Blizzard is only doing it to keep the "majority" or his customer happy, how are they doing it? but making it beginner friendly, if you just join this game and it will take you month before you can go to a raid , it seriously would discourage many new players, they are shortening the time for a fresh player to get to the end games hence all the changes on mounts and so....

@Zupa, certain nothing would change for the most people , but I was wondering it's easy to spot bad dd and bad healers... how would one spot a bad tank?