So, last night I started grinding out my tomes of 33 busywork or whatever. The story has pretty much lost all interest for me at this point. Part of that could be because I already knew a fair amount of the story by reading raiders talk about the it and such but, mainly, I'M SO TIRED OF ORCS. Not really engaged with demons either, which bodes well for Legion.
Anyways, last night I think I realized how much I dislike raiding. Now, it was LFR, so it wasn't organized raiding with a good team, with good communication, and the reward of group effort in over coming an obstacle. It wasn't a bad group overall. Abuse was minimal*, someone only somewhat testily explained mechanics after the few wipes we had, wait times were reasonably short, and the rewards were decent - I got three parts of my mage's Felwhatever set of whateverness. With some warforging on the one thing. Yay!
As you can see, my engagement with it is subdued because the grind to get it was just boring.
Actually, quick detour here. This post is not a criticism of other raiders or that it shouldn't exist or whatever. While I do think Blizzard puts too much emphasis on raiding and perhaps could better allocate resources to make the game better, I wouldn't want to remove raiding. This post is more of a thinking-out-loud-about-my-relationship-with-raiding. Mission. Quest. Thing. Part One, most likely, because I doubt I'll get through everything today. Time to add that Rambling label.
Okay, and we're back. So, what was my point? Oh, that while I got upgrades that will improve my game and (possibly?) a tome on every boss, I pretty much hated it. The fights to get to the bosses were boring and repetitive. The boss fights themselves seemed to go on forever. Is this possibly due to poor DPS in LFR? Very much so and I may be part of the problem. I typically sit about middle of the pack in DPS. Sometimes in the top 5, sometimes it seems I was trying to gum the boss to death. But even beyond that, I just felt that I was hitting the same few keys again and again and again and again with no real reason.
And this is one of the reasons why I think I could never really raid. I don't care to look up the best rotation for my spec. I don't want to only pick the best talents DPS-wise. I want to be able to enjoy playing my character and not the cookie-cutter-one-rotation-to-rule-them-all that is best.
I appreciate the point that if I'm not doing my best on a team, then I'm making others carry me. It's a fair point and I don't actually want to be carried. But I also don't want to play approved Mage spec #35 with rotation XYZ because that's what's best. Which is why I think real raiding would never work for me.
But if I care to see the actual story of the expansion? Then I am forced to join LFR. If I don't, I get half of the game and, very specifically, not the end. So, when I go into LFR I do my best to read the guide and listen and do whatever I can not to be the load. The thing is, that isn't a fun feeling. Trying hard not to weigh down a team - especially when you are only a "team" in the loosest sense of the word.
Beyond me and my idiosyncrasies of wanting to play how I want to play, there are also the fights themselves. Fiannor had a post recently about "What makes a boss fight fun?" and it is interesting and something I never found time to comment on there. It's something I want to comment on more in-depth at another time but for now, boringly long fights where you can probably use Heroism twice in the fight would fall under "not fun" for me. Again, that may be due to LFR damage being low and thus taking a long time to down a boss, but then LFR should probably be revisited. Grumpy, Fiannor, and others have better thoughts on that. (although I'm having trouble finding them this morning. Whatever).
So, I guess I end this where I basically started. I know I'm not a raider and I'm fine with that. There was just something about last night's grind that really struck me about how much I disliked it. There's likely more to this topic but I should head off.
Writing tic of the day: I had thought it would be "whatever" but "so" seems to
have beaten that out today. It does most days, to be fair. Commas are, of course, disqualified because I've never met a sentence I couldn't beat a comma into.
* Blizzard - if the phrase - "Abuse was minimal" is considered an element of a decent group, you might have a toxic community. Heads up.
Hi, don't think I've commented here before, I started writing a response but it got a bit out of hand so I just turned it into a post of my own. Just rambling of my own from a different perspective. Feel free to remove this after seen. Cheers :)
ReplyDeleteFirst, thanks for replying and giving me a new blogger to read :)
DeleteSecond, I'll post most of my thoughts over at your place (and perhaps in a follow-up post here), but I really appreciated your view. You actually hit on a few things that explain some of the issues and, to Blizzard's credit, they somewhat addressed.
So, thanks!
LFR really is the red-headed step child of WoW.
ReplyDeleteThe irony is that it was supposedly created for folks exactly like yourself, where the only way you'll ever see the end game and complete the story line (such as it is) is via LFR, and it turns out to be a poor mechanism to do so as you eloquently detail above.
I don't find LFR useful because the mechanics are so neutered that it is no longer a viable way to learn a fight ready for Normal level, unlike SoO. In fact, it positively breeds bad habits that I have to un-learn when mechanics suddenly and inconveniently become fatal. Often for several people at once.
When my raid team was firmly stuck on Kilrogg and Gorefiend (it seemed like an eternity) the only way I could get more tomes was via LFR so I ran it, and the wait times and the fight times were bonkers.
The length of fights is ridiculous. So many adds to wade through, then the boss and typically more waves of adds. Rinse and repeat. And repeat. No fight should last more than 5 minutes, especially ones where the pinch point comes right at the end, and one tired person makes one error and causes a wipe.
I have no idea how you fix the toxic atmosphere, although I must say that my recent experience hasn't actually been that bad, possible because the ultra-impatient l33ts have got what they need and have moved on. In all seriousness, a skilled player can probably get a Normal 13/13 run completed as a PUG faster than us mere mortals could queue and run through LFR with our fellow "mouthbreathers" as I believe we're affectionately know in those circles.
As for learning rotations, etc. I enjoy pushing myself to improve my dps, and there are some great guides out there such as Altered Time which give you the basics without obsessing over minutia. I use logs to see where I can improve (especially my uptime, which has been my Achilles Heel). But I struggle with spec and even talent changes between bosses. Partly that's down to me finding it hard to instantly pick up a new rotation (even a small change makes me stop and think: never a good thing), and part of it is that this is role-playing game at heart, and constantly changing everything turns it into a just a computer game, a puzzle, and the heart of why I do it is lost. So I work on spec and glyph/talent setup that works well everywhere and try my best to perfect it.
[Spolier Alert]. The ring is a crushing disappointment for someone who enjoys raiding like myself, quite how you are going to handle the excitement of earning something you have no use for I can't begin to imagine. All that grinding for 33 tokens and for what? Oh dear.
I really do like being able to finally see the end of a story, so I think LFR is a good thing in general. Crooked above has some fair thoughts on it as a system, but it is nice for me to be able to see the end of the story for the game I bought in a reasonable amount of time.
DeleteI'm not sure what level of mechanics should be in LFR. I do think they should be challenging to my mouthbreather level but not cakewalk. That way they still allow some level of risk and it can be a true learning environment for regular raiding, if people want to use it that way. Plus, like you said, people wouldn't develop fatally bad habits for regular raiding. The question though becomes: is that truly possible?
The toxic atmosphere is really a WoW problem, and beyond that an internet problem. That's not to say that WoW shouldn't try to do something though. Blizzard would need to be both more proactive and reactive in policing the community. Start with trade chat. It's a joke but it's also true. It also is not going to happen.
Despite how I may have made it sound, I don't mind learning a rotation, but I guess...I like discovering it and learning myself. I often actually like theorycrafting in games. It helps me feel like I really know my character. Now, I'm sure I'm not great at it, but I do enjoy it. I think the problem is that my amateur level theorycrafting is good, but not the best and people often want the best for a raid. And I do understand why, they would want that. That means if a team would need me to be a certain spec with certain enchants and other such, it would just push me away from raiding.
This bit really resonates: "...and part of it is that this is role-playing game at heart, and constantly changing everything turns it into a just a computer game, a puzzle, and the heart of why I do it is lost."
The problem seems to be that you and I see this as a role-playing game at heart, but many raiders do not and I don't think Blizzard does either. That's not inherently bad, but perhaps a fatal mismatch on interests.
As for the ring, I probably won't be as disappointed because my expectations for it improving my damage are minimal. The cape was amazing for me because of my level of play but I'm aware of the restrictions of the ring so I'm not expecting much. I'm mainly doing this to be able to see the story to the end at least once.