So I am truly old school player, going back to closed beta for vanilla. I stopped playing at WoD and came back a few months before Legion.
What I absolutely can’t understand is the focus on speed. We play this to relax and have fun. for some of us its also socialization.
I and I think many, who looked forward to Classic approach the whole game as an adventure to be enjoyed. Personally I enjoy 5 and 10 mans more than anything in the game. I did a RFC early into classic with a tank and 2 mages + Hunter who ran quickly and efficiently without the feeling of hurry up and get this over with.
Tank assigned markers. If a mage saw his marker he sheeped. Tank marked skull and changed that on the fly as mobs died.
Yes it’s only RFC but we had a great time. One of the mages commented he had only played since legion and never did it this way. He also said he’d never had so much fun in an instance.
That was the game I’ve remembered and missed.
Now however I see things like Optimal build, Optimal path, metrics of XP/hour and so on.
One of the biggest arguments I hear is a complaint from some that a tank is too slow. I’ve even seen an analysis of hypothetical times showing what is the (again) optimal number of mobs to pull accounting for kill time and rest/drinking time.
Why is it important in a non-mythic+ run to get a 5 man completion to absolute fastest time?
Currently MC is end game, There is nothing more. If people hate 5 mans so much that there must be an emphasis on completing a dungeon in absolute minimum time why are they doing them and what are they doing instead once the run is over? Not MC after its complete once a week and you’re locked out…
Folks this is not a troll or flame bait post. I truly want to understand what I’m missing.
People went from blundering around not knowing what to do to already knowing where to go and what to do and what the optimal path is.
Its a 15 year old game that has been effectively solved. People who want to power game will power game. There’s no reason you should feel obligated to do the same if you dont want to.
it’s how BFA is played… everything as fast as possible, hurry up and get rewarded so you could move on to the next thing you need to hurry up and do. it’s an endless cycle of pointless rewards.
It will take time for that mindset to change though in classic, since many people are now accustomed to BFA.
and I think Blizzard should tune up the dungeons and raids in classic so that you cannot faceroll past mechanics of the dungeons and just nuke everything with aoe.
The retail version of the game embraces and even pushes the mindset of go go go go.
Another way of this is Classic is an inch wide and a mile deep, while retail is a mile wide and an inch deep.
If you want an RPG experience and fun play classic. If you want a competition with others, filled with Fortnite kids, play retail. They have made some really bad decisions in removing depth from the original game, I hope they fix that.
I’m sure some of the things you mentioned existed in Vanilla… but not to the extent they do today. Ironically, Ion Hazzikostas wasa leader of “Elitist Jerks’” a website devoted to mathheading the game… (and I guess some guild he led as well) it should come as no surprise that the modern game is almost nothing but math and rng, and doing this over and over to increase your odd of getting the reward and making it as efficient as possible. I mean this trend started before Ion… and one of the reasons he is now Lead Game Designer is because he iconifies that approach and was chosen to carry that banner.
There are people who enjoy that, just like there are people who enjoy the commerce/AH/banking side of the game,
There are people like you and I… who just want to escape into the world of Azeroth… the live and breath as a Priest, Mage, Warrior, Paladin… .etc
The difference is, 15years later there are more of “Them” than there are of “Us”. So it feels somewhat different… IF you focus on it.
I believe there is room for everyone to play as they like… and more than enough people playing to find like minded individuals and guilds to facilitate that.
But I agree with your sentiment. I wish i could share how amazing it is to become your character and do the quests and instances, not form the mindset of “I need to do this to get that”, but from the true desire to progress a poorly geared citizen into a real hero.
I am from vanilla as well. I left Galaxies to play WoW and quit during Cata. Since, I’ve been off and on with private servers (the ones that stay up anyway).
One thing that has been made clear is that this IS NOT VANILLA.
Far from it.
It’s nice not having the gold farmers but the rest I miss.
All of these people that are at 60 now, the ones that have cleared Ony, etc. etc. wouldn’t have happened without streamer beta gold, layer jumping, etc.
They are chasing paper trophies.
Enjoy the game for what it is. Even though it’s not Vanilla, it is pretty nice.
This is the problem right here. You, and many others, play to relax. However, I and many others play hoping for a challenge. Slow and methodical agrees with the former, and fast and dangerous to the latter.
I do complain when the tank is slow and I will avoid grouping with them if they don’t hurry up. But what is wrong with that? Play with people who enjoy the same playstyle as you.
I ran a few SM:GY and this 30 mage continued to pull as much as possible, and we would wipe. I was tanking (35 warr) and know very well my limits of pulling in regards to heals mana, my rage for threat - i can basically chain pull every pack with zero downtime. Runs go smooth with no deaths.
This mage wanted to aoe the entire instance in 4 pulls. We spent a heap of time drinking mana, deaths and gy runs.
Classic story of the bull and his son. They come to the crest of a hill and suddenly looking down the hill in the valley below is a large group of females grazing lazily in the sun. The son, excited and full of energy, practically bouncing in place, eyes wide, yells at his Pa “Hurry lets run down there and get with a cow! Hurry, hurry!”.
But Papa bull doesn’t budge. He tells his son , “Relax. Why run down the hill and scare most of them away when we can walk down the hill and be with them all…”.
This is a valid point that shouldn’t be ignored. It should be communicated when forming the group. I am like the OP, I don’t see this as a race. If you do that’s all good. But BOTH should state their intended method when advertising the group.
I agree completely with this. The problem is we don’t know what play style we’ll get when pug’ing. As healer its not usually terrible but if I choose to tank I’ll get a percentage who are having fun and a percentage literally screaming, whispering, and throwing a tantrum that it’s too slow, git gud, and so on.
Don’t get me wrong I do love a challenge, I don’t want a boring methodical run. That said I also simply don’t get the mentality of fast as possible or you are wrong.
Young people. That’s what you’re missing. These folks are about the age that we were when we played WoW way back when. It’s a different young adult culture these days. Back in the day, we could never be speed oriented because the hardware literally would not allow it. That’s not the case in the here-and-now.
It is what it is.
EDIT: Incidentally, I’m not saying that older folks are not speed-oriented as well, what I am saying is that the culture of today is what is driving this speed-oriented behavior.
When you are playing with the AoE mage, the tanking style is way different than the usual. You are not supposed to “tank” the mobs, that will kill you. You are supposed to gather the mobs, and the mage will pull aggro with his blizzard. Your job is then to kite and collect stragglers, those which resist frost nova and so on. It’s mages job to kite, slow and not die.
Players do what they have learned to do. Retail trains them in this way, so its carried over to Classic. OP, when you see that you know you have run in to retailers. It isn’t their fault, its just a reflection of what retail has become.
These folks are about the age that we were when we played WoW way back when. It’s a different young adult culture these days. Back in the day, we could never be speed oriented because the hardware literally would not allow it. That’s not the case in the here-and-now.