I don’t think your point about them logging off and thus contributing to faction imbalance is valid.
For one, both factions do this. Secondly, alts are a thing. Thirdly, in a world where BGs exist, the incentive for people to be running out and about doing PvP in the open world is almost non-existent.
If they were out and about playing the game, there’s no guarantee they’d do much world PvP, anyway. For example, they might be farming in an instance rather than in the open world (cough, mages).
I don’t really think it’s a shame for newer players to be immediately introduced into the meta of end-game content.
World buffs are an easy way to vastly improve your performance in a tangible way. Consumes are a minor expense in the grand scheme of things, and encourage people to actually play the game between raids to fund their use.
Your first points are valid if people are actually doing those things, playing alts, etc. - I believe that most people whom I speak of, the more casual playerbase that are trying to model themselves off the playerbase that have the time to do that kind of stuff, simply don’t play on alts - they stay logged out longer than they would if they chose to not buff.
By the same token, farming gold in instanced PvE is an issue when considering open world server health. If you rolled on a PvP server, you should be there because you enjoy the sandbox aspects of the game and want to PvP, I guess? It makes no sense to me how people on PvP servers do everything they can to actively avoid it so they can PvE more efficiently.
By the same token your thoughts on BGs existing giving no incentive to PvP in open world illustrate my issues with the PvE or min/max mindset - I think that Classic has a certain level of personal responsibility by the player to use it’s sandbox aspects and create your own fun so that others can have fun through a core component of the game, player interaction. Again, PvP server - player versus player.
These beliefs come from trying to pin point the social nature of players then versus players now and why PvP servers have largely been turned into PvE server wastelands of horrible faction imbalance.
As far as consumes being a minor expense and all of that, that’s entirely true - the only finite resource in Classic is black lotus, use what you have wisely.
Overall it’s just exposing fundamental flaws in a 15 year old game that has been min/maxxed to death, though. I do not fault people for taking the most efficient routes possible by any means.
My fondest memories of Vanilla, and older WoW in general - are of things I did with friends in open world derping around, by that token I am biased towards how I feel people can best spend their time in Classic to maximize their long term outlook on the game when it’s long gone.
they cost 15 mins worth of effort and thats only if you get the songflower buff and the ony buff.
most of that time is just summoning people and waiting in sw for the ony buff.
if you want to go super sweaty you can get the zg buff which will take you another 10mins cause its out of the way if you dont have locks there to summon.
the 2k mana is 100% not useful. lets say i have 10k with a flask. if I never, as in for the rest of BWL, breach 8k mana after the vael debuff expires, what did that extra mana pool give me? Simply this: a larger “runway” or buffer from ooming. I am using pots and runes on CD. If I’m constantly at 20-80% mana, that extra hypothetical mana is in fact useless.
I tried Titans out yesterday. I thought it would come in handy since I’m spamming holy nova on the tech packs, ya know, maybe i accidentally eat some bombs or a stray flamestrike. it didn’t do anything. I had over 8k hp raid buffed and didn’t use desperate prayer once in the entire instance.
Next month I’ll be trying spell power. Melee using HP flasks was definitely useful before ZG buff was added. Now, I’m not so sure. Everything dies so fast.
yes, i’m aware lol. this is the state of healing in speed runs. it will increase my smite dps on ebonroc/flamegor and nefarian. also…150 spell power on a 15% coefficient aoe spell isn’t nothing
It’s not really an issue of people not understanding how to be efficient in doing it, it’s the issue of raid logging culture, people without a lot of time to play, and selfish behavior making it difficult for smaller guilds to find the manpower to get it done efficiently.
There’s an entire gold market around summoning services on most servers for a reason, some people are just very stubborn and choose to not pay to get their Tribute and Songflower - etc.
also, just for the record, private servers did recognize how easy the content becomes with world buffs. kronos disabled them for the first month of new 40man raids. i’d be down for this 100% in classic
Your comments here are spot-on. The aspects of Classic that are unique from retail WoW have nothing at all to do with min-max PvE performance (which retail provides a much better platform for with its more challenging mechanics and vastly higher skill cap). What makes Classic special is the spontaneous open world interactions, server community, guild rivalries, etc. So many players who never experienced this game way back are only seeing a fraction of what it has to offer by raid logging with full wbuffs and equating their enjoyment to their parse percentage or clear time. Servers would feel way more alive if wbuffs weren’t a thing.
to improve yourself and your play all you have to start doing that its finding out how and what the people above you in terms of performance and assets do.
it is the fault of people not to take advantage of what they can to better themselves.
i understand people have limited playtime or gold or what have you but for them to not take advantage of what they can and then look down on people who are out performing them for doing so is just bad.
not kronos…if you do a little digging you’ll find kronos had a “funserver” or “undertuned” reputation…precisely because their focus was Blizzlike values for pve content. “nost” servers were always overtuned and this was never a secret
I agree that looking down on players for how they choose to play is largely unhealthy for anyone in the game. Like I said you do you and ignore the haters. Everyone enjoys their 15 a month differently.
Try RPPVP servers if you aren’t finding what you seek on Whitemane - I think that’s where your guild is?
I started on Stalagg, and it was amazing because the people who were left when P2 started stayed because they were down for PvP, Whitemane was largely an alliance PvE wasteland, they simply did not want to PvP and valued what PvP is differently.
RPPVP is something I had not originally considered - but the people on these servers value the game for the right reasons in my opinion and are largely more responsible because of those values in terms of other players enjoying the game.
Grobbulus is full and becoming too alliance heavy, but I hear great things about Deviate Delight.
I honestly would have quit the game if I had not found RPPVP servers, it is what I should have done from launch, the most Vanilla-like servers I’ve experienced, and I went out of my way to level on many PvP servers trying to find a good home.
Just come with good intentions. People are closed minded around the idea of RP, I was myself and originally wrote the servers off because of it - but it really does enrich the core of Classic so much that it’s hard to describe.
On a side note, we feel so strongly about world buffs deteriorating the spirit of the game that we do not raid with them - or require consumes further than Major Mana Potions, Major Healing Potions and Heavy Runecloth Bandages.
If a head drops while I’m in Stormwind so be it, but I will not log out with the buff or intentionally AFK in the city waiting on it. We do drop Heart for ZG because it’s easy enough and doesn’t really effect anything.
The philosophy is around there’s no reason to do it unless the content warrants it.
It has been an interesting experience so far, and something I would consider more enriching and fulfilling to my experience in Classic.