WOTLK doesn't need RDF

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
609

Are you talking about the one currently in TBC? If so, it’s got a host of problems. It’s not random, meaning people are going to pick and choose. Toons with the highest gear score are going to get picked first.

So what you might ask? Get better gear you say! Be gooder! That all sounds fine and well to say go out, get better gear, come back when you can contribute. Wrath is a different animal that TBC where you have to do the dungeons, you have to get the reputations, so hitting that daily is the only way to get better gear.

If you block people early because they only have Ilevel 180 gear vs 201, you will have a population crash when they can’t progress. The LFD alternative puts everyone on an equal level to get into dungeons and get better gear. The current looking for group tool is ensuring that people get left behind.

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610

Class tuning often does include implementing new features :slight_smile:

As I said it’s more than just changing some numbers.

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611

And yes that’s entirely the point, class balance was done to fix something not just arbitrarily done. Just like LFD was done to address actual issues not just arbitrarily added.

Now if blizzard wants to address those issues some other way in classic that’s fine. But so far they have refused to do so and given that LFD is the option they used back in the day.

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612

No, the tool in TBC Classic is very barebones and not even very easy or convenient to use. The Looking For Group tool even in original Wrath was much more user-friendly (and widely used) than the one from TBC.

Of course, it shouldn’t be random. In a world with no Dungeon Finder, it would be a pretty grievous slap in the face to the players to force any kind of RNG into forming groups. They shouldn’t take player agency away.

That depends on who’s forming the groups. There will certainly be a lot of people who will only invite people with good gear and whose class fits a specific group comp they want. But that doesn’t stop you and other people from forming your own groups and taking anyone who wants to go.

“That daily” didn’t exist until 75% of the content and more than 50% of the lifetime of the expansion had passed. By the time we reach the ICC phase, there will already be two seperate “tiers” of catch up dungeons (which award badges) as well as the daily and weekly quests for dungeons and raids.

One of those two catchup dungeons awards gear that allows you to run Trial of the Crusader. The other awards gear that allows you to run ICC itself.

Why would you say there hasn’t there been a “population crash” in TBC Classic then? We’re capable of checking item levels now, and indeed very many groups are formed by people who only want people with gear or specific classes.

What features?

Also, you do realize that Class balance and systems features are literally entirely different departments within the WoW team, right? The people on the Class balance team don’t alter the game’s code as system designers, they’re basically mathematicians who identify and solve problems in numbers.

The team that develops system features have absolutely nothing to do with balance and are only there for improving the UI, systems and features of the game. They’re the ones who work directly with the code. The people working on Class balance do not work directly with the code of the game.

Broadly speaking, WoW’s development is distributed among several distinct teams: Class balance, systems and features designers, dungeon and raid encounter designers, lore and quest writers, and art/asset designers.

There’s a reason why, when you watch WoW panels at BlizzCon, each person on the stage represents one of these teams, and each one of these people will take different questions asked there.

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613

As an end user of the product I don’t particularly care about the internals of how blizzard organizes beyond what I get as the end result.

LFD solves some very real issues, just like class balance tuning does. And I’m not invested in LFD itself just that the issues it solves get solved. If the classic team comes out and announces some new brilliant idea to address low pop realms, low level dungeons, dps que times, people playing in off hours then great I’m all for it.

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614

I’m not asking if you care. Whether or not you care has nothing to do with this conversation. I’m asking if you’re aware of the fact that class balance is separate from systems and features, even in the real, physical world.

You’re getting very off-topic, and you still haven’t answered my question. You argued that class balance isn’t different from systems and features and I’d like to understand how exactly you reached that conclusion.

Why are you avoiding the question?
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615

No sir. You are very wrong here. There were originally two daily Northrend instance quests—one heroic and one normal—which randomly rotate to a different dungeon each day.

The old form your own group trope. If it were that easy everyone would be doing it by now.

Somewhat agree, but that’s not the issue I speak of. If there are 20 BM hunters in the pool and an arcane mage shows up… who are you taking? Never before or since did class/spec matter less than in wrath heroics. 99% of the time the first available DPS would be more than adequate. Given the choice, the best classes and the best gear will get picked leaving less desirable combos shut out.

I have no memory of this tool you speak of.

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616

Wait, what? If you’re not referring to the Daily Random Heroic or Daily Random Dungeon, why would you bring that up in a conversation about Dungeon Finder?

The people who want to run dungeons certainly do, if they can’t find a group to join. Where do you think all the LFM spam comes from?

Me personally? I don’t care. Even in raids, there’s no need for min/maxing your composition unless you’re doing the content with little gear. I will never cut people out of dungeon groups because of some ‘meta’.

The people who do seem to either think this content is super difficult, or they look at WoW like some sort of job where efficiency is the most important thing. Both of those are ridiculous perspectives to hold. xD

It was pretty similar to the LFG tool we have in the game now, but it was much easier to select the content you wanted to run and you weren’t quite as limited in how much information you could put in your listing. It was much easier to browse if you were looking to fill more slots in your group. I just tried to find a screenshot of it or something, but I’m mostly just coming up with Dungeon Finder or the current TBC Classic tool.

It was actually used quite often by a lot of people – I would guess that it was probably used at least equally to chat channels if not more for dungeons at all levels.

And Brian Birmingham has already mentioned that they’re looking into improvements to the tool, so it will likely be somewhat similar to the tool in Retail.

617

It’s not “easy” to form your own group in tbc design. It is easy to form your own group in wotlk design though.

Remember tbc still focused on rog elements of class/spec having strengths and weaknesses. Wotlk turned to “bring the player not the class” meaning even a rogue has decent aoe in wotlk. On top of class changes the difficulty to reward of wotlk heroics is also much better at encouraging players to do it because the heroics are MUCH easier. Wotlk heroics (except maybe the ICC released ones) can be tanked without even being in a tank spec, same for healing them. On top of the fact dual spec will be a thing in wotlkc AND that wotlk is one of the most alt friendly expansions ever in wows history with almost all attunement being gone and those that do exist are easily passed because it involves gear score (which is easy to get for alts with 10/25 man raids not sharing lockouts) or an easy quest.

You are comparing forming groups in tbc design to wotlk design. And they are apples to oranges with how much it changed from those 2 expansions.

618

So you don’t remember looking for groups updated from tbc to wotlk? Tell me your a wrath baby without telling me your a wrath baby…

619

Depends on who is already in my group. If I have a warlock and a shadow priest I’ll take a hunter. I try to form groups based on non competing gear drops if I can help it.

Also, BM hunter isn’t a very good dps in wotlk. Just an FYI. But seeing as I am playing a hunter as my main, I would probably rather bring the arcane mage if I am on my hunter. Because again, I try to not stack gear needs.

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620

Not sure if I understand your confusion. If wrath launched today as it is you still need to get that daily done, and you still need a group to get it done sans LFD. LFD version eliminates that, which would be nice.

We’re coming at it from different angles but I think we’re on the same page? I’m well aware that’s where the spam comes from. With LFD , most of the spam goes away and you just wait round til the Q pops.

Completely agree, we used to do naked wrath and Naxx runs just wearing rings and weapons out of boredom. I just know that any zone I’m in in TBC, it’s either incessant LFG spam or paying 100g for a tank spam. If that crap carries over to wrath it won’t be worth playing. I personally think LFG fixes that.

Agree again. Unfortunately with every group it’s not going to play out like that.

No memory whatsoever. I was in a really good guild back then and I knew everyone on the server. These days… not so much. Either way, if there was a tool like that I don’t think I ever used it.

621

LFG chat and Dalaran trade chat (if you truly are suggesting that channel will be necessary to find groups) are both accessible outside outaside of Dalaran. LFG by default, and joining Dal trade chat is a simple /join.

As such, you can literally do the same thing you were planning on doing “out in the world” while simply copy pasting your previous chat response until you find a group.

The only difference is you are doing it, not some random algorithm, and that’s the point. That is engaging with your community, even if it’s minor, it doesn’t matter what your interpretation is.

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622

I get where you’re coming from. I just don’t get where me macroing a LF [insert role here] button and hitting it in channel every few minutes while I’m out mining adds to the social experience.

Yes. I’m posting in chat. Yes. I’m engaging with the community. How do those actions contribute to adding a positive social experience? You’re saying that if I hit the LFG button every minute or so and eventually land a group I’m more a part of the community? It’s just robotic button pushing, I’m not getting to know anyone that way.

So Strong disagree here. I’d much rather toss my name in the LFD hat and get to know my server through raids.

623

An honest question to the anti-df crowd:

Were you around for original Wrath release and subsequent release of dungeon finder?

Shortly after wrath release, the game was still in a decent place community wise. But that quickly changed because some design decisions (that were actually beneficial) that happened in wrath. The biggest shift in design was related to gear itemization.

Gear previous to wrath was a hodgepodge of stat allocations and special effects that seemed to be unrelated to the item’s level. I’m not necessarily talking about tier gear, but all the off-pieces one would wear. You could easily have a lvl 40 something ring be BIS for extended periods of end-game content. This happened in both vanilla and tbc. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to be wearing a blue piece that was better than a purple alternative.

This completely changed in wrath. Each item had an ilvl that when combined with it’s quality (green, blue, purple) produced an item budget that dictated what stats were available and how much of each stat could be present. There were still a few outliers, but for the most part and increase in ilvl typically meant a better piece of gear. This was very helpful to players when trying to gear their characters as it made things easier to understand especially for new players.

The drawback to this evolution was it also gave the gatekeeper players an easy way to “evaluate” someone without even bothering to “get to know them” or socialize!!! It became the norm for any PUG advertisement to include gear score as a prerequisite for joining their group. The requirements were heavily inflated to try to get “the best player” but it was really an attempt to find people to carry them in the dungeon.

The community was a toxic mess. It actually looked a whole lot like the community the players have created in classic. It will happen again but will likely be even worse since we’re starting at an even higher level of community issues. The dungeon finder was introduced to combat this and it was HUGELY popular.

It became possible for any class and any spec to access the dungeon content of the game they were paying to play. There were still problems with the community but at least no one else could block them from it. The gatekeepers lost all power over the general playerbase. It added FREEDOM to the game that was being stifled by a minority of players. Now it seems we pleabs have to fight to get these freedoms back once again.

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624

Your realm reputation effects your group invites. . When you do lfm or if you are forming the group.

625

#nochanges, stop catering to gatekeepers

626

Again, classic destroyed all of these lies.

627

Maybe 15 years ago in the before times. Outside of a few cliquey people, realm reps mean squat. Now, it’s more of the FOTM meme specs and logs.

All I want is to not spam in chat for a 15 minute dungeon rolf stomp.

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628

You know what, I’m willing to agree to disagree on this, and I think this should be the indicator is that this is where the chasm appears between players like me who value every single little element of engagement in the social aspect and those who think that there’s “no point” or that certain elements are meaningless or have an insignificant effect on the overall experience.

I think it’s totally fair for you to have the opinion that these things feel arbitrary to you, but this illustrates the distinction between a player like me and one like you; I believe the “social side” of WoW is a sum-of-its-parts situation, however small each part is. For example, this is why they’re removing the DE button. It’s just another, however small, moment of interaction that is made unnecessary.

It’s all these seemingly small elements that add up to make the social environment what WoW used to have prior to DF.

I totally get it though, you and other players who dislike this change are just thinking “who cares! I barely socialize or interact with those elements anyway!”, but from my perspective this is entirely a narrow view. Those things are meaningful in the overall, at the very least to a cross-section of players significant enough to make move Blizzard to have made a change to it’s part to play in the upcoming WOTLKC. It’s important to reconcile with the fact that you have your opinion, and we have ours, and that both are valid, but in this case Blizzard seems to have sided and agreed with us for their classic vision.

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