Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Reactive Masses Cry Out: Heroics are Hard!

The more and more I think about it, what exactly is hard about Cataclysm Heroics? They are beginning to nerf stuff! Which element of the heroic dungeon itself is so difficult that people want them to be simplified?
From what I see, this all originates from:

1. Lack of Communication/Organization
2. Tunnel Vision
3. Impatience
4. Ego
5. The Golden Egg

Notice the trend here? All of these are player-based problems, none of which were actually programmed into the heroic dungeon iteself to somehow mind control the player to change their behaviour. In other words:

The problem stems from: "Heroic dungeons in Cataclysm are too hard, because they make me not want to communicate with the rest of my group, because I just want to get this over with to get my gear and I am too good to initiate any exchange of information I just need my points and my gear. If there is any mechanic in which my class can negate, someone else other than myself can do it."

Notice the many iterations of ME, MY and I in that statement. This leads us to the competent players' woes:

"Heroic dungeons seem hard because no one wants to take responsibility, learn fights, use class abilities, or co-ordinate, etc, etc, etc."

"I don't have time to engage in raid-like communicatives just to get through some heroic dungeon", so someone else will?

But you have time to play a video-game otherwise? Why not spend your time with your loved ones or familiy or doing something productive for the community or finding a way to increase your wealth? Ego.

1. Lack of Communication/Organization

Seriously, it is not THAT hard to say "I can banish/sheep/interrupt/trap/blind/slow/sap/fear/mind control/hex/did I miss any yet/root purple triangle, and I will continue to use that unless otherwise!" If someone objects, then work something out. Or you can suggest "Can you please banish/sheep/cc/ so and so mob, we need your cc skills, thanks!"

See, that wasn't so hard! Though with issues 2-5 in the way it could be. But we'll get to those later.

Organization. "I'll tank the boss facing away from everyone but I might have to move because such and such mechanic will make me move so everyone be on guard, aka don't have tunnel vision".

If you don't know a fight. ASK. Say I hired you to do financial analysis and a certain reporting format was different than what you were used to, the simplest way is to ASK. Rather than throwing all the papers out the window then jumping out the building, just ask and the task will be explained to best of my knowledge. No one minds, and no one will think that your penis is 0.5" by asking questions. Seriously no one is thinking about your penis. Actually wait now I am...ok no wait let's keep this post strict and formal and not X-rated.

If a problem persists, then change your outlook and try to tackle the fight in another perspective. The extra add is getting killed where it should be CC'd, MOVE IT AWAY.

2. Tunnel Vision

DPS: Must have highest number regardless of what I do. This means I will spam my buttons ignoring external factors such as fire/poison/cleaves/aoe's/adds. I die, blame someone and leave.

Heals: Must keep tank at full and not heal myself or the party through un-avoidable damage. (Though healer tunnel vision is an entirely different topic) If someone dies, its their fault and I leave just because.

Tank: I must survive but in my quest for survival I am forgetting placement/aoe/mechanics. Etc. If my boss placement results in DPS death its their fault. I leave.

This can easily be overcome by knowing the fights, or at least expecting what might come of a fight, such as aoe/adds. It's common sense. Stay Out of Shit. Also, try to expect what the other roles are going to be up against during the fight. So if the boss leaves a pool of shit on the ground that is REALLY wide, move him out or else NO ONE can damage the boss while avoiding shit at the same time.

3. Impatience

An important factor that affects both the player and their party members is impatience.

"Ugh I don't have time to learn new fights, or I don't have time to learn raid mechanics in a dumb heroic".

Then don't play.

"Ugh I don't have time to wait for these noobs to learn the fight or explain it clearly"

Then don't play.

Say I somehow hired you for that analyst position and I said "Ugh I don't have time to train a new person they'll figure it out themselves or they can just quit". How effective would that be for the employee and for the company? Time and resources wasted in exchange for no productivity. Baaad!

Though this "rush to the end" mentality does seem to be hard-wired into the general WoW play-style so this may be hard to overcome.

4. Ego

Again, asking questions make one seem weak and small appendaged or may make them seem dumb, stupid, mentally handicapped, and homosexual all at the same time. There is a lot of pressure behind asking a simple question such as "Where should I not stand?" Eeep! HOMO!!

Some players may cause issues because they are "too epic" to group with the likes of you. "Your DPS is so low HOMO". Or they are too good to actually explain the fights "Just stay out of shit LOL"

5. The Golden Egg

Yes I am using a concept I learned from reading Stephen Covey. As WoW is designed for the player to now hit 85 and deck themselves out in the snazziest of gears possible, our "Golden Egg" is Gear/Rep/Valor Points. We all have our eye on them, but some of us would rather just have the egg and not work to "nourish" (not the druid spell nourish) their Goose, the medium in which the egg is produced. The Goose is working with your group!

What is so Hard?

Now, other than unfortunate group compositions such as all melee, no interrupts, lack of CC (All DK), what is actually so hard about the new heroics? They are long and tedious yes, but difficult? No?

QUICK NOTES

Throne of Tides
The casters, kill the casters and run out of earth shakings!

Blackrock Cavern
Kill the chain, watch fire stacks, CC dogs, kite shadows.

Shadowfang Keep
Run, stop, stay behind things!

Deadmines
Run, run, run, use cannons, run, adds, adds, adds!

The Stonecore
Don't let the Earthchanger change, be lucky with burrow, LOS, dot, watch out for dust!

Vortex Pinnacle
Dodge whirlwinds, dodge tornadoes, CC TEMPLE ADEPT /shakefist, run into Triangle!

Grim Batol
Bomb things, dodge blitz cc purple, shield behind, kill fire adds, slow and kill adds shadow vortex.

Halls of Origination
Omg this one is too long, stay out of shit and kill adds probably and interrupt Rajh!

Lost City of the Tol'Vir
Don't touch bombs, kite phoenix kill it, kill crocs stay away from Augh, kill adds.

Throne of Flame: Seat of the Inferno
Dodge fire walls, click on geysers, kill small adds kite big fire adds, have at least two people to help absorb Hell Knuckle if no plate wearers, one if plate wearer and watch for platform explosions!

Truny the Difficult

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