[1.Local]: Smoother Dungeon Finding for all?

The buzz this weekend is all about the upcoming improvements to the Dungeon Finder tool.
Snuzzle: "The Deserter debuff given to players who leave a dungeon prematurely when queuing via the Random Dungeon option has been increased to 30 minutes, up from 15 minutes. The cooldown for using the Random Dungeon option remains 15 minutes." Awesome. Maybe this will help prevent whiny tanks from dropping group because something didn't go their way if they know they're faced with a queue time as long as a DPS.
"Players who use the Vote Kick option will now be prompted to provide a reason for kicking a party member. This reason will be presented to everyone in the party except for the person voted to be kicked." Also awesome, will hopefully prevent said whiny tanks from kicking DPS "because I feel like it." I they actually have to make up a reason on the fly, maybe they'll be less likely to do so. I won't click "yes" to kick without a reason, and almost no one says the reason in chat. Maybe they think it should be apparent, but most of the time when I ask them it's just "because I feel like it."
"Anyone in a dungeon party can now re-queue their group for a dungeon, as players will still be prompted whether or not to accept their chosen role." Complete win.
I am glad Blizzard is continuing to improve upon their already awesome Dungeon Finder. They saw a lot of ways it was being exploited or used to grief other players and are working to prevent such. Bravo.
Find more on the upcoming patch changes and additional in-depth coverage throughout the weekend's posts -- and more of the chatter in [1.Local] after the break.
| More epic, or just more crowded? Did raids feel more "epic" back in the days when they required 40 players? Even if we take off our Rose Colored Goggles, it's easy to lump outdated mechanics and poorly thought-out encounter designs along with the simple fact of larger raid groups. Which parts were the good parts, and which parts were less savory? Killer: I don't miss waiting in MC for an hour while the rest of the group is formed then getting kicked from the raid for falling asleep while waiting. I once was removed from a guild for falling asleep before Onyxia. Ah, those were the good old days. I got more sleep back then. LOL Braundo: Nice post. Not enough people remember the fire resistance buff from UBRS that you mentioned. There were a lot of things about raiding that were monstrously inconvenient (not even to mention the task of wrangling 40 players), and pure nostalgia has caused a lot of people to forget those things. Raiding as a mage, conjuring water four bottles at a time and passing it out to 39 other people manually ranks up there as well. I know paladins had big hassles with having to rebuff the entire raid (one person at a time) every five minutes with standard blessings, too. There were some good times, for sure, but don't let the rose-colored glasses cloud your vision. Nathanyel: Take all of your fond classic memories, then look at each of them, and tell me, was any of them defined or even made better by the fact there were 40 instead of 25 people in the raid? Mr. Tastix: 24 people screaming and doing random sh*t in Vent is no better than 39 people doing the same thing. It'll still annoy you. What do you think about the idea of having 39 other people along during your raids: epic, or annoying? |
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| Just the tip What's the point of giving a tip to your craftsperson, anyway? Cathubodva: As a former bartender, I have to point out TIPS does not mean To Insure "Proper" Service but "Prompt" service. Tipping is completely optional on the part of the consumer. However, as a 'tender in a crowded bar, I always made sure my regular tippers got taken care of first. If I was coming up with new recipes for drinks, I'd hand 'em out to the customer to try. People who were notorious for not tipping got taken care of, just not as promptly as the tippers ~.o In game, I have a JC. While I don't require tips, if I get repeat service from a tipper, I'll go meet them where they're at and buff them up when I leave. Tipping in game is much like tipping in real life. While it's not required, it's certainly very nice to do and to receive a tip. Do you tip your craftspeople in game? If so, how much? |
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| Why WoW players should just get a room One reader hypothesizes that the reason so many players seem lukewarm to the idea of in-game housing is simply because they've never played a game that featured housing before. RogueJedi86: The lack of housing frustrates me. The problem is so many people start MMOs with WoW, and they get used to what WoW has and decide they don't want anything WoW doesn't. WoW doesn't have player/guild housing, so people get used to the idea of not having them, to the point where they don't see a use for them in other games. With 11 million WoW players not seeing the point of housing, makers of future MMOs don't see a point in adding housing that the WoW crowd won't care for, which ruins the variety in future MMOs too. I don't want all MMOs to be homogenized just because people are comfortable with WoW's stagnant situation on some features from other MMOs. I'm convinced that if these players actually played a game with housing, they'd learn to love it. FFXI and SWG and LotRO all have some form of housing, and the populations embrace them. In fact, I think player housing is one of the things that's kept SWG from completely dying and closing down. It's oddly soothing to sit in your house and place objects you looted in the world, either as trophies of conquest or just some pretty objects you found. You'd be amazed at the impressive decorations people make in SWG just from random inane loot. Stuff like AT-ATs and X-Wings and Christmas trees and anything else you can think of, just from the SWG equivalent of vendor trash. So yeah, I quite enjoy player/guild housing, thank you very much. And to be a bit on-topic and constructive, you could easily add guild housing to WoW and keep players in cities. It's easy, just make Auction Houses and banks only accessible from the cities themselves. Maybe put a guild bank in a guild house, but everything else in the cities proper. It's the method Blizz has used to keep people using the old cities after Shatt and Dalaran, and I think it'd work here too. Is the idea of player and guild housing something you find intriguing? |
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| The art of the stealth kill Sudden, unexpected death -- isn't the frisson of danger the very reason you rolled a character on a PvP realm, anyway? hotek: I play a discipline priest on a PvP realm, and I must say that being ganked while leveling is what I have to thank for the deeper understanding and appreciation of my class, my abilities and my weaknesses and how to compensate for them. Playing a healer in PvE can feel like a prolonged game of whack-a-mole at times, but when I'm out herbing and I hear that "whooooosh" noise, POP goes Reflective Shield and Renew, trinket ready and I'm ready to fight. ^_^ While yes, griefing leveling players continuously is infantile, ganking is a tradition on PvP servers, and those of us of reasonable mental persuasions do not stay bitter about it all the way to 80. We look forward to presenting a challenge to our would-be gankers and ultimately killing them when they try. I let them rez, /salute and fly off. Good try, mate -- better luck next time. Sound like your style? Try our 20 tips for leveling on a PvP realm. |
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| I got her! I got her! In the face of all this Big, Important Dialogue about Big, Important Topics, and capped of course by the Big, Important News about Big, Important Upcoming Changes, we find our funny bone tickled most by Panduh's simple but eloquent comment from the perspective of a humble Durotar Scorpid. Dischordant:The note about dueling away from PvE mobs is a good one. I remember dueling a friend of mine in Durotar (both of us 80), and she agroed one of the little level 5 scorpions just as the duel ended, with her on 1 HP. As amusing as it was to see a level 80 killed by a level 5 mob, it's something to watch out for. :P Panduh: I bet it made that scorpion's day! *scorpid runs back to all his friends screaming, "I GOT HER! I GOT HER!"* |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, [1.Local]






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
pfunkmort Feb 21st 2010 2:12PM
....someone doesn't like tanks in lfgs.
blindlinus Feb 21st 2010 2:26PM
i think that it's directed more towards people who queue as tank to make it faster but then hope someone else will just take over the job for them so they can go dps.
devilsei Feb 21st 2010 2:39PM
Actually I believe it was directed towards the cranky tanks who expect DPS to pull 9k in heroic UK so they can keep up their "heroics in 15mins" quota, or other similar situations.
It keeps the tank from leaving group because he'll be out of the system for twice as long, and keep him from kicking said dps because they are only pulling 3-4k instead of the aformentioned 9k.
N-train Feb 21st 2010 3:06PM
Let's be honest here though, if dps queues were shorter they'd be doing the exact same thing. As a full t10 tank who is just fine with 1.5k dps in heroic UK, who doesn't skip bosses, and who won't flip out if everyone in group doesn't have a 94389567839 GS, I feel that "whiney" dps and healers would just as easily drop me if they didn't have to wait.
Instead, they just sit there and tell me how I'm pulling too slowly, or give me shit for stopping to loot things, or get impatient when I don't pull 5 mobs and a boss at once, or just take it upon themselves to pull things without me. I'd almost rather be kicked then have to deal with those morons.
Its the player, not the class, its just much more inconvenient for a dps to be kicked than a tank.
Fuzzbutt Feb 21st 2010 5:14PM
I think the guy who made that comment had been kicked a couple times for underperformance.
I don't have a problem with people that are undergeared and doing under 4k dps, so long as they are doing at least 1.5k. That was the original requirement for heroics and if you couldn't pull that in January of '09, you got kicked. I don't see why you shouldn't get kicked for it now.
If your gear isn't level 80 regular dungeon blues, and you can't break 1k dps, you need to be kicked. Period. There are regular dungeons and quest rewards that will help you get to the dps mark and skill level you need to be in heroics.
I don't mind if someone is doing around 1500 and is trying their hardest. On the other hand, It's not my job to carry the auto-attack hunter in greens or the guy who's honestly trying his hardest, but can't break 1k. I'm sorry, but that's what level 80 REGULAR dungeons are for. Get the gear you need for heroics, then I'll be happy to run with your undergeared alt so he can get his t9 welfares.
TLDR: 900 dps in heroics wasn't acceptable a year ago when heroics were local-only and it shouldn't be acceptable now.
Avan Feb 21st 2010 5:52PM
@N-Train:
As a healer, let me give you some insight at why healers will complain when you pull things in a safe, controlled manner:
We're there to heal. It is absolutely boring to go into a dungeon and have the tank do safe pulls, take little to no damage, and produce enough self-healing that they don't even need a healer. Please, just give us some damage to heal. Pull the entire instance, take off all your gear, whatever. Otherwise, you'll find that your healer is on auto-follow and off watching TV or fixing a sandwich or some other form of AFK. Then what happens when you actually need a healer? They won't be there.
Snuzzle Feb 21st 2010 6:31PM
Ha I never expected to get quoted in this, let alone before the cut, so EVERYONE would read it!
To clarify: not only am I a tank, I have a druid tank as my main, a paladin tank as my alt, and an up and coming warrior tank (she's 70).
This comment was, in fact, directed to the crazy tanks who think that just because they're the tank, they can say jump and everyone else in the party says "sir, how high, sir?" Because sometimes, I just want a break from the pressure of it all, a break from setting the breakneck pace for the "GOGOGO" dps, and just want to mindlessly heal or DPS. Those are the times that I, invariably, get stuck with an elitist tank and have been many times kicked from said groups not for underperformance...but because I dared speak out against them.
I once got booted from a group because I asked him why he was voting to kick another player. His reply was simply "Because I said so." The next thing i saw was a loading screen...
Of course, we're not ALL BAD. And it is a job that can make you very bitter, very fast. I hve nothing but respect and sympathy for the decent tanks left out there. But after it's all said and done, I do enjoy it, and I think that's why these whiny tanks annoy me so much... because I now exactly what they're going through, and I know that kind of attitude is wholly uncalled for.
N-train Feb 21st 2010 7:04PM
@ Avan-
While I appreciate your insight (my other alt is a healie priest), I don't see how any of that is my problem. It is not my problem that healing H Nexus for the 4th time this week in full 245 is easy as all getout, and its not my problem that healers go afk when they should be healing.
Usually when I run something below any of the ICC 5 mans, I put a couple pieces of DPS gear on, but to stay capped I'm still going to be running around with enough EH and avoidance to make healing fairly trivial. If you're really hunting for a challenge, heal in ur dps spec or gear, hop out of shadow/chicken to heal then back in to dps, but I don't see how it is my job to make outgeared heroics hard.
In the end, healers signed up to take a random heroic just like the rest of us, and if it happens to be really easy thats part of that whole "random" element. I'm not going out of my way to get a lazy healer to do his job just cause its not that hard.
begedinnikola Feb 21st 2010 7:06PM
@Fuzzbut: No, 1.5k DPS WAS a requirement when most people did less than 2k. These days, it most certainly is NOT a requirement to do even 0.5k if the rest of the group is doing 4k average. Hell, if even one dps does 4-5k, the rest of of the DPS don't need to do 1k total. As long as they act nice and do their best (even if they don't know how), there is no reason to kick them.
So no, a DPS doing less then 1.5k is NOT a reason to kick OR leave group. The only reason for that are people that act like douche's to others for no reason. Why the hell would anyone spend weeks doing level 80 normal dungeons to get blues when they can easily just do a few heroics with NICE people and get WAY more, for WAY less time.
CS Feb 21st 2010 9:34PM
I tank both on a pally and druid, rarely have any problems with PUGs (LFG groups), but have been noticing more and more dps with a attitude. For example, people who think they should pull multiple groups of MOBs onto the group, people who are the ‘dungeon guides’ giving bad advice/instructions, and other people just standing around expecting to be carried.
If it becomes harder to vote kick bad people or harder to leave in bad situations … I just will not PUG (LFG) anything anymore, which a lot of good tanks have already started to do
Deadly. Off. Topic. Feb 22nd 2010 9:38AM
@ devilsei Feb 21st 2010 2:39PM
Actually I believe it was directed towards the cranky tanks who expect DPS to pull 9k in heroic UK so they can keep up their "heroics in 15mins" quota, or other similar situations.
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Yup and we know how cranky, sore and hurt a tank gets when the dps doesn't do what they want to the letter.
Just this weekend I ran into a tank who not only put me down for the dps I did on my ALT, but decided to "educate" me by telling me to use the skills I was already using before ranting that he was "carrying me." Oh yeah, I intentionally went in thinking "that Jackass from Skywall is going to be here and he'll carry me so I can just sit back and do nothing."(note sarcasm) Gah, some people really are clueless. I work hard on my alt, I'm trying to gear her up as best as I can in the instances that my gear frame allows me to be in, but these over geared tanks come in and just think the heroics are their playgrounds only.
Have you ever tried to burn down a mob that the overgeared players kill faster than you can? How in the hell can you match their dps and be considered viable when they don't give you a chance to even prove yourself.
Sad thing is, I had done several instances prior to that one and no one had an issue with my dps. In fact each instance I did was completed and finished in good time. I was even in an instance where I was better geared than the tank and I didn't pull threat, I did my job and even got some upgrades out of it too.
As well, let me point out, before I was forced to leave the instance the tank was bitching me in, we had downed the first boss in Occ without any difficulty AT ALL. Finally this was the instance I wanted to go to, to learn it and have some fun in, but I was made to feel so crappy that I just left it. I'm not going to stand around and be insulted and put down by some guy with no balls who thinks he can get off by ranting and raving how useless I was when 1. No one died 2. The boss went down pretty quickly 3. We were progressing pretty quickly
It's pretty difficult to keep up with some people when they are geared to the roof and are coming into the heroics just for badges and rush through the content because they've done it so many times before. Of all the pugs I did that day I never felt so abused and hurt then I did with that jerk from Skywall.
Warlock Feb 22nd 2010 2:07PM
No, as DPS I've definately experienced my fair share of this. Not tanks kicking bad DPS or anything of that sort, but definately tanks (and healers) dropping after one wipe or even instantly (seriously, don't queue for random heroics if you are going to leave before we even start!). And I've definately seen the "I have no queue times so I am superior to you" attitude more than once.
So good, there needs to be *some* punishment for this behavior.
toxicityj Feb 21st 2010 2:13PM
I think a 40 man raid would be a blast if you have the right people. I joined in right after BC launched (inspired by the South Park episode to join :D) and wasn't raid-ready until a month before WotLK came out. So I missed the big raids like that. I never got to experience it and I truly wish I had.
I also truly wish elitist douches from Vanilla would shut the hell up already. "Dur remember when epics were epic?" No, I don't and I don't care. I'm glad more than just those with endless hours to devote to a game are able to raid with me. "More like Welfare epics". Shut up. Yes, epics are rediculously easy to acquire as a fresh 80 (I geared up in full epics in like 3 days), but getting high end epics isn't that easy. I've hit a brick wall with gearing my DK because I can't find a suitable raid group and I've only got 30-some frost emblems and I've grabbed all the triumph gear.
tl;dr
I hate Vanilla elitist douchebags and wish I could experience a 40-man raid.
devilsei Feb 21st 2010 2:36PM
Eh, that statement is contradictory at best though.
Those "Vanilla Elitist Dbags" are used to having to deal with just a few pieces of gear dropping from a 40man boss. That made the gear more epic because if you won it, you WON it, which is where the DKP system came to play. DKP was used to show someone's dedication to the guild and raids, because you needed those 39 others.
Now that we have 10/25mans, that gear seems much easier to get, because there is less competition, which is why DKP is no longer favored. With the drastically lowered number requirement, it simply doesn't provide the kind of incentive it used to.
Shift in gameplay led to a divide in two different schools of raiding. I wouldn't call the general group of them Dbags though, because part of the experience in 40man raiding WAS winning that epic that dropped, and when people saw you with it, it was part awesome gear, and part status symbol.
Now all those epics are just fluff to fill up your gearscore, which as we all know, is the best way to gauge player skill. So I can understand where they are coming from.
toxicityj Feb 21st 2010 2:41PM
I see where they're coming from, but most of them act like they're the only ones worthy of playing the game.
devilsei Feb 21st 2010 2:50PM
Yeah, true.
I tend to see them more as those cranky vietnam vets than Dbags though... =P
Though I'll give more respect to the vets than them. Much more.
blindlinus Feb 21st 2010 2:24PM
More Epic? ~ 39 people is far more annoying. also, people forget how limited the gear was for different specs in vanilla endgame
Tipping ~ i always tip. usually 10g if i have to do a lot of footwork or if it's a common cut/chant/etc, 15g if the person comes to me or it's quick service, 20g if i've been looking for a while, if it's a hard to find cut or if the person is going to log onto a different toon to help
Room&Sword&Board ~ i like the idea of guild housing but i think a solid reason for not implementing it sooner is the amount of Ghopping that occurs. maybe if included with guild talents in cataclysm it would help strengthen the guilds and, by extension, the communities of each server
Rotties67 Feb 21st 2010 2:33PM
I am not trying to sound like a Vanilla elitist douche. I apologize in advance if I come across that way.
I was very fortunate in that I was in a guild of mainly young adults (24-28ish I would guess) aged raiders. We had teenagers, we had older. We raided MC, BWL, and AQ40. We stopped in Naxx. We also did the 20 mans. But that guild also became close. Most successful long lasting guilds did. We knew each other on a personal basis, etc. We would pass on loot even if it was our last piece of tier because player A hadn't gotten anything in a while.
The reason I enjoyed the 40 mans so much more is because they were that much more stressful. There were 39 others that you had to count on (to start anyway), and each had to pull their weight. In our guild, we had enough when we said raiding starts at 7. That meant everyone was in the instance ready to pull at 7, with a few parked outside the instance just in case we needed them. We didn't run into the issue of a 7 pm start turning into 745 pulls. Again, we were fortunate and I know that.
It was a different time, I know that, and I am grateful I got to experience it. Walking around in full T1, the slow grind to T2. The times the Mages were supposed to put up ports to SW after Ony so we could get the buff then head to BWL and instead we ended up in Darn..... Things like that, I miss.
In BC 10 mans? Hey! UBRS....had.....wait a minute!!! It was great that people got to experience the content. I think that is wonderful. And I am not an idiot. I know if Blizz left a 40 man option, very few would do it (unless it involved achievements/drakes/etc). I wouldn't even begin to suggest that.
I enjoy 10 and 25 mans. I really do. And I am still in touch with the guild I raided with back in Vanilla. But it isn't the same for me now. I just am not enjoying things like I used to. Again, I have fun, I still like to play, but not like I did (I hope that makes sense). It is worth the subscription fee.
Foxfyr Feb 21st 2010 2:35PM
Every time I vote to kick someone I will supply the reason "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."
Chase Feb 21st 2010 2:45PM
@foxgyr. I don't get it?