Shodokan
01-29-2011, 04:09 PM
I know that I made another thread asking what people are going to be doing but I feel that because this is basically going to be a huge post (No TL;DR) that it deserved it's own topic.
Cataclysm to me was basically going to be the reincarnation of vanilla. In some aspects this was correct but in a lot of others it has strayed just as far away from my expectations. Blizzard has made a great game and the game has evolved for the better (some can argue) all the way to this expansion. The idea that game game was too easy was very true but to me the whole idea that they were going to stress the new PVP environment of battlegrounds to be like they use to be (vanilla) where they actually mattered. In making this decision blizzard has neglected all other aspects of the PVP scene.
In the past blizzard decided that 2v2 was too unbalanced so it should not give the same rewards as say 3v3 or 5v5. The problem with this is that 5v5 is also unbalanced and the amount of players actually competing in this bracket world wide is lower than ever before. Don't get me wrong...I don't want 5v5 to be changed to be like 2v2 where it does not matter but there needs to be something done in order to get representation up. Players are not doing rated BG's as much as they are arena and this is the main area they started to focus PVP on. The fact remains that blizzard next patch is homogenizing nearly every single class to not only be like another class but have unified CC times. If classes are being made more the same and the focus is being aimed back at arena (arguably the reason behind this change) then why should there be no high rewards for dedication in the 2v2 bracket?
Moving away from PVP many of the games mechanics have remained the same or have moved slightly back (cc required). This is all well and good but the idea that these mechanics have been re-implemented is great and they were a crucial part of the game and should be, my only problem is that with this re-emphasis on this area of the game and the "difficulty"/length of dungeons make them take way too long, especially for casual gamers. The raiding really has not changed what so ever... new encounters with similar mechanics that just require people to work together and not be retarded. The idea that guilds are required for progression in the game is great... in theory. The practicality of this is that every joe schmoe is looking to get into a guild and the amount of time it takes to sort the "baddies" from the "goodies" has increased substantially. The idea of guilds being a requirement makes doing PUG raids nearly impossible and those places that they are possible are realms with multiple top guilds such as blackrock and illidan.
Making money is something that people use to be able to enjoy doing, but the homogenization of that has occurred too. EVERY profession especially on low/medium population servers require farming. In some way every aspect of this game has turned into a grind. Grind your way to max level, grind your normal dungeon gear, grind your heroic dungeon gear, grind your pvp gear...then you need to grind out bosses or arena matches. Yes I understand that this is a part of all MMOs but Cataclysm has made them not only rampant in every aspect of the game but has increased the time required for every single type of grind. PVP gear takes longer than ever yo obtain especially at losses (battlegrounds), PVE gear takes longer than ever to get because of the sheer amount of time it takes to run heroic dungeons and the amount of time one must invest in raiding if they want to be successful what so ever.
Then we get into multi-boxing.... in my personal opinion blizzard has basically successfully killed it. The only seemingly viable 5's comp is dks/paladin. Shaman were looking SO GOOD in the beta but now in practice they are horrible. Nerfing and homogenization of every class makes it so that there really is no point in trying to be unique or looking for things that COULD work because the grind to get to that point of efficient testing is just too much of a time sink. PVE teams are basically just adapting to the content just like any normal player so I don't think that this is as big a deal as all the normal modes of dungeons have been completed... just a matter of time for heroics.
Part of what keeps me boxing is my ability to make gold faster than others. That has slowly changed because of the material requirements for professions being simply absurd in most cases. There are fewer areas in which to farm these materials it seems than in the previous expansions as well as less things to grind out (no rep items, nothing) which puts more competition into every single market. Half the materials one can make (cough truegold cough) are used by a small portion of the game and that relies heavily on their ability to be lucky/successful in PVE environments.
Blizzard has ignored the users of the game for a while now. Things that made classes different and fun from one another are slowly being stripped away. I'm not saying that this expansion is terrible or anything by that means... I'm just saying that so much has changed... and not for the better that it could be the ultimate downfall of the game. WoW will kill WoW, we all know that. Will Cataclysm be an ironic title? Time will tell, but if they don't figure out exactly what the masses actually want from their gaming experience then it's not going to go over well. Catering to the people who enjoy the grinds, have lots of time invested in the game and are what people consider the Elitist players... that is fine but there should be aspects of the game that cater to the casual as well, this isn't EQ.
Cataclysm to me was basically going to be the reincarnation of vanilla. In some aspects this was correct but in a lot of others it has strayed just as far away from my expectations. Blizzard has made a great game and the game has evolved for the better (some can argue) all the way to this expansion. The idea that game game was too easy was very true but to me the whole idea that they were going to stress the new PVP environment of battlegrounds to be like they use to be (vanilla) where they actually mattered. In making this decision blizzard has neglected all other aspects of the PVP scene.
In the past blizzard decided that 2v2 was too unbalanced so it should not give the same rewards as say 3v3 or 5v5. The problem with this is that 5v5 is also unbalanced and the amount of players actually competing in this bracket world wide is lower than ever before. Don't get me wrong...I don't want 5v5 to be changed to be like 2v2 where it does not matter but there needs to be something done in order to get representation up. Players are not doing rated BG's as much as they are arena and this is the main area they started to focus PVP on. The fact remains that blizzard next patch is homogenizing nearly every single class to not only be like another class but have unified CC times. If classes are being made more the same and the focus is being aimed back at arena (arguably the reason behind this change) then why should there be no high rewards for dedication in the 2v2 bracket?
Moving away from PVP many of the games mechanics have remained the same or have moved slightly back (cc required). This is all well and good but the idea that these mechanics have been re-implemented is great and they were a crucial part of the game and should be, my only problem is that with this re-emphasis on this area of the game and the "difficulty"/length of dungeons make them take way too long, especially for casual gamers. The raiding really has not changed what so ever... new encounters with similar mechanics that just require people to work together and not be retarded. The idea that guilds are required for progression in the game is great... in theory. The practicality of this is that every joe schmoe is looking to get into a guild and the amount of time it takes to sort the "baddies" from the "goodies" has increased substantially. The idea of guilds being a requirement makes doing PUG raids nearly impossible and those places that they are possible are realms with multiple top guilds such as blackrock and illidan.
Making money is something that people use to be able to enjoy doing, but the homogenization of that has occurred too. EVERY profession especially on low/medium population servers require farming. In some way every aspect of this game has turned into a grind. Grind your way to max level, grind your normal dungeon gear, grind your heroic dungeon gear, grind your pvp gear...then you need to grind out bosses or arena matches. Yes I understand that this is a part of all MMOs but Cataclysm has made them not only rampant in every aspect of the game but has increased the time required for every single type of grind. PVP gear takes longer than ever yo obtain especially at losses (battlegrounds), PVE gear takes longer than ever to get because of the sheer amount of time it takes to run heroic dungeons and the amount of time one must invest in raiding if they want to be successful what so ever.
Then we get into multi-boxing.... in my personal opinion blizzard has basically successfully killed it. The only seemingly viable 5's comp is dks/paladin. Shaman were looking SO GOOD in the beta but now in practice they are horrible. Nerfing and homogenization of every class makes it so that there really is no point in trying to be unique or looking for things that COULD work because the grind to get to that point of efficient testing is just too much of a time sink. PVE teams are basically just adapting to the content just like any normal player so I don't think that this is as big a deal as all the normal modes of dungeons have been completed... just a matter of time for heroics.
Part of what keeps me boxing is my ability to make gold faster than others. That has slowly changed because of the material requirements for professions being simply absurd in most cases. There are fewer areas in which to farm these materials it seems than in the previous expansions as well as less things to grind out (no rep items, nothing) which puts more competition into every single market. Half the materials one can make (cough truegold cough) are used by a small portion of the game and that relies heavily on their ability to be lucky/successful in PVE environments.
Blizzard has ignored the users of the game for a while now. Things that made classes different and fun from one another are slowly being stripped away. I'm not saying that this expansion is terrible or anything by that means... I'm just saying that so much has changed... and not for the better that it could be the ultimate downfall of the game. WoW will kill WoW, we all know that. Will Cataclysm be an ironic title? Time will tell, but if they don't figure out exactly what the masses actually want from their gaming experience then it's not going to go over well. Catering to the people who enjoy the grinds, have lots of time invested in the game and are what people consider the Elitist players... that is fine but there should be aspects of the game that cater to the casual as well, this isn't EQ.