Dunno… lately I’m having a hard time getting excited about the next expansion. I’ve seen a good number of people who have gotten extremely excited. They’re looking at the new widgets coming. They are looking at the new way that gear will work. They are looking at reforging.
Me…. I’m just filled with apathy about the whole damned thing. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe its because I’m just not going to have the time to dedicate to the game. Maybe its because I seriously doubt I’ll be able to raid in the next expansion. Maybe its because… I’ve just played the game too damned long.
More Grinds
I have a hard time getting excited about what’s coming next when I’m still trying to plan a path to seeing and downing Arthas. I have a hard time being excited as we deal with adding 6-10 new reputations that I’ll be required to grind if I want to get my shoulder/head/recipe. Oh.. and adding things like path of the titans where I get to compete with the 3,000 other people on my server grinding for relics to grind my Path of the Titans up…. because… god knows you can’t raid without it.
Yes.. sorry I’m having a hard time getting excited for something that’s basically meaning that we’re going to need to start all over again.
Yes… they are transforming the old world. Yes… they are adding new races.
Sorry… its not thrilling me. I have 9 level 60+ characters. I have 6 over 70. I have 4 level 80s. Yes.. I’m sorry, but I’m not excited about starting some other new character and leveling 1-85. Will they streamline zones? Sure…
Will they make them prettier? Yes probably.
Will they make it even easier to level because god knows… we need to get to max level EVEN FASTER!!!!? Probably.
Worn Thin
I think a lot of WoW players have kind of gotten dug into the groove too much to be honest. Is it a great game? Yeah… is it something other games should aspire to? Dunno…
For me, I’ve been playing this game long enough, its kind of worn thin on me. I still have goals I want to complete. I WANT to see Arthas. I want to kill him in 5 man. I want to kill him in the raid. Is it realistic? Who knows??? Maybe its a pipe dream.
I actually enjoy looking and working to that goal, but its hard for me to really get excited about what’s coming after it.
The Failure of the 10 man Experiment
If I’ve got one thing that I’d really put my finger on and say has really worn me down the most lately, its the failure of 10 man content. Yes… I think its succeeded in some ways, but in many other ways its failed as well. There is such a substantial difference between 10 man and 25 man gear. Its such a large differential that people don’t want to participate in 10 mans just to see the content. They want their shiny gear. They want the better stuff.
Want the best trinkets? Gotta go to 25 man.
Want to get that cool weapon? Gotta go to 25 man.
Want the best itemized gear pound for pound? Yep… 25 man.
Blizzard went to great lengths to make 10 man available, but then cripple the loot tables in 10 man. Hell just look at the leather DPS drops in Ulduar. Its aweful.
But wait you say…. you can get badge gear toO!!!!
That’s not the point. Look at the gear that’s actually available in the 10 mans. Clearing 10 man Ulduar in only 10 man gear is a pain. Is it doable? Yeah… but when everyone can just go get their badges or go get a 25 man PUG, then why should they waste their time with your 10 man? I mean if they show up they are guaranteed to basically need nothing. They don’t need a gear upgrade. They will be showing up to basically say… they downed the content in 10 man.
Blizzard has almost made 25 mans manditory again. Sorry… your gear differential sucks. There isn’t a trinket that can match the 25 man stuff. Oh.. want that shiny Idol that you need to tank? Guess where its located first? 25 man. You 10 man people? Sorry gotta wait till we put it out there for badges.
Hell you shouldn’t even bother building your 10 man set since you can buy better with badges.
Sorry its a sore subject for me. Yes.. I want people to have a way to catch up. Yes… I want people to be able to not be left hopelessly behind, but 10 vs. 25 man is just an aweful setup. The gear differential isn’t working. The 25 mans aren’t appreciably hard enough to warrant having a higher gear level.
I mean when people avoid signing up for your raids because they’re going to be off doing a 25 man. Yeah.. thanks Blizzard. Thanks for making 10 man viable. Glad to know you care…. People care about shiny… and guess what??? 10 man doesn’t have shiny gear.
Tags: Apathy, Rage
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Personally, I find 25 man’s easier. More buffs, more damage, more healers to share the load. With 10 man you have limited buffs, less damage output, and if a tank or one or two healers go down you’re pretty much screwed.
Poor Star, buck up my friend… Unfortunately I am prime example of the Blizz making loot too easy. WoW-Heroes has Thy ranked 30th in guild, and i’ve killed count em, 17 raid bosses total! I just wonder if it is time to do away with actual loot in raids, and just drop badgers. If everything went that way, it wouldn’t matter what raid type you were in. I wonder if shortening the raid reset would help as well. Who knows. If you are only farming badges, who cares if you can go into naxx or ulduar 2x a week…. Just a thought.
And you not alone my friend…
http://casualhardcore.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/why-do-you-play-or-more-specifically-my-raiding-rant/
Long time reader. Short time commenter.
I’m sorry to hear this. I was honestly hoping that your experience with 10 mans was going to be different than what mine was. I gave up casual raid leading 10 mans in June and joined a casual raiding guild (without attendance requirements, but scheduled raids every night).
I don’t think we’re alone. I’ve read a few other blogs/commenters on wow.com expressing much the same thing.
Sometimes, I miss running those 10 mans with RL friends and other “friends”, but as people kept drifting away to 25 man guilds, I realized it was a losing battle.
I have never believed that I had the intestinal fortitude to raid lead 25 mans. Maybe I just need to step up and try it.
Yeah, this is what killed us. I wrote about the differential on the forums but I disagree it being purely about the shiney for allot of people. Drive is the #1 killer, and if you are driven you want to push your numbers up hard, if you want to push your numbers up hard, you need the shiney. The pure 10 man is broken though. If you get even one person going to get 25 man gear of the 10 via pugs, guess what you end up with, threat issues.
And as far as the gear gap I can sum up Blizz’s slap in the face for 10 man:
Uld10 (219) = ToC5 (219)
Uld10, 10 people, weekly reset.
ToC5, 5 people, can go daily.
Sure Uld drops more gear, but each individual player only has so many spots to put gear into, what’s the point. You do a few weeks worth of ToC5 on any toon and I bet there are probably 2 or 3 upgrades in the entire Uld10 loot table for that toon.
Ironically, while I love to play devil’s advocate, I actually do think the 25:10 man loot differential is appropriate. Where Blizz screwed the pooch, is making low level content drop high end badges. As soon as there is an easier way to attain equal gear…duh…people are going to do it. Even if that means exploiting ridiculousy easy content to farm twenty-some-odd badges. I also think they over tuned the difficulty of ten man content. (so in a backwards way, yes, the loot doesn’t agree with the difficulty).
Blizzard has slowly been transforming from a true MMO (key being Massivley) to just an online RPG. Yes there are still some 12 Million players, but they now each only interact with 10-15 other people. In vannila WoW or even TBC you had to raid with 25-40 people. The true difficulty of the 25-man raid is not the content itself, but managing 25+ people. It does deserve more “shiney’s” than 10 man. However, ferals in particular, took it in the shorts with drop locations. None of our defining items (jewelery slots) were available in 10 or 25 man, they all seemed to drop in 25man, and late 25 man at that. TotC is much better than Ulduar in this sense. Yes 25 man stuff is better, but it almost always has an appropraitley itemized little brother in the 10 man version.
Star, I think you are hitting the wall I hit with WotLK. I just didn’t care that another expansion was hitting because in all honesty, I wasn’t done with the current one. I too hate grinds…all of them. I play WoW to raid, and yes that means grinding profesion, and dailies to pay for repairs etc. I am just taking a stab here, but I am guessing you, like 80+% of people (myself included) haven’t cleared the content yet. Its hard to get excited about another grind when you haven’t been able to fully reap the rewards of your last one.
This is true… that’s a great deal of it. I really have this drive to see Arthas. I want to see it all the way through to the bloody end, but for whatever reason, 10 man has turned into this hard to control beast.
For Ferals yeah.. we kind of took it in the shorts in a lot of ways. We’ve had to change our gear several times this expansion. Plus we’re always taking rings and necks that aren’t ideal. We get no value really from strength. We get no value from defense, but we take it none the less.
I have trouble being excited about what’s coming next when i really want to see what I have in front of me here.
If a guild’s focus is on running 10mans and people are doing 25mans instead of showing up, there’s something wrong there. They should come to the scheduled runs and do 25 man pugs on their own time. Why? Because isn’t the whole purpose of a having a smaller guild and focusing on 10mans because you want to raid, but you want to raid with a close group of friends rather than bringing a bunch of people in just so that you can fill a 25? If people are choosing a pug of random players over raiding with friends in the guild it would seem there’s some disconnect here. If everyone in the guild is just focused on loot then you may as well bring in new people and focus on 25s, but I think 10mans succeed in what they were intended for.
OMG i agree totally. for me i would prefer run a 10 man run with my small guild ( around 100 members) than going to a 25 raid with strangers and tbh most of them seem compulsive to act as complete assholes.
but what i know?!!! i prefer looks > stats