Patch notes are in progress. I love patch notes. They give you great insight into the mind of the developers and the direction that they are wanting to take the game. Having a clear picture of the state of the game and then looking at the big picture of how they are adjusting everything is great. Does it make me a better player? Probably not except that I have more general knowledge about the game. It certainly won't increase my performance in a raid.
It used to be that I got excited about patch notes. When I say excited, I mean that I got fired up. I was frustrated by nerfs and ecstatic over buffs. Often verbally, with great volume, to anyone who would listen. I am not that way anymore. Why not? And why does it matter?
Well, I have been playing WoW for six years. Over the course of six years I have experienced a lot of different changes to the game. I have watched Blizzard ignore problems for months and years. I have watched them fix things the very next day. I have seen the game evolve, killing my class/spec. I have seen patches that make me the most overpowered thing the game has ever seen. Through it all I have gained a few things, one of them being perspective. Another is trust.
I trust the WoW dev team. Over time they have fixed every major issue, balanced every overpowered spec, fixed every glitch, and made solid improvements to every aspect of gameplay. I have also seen a steady increase in speed and accuracy in their ability to solve these problems. They have earned my trust, and I know that they will continue to improve.
So what happens when I am overpowered? I know I will soon be nerfed and just enjoy it while I can. When I am lagging behind it doesn't bother me, I know it will get fixed shortly. The joke 'Soon™' started back when the rare, once-a-quarter blue post hit the forums and nebulously said, "We are aware of the issues and they will be fixed soon." Then months and years went by with no fix and no updates. Everyone quickly became aware of the famous Blizzard use of the word 'soon' and what they really meant by it. Now Blizzard jokes at themselves by using it, and 'Soon™' has turned into a month or two.
This understanding and trust ends up turning into apathy. I read the patch notes diligently, and I care in that I keep myself acutely aware of the state of the game including class/spec specifics for all classes, but I feel entirely apathetic to the feelings of frustration or elation that others may experience when reading the same patch notes. I don't get up in arms about things because I know they will come around, and dealing with an issue in the short term is not a big deal.
This attitude has a great affect on my gameplay. I have to admit that my mood affects my performance. Anyone who claims otherwise is either not self aware or is lying. Morale matters. The apathy that I feel towards the nerf/buff swings in the game allows me to sit back and enjoy playing, untainted by the frustration of a favorite ability getting the nerf bat or my fellow raiders getting buffed to overpowered levels while I sit at the average. I don't suffer form over excitement whereby I make stupid mistakes in a raid because I am inappropriately using a newly overpowered toy. My performance remains more steady, more consistent, and thus allows me to push it ever higher as I perfect my skills and not backslide due to patch note feelings.
For what its worth, I know that this is something that is not available to everyone. Some people are just excitable and they always will be. But if you can become more self aware in this area, and perhaps learn some strategic apathy, it can help your play as well.
Hardcore at Heart
The point of view and mindset of a retired hardcore raider.
About Me
Stuff I Wrote
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
We don't make the same mistake twice
We have acquired a mage, a fury warrior, a resto druid, and a shadow priest. We rejected a prot paladin without professions or enchants and a resto druid that tried to play the "I'm a girl so I should get special treatment" card. We are raiding. Things appear to be going well. So what is the problem? We are stagnating at this stage.
Right now the people that we can find are all super casual or super bad and we only have about six of the ten raid spots filled by regular raiders. The rest of the spots are dragging us down. We have spent hours wiping, kicking the bad players, and finding replacements only to find out that those replacements are also bad. Our regulars are getting frustrated, and rightly so. The server is filled with guilds, all in a similar situation. The sensible thing to do is to get some of those guilds together and fix everyone's problems. That tends to create other problems though.
Usually there are more members than raid spots when bringing two partial raid groups together. Leaders have a hard time deciding to take a back seat and feeling comfortable with someone else driving the boat. Then there is the biggest issue in the minds of your guildies. They like being in your guild. They like who you (as a guild) are. Leaving that behind and going somewhere as a group makes you feel like a group of outsiders in someone else's guild, at least for a while. They may not be able to articulate this concern, but it is there.
So, now we are faced with a few options. We can keep trying to recruit while also trying to hold on to what we have, we can disband and go our separate ways, or we can find somewhere to go. The most attractive option is finding somewhere to go, and there lies the mistake that we don't want to repeat. The guild merger.
Hardcore raiders are expected to make a minimum amount of mistakes, and never the same mistake twice. When you do make a mistake you step back, figure out how and why it happened, and then take direct action to prevent it from happening again. The first time I fought Magmaw I ran away from the Pillar of Flame about one second before the cast, thinking that I could be well out of range and not worry about getting hit by it. Of course it spawned under me... and I was positioned directly in line with where the ranged group was going to run. Now they had to recognize what happened, run around the Pillar of Flame instead of through it, and kite the adds at the same time. It didn't go well, but I was able to step back and look at the situation. The problem got fixed and I have never been out of position for the Pillar of Flame since.
What does that have to do with anything? The same is expected of guild leadership. Make a minimum amount of mistakes and never make the same mistake twice. Well, I made the merger mistake once already. Guild mergers do not work. The newly formed guild always ends up as less than what it was supposed to be, if not outright failing. I have had a lot of time to step back and look at that situation, and I know how to not do it again. Guild acquisition is the way to go.
One guild acquires the raiders, guild bank, FnF members, etc. of the other guild. There is no merger, no blending of the rules and customs, no officership granted to the old GM. One guild makes the decision to disband and transfer control of everything to the other guild. This is smooth, efficient, lacking in drama and lengthy discussion, and best of all it works. Players have it made clear to them that they are not infusing their new guild with the old one, they are leaving the old one behind and joining the new.
Why is that so important? It rallies everyone under the same banner that is already in effect, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel by mashing two guild cultures together and splitting hairs over making policy for future eventualities.
Well, now. What to do with all of that info? A decision still needs to be made. What are we to do? I, for one, am going to work at being the guild that does the acquisition, not the one that gets acquired. The truth of the matter is that I like running things my way. It is smooth, it works well, I don't get complaints, and I get to filter important decisions through my years of experience instead of hoping that the 20 year old college student who has never been outside of his home town and has the life experience of a horse fly gets it right this time. The other side of that coin, though, is that I need to be able to recognize when it is time to let go and move in with the neighboring guild. Will that time come? I hope not, but if it does I will not be drowning in regret. I will be looking forward to the possibilities ahead.
Right now the people that we can find are all super casual or super bad and we only have about six of the ten raid spots filled by regular raiders. The rest of the spots are dragging us down. We have spent hours wiping, kicking the bad players, and finding replacements only to find out that those replacements are also bad. Our regulars are getting frustrated, and rightly so. The server is filled with guilds, all in a similar situation. The sensible thing to do is to get some of those guilds together and fix everyone's problems. That tends to create other problems though.
Usually there are more members than raid spots when bringing two partial raid groups together. Leaders have a hard time deciding to take a back seat and feeling comfortable with someone else driving the boat. Then there is the biggest issue in the minds of your guildies. They like being in your guild. They like who you (as a guild) are. Leaving that behind and going somewhere as a group makes you feel like a group of outsiders in someone else's guild, at least for a while. They may not be able to articulate this concern, but it is there.
So, now we are faced with a few options. We can keep trying to recruit while also trying to hold on to what we have, we can disband and go our separate ways, or we can find somewhere to go. The most attractive option is finding somewhere to go, and there lies the mistake that we don't want to repeat. The guild merger.
Hardcore raiders are expected to make a minimum amount of mistakes, and never the same mistake twice. When you do make a mistake you step back, figure out how and why it happened, and then take direct action to prevent it from happening again. The first time I fought Magmaw I ran away from the Pillar of Flame about one second before the cast, thinking that I could be well out of range and not worry about getting hit by it. Of course it spawned under me... and I was positioned directly in line with where the ranged group was going to run. Now they had to recognize what happened, run around the Pillar of Flame instead of through it, and kite the adds at the same time. It didn't go well, but I was able to step back and look at the situation. The problem got fixed and I have never been out of position for the Pillar of Flame since.
What does that have to do with anything? The same is expected of guild leadership. Make a minimum amount of mistakes and never make the same mistake twice. Well, I made the merger mistake once already. Guild mergers do not work. The newly formed guild always ends up as less than what it was supposed to be, if not outright failing. I have had a lot of time to step back and look at that situation, and I know how to not do it again. Guild acquisition is the way to go.
One guild acquires the raiders, guild bank, FnF members, etc. of the other guild. There is no merger, no blending of the rules and customs, no officership granted to the old GM. One guild makes the decision to disband and transfer control of everything to the other guild. This is smooth, efficient, lacking in drama and lengthy discussion, and best of all it works. Players have it made clear to them that they are not infusing their new guild with the old one, they are leaving the old one behind and joining the new.
Why is that so important? It rallies everyone under the same banner that is already in effect, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel by mashing two guild cultures together and splitting hairs over making policy for future eventualities.
Well, now. What to do with all of that info? A decision still needs to be made. What are we to do? I, for one, am going to work at being the guild that does the acquisition, not the one that gets acquired. The truth of the matter is that I like running things my way. It is smooth, it works well, I don't get complaints, and I get to filter important decisions through my years of experience instead of hoping that the 20 year old college student who has never been outside of his home town and has the life experience of a horse fly gets it right this time. The other side of that coin, though, is that I need to be able to recognize when it is time to let go and move in with the neighboring guild. Will that time come? I hope not, but if it does I will not be drowning in regret. I will be looking forward to the possibilities ahead.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Morons and Slackers
The following is a direct copy/paste from Gevlon's blog over at The Greedy Goblin. His first language is not English, so forgive the spelling and grammar errors. The content of what he has written here is what I wanted to share. I agree with him.
____________________________________________________________________________
About M&S
The morons and slackers are a central theme of this blog. I was surprised that many people still don't understand this concept and believe that I use this term simply on bad players. Some even defend them that they are just casuals, who are not even bad, just play less. This is nonsense.
The morons and slackers are indeed bad players, but not because of lack of gaming skill or effort. They are bad people whose badness is universal, applies to everything they do, including of course gaming. Let me point out the fundamental and non-gaming differences between M&S and other, less progressed players.
Any activity needs effort to be successful. You can't become an athlete, get good SAT, university diploma or keep your job unless you make appropriate effort. This applies of course to gaming. In MMOs effort correlates with time spent playing, despite it's not the same. I'm sure that over the full course of the 4.0 content I'll play more than some Paragon and Method members, without even getting close to Sinestra. "Effort" can mostly be defined as "sacrifice". I refused to sacrifice my schedule, I play when I want to. Therefore I can't be in a high-attendance guild, so no easy farmraids for me, every time I have to go with new people who takes some wipes to learn the strategy, so I spend much more time in farmbosses than the HC players, who oneshot everything with their fixed team. If I made the sacrifice of "I'll make it to raid on Wednesday, Friday, Sunday and Monday 19:00-23:00 every time", I'd kill much more bosses. Of course there is always someone who makes more effort and someone who makes less than you.
Two kind of people don't make the necessary effort to react top content: casuals and slackers. Yet their similarities end here. The casual is aware that he choose to not make the effort, therefore abandoning the goal. I'm fully aware that I won't kill Sinestra before the next content patch and gear upgrade, and I don't think I would deserve to kill her before that. The casual acknowledge the fact that there is no success without effort, he just believes that the reward isn't worth the effort. The casual is happy with his choice and doesn't envy those who have more, as he knows that they worked hard for it, and he didn't. Casuals can range from never-reach-85 funplayers exploring the world to "casual raiders" who "just" raid 3 days a week. Everyone is a casual in someone's eyes and hardcore in someone else's. "Casual" is a relative term, and it's inappropriate to use it on anyone. The proper usage is "X is more casual than Y".
The slacker also don't make the effort, but it doesn't stop him from wanting the rewards. He believes he is entitled for everything, simply on the basis of him being a human (him paying $15). He believes that others should make his rewards happen. "Others" can be Blizzard nerfing everything to his low-effort level, or other players boosting him. The slacker resent those who have more than him and believes that they are just lucky or evil who immorally keep him away from goals. He believes that the raid leader who kicks him for below-tank DPS is merely an elitist jerk who has no life and kicked him only because he has life.
The slacker is not defined by the amount of effort he makes. He is defined by the low effort/goal ratio. If you play "just" 8 hours a day and want world firsts, you are a slacker (despite much more hardcore than me). On the other hand if you play 8 hours a week and want to do one HC a week, completed the Twilight quests for 333 gear, enchanted it, you are a prepared player (more casual than me, though) who deserves his goals reached. Slacker is not a relative term, someone is or is not a slacker based on the question: does he do enough effort to reach the goals he set?
To reach success, effort is not enough. Skill is needed to make the proper choices where to make effort. If I spend 100 hours completing fluff achievements, I am much further from being ready to raid than the guy who spent 10 hours getting 346 blues. The unskilled person wastes his efforts. In WoW there are two kind of unskilled people:
The newbie don't know much about the game yet. He makes bad choices, wastes his effort. However he is aware of his ignorance and wants to learn. Reads the materials he accesses, listens to other, more skilled players and above all, learns from his mistakes. As with "casual", "newbie" is also a relative term and cannot be used on anyone. I am ignorant newbie compared to the guys who write EJ and a pro compared to those who don't know about spell rotations. Everyone is less informed and skilled (newbie) than someone and more informed and skilled (prop) to someone else.
The moron refuses to learn. His motivation can be a complete anti-knowledge culture, this case he devalues skill, believes that it doesn't exists and only effort and luck are needed. He is the "i just dun have gear" moron, who sometimes make huge effort to get gear, but still sucks as his rotation is a joke. The other possible motivation is a false belief in his knowledge. While he is ignorant, he thinks he is smart and refuses to learn from "the newbs". Both kind of morons believe that those above them made more effort (no lifers), just lucky or in worst case "got more help" (which of course means they are entitled for the same help).
"Moron" is an absolute, "you are or you are not" quality that is not based on your absolute knowledge but on "do you know enough to reach the goals you set"?. If you are healing as a shaman in a world first aspirant guild and don't know if 1.2 mastery rating or 1 crit rating is better for a you in avearge 364, and you don't even know that you should, you are a moron. On the other hand if you only know that both stats are good for a resto shaman, while hit is not, you are completely skilled for someone who does only Argoloth and 5-mans.
As you can see, the difference between casual and slacker, newbie and moron has nothing to do with spell rotations, boss tactics or ilvl. These are personality, value, meta-skill differences. While newbieness and casualness is limited to a game, being slacker and moron are universally true to the person.
Last question: why "M&S", why do I address them together, despite moron and slacker are pretty different in motivation, beliefs and values? Because unless I spend lot of time analyzing a specimen, I can't tell which one is him. Is he ungemmed because he doesn't know the importance of gems or because he doesn't want to grind gold for gems? Does he fails the boss mechanics because he don't know about written boss strategies or because he can't be arsed to read them? Does he beg gold because he doesn't know about goldmaking techniques or because he is lazy to do them? Does he stands in the fire because he don't know that the incoming damage is avoidable or because he is watching TV? Does he write "yo m8 cud u link mats 4 vial" because he really think it's English (and doesn't know that Wowhead has the recipe) or because he can't care less to write properly (and use wowhead)?
I'm not his therapist. It's not my job to solve his problems. If he aims for a goal, he must do the necessary effort and have the necessary skill to reach this goal. If he can't do it, he is either a moron or a slacker. A bad person who wastes the time of 4-9-24 other human beings. The title is about his skill/goal, effort/goal ratio. Since the only way to get something without proper skill and effort is boosting, the M&S is necessarily a leech, a parasite on the smart and the hard-working.
One more question remained: how could someone leave his current state and progress higher without turning into an M&S? I mean if you do the effort and have the skill for X goal, and it is inadequate to reach Y, at the moment you set Y as a goal, you become an M&S by the above statements. The answer is humility and openness. You should be aware and make every participants aware that you are not yet there to reach the goal. You must learn and accept criticism from those who are already there, seek knowledge and balance the lack of skill with extra effort.
The morons and slackers are indeed bad players, but not because of lack of gaming skill or effort. They are bad people whose badness is universal, applies to everything they do, including of course gaming. Let me point out the fundamental and non-gaming differences between M&S and other, less progressed players.
Any activity needs effort to be successful. You can't become an athlete, get good SAT, university diploma or keep your job unless you make appropriate effort. This applies of course to gaming. In MMOs effort correlates with time spent playing, despite it's not the same. I'm sure that over the full course of the 4.0 content I'll play more than some Paragon and Method members, without even getting close to Sinestra. "Effort" can mostly be defined as "sacrifice". I refused to sacrifice my schedule, I play when I want to. Therefore I can't be in a high-attendance guild, so no easy farmraids for me, every time I have to go with new people who takes some wipes to learn the strategy, so I spend much more time in farmbosses than the HC players, who oneshot everything with their fixed team. If I made the sacrifice of "I'll make it to raid on Wednesday, Friday, Sunday and Monday 19:00-23:00 every time", I'd kill much more bosses. Of course there is always someone who makes more effort and someone who makes less than you.
Two kind of people don't make the necessary effort to react top content: casuals and slackers. Yet their similarities end here. The casual is aware that he choose to not make the effort, therefore abandoning the goal. I'm fully aware that I won't kill Sinestra before the next content patch and gear upgrade, and I don't think I would deserve to kill her before that. The casual acknowledge the fact that there is no success without effort, he just believes that the reward isn't worth the effort. The casual is happy with his choice and doesn't envy those who have more, as he knows that they worked hard for it, and he didn't. Casuals can range from never-reach-85 funplayers exploring the world to "casual raiders" who "just" raid 3 days a week. Everyone is a casual in someone's eyes and hardcore in someone else's. "Casual" is a relative term, and it's inappropriate to use it on anyone. The proper usage is "X is more casual than Y".
The slacker also don't make the effort, but it doesn't stop him from wanting the rewards. He believes he is entitled for everything, simply on the basis of him being a human (him paying $15). He believes that others should make his rewards happen. "Others" can be Blizzard nerfing everything to his low-effort level, or other players boosting him. The slacker resent those who have more than him and believes that they are just lucky or evil who immorally keep him away from goals. He believes that the raid leader who kicks him for below-tank DPS is merely an elitist jerk who has no life and kicked him only because he has life.
The slacker is not defined by the amount of effort he makes. He is defined by the low effort/goal ratio. If you play "just" 8 hours a day and want world firsts, you are a slacker (despite much more hardcore than me). On the other hand if you play 8 hours a week and want to do one HC a week, completed the Twilight quests for 333 gear, enchanted it, you are a prepared player (more casual than me, though) who deserves his goals reached. Slacker is not a relative term, someone is or is not a slacker based on the question: does he do enough effort to reach the goals he set?
To reach success, effort is not enough. Skill is needed to make the proper choices where to make effort. If I spend 100 hours completing fluff achievements, I am much further from being ready to raid than the guy who spent 10 hours getting 346 blues. The unskilled person wastes his efforts. In WoW there are two kind of unskilled people:
The newbie don't know much about the game yet. He makes bad choices, wastes his effort. However he is aware of his ignorance and wants to learn. Reads the materials he accesses, listens to other, more skilled players and above all, learns from his mistakes. As with "casual", "newbie" is also a relative term and cannot be used on anyone. I am ignorant newbie compared to the guys who write EJ and a pro compared to those who don't know about spell rotations. Everyone is less informed and skilled (newbie) than someone and more informed and skilled (prop) to someone else.
The moron refuses to learn. His motivation can be a complete anti-knowledge culture, this case he devalues skill, believes that it doesn't exists and only effort and luck are needed. He is the "i just dun have gear" moron, who sometimes make huge effort to get gear, but still sucks as his rotation is a joke. The other possible motivation is a false belief in his knowledge. While he is ignorant, he thinks he is smart and refuses to learn from "the newbs". Both kind of morons believe that those above them made more effort (no lifers), just lucky or in worst case "got more help" (which of course means they are entitled for the same help).
"Moron" is an absolute, "you are or you are not" quality that is not based on your absolute knowledge but on "do you know enough to reach the goals you set"?. If you are healing as a shaman in a world first aspirant guild and don't know if 1.2 mastery rating or 1 crit rating is better for a you in avearge 364, and you don't even know that you should, you are a moron. On the other hand if you only know that both stats are good for a resto shaman, while hit is not, you are completely skilled for someone who does only Argoloth and 5-mans.
As you can see, the difference between casual and slacker, newbie and moron has nothing to do with spell rotations, boss tactics or ilvl. These are personality, value, meta-skill differences. While newbieness and casualness is limited to a game, being slacker and moron are universally true to the person.
Last question: why "M&S", why do I address them together, despite moron and slacker are pretty different in motivation, beliefs and values? Because unless I spend lot of time analyzing a specimen, I can't tell which one is him. Is he ungemmed because he doesn't know the importance of gems or because he doesn't want to grind gold for gems? Does he fails the boss mechanics because he don't know about written boss strategies or because he can't be arsed to read them? Does he beg gold because he doesn't know about goldmaking techniques or because he is lazy to do them? Does he stands in the fire because he don't know that the incoming damage is avoidable or because he is watching TV? Does he write "yo m8 cud u link mats 4 vial" because he really think it's English (and doesn't know that Wowhead has the recipe) or because he can't care less to write properly (and use wowhead)?
I'm not his therapist. It's not my job to solve his problems. If he aims for a goal, he must do the necessary effort and have the necessary skill to reach this goal. If he can't do it, he is either a moron or a slacker. A bad person who wastes the time of 4-9-24 other human beings. The title is about his skill/goal, effort/goal ratio. Since the only way to get something without proper skill and effort is boosting, the M&S is necessarily a leech, a parasite on the smart and the hard-working.
One more question remained: how could someone leave his current state and progress higher without turning into an M&S? I mean if you do the effort and have the skill for X goal, and it is inadequate to reach Y, at the moment you set Y as a goal, you become an M&S by the above statements. The answer is humility and openness. You should be aware and make every participants aware that you are not yet there to reach the goal. You must learn and accept criticism from those who are already there, seek knowledge and balance the lack of skill with extra effort.
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