Blog Posts from "Ramblings in WoW" - Gameriot.com

Triumphing Over Casuals in the Arena

no.spam@gameriot.com (Kenshonelol) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:03:34 -0500

Blizzard thinks they're winning by catering to casuals over hardcores. This is what happens when you have a bunch of nerd computer programmers trying to evaluate a business situation. It's as if they don't even understand their own brand: intelligent games. Those of us who have been with Blizzard before WoW understood that when they bought a Blizzard game, they weren't buying tic tac toe.

Blizzard is trying to do what is known as "repositioning" their brand, but they're taking it about 180 degrees too far. They're actually destroying it. It's the same reason you'll never see Donald Trump build a chain of motels. It's the same reason why Hyundai's foray into luxury vehicles is going to crash. It's why places like the Tropicana Las Vegas runs shows with mostly nude women, and precisely why The Ritz never would.

There are a lot of scrubs who don't understand business, not just in the "elite WoW community," as the incoming wave of nerd rage posts from basement dwellers will surely reveal. Blizzard itself apparently also does not understand Business 101. Blizzard's brand value, known as an intangible asset to those of you with an education in finance, has decreased substantially - there is no doubt. I can't think of a worse gaffe in the past decade of Blizzard than this. They used to leave things like this to the custom map makers of War3 and Starcraft. And thus, Tower Defense, Footman Wars, etc. Now Blizzard is a dabbling with the scrubs in WoW's arena, which is almost becoming a reverse meritocracy.

But you have a lot more control over casuals than Blizzard ever will. Word of mouth. If you care enough, which a lot of of you seem to, then you can put a huge dent in their profit margin. Blizzard underestimates how pissed off some of us are. We are not numbers on a balance sheet, so don't act like one. "LOL YOUR JUST WILL BE BUYING STASRCARFT 2." Actually, if they keep this up, no, we're not. We're not a slave like you.

"...diminish the degree of skill required to be successful in arena, so as to encourage as many people as possible to participate and thus inevitably maximize their profit margin. they are well aware of the fact that they will alienate the hardcore pvpers, but keeping a broad perspective in mind, that's a cost they are willing to incur."

Why Blizzard should replace GC with me.

no.spam@gameriot.com (Kenshonelol) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 08:02:42 -0500

If I had GC's position, I would have hotfixed resilience a month ago to reduce damage across the board instead of just crits.

I would have saved Blizzard tens of millions of dollars in canceled accounts and general devaluation of the Blizzard brand name stemming from disenchantment with WoltK.

I would have preserved the respect arena had during TBC, instead of sending it to the abyss it is in right now.

So given that I have better judgment than GC, and would have acted about a thousand times faster, why shouldn't Blizzard fire GC right now, and hire me in his place?

Season 5: Season of the 5 Pool

no.spam@gameriot.com (Kenshonelol) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:17:14 -0500

"There are consequences for whoring yourself out, Blizzard."

IS THIS ARENA FUN? DOESN'T MATTER.

The minority of people who genuinely have fun in arena fall into one of two categories:
1) They are attracted only to the novelty of the mosh pit.
2) They enjoy tic tac toe.

And there's nothing wrong with that. 3rd graders everywhere have fun playing Tic Tac Toe. Millions of grown adults have visited Yahoo! Games. Millions more have played web ad games for free mortgages. The real question is, simpler (See Appendix for a non-rigorous example of this). Because the damage increases have been so overwhelming, the game becomes more and more 2 dimensional. Healers have to spam heal more, and have less time to use the other 90% of their spellbook. Players now know that the range of strategies that the enemy can employ is very limited. Imagine Tic Tac Toe, except you have you tell your opponent what your next 3 moves are going to be.

The argument is similar for DPSers and I won't belabor it. Basically, every incremental increase in damage that Blizzard decided to approve made the game exponentially stupider. Congrats.

But wait, like a slimey infomercial, there's more. Mana efficiency has been nerfed considerably. So players now have a smaller mana pool to work with. This constrains players' choices, because instead of spending their mana doing that minor incremental thing that separated the great players from the good, they instead are increasingly forced to make the same decision as every other mana user, because that minor incremental bit of skill costs too much mana and will wind up losing you the game. For each increment you shrink that mana pool, the game gets exponentially stupider and more predictable.

This is as non-academic and non-abstract as I can make it. Dramatically increasing DPS relative to survivability, and reducing effective mana pools, has made this game far stupider than the sum of its parts. Get it?

"Is this...completely pathetic devolution of arena, intentional, or an unforeseen accident?"

BOTTOM LINE, BLIZZARD. ARENA IS DUMBER, INTENTIONALLY OR NO?

Let's cut to the chase Blizzard. There are lots of long-winded blue posts with specific examples. Enough rhetoric, enough fuzz.

The game has been made dumber. The vast majority of players can see that, so don't beat around the bush like we're a bunch of 1st graders:

-Exponentially less strategy
-Exponentially less anticipation of opponent actions
-Exponentially less brains required.

Is this state, this completely pathetic devolution of arena, intentional, or an unforeseen accident? These are the only two possible answers, and neither is pretty, but how about having some balls and owning up.

APPENDIX

Player 1's Choices:

Strategy A

Strategy B

Strategy C

Strategy D

Strategy E

Strategy Z

Player 2's Responses:

Response to Strategy A:

Strategy 1

Strategy 2

Strategy 3

Strategy 4

Response to Strategy B:

Strategy 5

Strategy 6

Strategy 7

Strategy 8

Response to Strategy C:

Strategy 9

Strategy 10

Strategy 11

Strategy 12

Response to Strategy Z:

etc.

As you can see, the initial strategic choices each have a range of possible responses. Each of THESE responses have a range of responses of their own. Every time Blizzard removes one of these initial strategic choices, they exponentially shrink the potential "he knows that I know that he knows" type of situation, which is what well-made games are all about.

You and I both understand that the strategies aren't so discrete as they are a gradient, a ratio between how much, say, you're mashing your healing buttons, to how much you're doing with the other 90% of your spellbook. But the point and proof is clear enough.

Season 4: Season of the 5 Pool?

no.spam@gameriot.com (Kenshonelol) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:04:11 -0400

The results are out. At least 5 different 5v5 teams running 4DPS have gotten the Brutal Gladiator title, and the Brutal Gladiator tag over each of these players' heads is a testament to why WoW is having considerable difficulty being respected as an e-sport.

For those of you unfamiliar with Starcraft, the 5 pool rush is a strategy which attempts to end a game within the first 4 minutes, shrinking the tactical space of Starcraft tremendously. Starcraft players are unanimous, it takes no "skill" to execute a 5 pool rush. Such skills include optimizing army composition, intelligent base construction and building placement, scouting the right areas at the right times, micromanagement of numerous units in a large army, deciding when to build more workers rather than soldiers, and being able to predict what the opponent is going to do. The reason why Starcraft is a respected e-sport is because practically every game tests both players' mastery over the totality of this rich tactical space.

If you observe any successful e-game, they're respected as competitive precisely because they reward players for their depth of mastery over a wide breadth of strategy space. And if this trend is not reversed in WotlK, the damage to WoW's reputation as an e-game will be irreparable.

Things do not look hopeful, because in 3.0, damage output has been increased substantially, while healing has stayed about the same, and downranking has been eliminated, all resulting in significant shrinking of WoW's tactical space.

They wouldn't let it happen in Starcraft, so once again, every skilled WoW player wonders, why do they allow it in WoW?

"Let's decide the outcome of this game of chess by playing a game of tic tac toe instead."

Appendix: A lot of mental midgets in this thread think my primary objective is NOT to prove that 4DPS is overpowered. Let me add a personal example.

I played on a 4DPS team and know how first hand how easymode it is. We were point selling on multiple teams all of s2, and were blindsided by the 2 week announcement of the season's end. We scrambled to make the 400 point push into top 20 range, but it turns out our point sellers were only good at farming teams below 2K. So in the last weekend, stuck at 2100, we say "screw it, let's run 4DPS and see what happens." I kid you not, in one weekend, never having played the comp, we went from 2100 as a 2346 to 2400+ with quad DPS. Basically, we executed the exact same target swaps we would in a 2346, except it was about twice as effective. We were shocked by how becoming 4DPS literally added 300 points to our rating overnight, with a record of 50-13 at 2100+. In s4, with the advent of double 4PC bonuses, quad DPS has never been stronger.

http://www.wowarmory.com/hall-team-info.xml?se=2&r=Gorgonnash&ts=5&t=Japanese+AV+lovers&select=Japanese+AV+lovers

Resorting to quad DPS was basically a handicap to players who had otherwise capped at 2100. Bear in mind, we had NEVER played with the mage and spriest we picked up on the last weekend. That record could have easily been 63-0 past 2100 had we practiced throughout the season. And knowing that JAC players generally cap out before 2100 in 2's, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the 4 other 4DPS teams who got #1 were in a similar situation.