My only conclusion to get out of this is to just main whatever the fuck you want and don't give a shit about what the videos say.
Go Shockadin!
Just enjoy the game and don't let others tell you what to do.
Nymis, thank you for providing some much needed context with your wall of text, it is very much appreciated.
I would still like to challenge you on a couple of things:
1. You made a point that playing [off-meta / meme / niche / under-performing] specs in a raid group with 39 other people is selfish.
I would make a point that a selfish decision can only be made if I have extensive knowledge about my choices. New players asking on these forums whether they can play a class/spec xyz are the least likely to make a selfish choice. If we - as knowledgeable players - don't discourage them, they will make a choice of pure preference. Boy, wouldn't I sell parts of my soul to be able to do that again.
If a new player makes their class choice and attempts to raid at some point, they will figure shit out themselves anyway :)
My appeal is this:
Please don't discourage new players by telling them they are making selfish decisions when all they have as proof of their selfishness is your word.
2. I'd like to address the entire "chapter" you wrote on: Authority, Relationship among members of the raid group & "lowering the bar".
Disclaimer, this is heavily opinionated and has no real value to the OP.
It is quite obvious that your experience comes from the progressive/hardcore end of the raiding spectrum. In my personal opinion, from what I read, not the good kind, either.
Essentially you are saying: as someone who plays an off-meta build in a raid, when shit hits the fan you will automatically be the scapegoat and if the raid leader doesn't bench you, he will become the scapegoat instead. Since you brought this up in the authority part, I will address it how I would as a person of authority in that raid: scapegoating is a bigger reason to bench players than an off-meta build or a gameplay mistake could ever be. It is an undesirable behavioral trait in a community & one that I personally would not only bench but probably remove people from my roster for.
The same goes for the second part, wherein you state that when issues arise players are likely to feel resentment towards other players in their group unless they are uniform & comparable (same spec, same rules, same mindset). Man, this is atrocious. No organization anywhere ever should be run this way. This kind of autocratic discouragement doesn't belong anywhere in a gaming community. I apologize for my strong tone in this, but I feel strongly about it.
Lastly, lowering the bar. Deciding to let a player prove his worth with an alternative spec - i feel - is not equal to allowing slack in my raid. In my experience players that run with alternative builds try much harder and are often the more consistent and better players. If they are new to what they are trying, they deserve the help of their community and the chance to improve whenever possible (raids on farm etc, alt raids, etc).
That being said, on the other hand, of course there are always technicalities and progress to consider. A good raid leader and an educated member of a community will always put the collective success of the group first. So if having too many off-meta specs in the raid might jeopardize their goals, they will find ways to compromise.
Also, I don't want to be misunderstood. There will be cases where things just wont work out. And here comes the point where I think we come full circle and you and I have the same opinion: A player who insists on playing a build that is still ineffective even when optimized as well as geared and played correctly, is a parasite. This line however, I find very hard to draw.
The message I want to get across is this:
It doesn't matter what environment you play in, if you accept a player into your community, they are part of your community. In a community, you don't demand uniformity & you don't throw blame around. You work together constructively and find ways to achieve success together.
In the case of Classic World of WarCraft the unique circumstance is that some of us already know how we can achieve success. Let's not be so narrow minded as to presume the best way is the only way.
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My only conclusion to get out of this is to just main whatever the fuck you want and don't give a shit about what the videos say.
Yes, my friend, this is the way.
The value that Nymis has provided to this thread can not be understated. We are the guys who have been waiting for this project... We are the guys that are excited to relive vanilla. We are the most accepting and understanding bunch of people you will interact with during your time in Classic. We accept and embrace EVERY aspect of this game. If you are facing resistance here for your spec choice, understand that the resistance you will face in Classic will likely be FAR greater when interacting with the average user.
Boss doesn't get downed? Damage meters get posted. Guild trims the fat. It might not be right, but this is the way things will go for the majority of players. We are lucky because encounters have a TON of lenience in Classic, but most guilds will still reach their breakpoint and begin to wipe and when they do, they will rely on the easiest metric they have to judge performance at a glance, the meters. Ultimately you will need to decide what the right path is for yourself and seek to find people with a similar mindset, but this is a community driven game and you will constantly be interacting with others both inside your guild and outside of it. Most of the pushback you will face while playing these meme specs simply wont be worth it for the average user. The difference between the top spec and the bottom spec in most cases, is receiving a group invite or a guild invite. In most cases, for better or worse, you wont even be given the chance to prove yourself.
edit: I also think that the information people get on meme's can be a bit skewed because they are receiving a VERY min/maxed version of the class played by a very competent and informed individual. These guides and examples are outliers. For an accurate interpretation of your performance, look at a larger sample size. Go to legacy players and look at actual parses at each of the breakpoints. Ask yourself if these classes are being accepted in progression guilds, and if so, how they are performing on a larger scale? After looking at these parses you will begin to see the difference between the top tier specs and the bottom tier specs. Though I will say there is A LOT more wiggle room when it comes to PvP. Unfortunately for most, gearing exclusively in PvP is unrealistic due to the time investment, and even if you CAN get to rank 14, you will likely STILL need to do some PvE content to fully gear, especially for memes who often struggle with itemization on their PvP sets which are typically useless or designed specifically for one of their specs while disregarding the others.
Ultimately you will need to decide what the right path is for yourself and seek to find people with a similar mindset, but this is a community driven game and you will constantly be interacting with others both inside your guild and outside of it. Most of the pushback you will face while playing these meme specs simply wont be worth it for the average user.
I think this is a really good point. It will be up to the person playing the off-spec to understand that there are people who will be okay with a sub-optimal build and other people who will not. No one is telling them that they cannot raid as a balance druid or enhancement shaman, or whatever other build someone might want to play. There just needs to be the understanding that, yes, there will be cases where a guild will tell you "no you cannot raid with us" because you choose to spec a certain way.
There will still be plenty of other guilds that will welcome those specs with open arms, it just might be a little more difficult to find them. So, to the second sentence quoted, I think you're right in saying that each person will have to decide whether that extra difficulty is worth it. If you're willing to put in the effort, you will eventually find those like minded people.
The vast majority of gameplay, which means leveling, questing, battlegrounds, dungeons, world pvp, and more, everything is viable, including even stuff that is viewed as completely worthless, such a oomkin, which is incredibly deadly and versatile.
The only time any of this matters is raids, which is an important part of the game for gear, but overall not a big time spender. This is because raids are based upon only a few things, which harms specialized classes, because they cannot perform these roles to a level of a pure class, and their other situational abilities don’t matter.
There two situations here while raiding. Either you’re with a bunch of other people running suboptimal builds, in which case it doesn’t matter, or you get with people that want to knock out raids, and consequently don’t spend much time in your “raiding offspec.”
Neither of these are much concern, particularly since this is a 15 year old game. It’s completely possible to clear every raid running a majority of suboptimal classes, it’s just harder. But everyone should have far more knowledge now than they did in the past, either through playing similars games, or playing vanilla.
Heya ColdRain, thanks for your input! Very much agree with what you say.
I do fear that some players find it hard to get past their perspective as part of an ambitious raid team.
So, having lurked the ClassicWow subreddit for a lot of time and watching a lot of videos and stuff about classic, you come to think that Ret Paladins and Druids are almost worthless classes. Me myself thought the same way and didn't even consider playing those two.
Some days ago tho, I decided to join RetroWow to test which class I liked better and what would I main (it's hunter!) and I ended up discovering that nor ret pallys or druids are useless. Sure, they may be a bit worse, especially retris but it's not like they are npcs. After getting my ass destroyed by a few retri and boomies I can say that atleast in PvP, I don't feel like there's a class that is above all or that there are classes that are completely useless, as those posts and videos make out to be.
My only conclusion to get out of this is to just main whatever the fuck you want and don't give a shit about what the videos say.
Your words make sence, and i agree with you, the only problem here is that you do not consider a long term experience. I've leveled 5 or 6 retries in TBC and on a long term playing one of those you will feel these complaints in your address. This complaints at least one on a day will poke you, thats the bad side of it, i'm just tired to explain for every hardcore min max dummy that i can stil be helpful in my own may, the one my character was designed to, but nah im too tired of it.
I would make a point that a selfish decision can only be made if I have extensive knowledge about my choices. New players asking on these forums whether they can play a class/spec xyz are the least likely to make a selfish choice. If we - as knowledgeable players - don't discourage them, they will make a choice of pure preference. Boy, wouldn't I sell parts of my soul to be able to do that again.
There's nothing wrong about not knowing something / anything about the game just as there's nothing wrong with not knowing much about your first job for instance - even with or without a prior college education for instance, 99/100 times you'll know just about nothing about your first job.
The problem is when you're confronted with advice on how to do better and you refuse to take it. Ignorance really is a choice in this time and age, I might've understood reasons for it 15 years ago but I think the problem of "new players just don't have time/ability to learn that fast" is bollocks.
It's genuinely just one rotation, a list of items and a talent build. If you can copy and paste that from whatever document your raid lead/class lead/internet gives you then you can basically stop using the "new player" as an excuse afterwards.
scapegoating is a bigger reason to bench players than an off-meta build or a gameplay mistake could ever be
Scapegoating happens naturally and is a logical step in any failure. Something went wrong, objectives were not accomplished, ergo who or what is to blame. There is nothing inherently wrong in this mindset and there is no possible way you can stop people from thinking that.
What you can do is leave non-factual speculation out of their minds and provide a reasonable, truthful answer in perhaps the best and non-offensive way possible. Because if you don't, then people will start making up their own scenarios as to why things went wrong and the fault is almost never pointed in their own direction.
Man, this is atrocious. No organization anywhere ever should be run this way. This kind of autocratic discouragement doesn't belong anywhere in a gaming community. I apologize for my strong tone in this, but I feel strongly about it.
What you see as "autocratic discouragement" is merely fairness applied against the whims and wishes of the very few who would seek to "cheat" this system of thought by getting a disproportionate reward over their effort involved.
I personally don't think this hippie "let everyone play anything wherever and see how far we get" mindset doesn't belong in the gaming community, I just think it's stupid and ineffective. On one hand you're catering towards the casuals and on the other you're hurting people who would love to be part of your guild but leave because they feel they're putting in more work than others but are being held at the same standards as them. Having a balanced set of standards to cater towards the more casual and the more hardcore alike is the best way to manage players/communities in general. Most of the drama in the guilds / loot council usually happens as a result of this disproportionate assessment of people's effort. Now of course, as with any system, it's impossible to please everyone - but giving up on the idea and saying "fuck it, let tanks pay the high repair bills and consumables but they still roll against melee DPS" for instance isn't being nice, it just means being stupid.
In my experience players that run with alternative builds try much harder and are often the more consistent and better players.
Yeah but this isn't "World of Tryingcraft", at the end of the day it's a game of numbers in a community of people.
You don't down bosses because people "tried" harder - that's incidental, and anyone who's played a Frost Mage can tell you it doesn't take a lot of trying to down bosses, it's the numbers that get bosses killed. It's also a community of people - people will get angry, upset, blame themselves or others when things go wrong, this can't be stopped or culled but it can be managed.
For that reason, it is best that you - as a community manager/raid leader whatever - direct those emotions towards objective, quantifiable things.
It's wrong to say "you're not trying enough" because you can't possible know or measure how much a person is trying. It is proper to say "we need better numbers from you" because that can be improved with in-game items, better rotations, consumables and so forth. It's wrong to say "you're a fucking retard, how can you tank like that" because his tanking ability is not a measure of intelligence, but it's proper to say "you need to turn the tank around and just stand in one place because his tail does bad numbers to our good numbers and we won't get those health numbers down fast enough". It makes it way less personal, gives an objective matter we can work on and so forth.
So in the context of effort/ off-meta specs it's the same thing.
First, it's a game of numbers and we need to make sure your numbers are the good kind of numbers we can use so we don't feel like we're carrying you or you don't feel cheated on when we prefer to give loot to people who can do more numbers than you. Second, it's a community of people and they need to understand why your numbers are good numbers even if they don't show up on the meters, or why you're entitled to that piece of loot because of some numbers that others might not know about.
There's nothing wrong about not knowing something / anything about the game just as there's nothing wrong with not knowing much about your first job for instance - even with or without a prior college education for instance, 99/100 times you'll know just about nothing about your first job.
The comparison shows exactly how some people view this game. Nevertheless, I agree wholeheartedly with the point you are making.
The problem is when you're confronted with advice on how to do better and you refuse to take it. Ignorance really is a choice in this time and age, I might've understood reasons for it 15 years ago but I think the problem of "new players just don't have time/ability to learn that fast" is bollocks.
To me, personally, it's not about ignorance. It's about not letting other peoples knowledge dictate my own personal experience.
I see a significant difference between learning from experience and logical deduction rather than following advice.
A person who just does whatever they are told is best, simply because it's an accepted path, will not ever come to a higher understanding of why they should do things a certain way. This is applicable to just about anything you're ever going to do. The way you study, the way you work, the way you play.
If everybody always followed instructions, there would be no progress in anything and we wouldn't have BiS lists or optimized specs. I'm not saying these players will revolutionize the way we play, it's just my general opinion on how to approach.. well, anything.
It's genuinely just one rotation, a list of items and a talent build. If you can copy and paste that from whatever document your raid lead/class lead/internet gives you then you can basically stop using the "new player" as an excuse afterwards.
You are correct, of course, if players that can spam one rotation and know their BiS list is what you want.
I'd prefer players that have a deep understanding of their class and it's abilities because they chose experience over instruction.
All of this being said, everyone has their preference on how to approach the game. I think it's clear where yours and mine differ.
I'm just saying we shouldn't force either preference on other players.
It doesn't matter what environment you play in, if you accept a player into your community, they are part of your community. In a community, you don't demand uniformity & you don't throw blame around. You work together constructively and find ways to achieve success together.
I don't know where you're getting these funny ideas about managing communities from.
In a community you demand uniformity in certain regards. You can't be a citizen of France if you don't have French citizenship. You can't be a member of a company if you're not hired there based on some criteria. You can't be part of a fandom community if you don't share an active interest in whatever fandom you're trying to be part of - so on and so forth.
You demand "uniformity" through a set of minimum criteria which enable you to define that group in the first place.
As for "throwing blame around" - you are no wiser if you think that sitting around and saying it was no one's fault, nothing was to blame, no one has any responsibility in this and so forth. There are actions, responsibilities, tasks which need to be done and of course there are consequences for not doing them. You lose your citizenship if you do bad things. You get fired if you fail to complete your tasks. You are rejected from a fandom community for misbehaving or whatever reason those people decide they no longer want to associate with you.
I suggest you depart from these silly ideas about management and take a good realistic look around you. Even you, with your guild, will not be taking anyone under level 60. You won't be taking people who troll or say bad things to other people. Whatever it is, however you want to put it, you are creating a uniform standard of acceptance into your guild group / raid group / community. It just so happens that other people's standards prioritize more objective and quantifiable matters (like numbers, gear, attendance, builds etc.) than yours (trying, being nice, etc.)
In my experience players that run with alternative builds try much harder and are often the more consistent and better players.
Yeah but this isn't "World of Tryingcraft", at the end of the day it's a game of numbers in a community of people.
[...]
I also stated this:
"A player who insists on playing a build that is still ineffective even when optimized as well as geared and played correctly, is a parasite."
It seems we're on a similar page and I misunderstood. Apologies if I offended you with anything.
No offense taken. Discussion is what a Forum is for, after all.
I'd challenge you on your "middle" post, though :)
It doesn't matter what environment you play in, if you accept a player into your community, they are part of your community. In a community, you don't demand uniformity & you don't throw blame around. You work together constructively and find ways to achieve success together.
I don't know where you're getting these funny ideas about managing communities from.
In a community you demand uniformity in certain regards. You can't be a citizen of France if you don't have French citizenship. You can't be a member of a company if you're not hired there based on some criteria. You can't be part of a fandom community if you don't share an active interest in whatever fandom you're trying to be part of - so on and so forth.
Prerequisites like .. playing the same game, being able to communicate via the same language, playing on the same server and faction, etc.. are not uniformity, the are prerequisites that can and will in most cases be completely incidental. (I don't think a majority of players already looks for their guild before launch, might be wrong though.)
I'd say the things that come together when you join a raid team (and they are completely the same a joining a company) are:
The last two points are completely subjective. As has become clear from our discussion, the two of us would clearly handle that differently.
As for "throwing blame around" - you are no wiser if you think that sitting around and saying it was no one's fault, nothing was to blame, no one has any responsibility in this and so forth. There are actions, responsibilities, tasks which need to be done and of course there are consequences for not doing them. You lose your citizenship if you do bad things. You get fired if you fail to complete your tasks. You are rejected from a fandom community for misbehaving or whatever reason those people decide they no longer want to associate with you.
I'm not saying there is no problem. But Identifying and constructively discussing issues is the more civilized form, can you agree?
Example:
"omg wtf why are we still running with a Bear tank that gets two shot all the time? Kick him from the raid already! This is a waste of time and consumables!"
vs.
"I think on this particular fight, since the boss uses Mortal Strike and hits quite hard overall, it would be better to have it tanked by a warrior, because he can't be crit or crushed. It will be easier to handle for us healers. Or do you suppose we need the higher threat generation?"
A little gold star if you can already tell which boss I'm talking about, he really did 2 Shot my Bear :D
Rinkusan Was that Broodlord Lashlayer?
The governments of most nations don't demand you are a citizen in order for you to be part of the "community" that is that nation
It does if you want to be part of the community of individuals with citizenship - which allows you to have more rights than a regular person would have who'd be just visiting there for instance. If you want to be part of the community of people who are just visiting then yeah, all you need to do is basically visit in order to be considered a "tourist".
Nothing I would ever dispute, though I fail to see how that undermines my own arguments.
Because earlier you were saying that " In a community, you don't demand uniformity & you don't throw blame around. "
Companies basically do that - there are some uniform standards that most people have to abide by, in terms of say work hours, leave days, tasks to complete etc etc. And if tasks don't get completed, it usually is something or someone's fault - whether the manager's, the average worker, bad weather you name it.
Prerequisites like .. playing the same game, being able to communicate via the same language, playing on the same server and faction, etc.. are not uniformity, the are prerequisites that can and will in most cases be completely incidental. (I don't think a majority of players already looks for their guild before launch, might be wrong though.)
All the same, and any of those can be hypothetically challenged on any level by anyone else. You can have guildies who don't play the game, people who don't play on the same server but contribute somehow, so on and so forth. It's a matter of choosing what standards matter to you and your overall objective.
I just know from dealing with people / raids that if you don't try and make sure that everyone is at a bare minimum level of effort then people will eventually get angry and leave if things don't go their way. I'm not talking about assholes who would've left either way or immature entitled cunts here - no, people with potential to do good things for your guild and raid leaving because they feel they could integrate better with another community strictly because they felt their side of the effort was disproportionate to the effort of others - i.e. carrying noobs for instance.
When you're asking people to do things for the greater good of the raid/ guild, things they would not normally do on an individual level (like playing boring specs, rotations, farming consumables etc.) it goes a long way to show them that:
a) the management is not corrupt (does not show favoritism towards certain players, takes rational and objective judgment, listens to criticism, takes actions that benefit the collective above their own personal interests etc.)
b) others are pulling their weight and not slacking off their work (that there is no disproportionate effort on any side)
c) rewards are proportional with the role and effort they put in (if there is disproportionate effort on any side, then it is mandated by an objective need and rewarded proportionally by the spoils obtained at the end of our engagement)
I'm not saying there is no problem. But Identifying and constructively discussing issues is the more civilized form, can you agree?
Yeah but this is the kind of discussion which has to happen BEFORE the raid starts as to avoid frustration.
If you know - or have any indication - that this is what's going to happen and you are risking the raid wiping, getting frustrated and so forth on the whims of a person who wants to be a tank for a fight, then you're setting yourself for some real trouble.
The truth is they are pretty useless in comparison to other classes. An Oomkin isn't as BAD as it's portrayed to be but it is it as good as X? No. - Should you play it if you want to play it? Yes.
Exceptional players will always find a place in things like ranking, pve etc and if you're not exceptional it doesn't matter what class you pick anyway
The truth is they are pretty useless in comparison to other classes. An Oomkin isn't as BAD as it's portrayed to be but it is it as good as X? No. - Should you play it if you want to play it? Yes.
Exceptional players will always find a place in things like ranking, pve etc and if you're not exceptional it doesn't matter what class you pick anyway
I agree to an extent but would argue that the exceptional outlier specs should actually be reserved for exceptional players. If you are a casual player and have no interest in min/maxxing or mastering your class/spec, you should not begin the journey of becoming a meme. Many of these meme players are SUPER opposed to min/maxxers, but the reality of most of these meme specs, is that you will need to min/max (likely more than anyone else) just so that you are able to maintain some level of relevance.
This only matters if you intend on playing with others in group content. If you have no aspirations of interacting with others and will spend the bulk of your time questing and leveling, be whatever you want, it won't matter to anyone anyways.