So Blizzard has announced that it is effectively making threat redundant with a new hotfix and then a patch. I see. I suppose that they had to do this sooner or later; once you start down the road of player induced mediocrity it’s just about impossible to go back. The reason that Blizzard find themselves in this situation is because the made the very large mistake of taking their game in the direction that a large number of their player base were yelling for: make raiding accessible for everyone.
A few days ago I was watching a documentary of raiding in WoW and something struck me; raiding, hardcore raiding, is very much like having a job. I mean, you have to be seriously fucking dedicated to do it well. And back in the glory days of Burning Crusade, (which I like to think as the high water mark of WoW and raiding), it took a huge amount of organization, teamwork, and dedication to pull a raid team together and get results. It also took skill. So it was not for everyone, in fact it was only the top 5% or so of players who were able to raid successfully.
A lot of players didn’t like this, they wanted raiding to be more accessible for all. Which meant making it easier to get into and easier to do. But the fact remains that during this period Blizzard had huge growth in subscriber numbers. If these players were all so unhappy, if the system was so blatantly unfair, why then did the amount of people playing WoW continue to grow so much? To be fair, Blizzard probably made the mistake of being too greedy as opposed to listening to their player-base; they probably had visions of subscription numbers going ballistic once they made raiding accessible to all. All that happened was that the hard core element of players became disillusioned with the game and drifted away. Which is a very big deal indeed; make no mistake, nerds are loyal. But once you take away the very elements that made the game a challenge to a certain type of player, it makes it impossible to go back.
So now we find ourselves in the situation where taking threat from the game is seen as an improvement. It may be for the present general player base, but lets face it, that’s not saying much.
August 19, 2011 at 5:22 am
You know its been 7 years of work (stress) for tanks. Everybody plays DPS because of this. Healing was easy in Wrath.
So yeah, after 7 years of trying to force the holy trinity with one role being very difficult it IS about time Blizzard listen to the general player base.
All the people that were “great” at tanking and want it to stay difficult have left WoW along time ago.
August 19, 2011 at 8:38 am
I just found the blog and totally agree.
However i totally disagree with Bilbo. For sure tanking was really demanding in BC and holding threat and also maintaning Shield block was difficult. But you only needed 3 tanks out of 25 player. Also tanking 5m was serious business, you had to plan pulls and use cc (befor you were epic equipped!!!).
Than came Wotlk. Wotlk tanking was a joke. A huge joke. Saying that tanking in wotlk was stress or even needed skill is just wrong. Sure when icc came and every dd had full epic gear and 30% ICC Buff, threat was an issue again. But you didnt needed those amounts of dmg and hey…. Misdirection and rogues. You could go afk when you had enough of them in the raid…
Yeah tanking was really stressful in wotlk
Cata made overall raiding more difficult. Not only for tanks but for everyone. Atm you dont need more skill as a tank as a healer or DD (speaking on Hardmodes!).
Now the only issue in Cata is, that a full raidequipped DD pushed to much dmg in 5 man, so tanks had trouble.
Should they really balance arround past content, that everyone cleared 100 of times? And for sure everyone could clear with the tank aggro problem..
And Bilbo i dont think that you know every great tank in the world!….
August 19, 2011 at 8:41 am
/sigh
The subscriber growth of WoW had essentially nothing at all to do with endgame raiding – in T11 for example, only ~28% of NA/EU players killed 1 boss, and that’s being extremely charitable by saying the average guild has 30 raiders. If we assume 18 raiders per guild (averaging 10m/25m despite the fact that 10m guilds undoubtedly had more kills), that percentage drops to ~17%. WoWProgress wasn’t around for TBC, but it would be pretty ridiculous to assume that it too had a 17-28% raiding rate back when it basically 25m or bust (outside of Kara/ZA). Unless the argument is that all that subscriber growth was from +70% of players buying the game thinking they were going to raid but end up washing out, then you must concede that raiding would have little, if any, affect on sub numbers directly. The vast, vast majority of WoW players won’t ever raid.
That aside, I think raiding accessibility had a roundabout effect in the form of, ironically, a design philosophy of encouraging players to play more than they should. Putting tier pieces on JP vendors and such is a common veteran whipping boy, but it was necessary for Blizzard’s episodic vision of game content. That was fine. What was not fine was taking heroics and turning them into a daily activity. Not because it “cheapens the heroic experience” necessarily, but because it incentivizes players to burn themselves out on old content by doing them over and over and over again. Blizzard took that manic intensity you get when you are “just one more bar…!” away from leveling up and then slapped it your JP/VP bars which reset every week, making you feel like you have to run more dungeon despite that being a bad idea. Gear was easier to get in Wrath, but I did not binge myself silly trying to reach the “Frost badge cap.” There actually was a Frost badge cap, but I didn’t care because I never felt like I had to math it out. In Cata though, it was right there in your face how you had to run 5 more heroics before Tuesday based on your X raid kills.
Anyway, this Threat change is really them just letting go of a bad mechanic that was always bad. Being throttled by your tank never felt fun, and knowing you were throttling the raid didn’t feel fun either. This is less about making things “easier” and more about opening design space to make tanking more interesting/fun.
August 19, 2011 at 11:26 am
Azuriel,
Your reading comprehension is retarded.
The subscriber growth of WoW had essentially nothing at all to do with endgame raiding
Yeah, no shit. Show me where in my post I said that it did. The mouthbreathing fuckwitted maggothumping pondlife dpfucktards may have yelled long and hard for raiding to be more accessible but that doesn’t mean they actually went and bothered to seriously do it.
My thanks to Nightgerbil for the awesome title to quote.
August 19, 2011 at 9:23 am
Actually I have normally been throttled by the tanks threat. If he can only allow me to do 14k dps, thats all I can do. I can pull 22k and die then do fk all or… I tone down and stop hitting my buttons. As a hunter I welcome the move.
I have to say though as a newbie tank, with my first 85 protadin starting hcs and second protadin and a bear going though their 40s, the issue was never my threat as such. When I play with alert sensible players its not an issue, The issue is when I am half way through a pack with every dd abilty on cd and the hunter pulls the next pack and the warlock goes nuts with his aoe on it. Yes I can taunt, but I need to hit afterwards.
I read the forums and hear the trolls saying if your dd is pulling your too slow. Ok I accept that. Lets speed this up. So as my avengers shield comes of cd I charge the next group and use it, with the last pack at 50%hps. On we go. Then I die. Now please bear in mind I am loomed to the death with enchants and offset blues. I can solo this crap. I was running stockades upto the bosses at 20 soloed scar arm from lev 30-40 and at lev 46 soloed scolo with ease. I can solo anything my level. Even at 85 I dont need a party for any normal trash. The issue is quite plain and simply THE DPS WILL NOT GIVE ME THE TIME TO GET SOLID AGRO.
So I quit. Literally. I dont tank for anyone, I just solo content and mess about. Occasionally I give it a whirl but 9 times out of ten the experiment is so traumatic I wish I had just had an enema instead.
Given the biggest issue blizz feel they currently face is the 45 min dps queue and they havent fixed this by bribing the tanks, they had to do something about tanking. They have. Its now easier to tank for morons. Not in a raid though, thats not easier. Actually its harder now holy shield has been taken from shield of the righteous, thats an extra cd I need to use in a tight rotation given I need to hit crusader strike and judgement on cd, with the gaps being filled with things like interrupts! No really, I am supposed to just macro holy shield to every abilty I have? same way I do with my aspects on my hunter? This solves the issue while seperating the gap between new guy and pro even wider. I believe Blizz did this to make tanking easier, but they havent. They just made it easier to carry mouthbreathing fuckwitted maggothumping pondlife dpfucktards.
August 19, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Mouthbreathing fuckwitted maggothumping pondlife dpfucktards. I should put that on my Christmas cards this year.
In terms of your post, I agree completely. I think Blizzard tried too hard to make everyone alike, in terms of having content and gear be available for all and making all of the classes the same. I liked being a niche and having a niche. I don’t think there was anything wrong with that. I liked that your gear showed where you had been and meant that you had to have some amount of skill to even get there. I don’t think having standards and giving people something to work was a bad thing.
Now it’s become sort of a vicious cycle and it’s too late for them to steer the car around, so to speak. I think this was never more evident than in the last few days. Snippets of 4.3 came out and all anyone could find excitement about was making their gear look pretty with the transmogrifier. A sign of our times, indeed.
August 20, 2011 at 12:58 pm
“Snippets of 4.3 came out and all anyone could find excitement about was making their gear look pretty with the transmogrifier. A sign of our times, indeed.”
That’s because so far, they haven’t really told about anything else. New raid tier and some dungeons, but nothing of their content. So it could be anything Deathwing -related. Nothing wrong with being excited on the things they’ve announced.
August 21, 2011 at 8:42 am
Holy shield and rebuke are both off the gcd, I’d expect someone who goes around calling other people mouthbreathing fuckwitted maggothumping pondlife dpfucktards to know that. I guess that’s what this site is about though, namecalling > knowledge.
August 28, 2011 at 4:53 am
Love that comment Iholyshield: if holyshield was on gcd I couldnt macro it into everyshot now could I? It wouldnt be the same as a hunters aspect it would require me to hit my macro (shift T or whatever I set it to) twice to make to work.
Why not get your head out of your ass and consider that its not only you who know how to play? Its not hard to learn: takes about 50hrs of game play to totally get a class down for me. I get most of that leveling and gearing it.
August 19, 2011 at 5:06 pm
I haven’t yet formulated an opinion about the threat changes, except that I think they’re buggy, because my duoing companion and I *never* used to have a problem with me taking aggro from her doing old content, and now I do if I am not on her primary target, implying that her AoE isn’t enough to hold aggro. I don’t know if that’s the way it’s supposed to work, but if it is, that’s not going to make AoE tanking easier.
I will say this, though: Raiding in BC was broken. Not because the raiding itself was broken, but because you had to do 10-man content to prepare for 25-man content. That caused a lot of guild drama around sheduling, especially when you were trying to break into 25-man at first. I quit raiding during BC because of that drama.
Personally, I wish they’d just given us 25-man raiding and left out the whole 10-man scenario.
August 19, 2011 at 7:52 pm
Well that’s the end of the rogue. No, not you Adam, I mean all rogues.
What’s the point in leaping from the shadows to deliver devastating damage on our enemies with the ability to drop threat and dive back to cover when there’s no threat to drop ?
They’ve fucked us over endlessly. I seem to remember a while back you described us as warriors in leather. You were right. If I’m to stay in the game as a rogue I’m going to look for an S&M party, the only place I’ll fit in with all this leather gear.
August 20, 2011 at 1:00 pm
We will find a new game to be roguey, keep the faith, old leather beater.
August 20, 2011 at 1:15 pm
I think you guys are taking this the wrong way. Aggro can be fun, but threat, not so much. Having to Feint just to be able to do your job isn’t fun. Having to not be active to not wipe the group is not fun.
This change has no real effect on raiding, only 5 mans. If Old School Raiding used to feel like a job, well, that’s too bad. Many of us have actual jobs, that pay. And they take their toll. Having raiding happen at a competitive level hasn’t gone away at all.
Fact is, Threat as a fun mechanic didn’t work. It was always either too much of an issue and hindered actual gameplay, or a non-issue. There was no comfortable middle ground for it. If nothing else, this allows for the devs to design encounters, even 5-man encounters, without having to take an arbitrary number into account. They can actually focus more on designing content.
I feel a lot of this negativity the vocal minority is having stems from how Cataclysm was designed. The End Game content is very scarce. Leveling new toons isn’t really new content. At level cap, you find yourself without anything to do pretty fast. It had to be done, the leveling game was seriously outdated, and would even turn away potential new players, but it is a problem, when in many ways people feel the game doesn’t truly start until level cap, and when you get there, if you ain’t raiding you have very little to do.
This threat change was just a quality of life change, that helps players take on a new role. We need more tanks, and bribing didn’t really help. Now, if they come through with this “more active resource and health management” -idea for tanking, that can be a pretty fun thing. Anything is more fun than measuring TPS.
August 25, 2011 at 1:43 am
“It had to be done, the leveling game was seriously outdated, and would even turn away potential new players, but it is a problem, when in many ways people feel the game doesn’t truly start until level cap, and when you get there, if you ain’t raiding you have very little to do.”
The problem is that people had things to do, like when they were tanking, but it was decided that those things were no fun and so Blizzard made changes to remedy that.
People don’t want things to do. They want things handed to them, explained to them to the Nth degree. You can’t have it both ways. You either want to be stimulated and made to feel like an active participant in something, which will inevitably lead to some amount of work or effort, or you don’t and you want things to be “fun” and less complicated.
Mind you, I don’t mean “you,” personally. I mean “you,” in general.
August 21, 2011 at 9:31 pm
@bilbo
i guess you never got to roll with the pro’s. Well i did, and i and most of my team is still around. In all reality, this change is taking the fun out of tanking. If you have trouble with threat at this time the sole and only reason is you’ve joined with your quest greens and ran into a scrub 378 geared player.
Tell the idiot to throttle a bit and your threat is fine, heck, most of the time if he starts to assist focus, rather then tab target his threat is in check allready.
The only reason this change is needed is due to all you scrubs comming in through LFD. Wich is a direct result of the “everything accessible for everyone policy”
There is nothing wrong with treat as it was, if you had trouble, either you as a tank, or that dps player needed to learn to play.
August 23, 2011 at 9:26 pm
I play a Tank, Warrior in Vanilla, and BC, Pally in Wrath, and Cata. I got to say Pally Tanking in Wrath was like fricking eating cheesecake in a tub of butter. That really made no sense, but it was easy as hell. I enjoyed the challenge of Cata, but I do believe some adjustments needed to be made more at the beginning. Now that I’m geared I don’t really need it as much. I could of used it when I was sporting the greens.
August 29, 2011 at 7:35 am
They’re making threat matter less because the focus of tanking is moving from aggro to staying alive. Right now the hotfix makes it easier for new tanks entering the LFD tool. It makes no difference to geared competent tanks.
BTW I am a Catalog baby so enlighten me… Did the older raids have tanks kiting dogs over traps, climbing gossamer threads while making sure their healer was ready to go up etc? It seems that early in wow you knew a tank was good if he could hold aggro on a pack with mostly single target attacks. Now it’s more about awareness and working with encounter mechanics. Threat for a raid tank isn’t an issue, it’s only an issue when you are undergeared so why begrudge the new tank the boost in 5 mans? You can’t raid tank by going afk with a threat lead because of encounter mechanics so, what exactly is the problem?