5% is the end of the World (of Warcraft)

Ah nerfs. Maybe that should look something like this:

“@)(*$)@*_@!_@# NERFS!!!! WHY U NERF MY CONTENT BLIZZ?!?! YOU SUCK!”

Or at least that is what most of the community thinks. Personally, all I have to say is this;

“Welcome to the end content patch of World of Warcraft.”

I want to preface the opinions that are about to be expressed in this post. These are not the opinions of Arioch of Clearcasting. These are the opinions of Tirael the DK of 1337BOHICA (which I lost my password to, because I had to shut down an email account linked to it.) Some of you know who I am, some of you don’t. I will give you some background on me, since some of the new readers out there don’t know who I am.

I am the other half of Arioch. Selwyn recently talked about molesting my priest Naerityah and Arioch himself commented on my tusks not being a roadblock to fellatio. I have been playing World of Warcraft since January of 2005. I have raided all content when it was CURRENT. This includes all content between BWL & Dragon Soul. I was sitting at Muru pre-nerf in Sunwell, I was knocking on Heroic 25 LK’s door and I have wiped more times than I can remember on The Four Horsemen in Naxx 40. I have been there done that and got the T-Shirt. Well, I don’t really have a T-Shirt, but I want one.

In all of that content, I have played every role in this game. Starting with Tanking on my Warrior in Vanilla, to Dpsing on my Warrior in BC, to Tanking on my DK in Wrath, to Dpsing on my Priest in ToC/ICC, to Healing on my Paladin in Cata, I have done it all, at least in my mind.

Does this qualify me to make a statement on the current state of this game, its community and the current content available? Damn straight it does. Why? Because I have Titties in Vent that has a Blog that says I can make a guest post, that’s why. Let’s get to the meat and potatoes.

The WoW Community and Entitlement

It’s terrible. Not just because there are “QQ’ers” on the forums or in game, but because of entitlement. There are good places to feel entitled and bad places to feel entitled. YOU, as a paying customer, are entitled to a gaming experience of your choosing. However, you are NOT entitled to have the game changed to the way YOU want it. You are NOT entitled to a legendary weapon. You are NOT entitled to have raid achievements handed to you. You are NOT entitled to be able to kill Deathwing on Heroic Mode.

However, I do believe you are entitled to being able to see content. In my WoW time, I have come across some a lot of things I thought were just terrible. For one, I am one of the FEW people I know (in game) who still play WoW who even experienced Naxx 40. I am also one of the few people I know that was even stepping foot into Sunwell, pre-nerf. To me, that kind of sucks.

Back in Vanilla, sites like Tankspot, MMO-Champion, Elitist Jerks and Wowhead either didn’t exist or were in the infancy. Research your class? LAWLSIECOASTER. Research an encounter? ROFLCOPTER. Mass summon? HAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHA. We walked to raids, uphill, both ways, in the snow, barefoot, carrying all our consumables, on slow mounts if we were poor, and waited on 15 people to get back from afk so we could start a raid.

Guess what? I FUCKING HATED IT. The game was in its infancy, class balance was terrible and pvp was a joke. However, the community wasn’t full of a bunch of entitled and whiny asshats who think just because they pay to play WoW that they were entitled to anything they wanted. The game was a challenge. When you earned something in game, you felt like your pixels accomplished something. The community was great. We did whatever we could to help each other.

Fast forward to Wrath of the Lich King. Asshatery ensues. At this point the game was at its height of popularity. Content was more readily available to the masses. The game was at a good point. Content in Wrath of the Lich King was just like Kara in the fact of how much of it was ran by people. The community was well-established. Then it happened. Entitlement began.

Because of the ease of Naxx 10/25, people thought that ALL content was supposed to be like that. PuG raiding really took off at this time. Ninja’ing in WoW became the norm. Yes, ninja looters had been around since the days of EQ, but WoW rarely had these issues prior to WotLK. In order to make a buck, Blizzard caved to the forum QQ. We had the atrocities of raid instances known as Naxx 10/25, ToC 10/25 and ICC 10/25. Ulduar was the one shining beacon of an actual raid in WotLK.

However, as much as I disliked the ease of those raids, I agree with one thing, as I have always said. I believe everyone should have the CHANCE and the CHOICE to raid. Do I think I should raid with some of them? No, but I do believe there should be a place for those people to raid. You are entitled to a gaming experience because you are a paying customer, but you are not entitled to doing everything on the hardest difficulty available or the loot that comes from it.

Ease of the Game

People also say, “The game became easy in Wrath of the Lich King.” Wrong. The COMMUNITY was more fleshed out in WotLK. The sites were there, they told you what to do, gave you the strategies and taught you what to do, when to do it, and when not to.

With the masses being able to do experience this level of raiding, of course we would end up with the content being relatively easier than in the past. Did I like that? Not really. I agreed with it, until the nerfs to ICC came in. At 5%, when I was sitting at 11/12 Heroic in 25 wasn’t so bad. However, when it made it to 30%, it was a joke. Yes, I know I could have opted out of it. We all did. It was the simple fact that it was THERE that mattered. However, since the nerfs to Sunwell at the end of the expansion, I agreed with it simply because it was the end of the xpac. Halion was fun though.

Another thing of note is that at this point in raiding, inventive raid design was hard to come by. Why? The encounter design team couldn’t think of new things to do. The metric they used was something like an algebra equation when it came to difficulty.

If x is normal then y boss damage is the product of a and the price of tea in China.
If x is heroic then y boss damage is the product of a and the price of coffee in New York and b number of boss mechanics is multiplied by 4.

As you can see, it is not a very inventive encounter design metric. However, it provided for a lot of people to see the content. It did not provide for new and inventive boss mechanics.

On to Cataclysm. Let’s get past BWD/BoT/To4W/FL and go straight to Dragon Soul. FINALLY, a content level meant for everyone. LFR is probably the SINGLE BEST thing Blizzard has done. It allows content to be made easy for people who don’t or have never raided before. The loot system sucks, and I am not going to discuss that. Normal is Normal, Heroic is fucking hard and the encounter design is pretty cool. Madness and Spine really bring some good new elements to an encounter.

5% Nerf to my Content

However, now everyone is BITCHING about a 5% nerf. Here is an empty creek, cry me a river. If you are not 8/8 heroic DS, you have NO right to complain about a nerf. Even if you ARE, you still have no right. In either situation, you either need the help or have already done it. Also, YOU CAN OPT OUT OF IT. If you truly want it to still be difficult (which a 5% nerf will do nothing but push your 5% wipes to a kill), turn the fucking buff off.

Don’t go on to the forums and bitch about how you are entitled to some experience of difficulty when the shit can be turned off. Don’t complain when you are sitting at 4/8 normal and can’t get Ultraxion down. I would venture to say about 65% of the people complaining are wiping to the MECHANICS of the fight versus the actual damage/healing needed to down a fight and I am being generous. 5% will not make a difference to you getting the boss down if you can’t do the mechanics.

Another thing. This shit has happened SINCE FUCKING SUNWELL. You act like this is new. Since most of the player base probably started during WotLK or BC, you are all use to it. It happens. It allows people to see more of the content on normal. At least you can turn the shit off.

Blizzard makes a game for three reasons:
1) Because they like making games that people enjoy
2) They want people to see the story and the content
3) To make money.

If a company doesn’t make a game for those three reasons, then I won’t play their game. Why?
1) If a company makes a game that no one will enjoy, then no one will buy it.
2) If they don’t want to tell a story in an RPG (specifically this genre), then why make a game?
3) If they don’t want to make money, then they will not feel a sense of responsibility to their customers, which means CS wouldn’t exist for the game, they would not care about the community and the game would suck.

Stop complaining about something so arbitrary as 5%.