This blog was founded mostly for my own writing practice, and I will admit it feeds off my grand delusion that sharing my life in a social media format is somehow interesting to those aside from me. Sometimes this delusion is fed through rants, because who DOESN'T like reading about people complaining? Seriously, there is some sort of sick perversion going on, and I'm as guilty as the next person of it.
Anyway. This rant is mostly a World of Warcraft-y type one, to answer all the whining about this. If the article makes no sense to you, I doubt the following rant will either. In this particular case, I am not asking that all my readers understand the topic. I'm more using the blog purely to blow off steam and perhaps exercise some furious but logic-driven argument construction. But with having not written in nearly four months, I doubt anyone will notice it's here anyway
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To those upset with the proposed Call To Arms addition to the LFG Dungeon Finder by Blizzard, I humbly put forth some thoughts for your consideration.
First off, the Random Dungeon Finder is an ENTIRELY VOLUNTARY service Blizzard is providing. No one is forcing you to use it to get your daily in. You are completely free to advertise in trade/LFG channels, find guildies, and in general go about it ‘the old fashioned’ way. “But that takes worrrrrrrrrrrk.” Yes, it does take some effort to do it without waiting an hour in queue. You don’t have to play this game if you don’t enjoy it.
Second, Blizzard is answering the overwhelming wave of DPS QQ as to their insanely long queue times. They are trying to make it BETTER for those that have already decided they prefer to play the game without taking on the ‘extra responsibility’ roles of Healer or Tank. The core problem is that there are few people that want to tank or heal. You would THINK an instant queue would be incentive enough to get people to tank. Why are they not flocking to the tanking role in droves, then? Why do people remain DPS despite the long queue? Sometimes it is purely for love of class. But in many cases, it is because these people, if they try tanking, do not want to put up with the critical and selfish attitudes of DPS. Also, perhaps because it is more fun being a critical and selfish DPS than to be a tank or a healer.
The cataclysm class and dungeon designs have made it more difficult for a tank and a healer to ‘carry’ poor dps. However, it is still common practice to blame the healer and/or tank for wipes. Everyone has a responsibility, and Blizzard has been working on adding to DPS responsibility in this xpac. This is of course going to be an unpleasant experience for the DPS who have coasted along with little responsibility in the previous xpac’s dungeons. They will continue to blame the healer/tank for wipes, whether it was truly their fault or not. This xpac, and what Blizzard has been doing, has been unabashedly engaging in the process of ‘raising’ DPS out of this coasting mindset. It is unpleasant, and there has been/will be much QQing. ‘Oh, this is a GAME, it’s supposed to be FUN, I don’t want to do anything that’s not FUN’. Yes, it is a game. And yes, for the most part, it is designed to deliver enjoyment to its players. But, like participating in sports, you have a role with responsibilities. Blizzard has chosen to try and equalize the weight of those responsibilities. If you don’t like it, by all means go find some other game. That is fewer DPS in the queue… which, coincidentally, ALSO contributes to solving the core problem!
Next, there are cases of people never having played the tank role for one reason or another—they’ve only played one class, they’re new, or perhaps they are too nervous to try and learn to tank in the presence of complete and utterly critical strangers. The Dungeon Finder, contrary to our whiny sense of entitlement, never promises us good players in the randomizer. Nor does it promise masters of any of the roles. People cannot learn new things if they do not try, fail, make mistakes, and try again. To walk into a dungeon experience and not give a learning tank, healer, OR dps the benefit of the doubt and the patience through their honest mistakes not only does a disservice to them, it does not promote growth as players. So you have to put up with a wipe for a tank who fumbled his aggro management, or for a healer who missed a GCD and let the tank die. Which is going to contribute to that tank/healer getting better: ‘Do you know what you did wrong? What can we do better? Don’t worry, just try not to do it again’… or ‘WTF FAIL TANK’. And, as we have covered earlier, we need more tanks and healers. Getting them trained past the learning stages is critical.
Which leads me to the Incentives. Blizzard is trying to make it more worth our while to attempt the tanking (and to some degree the healing) roles. They are trying to outweigh the anxiety that comes from learning something new and putting up with the unknown of possibly unpleasant people in the group. Blizzard is trying to RAISE new tanks and healers by giving people more a reason to expose themselves to those classes—because unless people learn and get good at tanking/healing, they will not want to do it. Even if they try it and don’t particularly like it, it gives them a better understanding and empathy for a role they may have previously derided. In the post, Blizzard comes right out and says it: “Understandably, players prefer to take on that responsibility in more organized situations than what the Dungeon Finder offers, but perhaps we can bribe them a little. While this system gives tanks and healers something extra, the incentive is being provided so that we can help players in the DPS role get into more dungeons, get better gear, and continue progressing.”. Blizzard is FULLY AWARE they are bribing their players, but look at their MOTIVES—to help out the player base as a whole. They are bribing one set of players so the other set can get what they have been wanting and QQing about not having. DPS, take the offered help and quit yer whining.
“But this means that people who have always tanked and enjoyed instaqueues get MORE stuff,” the QQing continues. “That’s not fair! And tanks have a self-righteous attitude anyway! Why reward that??” Keep in mind, you have to FINISH THE DUNGEON to get your reward. Yeah, tanks can drop and start again. But there is now MORE incentive for a tank to stay with the group! Also, EVERY ROLE in this game suffers from arrogant, self-righteous players. Tanks seem more obvious since they often need to direct the group due to their pulling responsibilities. But not every self-confident tank is being bossy just to irritate everyone. Being bossy is often the only way to get those not used to mutual dungeon responsibility to pull their weight. Even more so when people are tunnel-visioned and hell-bent on working as little as possible at their role, masking their laziness with the mantra ‘but I just want to play what’s most fun to me’. If what is most fun to you is pulling aggro over the tank and then dying because the healer has gone OOM trying to keep you up through it, there is going to be a problem. It is not your role to top the meters. It is your role to MANAGE YOUR AGGRO. If you don’t like this responsibility, then go find a different game to play.
Let’s not point any martyr fingers either. DPS think they are sacrificing SO MUCH for waiting in their queues SO LONG. Tanks think they are sacrificing SO MUCH for putting up with everyone’s nub mistakes. Healers think they are sacrificing SO MUCH for healing through the nub mistakes. We all think we have it the worst, that no other role could POSSIBLY understand how hard we have it, and what we have to put up with. I’m seeing a pattern among us all—we all think we’ve got it worst.
I am not saying ‘excuse every tank for their behavior’. But let’s take the planks out of our own eyes before going after the specks in others’. Every single one of us knows the pain of having to put up with an arrogant or oblivious idiot in our random dungeon group. Tank, Healer, DPS—it makes no difference. We as humans by nature are inherently selfish people. Entering into the task of completing a dungeon with 4 other strangers is going to set 5 peoples’ selfishnesses against each other. This is not an issue of ‘OMG Blizzard is giving tanks SO MUCH INCENTIVE it’s not FAIR’. This is an issue of Blizzard trying to help its players out and grow them in understanding, patience, and empathy. Heaven forbid a game might teach us something as wild as ‘maturity’.
Ultimately: No one is FORCING anyone to switch roles. If you want to keep playing DPS, play DPS. No one is forcing you to use the Dungeon Finder. But shut up about Blizzard not doing anything to help you. They have, and continue to do so. No, they are not pandering to your instant gratification. They are working on your LONGTERM gratification. And anyone who is sacrificing the former while focusing on the latter on your behalf is far more trustworthy and benevolent than the former.
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4 comments:
I feel like I'm being baited here, but I'm too stupid to ignore that fact. I don't have a good perspective on how bad the queues may have gotten in game, since I don't think I tried queuing as solo DPS since sometime last year nor have I played in awhile.
The dungeon finder only provides the most obvious statistical point for recognizing a class/role shortage. Saying that it is a feature you don't have to use is not relevant to the statistical reality of a shortage. People complained brutally about tank shortages long before the Dungeon Queue ever existed. And in BC era it was a healer shortage most often complained about. If the dungeon finder's queue times indicate a massive shortage of a specific role, than the shortage exists. As an aside, the fast queue times did diminish the tank shortage during Wrath...
The root of the problem is far more systemic then can be corrected just by trying to bribe certain players. There is a consistent problem with the ratios of roles/specs for the various activities in the game. Ten man raiding is typically a 5/3/2 ratio, but 25-man raiding usually has a 16/6.5/2.5 ratio, although there is a decent amount of variation here (rarely more than 3 tanks though). And of course 5-mans it's 3/1/1 and the spec ratio is 22/4/4. If all of the various ratios were in sync, then shortages would be far less common. All of this ignores PvP which makes the whole situation significantly more difficult.
They are perhaps too entrenched in this class/role system to really address the root problem, but this lure seems poorly thought out. My biggest issues with their approach aren't the concept of incentivizing the lesser played roles (I advocated that in the past), but their mechanism. My two biggest issues are that they are only rewarding individuals who queue alone, and the rewards are not targeted to the role. Instead of offering pets and mounts, have the specialty reward be extra money, extra rep, extra justice/valor points, flasks, or potions... Things that tanks or healers need, but that are not particularly rare or hard to acquire. Most importantly have it be the things that make the individual better at their role!
I assume Blizzard feels like those lures are insufficient, but the bigger lure is the core of why I think the system is flawed. They only let this work if you queue by yourself, right? Doesn't a tank that queues with one other friend, DPSer or Healer help alleviate the queue almost as much as the tank that queues alone? Wouldn't an inexperienced person that wanted to learn how to tank feel more comfortable with one friend present to encourage/advise/etc... And yet that tank gets no incentive. I suspect the reason for that is people would game the system. Hybrid friends would role swap after queuing together in an attempt to farm the rare rewards. If the rare rewards are not part of the system... Then you wouldn't care if people "gamed" the system, because you still have people tanking/healing instances!
Another issue I have is that the system only goes into effect when there is an imbalance in the healer/tank ratio. This system may simply remove that imbalance and not actually improve the DPS queue times at all. If both tanks and healers have instant queues, then neither gets an incentive (beyond the instant queue, which has already been determined to be insufficient to resolve the role shortages). It seems like in that case both the healer and tank should get some incentive (presumably split).
Nowhere in any of my statements did I deny there is a definite class/role shortage in the game. Nowhere did I say the proposed Call To Arms addition is a wonder-miracle fix to whatever problem might be underlying. I did not write to argue about imbalances in class/role population, nor whether or not it will ‘fix’ anything. I am not writing to debate game mechanic design and balance. My thesis is, as per usual, ‘Quit Whining, People.’
DPS are whining about giving roles they are not playing extra incentives after they whined about how their queue times in the dungeon finder are insanely long. The first thing to do is to remind them that the dungeon finder didn’t always used to be around, and that it’s a voluntary service. It’s like me whining the line for free hot dogs in the cafeteria is too long. If I am getting the hot dog for free, WHY AM I WHINING. Standing in line is entirely voluntary. Of course I want a hot dog. I need this hot dog, yea, a certain number of sustained hot dogs every day to not be hungry so I can do things like work, study, or raid. I could go down the street to a restaurant and pay for it, sure. Or I could stand in line and wait for a free one. Either way, whining about a long time in line for something that is offered for free (a service that puts a dungeon group together without you having to do the legwork/trade trolling yourself) is a sense-of-entitlement luxury.
For the sake of the metaphor, let’s expand on it. Let’s say every time someone gets in line who knows how to grill a hot dog, they enable several people to get their hot dogs faster. Not everyone knows how to properly grill a hot dog; that is more responsibility. Most people are content to just have theirs made for them, either it’s not fun to grill hot dogs, or they might screw it up, or what. So the cook says hey. Here is this long line of people, all wanting these free hot dogs I desire to provide them with. Anyone who can come help grill hot dogs, they will get a bag of fries with it! That will help me, because I can make everyone happy by getting them their hot dogs faster. This might encourage more people to become grillers, and help out everyone. At worst, it rewards someone who has learned an extra responsibility and who is willing to take it on. But now, the whiners cry anew! ‘They’re getting fries!’ they squeal. ‘We get nothing!’ …When in fact, they have been offered the hot dog for free, AND because of the free fries incentive, they are going to get their hot dogs FASTER. Oh, and offered the fries as well provided they are willing to come help grill.
What this comes down to is we want our free hot dog, our free bag of fries, and we want them instantly. Without having to go through the trouble to grill for anyone.
Beyond this, I have said nothing about whether I think the system will succeed or fail. I merely defend Blizzard for their motives, and spend most of my time in my writing pointing out that the ‘cook’ here is largely benevolent and is doing its best to provide a constantly improving game experience for its paying customers. And also, remember, we are paying THEM. If we no longer like our product, or take objection to how it is being delivered, we can stop playing and paying. We all sign an EULA. Playing WoW is an entirely voluntary affair. This is not a democracy where we can make demands and pass them by a majority vote. They deliver a service, we pay for it. They work hard to improve their product all the time. But to get into the mindset that we can complain about how they ‘obviously don’t understand/care’, or ‘they don’t get the problem’, or ‘they’re screwing us over’ is not only self-centeredly focused on our own personal inconveniences with their established system, it does Blizzard a disservice as a hard-working company. To operate disconnected from understanding the mechanics, shortcomings and strengths of their own product is not just patently unrealistic, it spells financial doom. And to blindly attribute these negative aspects to them because they are trying new things that may seem unfair to us or change the way we are used to it being (when in reality it is an attempt to help their customers) is just narcissistic.
A related and very good discussion of the relationship between Blizzard and its customer base can be found here. I am well aware that the WoW community can be taken as a microcosm of humanity in general, and thus the presence of whining self-entitlement will always be there. Those discontent will always cry the loudest, whether there is a valid reason for them to be discontent or not. But as someone who puts up with, on a daily basis, copious amounts of ridiculous whining, I find the writing of rebuttals to certain varieties of whining to be theraputic.
Also. I find it odd that you thought I was baiting you. It’s not always about you, you know. Take it from someone who wrestles with that truth about herself daily.
Of course the world revolves exclusively around me; it would be ridiculous to assume otherwise.
Lots of times Blizzard has an idea about how to do something, they present it to the community and the response allows them to refine and improve on the idea. Sure it's a pain to sift through all the positive, negative, and mixed responses. As much as the whining can be absurd, Blizzard has made it part of their process. Frequently that whining leads to the game being made better. Sometimes that whining makes the game worse. I think this is a case where their first draft of this feature is not as good as what Blizzard is capable of, and I bet it is improved upon before it makes it to release, and in part because of all the whining.
The moment their fans don't care enough to whine about proposed changes, is the moment they shutdown the servers. If it's therapeutic to whine about whiners, go for it! Be careful though :) You might get what you wish for!
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