Joel's Scattered Thoughts

Notes on things that interest me

Posts Tagged raiding

Grouping kills you

Sep 20

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Tobold recently had a post on how Grouping kills you.  I was looking at it from the perspective of twinking up a rogue.   A Balanced Heartseeker dagger costs 40 Emblems or 60 Champion’s Seals.

40 Emblems is roughly 13 heroic instance runs – depending on the group and the instance, you’re looking at 13 hours or more.

60 Champion’s Seals is about 12 days of dailies – maybe an hour a day, a good chunk of which is flight time when you can be afk to do other things.  Also, you are guaranteed your Seals whereas if the group falls apart you may not get your emblems.

If your daily playtime is limited, you’re better off doing dailies rather than trying to find instance runs.  Why group before raiding?

Tags: , ,

What to do about WoW?

Mar 23

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | 1 Comment

Almost since the start of Wrath, we’ve been losing raiders. I don’t want to personally recruit people – if I have to start doing that, WoW switches from fun to a job. I enjoy puttering around in WoW on mostly solo stuff – doing quests here and there, gearing up toons for dual specs, playing the auction house, and so on. Maybe it’s time to call a halt to raiding rather than schedule things and cancel them. Then those who want to raid can find a better fit elsewhere. Time to let things go graciously or time to rage against the dying night?

Tags:

March Sadness

Mar 22

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Doofy the Paladin is suffering from March Sadness. Progress has ground to a halt as their roster of raiders has disappeared. We’re in much the same situation with our guild alliance. Historically we’ve run 2-3 nights per week, but we’ve lost about 9 of our 18 raiders. Some may come back but for now we’re lucky if we raid one night a week, let alone doing any progress raiding. On the bright side, I’m having fun gearing my toons up for dual specs and raiding.

Tags: , , ,

Raid Training

Feb 16

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

In Drop & Give Me 50! Tigerfeet describes heroic as training grounds for raiding. Get your practice in every day with four other people instead of wiping 25 people on a weekly basis!

Tags:

8 Questions Your Guild Should Ask Itself

Feb 10

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Matticus posted 8 Questions Your Guild Should Ask Itself.  Since his focus is on raiding, that’s where this quiz aims.  Here’s how I’d answer them for our guild alliance.

  1. Do you have a clearly defined identity? We are a raiding alliance.  We aim to allow people to raid even when they can’t commit to a regular schedule.
  2. Do you have a clearly defined schedule? We raid 2-3 times per week.  Raids are scheduled in advance and posted on the website.
  3. Do you actually FOLLOW that schedule? Yes.  First pull is at raid start time (or a little earlier).  If it isn’t within 15 minutes of raid start, the raid is cancelled.
  4. Do you have legitimate and fair looting system, with defined rules that are followed? We’re using roll – need for main spec, greed for offspec or alts.  We’re still working on some of the finer details, e.g.  what happens when you change mains/specs? 
  5. Do you have a plan for progression? Our main focus is 10 player progression.  So far our speed has kept pace with Blizzard’s release of new content.
  6. Do you have fun playing together? Yes, that is one of our reasons for existing.  When it’s not fun, stop playing.
  7. What is your vent environment like? Family friendly with some innuendo. 
  8. How are you with female players? About 1/3 to 1/2 of our players are female.  It’s not a novelty to have female players. 

Tags: , , ,

How to control a herd of humans

Feb 7

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | 2 Comments

Performing activities in synch seems to build group solidarity: How to control a herd of humans. I wonder how activities such as raiding play into that? The examples they give seem to involve music or at least rhythm. Would raiding provide more group unity if encounters required some kind of rhythmic activity?

Tags: ,

Raiding Ends

Feb 6

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | 1 Comment

I’ve decided to stop raiding in WoW.  No big drama.  No stuck progression.  I’m tired of raiding and of juggling personalities.  The encounters aren’t enough fun to compensate for the annoyance of raiding.  I plan on keeping my WoW account going.  I still plan to log in regularly.  I just don’t want the hassle of raiding. 

It annoys me is that my level 80 characters are effectively dead.  What am I going to do with them now?  I guess I’ll run Heroics now and again.  Who knows, in a few weeks I may want to raid again.

Tags:

Raiding as Ret

Jan 25

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

I raided as Ret for Friday’s run.  It was fun to do a ton of DPS.  The amusing thing for me was that I had one piece of instance loot – the rest was quest rewards, craftable stuff, or rep rewards.  My one piece of instance loot was a leather belt from Heroic Utgarde Keep, so nothing too impressive.  I still managed to pump out a respectable amount of DPS.  My damage dropped through the floor when I had to DPS and raid lead, so I don’t think I’ll be doing that again. 

Tags: ,

Why Raid?

Jan 18

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

It seems that loot drama is inevitable.  Raid leading is a stressful thing (and the pay sucks).  It seems to me that a decent raid leader, like a decent manager, is a jerk (the great ones are not, but that’s a whole other plane of skill).   Right now, if I want to raid, I have to raid lead.  Why raid?

The thing I like best about raiding is that it provides a chance to overcome challenges as a group.  Naxxramas is easy for advanced guilds, but for us it’s a challenge.  I’d say that Naxx is pretty much perfectly tuned for us right now.   We are downing bosses but it’s taking us a number of tries for most of them.  The fun of overcoming a challenge as a group is the reason I raid.

I don’t know where I want to go with raiding.  The thought of spending the next two years raiding doesn’t sound like fun.  How many times do I want to see Naxx?  

Tags: , ,

Damage taken

Jan 16

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Gevlon talks about Damage taken in a raid situation. Checking up on this is something I need to get better at as a raid leader. The Expiration addon used to be handy for a quick report. Recount does the job but I find it more awkward to use. WoW Web Stats has beautiful reams of information, but I can’t exactly pull that out mid-fight. “Okay everyone, stop for 20 minutes while I parse, upload, and analyze the log.”

Part of the problem with low-pressure raiding is that I’m really reluctant to bug people about this kind of thing. Maybe it would help make things more fun overall though. I’m going to watch deaths, especially early deaths, and make sure the player knows what went wrong in as meek a way as I can manage. (I may play the Ony wipe video for myself though.) We’ll see how it works out.

This week I’m bringing smoke flare to Heigan to help with positioning.

Tags:

Alts and the Raider: An Officer’s Perspective

Jan 13

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Sydera at World of Matticus discusses Alts and the Raider: An Officer’s Perspective.  We just went through some of this entering Naxx.  It hadn’t been a big deal before Wrath as we had Karazhan on farm by the time we started to bring in alts to do more than fill in temporarily in key roles.  

With Wrath, we’ve had an overfull raiding roster pretty much every raid night.  Deciding who can come and who can’t has been a major headache for me and has led to hard feeling a couple of times.  Some hadn’t decided on their spec and are willing to respec as needed which then leads to loot issues.  Does a paladin without a declared spec get to roll on DPS/Tank/Heal loot?  We ended up adding a new rule requiring raiders to declare a main toon and spec even if they are not playing that toon/spec at the moment.  Farm content is going to be more of a free-for-all, but we’re a ways from having anything on farm at this point. 

It’s naive of me, but I hadn’t even thought about this till someone brought it to my attention.  Probably one of the reasons I hadn’t thought about it is that the loot didn’t affect me directly.   I had blithely assumed the more alts, the merrier.  With more alts we could have multiple people for any given role and we could pull in different toons to give everyone a chance to play.  I missed considering the politics of loot distribution, especially in these early progression days when one piece of loot can make a big difference to someone’s raid viability. 

epiclewtz

Tags: , , , ,

Raider 101 Project

Jan 11

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Rohan from Blessing of Kings has started a Raider 101 Project. This is meant for people who are new to raiding. The information is not meant for squeezing out every last bit of DPS/Healing/Tanking, but for getting started on playing your role in a raid. Since this has just been announced, there’s not a lot up there at the moment, but there doubtless will be. Raider101

Tags: , ,

Picking a New Realm

Dec 29

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

servers So you’ve been playing World of Warcraft for a while and have decided to make a fresh start and reroll on a new server.  How do you decide which server will be right for you? 

I’m assuming you’ve already decided on a server type, a faction, and have some idea of the play style and class(es) you enjoy.  If not take a look at WoW Insider’s current WoW Rookie column.  If you’re new to WoW, welcome here!

Server population affects a number of parts of the game.  A more highly populated server will have more people to play with, but also more people competing for the same resources.  WarcraftRealms is a census of the population on the different servers. Since it’s based on people submitting data rather than Blizzard numbers, it’s not 100% accurate but it can give you a pretty good picture of realm populations. If you’re playing on a PvP server, be sure to check out the Horde/Alliance ratio to have a rough idea of how often you’ll get ganked.

Your server’s time zone is also worth noting.  If you want to play with others pick a server where prime time (roughly 6-11 PM) matches your play schedule.  If not, pick one where it doesn’t. 

These two factors should narrow you list down to a dozen servers or so. Now it’s time to dig down a little further.

If you’re interested in endgame PvE look at WoWProgress to see how progressed a server is.  It will be easier to get into raiding on a server with many raiding guilds.  If PvP is more your thing, look at SK Gaming’s Arena Rankings or Warcraft Realm’s Battlegrounds page.  More teams/wins means more opportunities for you to get in on the fun.

Another factor to consider is the personality of your server. All servers will have loathsome jerks and terrific people.  However, there are some servers where one or the other predominate.  Take a look at the description for your server on WoWWiki’s Realms List.  I shudder to recommend it, but it might be worth looking at the Official Realm Forums.  You want to look at the reactions to announcements of accomplishments.  Is the announcer congratulated or mocked?Hopefully this will give you some idea of the kinds of personalities you may be dealing with.  Remember that mostly it’s the the scum of the server that post on the realm forums. 

I hope this will help you in your search for a new server.  Have fun!

(Inspired by Calling all Horde!! from Skeleton Jack)

Tags: , ,

Random Boss Abilities

Dec 23

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

I like this idea from Tobold blogs from the hip – WoW Insider:
“Every boss in the raid dungeon gets between two and five random boss abilities, with no way to find out what the boss does except for fighting him.” I think it would make instancing and raiding a lot more interesting if bosses were more unpredictable. The downside would be that some of the more interesting scripted encounters would be taken out. Mind you even the most interesting scripted encounter gets dull after a couple times through.

Tags:

A humble suggestion

Nov 19

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Greedy goblin has come up with A humble suggestion for making a dynamic version of World of Warcraft that would make raiding easier as time passes while keeping it tough for the hardcore. I especially like the idea that there would be a record of how hard a raid boss was then you defeated it.

Tags:

Favorite Part of Wrath

Nov 18

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

chef So far my favorite part of Wrath is the new cooking recipes.  The new instances are well done.  The quests are amusing and well-planned.  Nevertheless I like the new food and fishing for it best. 

I really don’t know if I’m going to make it to raiding in Wrath.  I like the new quests and stuff but I’m finding leveling frustrating and leveling has always been one of my favorite parts of WoW.  I suspect that I have some unconscious expectations that aren’t being met and so far I haven’t managed to track down the cause of my dissatisfaction.

Tags:

Things Every Warrior Tank Thinks Every Non-Tank Should Know

Nov 7

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

I don’t have much to add to this Things Every Warrior Tank Thinks Every Non-Tank Should Know. Mostly I’m making a note of it for when we get back into raiding again in Wrath and a new raider joins us.

Tags: , ,

Stats: Devil or Angel?

Oct 29

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Starman makes some good points on the use of
Stats: Devil or Angel?. We always post WoW Web Stats for our raids. We have some new raiders joining us, so I need to make sure to emphasize the use of stats as a teaching tool rather than simply a race to the biggest numbers.

Tags:

Two Tools For Raid Stacking

Oct 8

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

A Dwarf Priest discusses Two Tools For Raid Stacking that will help raid leaders take advantage of all the new buffs. I’m probably going to use InTheBuff as I prefer in-game tools.

One of the things I’m not looking forward to in Wrath is re-calibrating all my addons, particularly those for evaluating gear. I know the theorycrafters are going nuts figuring out what the new values are, but I liked knowing the relative values of one point of defense versus one point of parry. Ah well, this way things stay interesting.

Tags:

Zero sum gold

Sep 26

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Gevlon of Greedy Goblin discusses loot distribution.  This time of transition as we move into the new expansion is a great time for thinking about this kind of thing.  As always, Gevlon manages to come up with an original take on the subject – one firmly founded in the practical wisdom of Goblin philosophy.  

Zero sum gold: People bid for the loot with gold, highest bidder distributes the money equally between the raiders. So if you win a Karazhan loot with 1000G bid, you have to pay 100G to everyone else (and 100 to yourself). This way the others get something too, just like in zero sum DKP but with the difference, that money is not bound to the guild, you can spend it wherever you want. So

  • It encourages preparation and demanding others to prepare, since no loot or money if no kill.
  • If you kill, you surely get something (money or loot)
  • Encourages farming or business, since you have better chance to loot if you have more money.
  • Allows PuG-ed people to come and equally participate.
  • Encourages participation in bosskills where you don’t want loot (since you get money).
  • Encourages well-geared players to stay in guild, since while they can’t get loot until the guild downs their boss, in the meantime you get very rich. This point is extremely important for the guild’s tank-keeping potential. Tanks are needed to be geared for the bosses, so little or no drop for them. But this way they are saved for farming which is hard for tanks.
  • No mod, administration, or tables needed (though 24 trades can be a pain, it can be decreased by giving all the money to the raid leader who distributes it at raidend.)

This is the goblin way!
By the way someone can say that "encourage farming" can backfire, people will spend more time farming (or worse, buying) gold, than preparation for raid. I don’t see it a problem. The system encourage people to check for the preparation of others, if the raid is unprepared, no loot or money. It’s true that the guy with the more money will get the loot, but he distributes this money, so next time you will be the guy with the more money.

The big thing I don’t like about this system is that it may encourage gold buying.  Even if the others don’t buy gold, when you’re dealing with limited playtime and you’re bidding against someone who plays 12 hours a day, you’re going to lose.  What happens when a warrior-only item drops and there’s only one warrior in the raid – does the warrior get away with bidding 1g for the item?  I’m sure there are other problems I’ve missed too.

Anyone have any thoughts on how the problems with this loot distribution system could be overcome?  I’d bet there’s a solution out there in real world economics.

Tags: , , ,