I know just what you mean, Chawa. I do indeed. Perception is an insidious thing.

I came back to reread this post because I saw a blue post using the term “casual” today. The exact words were by Zarhym and were in reference to the current level of heroics: “They’re not super-unfriendly toward casual players, but they do require casual players to exercise skill and proper social/leadership skills.”

Ouch. Even out of the mouths of Blues. It’s sad.

Take the word “casual” out of the above statement and then I’ll agree with it…

I’ll cut to the chase. My point was that casual does not automatically mean “has no skill”. If you completely disagree, then you DO believe that casual means no skill?

If that’s not what you’re saying, then why not fall back and take 5, figure out what has infuriated you so much, and then decide if what has you so angry is a position I put forward that you’re disagreeing with, or if you’re angry at something else entirely?

Either way… if you’re this pissed on Christmas because you think other people suck and it’s not fair you have to play with them or something, you need to take a deep breath, man. Relax. It’s just a game. Go play Pong, you know?

COMPLETELY disagree. CAN WE PLEASE STOP WITH THE SKILL COMPARES??? Please

NET NET – It does not matter about “skill” of individual contributors. What matters is the skill level and impact of your weakest member.

You were in the military. I dare say that you observed from time to time that they appeared to (in the main) make things idiot proof.
Most military ops I have experience with DO NOT rely on the relative skill/expertise of your average recruit coming in from AIT.

BUT… with LFG you automatically have that. By pressing that button you have traded WOW for another game called “who’s the weakest link?”.
It is not the objective difficulty (HP, Damage, Fight Mechanics etc) that is kicking everyone’s bear butt right now. It is the coordination of all the moving parts.

In essence Blizz has taken the Direct Frontal Assault strategy out of Heroics. What they meant to do was make heroics more difficult. But what they ended up with forcing Two Stripers to perform tactical flanking and feint moves that might well make Generals pause. Generals would really pause if they were told that they could not “speak” with any of their team members too.

So what are we left with? We could do the following:
Add a Healer (ala Gevlon) and put the onus back on DPS like Wrath
Add Vent (ala top guild) and spend mo money, and heroics will have “vent required” now
Add Guild Only Heroics (ala velvet rope) so now I need to coordinate schedules for 5 friends to run heroics with

OR you could just keep beating heads against walls until Blizz/Ghostcrawler notice the masses NO LIKE what they did to Heroics. (I call 4.0.5 they buff heals 25% AND nerf stupid trash like Stonecold)

When I think “Casual” player I usually think of “no raid schedule” player. BBB I don’t have the TIME to screw with planning to play A GAME. If it takes me 30 minutes to COORDINATE a decent Heroic run… I ain’t gonna do it. I would like to hit my LFG button wait to queue with 4 others who also want to do a heroic and HAVE A REASONABLE EXPECTATION of competing said LFG random.

It’s called a GAME fitting within a busy professional’s time schedule. AND because I know there are more of me than there are of the EJ’s or the lolkids I KNOW Blizz will get a clue eventually and fix this crap. Because I and other professionals like me have mucho money but little time. And last time I looked Blizzard was in the business of making money.

I do use the term ‘idiot’ quite a lot. I’ve been healing heroics on my tree for a week now. As I’ve gotten better gear (typically faction gear as I level up with tabards), it’s gotten easier. I was in a guild run yesterday with a hunter who was 1 point shy of running heroics. We queued a normal, got Lost City… I happened to be tanking this one (yay bear!), and marked what I could – we had 2 hunters and a DK for “CC”… so I called for ice traps. My favorite hunter in the world hit her marks perfectly, every time. Mr Enthusiasm “I wanna do HEROICS!” (think of Satherion’s voice – ‘your magic BETRAYS you’ – that’s what he sounded like) couldn’t hit his mark for anything, so I ended up having to tank a third add, that was typically a caster – so dragging the melee guys all over hells half acre (I ended up apologizing to the poor DK who’s dps was low because he had to run with me). On top of that, this over enthusiastic hunter would ‘accidently’ – seriously, I doubt he had the brain cells to do it on purpose – target outlying groups and shoot them… so I’m dealing with tanking 3 mobs, and here come 5 more – with no CC on them at all… My poor healer… (Yay bear! we’re so mighty!) Thank god it was a normal – on heroic, we’d of been eating paving stones for sure.

That guy? That guy got called many names. Idiot was one of them. Afterwards, he bought a BoE gun off the AH, tipping him over the magical (and imo, low) gear score mark to do heroics. He immediately started calling out in guild chat “Anyone wanna do a random heroic.?” /facepalm.

I’m happy to run groups, I’m happy to work out tactics on bosses, I’m willing to spend 4 hours faceslamming into content… but I draw the line at idiots who are taking away from my experience to learn how to play their class. Dungeons are to learn the fights, not how to trap. Go practice trap shooting on your own time…

idiot.

/rant off

Thanks for that – I needed that :)

Oh, well said. well said indeed.

That’s not casual. . . That’s just pathetic. Don’t lump me in with that.

I am a casual player. I quit raiding last december because I got tired of catching crap because I didn’t devote the 6 hours on Tuesday and the 5 hours on Thursday like the other core raiders did. When you are expected to be there 10-12 hours a week at least at the same time every week it’s not a game. That’s a part time job. A job that has sucky pay, BTW.
I have a wife, 5 kids and a REAL job that demand my time. Responsibilities to a virtual world populated by large number of idiots does not rank that high. . .

I have a feeling that a lot of these “Leet” players are living their lives vicariously through the toon on the screen. When they log off, they go back to the life where they are not as important and people don’t greet them when they enter a room.