kreed99 said:I don't feel like there will be a segregation per say. There will be progression barriers that will initiate people into certain levels of gameplay once they are reached. But from my past experience when those "Elite" came down to hang out with "normals" they were just the same, infact many were super helpful and would take time to teach/train/mentor people they might have known previously. I still remember when i got "initiated" into the elite group because i had max haste items and raid loot. I was still the same helpful person i had ever been, i just ran with a new crew with new goals.
Yes totally.
Venjenz said:Tralyan said:This is a good point. I don't see how this is any different than having artifically gated content - and in fact, it's better. It's the epitome of the community policing itself. You don't need to be keyed, you just need to put in the time on your character to be successful in some content.
I don't really see anything wrong with that.
I've never really seen this elitist attitude first hand, and sometimes that makes me wonder.
Most people who theorycraft on the elitist attitude have never seen it first hand. It's a game forum boogeyman for the most part. At the very highest end of super competitive raiding/clearing/guild competition/etc, yes, there are rigid expectations, but that is because there is a push to be #1. It's so few players, your chances of actually playing with anyone like that is about like hitting Pick-4. And most of the people at that level of min-max devotion, when they leave their high end enclave to PUG with the less devoted, tend to be helpful, pleasant and full of really useful advice.
Sure, there are gear/level/item gates on content, but that's not elitism, it's just a gate. Meet the requirements, pass through gate.
A simple example is a permanent underwater breathing item for going to Sirens or Kedge. Lots of guilds had that as a requirement, but it made sense, given how many epics required things from Kedge ad how many mobs dispelled Enduring Breath buffs. Nothing elitist there, just recognition that fewer people drowning increased the success chance of the raid.
It's just not as big a deal as people think.
*Clapping* This guy hit the nail on the head.
There will always be top end guilds requiring things from their raiders. People who want to push at that level know what (and why) they need this. Otherwise, it's game depicted requirements
The raid guilds have such requirements because they, quite literally, have to do it.
Have you ever tried leading 60-70+ people on a raid, just to have to stop every 10 min to wait for someone who disconnected (because his connection doesn't work well), and you having to keep the remaining 69 people calm during that?
Leading a raid where a few people die repeatedly to AoE that, with average gear for your guild, is easily survivable? And that triggers a chain of deaths and a wipe - if the healer dies, those he is supposed to heal go low on hp, the raid boss triggers low-hp agro and attacks them, the whole situation going out of control?
Then listen to the comments coming from all sides as you try to effect a recovery in place, and at the same time you try to keep the people in the raid and not logging out in frustration.
What about inattention? Guys who didn't bother to either get a map printed, or to follow their guildies, they get lost, agro 10 mobs and bring them all to the raid? Those who don't bother to read raid leader's clear instructions, attack mobs that were supposed to stay mezzed, forcing the whole raid to stand in place and solve the problem instead of moving on quickly... even as other mobs start respawning on them.
Each and every time, you have 60+ people who did everything right, forced to at best spend extra time, and at worst waste a whole evening (due to unrecoverable raid wipeouts), being disappointed, and if it repeats 4-5 times, thinking of leaving for another guild, one that will waste less of their time.
Eventually you realize that either you shape up the guild... or you will not have one. And then you have to transfer that to the people: shape up or ship out.
You may want to be inclusive, but at best it leads to what is effectively two separate guilds under one guild tag - and one group constantly envious of the other. At worst, it leads to socialism - people who perform, constantly paying the price to prop up those who don't, eventually deciding that they had enough and leaving.
It is not elitism; it's simply admitting the reality such as it is, and doing what needs to be done.
As for the real "elitism" - the attitude that some people may individually have - that's individual psychology, and there's nothing that the game dev company can do about it. In any game based on progression, some people will feel that way. You can't prevent it without making a totally different sort of a game.
Aethor said:The raid guilds have such requirements because they, quite literally, have to do it.
Have you ever tried leading 60-70+ people on a raid, just to have to stop every 10 min to wait for someone who disconnected (because his connection doesn't work well), and you having to keep the remaining 69 people calm during that?
Leading a raid where a few people die repeatedly to AoE that, with average gear for your guild, is easily survivable? And that triggers a chain of deaths and a wipe - if the healer dies, those he is supposed to heal go low on hp, the raid boss triggers low-hp agro and attacks them, the whole situation going out of control?
Then listen to the comments coming from all sides as you try to effect a recovery in place, and at the same time you try to keep the people in the raid and not logging out in frustration.
What about inattention? Guys who didn't bother to either get a map printed, or to follow their guildies, they get lost, agro 10 mobs and bring them all to the raid? Those who don't bother to read raid leader's clear instructions, attack mobs that were supposed to stay mezzed, forcing the whole raid to stand in place and solve the problem instead of moving on quickly... even as other mobs start respawning on them.
Each and every time, you have 60+ people who did everything right, forced to at best spend extra time, and at worst waste a whole evening (due to unrecoverable raid wipeouts), being disappointed, and if it repeats 4-5 times, thinking of leaving for another guild, one that will waste less of their time.
Eventually you realize that either you shape up the guild... or you will not have one. And then you have to transfer that to the people: shape up or ship out.
You may want to be inclusive, but at best it leads to what is effectively two separate guilds under one guild tag - and one group constantly envious of the other. At worst, it leads to socialism - people who perform, constantly paying the price to prop up those who don't, eventually deciding that they had enough and leaving.It is not elitism; it's simply admitting the reality such as it is, and doing what needs to be done.
As for the real "elitism" - the attitude that some people may individually have - that's individual psychology, and there's nothing that the game dev company can do about it. In any game based on progression, some people will feel that way. You can't prevent it without making a totally different sort of a game.
Not only this. But even allowing someone into a raid who doesn't have the basic knowledge or commitment to farm the spells and gear they need... that's well, in most cases just a precursor into how they will perform.
When you're pushing high end content, you can only "teach" so much. At some point you raise the bar to people who have essentially "homeschooled" themselves I'm their class and the game.
I didn't read through every reply but my issue with epic ablity/gear score type ratings is not the use of these systems to gain an estimate of a character's potential, but instead the players who become lazy and want only x overgeared level characters in their group for a farm or dungeon run. A lot of gamers who don't understand what is actually required to fight in an area will see groups spamming LFG/Zone chat for characters with x requirements and think those requirements are needed for y content when in reality it is not.
I played a game with several tiers of dungeons in it, and eventually 95 percent of the people doing dungeon runs wouldn't take people who needed the gear, and only took people who already had the gear from it so they could do the runs faster. I eventually started my new player runs on sunday mornings to try and help new players out or experienced players who couldn't try the content because of moronic player instituted group requirements that meant you already had gotten what you needed from the dungeons. I enjoyed helping players, and it was also a great way to show people that not all raiders were unreasonable elitists. :)
Don't get me wrong, some content you cannot bring a fresh level 50 to and have them contribute in a meaningful fashion and I wouldn't suggest people do that unless they are fine with "carrying" said characters. But for dungeon/raid runs where you don't need to be in maxxed or near maxxed raid gear to do, there is no reason to exclude people from them.
LucasBlackstone said: people doing dungeon runs wouldn't take people who needed the gear, and only took people who already had the gear from it so they could do the runs faster.
I think you answered your own question of why that is done. People want to be as fast and efficient as possible when they are in a dungeon. Minimize the risk as much as possible whether it can be done by lesser geared players or not.
philo said:LucasBlackstone said: people doing dungeon runs wouldn't take people who needed the gear, and only took people who already had the gear from it so they could do the runs faster.I think you answered your own question of why that is done. People want to be as fast and efficient as possible when they are in a dungeon. Minimize the risk as much as possible whether it can be done by lesser geared players or not.
Oh, I know why it was done. I just don't agree with the practice of being a jerk to other players to save 5 minutes on a dungeon run.
LucasBlackstone said: A lot of gamers who don't understand what is actually required to fight in an area will see groups spamming LFG/Zone chat for characters with x requirements and think those requirements are needed for y content when in reality it is not.
I really agree with this statement. This applies to Raids as well, not just groups... I hope you don't mind me sharing a story about my experience with this exact thing when it came to raiding. It may seem like I'm just bragging, but this really did happen and it proves what you are saying that content doesn't really need as much gear or even as many people as most people think.
Back in EQ1 my guild used to do lots of raid content with much less people with lower level gear than many of the top guilds on the server did. We had some friends in those power guilds who pushed world firsts and such, and we used to be in a private chat channel with some of their key raid leaders and pullers and stuff. So I learned a bunch about what it took to raid those big bosses. This really helped us as we got to the level to attempt these same bosses with my guild.
I remember one time when Planes of Power was still pretty new, and we were able to get our first try at Avatar of Dust in the Plane of Air, since some of the big guilds had moved on into the tougher planes so we got our shot at this boss. We only had 30 players (full raids were 72, which is 12 groups of 6), but we didn't want to wait since other guilds might notice he was up and swoop in to have their try. We really just wanted to make an attempt or 2 so we could learn about the fight from first hand experience. We figured we would need to get more people in a future raid before we'd actually get the boss down.
So we worked our way in to the zone to the Boss. It was actually pretty rough even getting through all the trash mobs with our small group. If you don't like spiders, you won't like this grind of trash mobs. Eventually we made it through to the Avatar of Dust's island and cleared the last of the trash. and we got to the point where we were just about to engage. Me (raid leader) and my guild leader were in the chat channel with some of the people from the top guilds on the server. One was the guild leader of the 2nd top guild on the server (his was the recruit guild for the Top guild) and he said to my guild leader "Did you guys ally with another guild to make an attempt on the Avatar?" and my guild leader told him "Nope... just us on this one." and the Top 2 guild leader said "Wait... how many people are in the raid?" and my guild leader responded with something like "We only have 30 of us... hope it's enough." and the other guild leader said somethig like "Holy crap... 30 people... you have no chance."
So we then engaged... We actually got him down on our first attempt. So my guild leader said on the private chat, "Avatar of Dust is dusted..." and the other guildleader guy said something like "You're such a troll..." at which point I said "She isn't tolling you... we actually won." There was actually like a full minute of silence in the chat and I think he was actually checking with a guildie of his who was in the Plane of Air who could confirm that Avatar of Dust was actually dead. Then suddenly he just says 'Congrats' and then all the other people in the chat started saying it too.
When we had finished all the loot and our raid broke up, we were chatting with that other guild leader explaining how we made it through all the trash and stuff. The tricks we used to keep the pulls small enough, yet still get through those spiders fast enough to stay ahead of respawns. Eventually he said to us, "You guys have no idea how amazing it is what you just did... There is no way that my guild would have even tried that Boss with the gear you guys have with so few people."
Since that day they were always really impressed with our smaller guild who could still fight many of the same bosses that they had done with only half the people they did and with much less high end loot than their guild had for the same fights. My guild never was pushing world firsts, so it seemed like we were not really competitive, but when you kill a boss with 30 players with mid level gear and then have the top guilds on the server say "We don't even attempt that boss without at least 55+ people all fully geared." well it feels really good to hear those top guild players say they are impressed.
This was on Veeshan server for those curious, so some of you may know which guilds these were and why it was such great praise.
These are the kinds of experiences I am hoping to have again in Pantheon. Sure it might be tough, but it is what makes the best memories.
LucasBlackstone said:Oh, I know why it was done. I just don't agree with the practice of being a jerk to other players to save 5 minutes on a dungeon run.
If me and my four friends spent all this time gearing ourselves up why should we take someone who hasn't also spent that time if we are looking to run a dungeon for a specific purpose.
If we want to group with someone who has spent an equal amount of time on their character. There shouldn't be anything wrong with that.
When I first returned to wow noone would invite me to mythic dungeons cause my mythic io score was low. So I just made my own groups. Noone can tell you that you're too low when its you're own group.