Why it's rude to suck at Warcraft (on minmaxing and instrumental play)

[banjiepixel]

Messy games become messy competitive games. One of the cleanest competitive video games are the fighting games, just you and your opponent on the same screen. Both have access to exact same characters with the same abilities. And none your previous experience or skills matter if your opponent plays the game in very unusual way and you are not able to adapt to it. Also paratext and it's effects to actual game have existed much longer in competitive fighting game community.

 

To have being social within the game to be huge part of the game just promotes more toxic player behaviour. And game being clearly not designed or even been adapted to be competitive game just makes competitive play ruin the game in so many ways. And we all know that Blizzard is just very bad at competitive game design in general. Playing WoW competitively is just generally bad idea because it fits so badly for that gameplay style. And you just end up making the game worse for other players. Just stop it, there are so many much better games for competitive play.

 

And if you care about WoW, just do not take it always so serious, accept that you should sometimes play more casually with noncompetitive people and this will teach you to adapt for unexpected things and give different type of a challenge. Other competitive players and speedrunners often give themselves handicaps and extra challenges instead going always for optimal play with optimal variables. Why try to be always a perfect WoW playing machine? And do that in a way that just hurts the game and it's overall community. That is totally just being selfish and not actually caring about the game you play and the community you are a part of.

[Rudolph]

Part of me wishes Blizzard could just re-release all of World of WarCraft's story content as Diablo-style solo games, kind of like Dragon Quest X Offline. As someone who was really invested in WarCraft III's story, I would not have said no to being able to experience the continuation of the story without having to go through the MMO stuff. Then again, I said "have said", because I really do not feel like giving Blizzard my money these days.

[LexiMax]

If I'm being honest, the interesting story that Warcraft 3 had actually loses some luster in hindsight knowing that they were setting hallf of the major cast to be raid boss fodder.  And they only got about two expansions worth of serviceable story out of it before cataclysm ruined everything.

[Rudolph]

@AlexMax Really? How so, if you do not mind me asking?

[LexiMax]

2 hours ago, Rudolph said:

@AlexMax Really? How so, if you do not mind me asking?

 

The fact that WoW is an MMO limits the ways a story can be constructed.

 

In particular, it necessitated that the major playable races had to be shoehorned into two big factions, and those two factions might have some form of conflict, but at the end of they day they unite to the common cause to kill the raid boss of the week because you can't have half your subscriber base not be able to play the endgame content.

 

If there had been a hypothetical Warcraft 4, they could actually tell a story where alliances significantly shift without an obligation to return to some status quo.

Edited December 2, 2022 by AlexMax

[Rudolph]

11 hours ago, AlexMax said:

If there had been a hypothetical Warcraft 4, they could actually tell a story where alliances significantly shift without an obligation to return to some status quo.

I pity the writing staff who would have to write a story that is both welcoming to newcomers and satisfying to long-term fans. I mean, look at StarCraft II: it was the first entry in the series since Brood War (as StarCraft: Ghost got unceremoniously cancelled), yet all it took for Blizzard was to flesh out the relationship between Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan and that was enough for a bunch of gamebros to start whining about the game becoming a "love story"; heck, not acknowledging some of Brood War's events and characters until the middle chapter where it was actually relevant - and even then, I would argue that Heart of the Swarm did not need to bring back Alexei Stukov, as his role could have been filled by Zeratul - led some to cry about Blizzard retroactively ruining the worst parts of Brood War. Now, imagine having the task to follow up on over twenty years worth of content. XD

 

But to be fair, all long-running stories end up gravitating towards a certain statu quo, as enemies just cannot remain enemies forever: either they make peace and become allies or they get replaced by new characters or factions that serve basically the same story function. I mean, even without the limitations of World of WarCraft's format, how do you justify the Horde and the Alliance being at war forever? Eventually, either one of them is going to be permanently defeated - thus forcing the writers to come up with a replacement in order to keep the story going - or the sane members on each side will grow tired of the fighting and seek to make peace. I mean, to an extent, this is even true for real-life conflicts as well.

Edited December 2, 2022 by Rudolph

[dasho]

On 11/29/2022 at 1:09 PM, Rudolph said:

The latter is great news, but the community reacting in a hostile manner to any criticism of the game strikes me as a worrying sign.

 

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

 yet all it took for Blizzard was to flesh out the relationship between Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan and that was enough for a bunch of gamebros to start whining about the game becoming a "love story"

 

[LexiMax]

25 minutes ago, dasho said:

 

 

It's possible to be a fan of one game while also worrying about another game having a cult-like following that is super-sensitive to any and all criticism.  If you were trying to point out some sort of hypocrisy, I think you're off the mark.

[Kyka]

Reading through this thread has made me realise that the Doom community is very open, nay, even gracious, towards those who like to play at a lower skill level, which is certainly not the case in many gaming communities.

 

Of course if you don't play on UV you suck. (j/k)

[dasho]

12 minutes ago, AlexMax said:

 

It's possible to be a fan of one game while also worrying about another game having a cult-like following that is super-sensitive to any and all criticism.  If you were trying to point out some sort of hypocrisy, I think you're off the mark.

 

So the behavior is only bad if it happens with a particular game or particular fanbase? If not hypocritical, then at a minimum it is inconsistent behavior.

[Rudolph]

2 hours ago, AlexMax said:

It's possible to be a fan of one game while also worrying about another game having a cult-like following that is super-sensitive to any and all criticism.  If you were trying to point out some sort of hypocrisy, I think you're off the mark.

Thank you. My point is that, even when it comes to the story and lore, Blizzard games do not seem to have the best community. I guess that is another reason why I do not really feel playing them anymore. Either way, as I said, I pity the people who will have to write WarCraft IV - if it ever happens, which no longer seems like a given, seeing how the WarCraft series have become tied to the MMORPG genre. I mean, Blizzard did a notoriously poor job remastering WarCraft III and does not even seem interested in bringing the first two WarCraft games back, and the reason why Hearthstone happened is because they wanted to work on something smaller and much less expensive to design and produce.

[LexiMax]

7 hours ago, dasho said:

So the behavior is only bad if it happens with a particular game or particular fanbase? If not hypocritical, then at a minimum it is inconsistent behavior.

 

There's nothing wrong someone holding both opinions simultaneously.  The nuance is in the details.

 

I agree with you insofar that you are technically correct that the two opinions are inconsistent, but if there's a negative connotation attached to the label I don't follow.

[dasho]

I have no other valid response other than to suggest you look up the meaning of hypocrisy, I guess.

 

EDIT: After re-reading the first sentence of your response, I suggest reading 1984 as well.

[Rudolph]

@AlexMax Ignore Dasho. They are clearly just trying to start a fight.

[LexiMax]

I don't mind him.  His responses are kind of funny in a way.  🙂

[june gloom]

That video really put a lot of words into why I feel like such an alien.

 

"It is taken as value neutral, and objectively true, that expertise and success are the natural objectives of play, and thus the default mode of play that players owe to those around them."

 

This one line perfectly encapsulates the difference between how most people approach games vs how I approach games. I am not here to iteratively improve myself through repeated failures, I'm here to have an Experience. I like a mechanics-oriented game as much as anyone else but I need more than that to stay engaged. The problem is that I often feel like the only one who actually approaches games this way.

 

Like, it's my belief that the goal of any game should always be fun. For me, that's having an experience -- I'm not asking for it to have no challenge, but I'm looking for a relatively smooth experience. If I run into a roadblock, and I can't surmount it even with effort, I'm gonna dip. Some people get fun out of surpassing challenge, but that isn't the be all and end all of gaming for everybody. But that's the predominant expectation of what games should be like.

 

And I resent the fact that wanting a game that doesn't put all its emphasis on "git gud or die trying" is often treated like I'm somehow wanting to impose my personal tastes on everything. It reminds me of that old saying about how when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. I know it's a little trite to compare difference in video game tastes to actual entrenched issues regarding privilege and social progress, but it's the exact same kind of reaction, if you're so used to having things your way then letting someone else have theirs feels like taking something away from you. And gaming culture is so oriented towards numbers and conquest that even wanting games as a whole to be considered an art form gets peoples' back up.

 

"i just want a crumb of immersive sim, please sir" "a CRUMB? that's one less crumb for n00bslayer1488 in warzone II! how dare you!"

 

The weird thing is that I used to be on the other side of all this, and then I went through a mountain of trauma and I don't care anymore, lol

[Chezza]

On 12/2/2022 at 1:07 AM, Rudolph said:

Part of me wishes Blizzard could just re-release all of World of WarCraft's story content as Diablo-style solo games, kind of like Dragon Quest X Offline. As someone who was really invested in WarCraft III's story, I would not have said no to being able to experience the continuation of the story without having to go through the MMO stuff. Then again, I said "have said", because I really do not feel like giving Blizzard my money these days.

 

It's a shame what WoW did to the Warcraft storyline. The corruption of Arthas, the anti hero Illidan, the near Apocalypse of Horde and Alliance civilisation from the Demons etc, all was pretty intriguing story for a video game.

 

With Arthur's possession by the Lich King, Sylvanas Forsaken and such still being a thing, the story had potential to continue.

 

But how did all these epic loose ends get concluded? By 10 / 20 / 40 man raids of "heroes" with names like "Willman 1988", "Cheesef00t", "himynameisearl112" etc killing all these powerful foes for Ep1c l00T!!!1 and getting higher stats on screen representing their damage per second.

 

As a business move, WoW was clearly brilliant. But a really good classic story had to be sacrificed for it.

[Devalaous]

Diablo 2 has a similar sort of community, from what ive always seen. All conversations about the game are about hardcore endgame Hell-destroying builds with over the top minmax, and before respecs were added, you were expected to suffer through the early game with a perfect endgame build in mind, you were insulted and laughed at if you ever put any points into Dexterity or Energy, or tried any builds aside from tried and true endgame stuff, and there was NO tolerance for not having perfect item drops. You had to have ultra specific items that were all nigh impossible to get. Ive never been able to get fully into the game due to these attitudes.

 

Part of that attitude has dropped with Resurrected having 'infinite' respecs, so now you can play through at least normal and nightmare with fun unique themed builds 'how you want', without the bullshit of being a mage that can cast only two or three spells because no Energy. Ive been playing as a lunatic barbarian that screams at enemies while dual-wielding throwing potions with high Throwing Mastery to make them crit and replenish, BECAUSE FUCK YOU I CAN, and because I can reset everything later.

[Thelokk]

On 12/6/2022 at 4:34 AM, june gloom said:

The problem is that I often feel like the only one who actually approaches games this way.

 

You're more certainly not. I made a lifetime of gaming (and a Doom mapping career) by specifically working against expertise, performance and optimization as core values. 

 

 

But, one has to accept ours is, somewhat paradoxically, a fringe attitude that large swathes of various gaming communities simply do not cater to. Either one goes upstream, or lets the flood take them in.

 

It's also worth pointing out that the idea of 'optimization' in gaming does not necessarily relate to performance skills alone. There is a whole subset of that more casual 'respect the player's time' bullshit mentality, which invokes optimization as a means to get through stuff more quickly, as to make space for the next 'experience'. What worthwhile 'experience' one might get from such an attitude is beyond me .