Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #329 - For Azeroth!: "The Wait Within"

Transcript

#329 - For Azeroth!: "The Wait Within" · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
Lex's window lights up like the beacons of Gondor.
0:06
Yeah, Gondor calls for aid. Lex is Googling something.
0:12
Victory for the Forsaken. For Lauderon.
0:16
For the Karen Tour for Pandaria. For calendar to.
0:24
The burning region for Gilnaeus, but has not done for the Lich
0:32
King, for the Sindora, for the Alliance for the Horn, for
0:40
Azeroth. Hello and welcome back to
0:44
another episode of For Azeroth. We are back from our trips
0:48
abroad. We had Let's go all the way to
0:53
sunny ish Boston and then we had Sean who jumped across the pond
1:00
and went to London for LFG and then myself who took the garbage
1:07
out. I just wanted to be included.
1:10
Anyways, really glad to have us all back together.
1:15
How is the World of Warcraft being treating you guys?
1:19
Let's start with, let's start with you, Lex, because I know
1:22
Sean does like going second. The World of Warcraft's been
1:25
treating me very well. I was obviously at the World of
1:28
Warcraft 30th anniversary event, so that's been most of my World
1:31
of Warcraft experience, which is hanging out with World of
1:33
Warcraft players and having a good time.
1:35
I want to give a quick shout out to Queen of Murlocs, who won our
1:38
Lore Trivia contest in our 30th anniversary, who's also a member
1:42
of the Bonus Rule families. Congratulations.
1:46
But I also, I finally did get back in to play some horrific
1:49
Visions, which presumably we'll talk about later.
1:51
So I won't get into my thoughts now, but I actually got on for a
1:54
while other than rating and we had fun and I popped around and
1:57
it was a good time. OK, I'm glad to hear that.
2:02
And then, Sean, back from your travels abroad, how's the World
2:06
of Warcraft been treating you? I think some congratulations are
2:10
in order. Yeah, pretty good.
2:11
We killed Mythic Galliwicks on Sunday for a world ranking of
2:18
480 and AUS rank because for some reason North American
2:24
guilds always give their NA rank, probably some inferior
2:27
hearted complex, an NA rank of 168.
2:32
I think it was pretty good. We were super happy with the
2:36
results. Was a great season for the team.
2:38
A lot of fun that fight, yeah, yeah, it was good stuff.
2:43
Good, good stuff. The game has been quite good.
2:45
Turbo boost hit so big power bump last week, which which
2:49
contributed to the early kill. But it's been a lot of fun so
2:54
far since I go back. Glad to hear that.
2:57
I'm glad to hear that. And congratulations again.
3:01
Now while you were busy jumping onto a plane, leaving on a jet
3:07
plane, whatever the song is, we now know when you would be back
3:11
again. You listen to the episode and I
3:15
think you had some thoughts about the turbo boost and I I
3:20
just wanted to give you a chance to at least give your say to the
3:23
audience. I think so.
3:27
My biggest great was a great episode.
3:29
Love the episode. A good podcast is when I am
3:34
screaming at my radio as the the hosts are talking.
3:39
The only thing I would like to say is specifically around the
3:43
dinars is that and I I know I'm not alone in this feeling.
3:49
I I I fully 100% believe that they should not have locked
3:56
there's two. I have two issues. 1 I don't
3:58
believe they should have locked the mythic track dinars at all.
4:03
All of the items should have been purchasable just like they
4:05
were in Shadow Lands, just like they were in Dragonflight, right
4:09
from a vendor with upgrade tracks from 1:00 to 12:00 for
4:14
everybody. Because you're telling what are
4:17
we doing? Time?
4:18
We're time gating. We're not time getting we're,
4:20
we're, we're locking off gear from people in May of a patch
4:25
that launched in February for what arbitrary reason?
4:29
And, and the reason they gave and the part that made me scream
4:32
on my radio, the reason they gave and the, the thing that
4:36
people are pointing at and saying, well, Blizzard said
4:39
this, so that's it's OK that you have to kill the boss is the bad
4:43
luck protection piece. Blizzard saying it's bad luck
4:45
protection. And, and, and I was one of them.
4:47
I was had a discussion with some friends in my EU Guild where I
4:51
said, look, I get it. It's bad luck protection.
4:53
You, you didn't kill a mythic boss.
4:55
You shouldn't get mythic loot, you know, it's meant to
4:59
supplement those people who are having a hard time getting those
5:01
drops from those bosses that they've killed over and over
5:04
again, those rare pieces. And one of the people on my EU
5:07
team pointed out to me how what kind of a bad luck protection is
5:10
it if you only have to kill it once?
5:12
How I killed the ones didn't get it.
5:14
Bad luck protection. Let me get that.
5:16
Let me get that loot now. That immediately makes it not
5:19
bad luck protection because it's a rare drop if you're expecting
5:24
if if the expectation is if I don't get my item, my rare drop
5:28
item on my very first kill, then I warrant a bad luck protection
5:32
purchase of it, then I think that's what are we doing with
5:37
drop rates. Then everything should be 5050
5:39
drop rate, right? If that's what we're.
5:41
Saying so that's that's that's a bit better than 5050.
5:45
I got to ask you, how many times should it you be required to
5:49
kill a boss for it to then be considered bad luck protection?
5:53
Well, I think 0. So I, I, I, I, I will answer
5:56
because your question is not that, but I think 0 it should
5:59
just be available to everyone. But if you want it to be bad
6:01
luck protection, I, I mean five maybe like it's, it's all an
6:06
arbitrary number at that point, but I feel like you should have
6:08
to have killed the boss enough times that you're feeling
6:11
frustrated that you haven't gotten the drop you want.
6:13
You know what I mean? If you kill it once, you're not
6:15
frustrated. Like my literally my team killed
6:18
Mugsy the the dinars came out. We killed Mugsy that week. 20
6:23
Raiders got House of Cards. 20 Raiders got House of Cards.
6:26
How is that bad luck protection? It's not.
6:29
Well, I, I think it's more like maybe I'm, I'm, you know, steel
6:32
manning Blizzard when I don't need to, but I, I think it's,
6:35
it's maybe more that there just isn't really a word for what
6:37
Blizzard is trying to do in bad luck.
6:39
Protection is closest it, it feels like the IT what Blizzard
6:42
was trying to express is that the goal of this is not to like
6:45
pre gear to help you push past bosses.
6:48
It's to like kind of meet you where you're at and continue you
6:51
forward from there, right. Like it's it's not OK, continue.
6:56
Unless you're a heroic Raider because you you can get heroic
7:00
items simply by doing LFR. So Blizzard is saying mythic is
7:05
on this tier that is so hard that you shouldn't get it unless
7:08
you can kill it. But heroic the the quality of
7:11
raid that is done by the vast majority of our players, we
7:14
don't think that actually requires any skill.
7:16
And you can have that with an LFR kill.
7:18
That's tainted on your language. I would say if you look, if you
7:23
look at the highest levels of competition, Mythic rating plus
7:28
12 now into resilient, no, no rewards of mythic plus, right?
7:36
That's where they've set those restrictions where it's like OK
7:40
at this point, once you're beyond all twelves and we know
7:43
you're you're getting this yes, you can start purchasing these
7:47
things once you have defeated these bosses.
7:50
So we know that you're progressing through this right
7:53
Then you can get these rewards. Now the issue I think,
8:00
especially with this raid is that the loot is so heavily back
8:07
loaded. Like there I had don't think
8:09
I've seen as many sought after pieces so late into the raid as
8:17
there has been with with this raid.
8:20
Typically there are some earlier bosses, some end wing bosses,
8:23
which we didn't have really wings in this that have
8:25
something that's like, yeah, that's your best in slot and
8:27
such that people can typically target before we get to the end
8:31
boss. This this really felt more back
8:33
loaded than than normal. Not saying that there's never
8:36
been the most wanted piece on those last or penultimate plus,
8:41
but more so than most. So it, it kind of compounded the
8:44
issue. The other part with the deniers
8:47
that I will point out is that in every season that has come out,
8:52
it's being like the final season where the leveling up has
8:57
automatically mean that, yeah, it's not going to be an issue in
9:00
the next year. You're going to hit level 80 and
9:04
it's not and you're going to replace it anyways.
9:06
So it hasn't been as disruptive. And that's why it's part of what
9:10
I was saying in in that previous episode is that they put more
9:14
hoops, more brakes on this system because it is prone to be
9:19
more disruptive. And I believe we had the
9:22
conversation in the Discord. Make sure you are during that
9:25
conversation, folks bit load bit dot LY slash fast Discord where
9:30
where the conversation continued.
9:31
And one thing I want to point out, somebody had said in there
9:35
is that, hey, Blizzard, why don't you just nerf these
9:39
trinkets if they're disruptive in the next patch and such?
9:43
Which they do anyway. Which which they do anyway and I
9:47
don't want that to be the go to solution that doesn't.
9:51
That doesn't feel good. I agree and and I'm glad you
9:55
brought up the the concern of the power creep into the next
9:57
year because Blizzard brought that concern up.
9:59
That is a valid concern. And then they gave us six extra
10:02
item levels in every piece of gear we have.
10:05
Yeah. So are they concerned about it
10:08
or or are they not concerned about the power cream?
10:10
Did Ian give that quote? Because if Ian gave that quote,
10:12
then we know the answer is there's no actual that's just
10:14
lip service. Because that's Ian.
10:15
Quotes are just lip service. So I guess.
10:18
That's we'll find out anyway. I, I, I, I think the dealer
10:21
should be on loud and, and I also think it's, it's kind of
10:24
shitty that you, there's no way to go from if I buy a hero track
10:28
item. And I actually think the plus
10:30
twelves is fine because those feel like bad luck protection
10:33
because you have had the chance for those items to drop for the
10:36
last 12 weeks because they could have dropped myth track in your
10:40
vault. So that actually is bad luck
10:42
protection. I I feel that that's a double
10:46
standard because like you just beat the final boss in, in
10:50
Mythic this week. Yeah, there are people who are
10:53
just getting 12. There are people who are just
10:57
getting twelves this week. True, right.
11:00
Who may have just hit the resilient the resilient this
11:04
week and that. To get those items in their
11:07
vaults they only needed 10s. True, if you get If you run a
11:10
10, you could potentially get any of those trinkets in your
11:12
vault. Yes, but.
11:15
But but I see, I do see your point.
11:18
Yeah. Anyway, dinars are out.
11:19
The the only other complaint I have with the DNR system is if I
11:23
buy a heroic track dinar item and then I eventually kill that
11:27
boss on mythic, there's no way for me to upgrade that.
11:31
I'm stuck with the heroic track version of that dinar item
11:34
unless I spend another of my dinar, which are limited to
11:37
three on the mythic track version of that item.
11:40
It just feels really disjointed and really poorly implemented.
11:43
And I know players have been asking for a way to get
11:45
deterministic loot from raid or from mythic plus forever.
11:51
And Blizzard, I feel like this was their attempt at giving us
11:53
it. But they definitely monkey pot
11:55
us and made it so that it was. Hey, you said you want it, but
11:59
we're going to bastardize it so that it's not actually any good
12:01
for you. Have fun dinars, don't get too
12:05
strong. Here's 6 item level anyway.
12:09
Sorry with the item level though.
12:11
Two weeks ago it'd been great. With the with the item level
12:15
though, do you feel that that is a better way of helping people?
12:22
It's like whatever loot you have here, you can add 36 item level
12:26
levels to it. That should give you a push
12:29
through where it is a deterministic way of pushing
12:33
your power up in a very deterministic way.
12:36
But also you have to have that loot first.
12:39
So you you're, you're kind of switching between the two,
12:44
doesn't have the cap sort of thing.
12:45
If you had to pick between one of these systems to come back,
12:50
which one would you have come back?
12:52
And I'm going to throw this to you first, Lex, because I'd love
12:55
to hear your opinion. It's like, hey, do you prefer
12:58
being able to upgrade further or would you prefer being able to
13:01
grab these dinars? Oh, I am going to make a spicy
13:06
take. I think I probably prefer the
13:07
dinars. I think that having the ability
13:11
to select loot is more beneficial and also like
13:15
honestly kind of feels better to me that, you know, versus like
13:22
if if I have something and I don't really like it, but I'm
13:24
like, oh, sick, now I can make my kind of crappy drink it a
13:26
little bit better. That just isn't particularly it
13:31
doesn't feel as particularly joyful to increase the stuff
13:34
that I already have. But if I got a fun present,
13:35
that's cool, right? We like a fun present.
13:38
So I, I personally am a Dean artist, girly.
13:41
I, I, I agree that the system is messy.
13:43
I think that the DNR, frankly, I don't feel like I've ever had a
13:46
system where I'm like, this isn't a little bit messy.
13:49
And I think it's strange that it's coming in season 2.
13:53
I agree with that first final seasons.
13:57
I think that it I, I, it should either be consistent or like the
14:01
I kind of agree that it sort of feels like they're flailing.
14:04
So I don't think it's not like I'm like, I'm pro this method of
14:06
DNR giving, but I do think that like it's fun to get to pick up
14:10
my own mood. I feel like I'm going shopping.
14:14
OK, John, on your end. I'm, I'm, I agree with Lex I I
14:19
obviously hate this version of the DNR, but just giving
14:22
everybody six extra item levels on every piece of gear is going
14:27
to be much more damaging to the item levels next year than the
14:31
three single dinar pieces ever possibly could have been.
14:36
We're talking the difference between 2 trinkets and a weapon
14:39
going into the next year versus everything you have.
14:41
So now they either have to artificially inflate the level
14:45
of next year's gear by 6 extra item levels or everybody will be
14:51
like you already you if you are mythic geared character, which
14:55
you can get done just by doing mythic plus at the plus 10 level
14:58
and through crafting if you were at that level at the end of this
15:01
season. At the end of a season you
15:03
typically don't get any upgrades until you're in heroic raid and
15:06
then usually the first couple of bosses of her grade you start
15:09
swapping those pieces out. If you are going if, if, if, if
15:12
everything stays as normal going into next season, you will be
15:15
pulling the final bosses in the heroic raid before you see an
15:19
upgrade. And that's going to feel
15:21
terrible for people. And the other option is we
15:23
artificially inflate our item levels and then everybody says,
15:28
oh, we're blowing up our reverse stats.
15:31
If you guys think back to Dragonflight, both season 3 and
15:37
season 4 had a quite a large jump in the item levels.
15:41
Actually might have been season 2 and season 3 had a quite a
15:44
large jump in the item levels where we were spending a a bunch
15:49
of time in the marriage still being like, OK, I guess I got to
15:52
do this because the the huge gap between what we got last season,
15:56
this season. Did you feel that that was kind
16:01
of punitive? Did you feel that it kind of
16:03
removed all the effort that you might have put in as some people
16:07
have said? What do you feel like having
16:09
that fresh restart made made the season more interesting to you?
16:15
Like what side did you fall on really this time?
16:18
I'll throw it to you first, Sean.
16:19
I hate that at the start of an expansion I expect that bag of
16:24
spilling trope where I lose my power.
16:26
I come in and I'm building up from the beginning.
16:28
But in ex mid expand like mid expansion patch to patch.
16:32
As a mythic Raider I should never be.
16:35
I should never feel like I have to run normal for gear outside
16:38
of my tear pieces or extremely right trinkets.
16:40
I should never be in a situation where I'm leaving mythic geared
16:44
from the previous season and I need to get bracers out of a
16:46
normal raid. That should be like if you're
16:50
mythic rating. Normal should be just for
16:53
extremely rare trinkets and items.
16:55
Heroic is when you start getting those upgrades saying just drop
16:58
it down if you're a heroic Raider.
17:00
So you shouldn't need LFR for upgrade.
17:02
You should be able to get them out of normal type thing.
17:04
It's otherwise what are we doing?
17:07
It's we're an ARPG. If if every season we reset to
17:10
0, we're an ARPG at that point. Like what are we?
17:13
What are we doing? OK, Lex.
17:17
I think it's kind of fun to be able to go and all of a sudden
17:19
getting upgrades from world Crest again and you can like
17:22
kind of I, I guess I, I think I need to admit that I'm an open
17:24
world girly and that really what I like to do is open world play.
17:27
And so I like it when the game like rewards that and it doesn't
17:30
feel like, oh, I would have fun. Like I'm looking at all these
17:32
cool world crests on my map, but I can't justify spending the
17:35
time to do them. So honestly, I kind of like that
17:39
I kind of had a lot of fun in a mirror still like running around
17:41
and like actually feeling like I needed to do things and like I
17:44
could not, and not in like a grindy way, but in a like, Oh, I
17:48
guess I get to play the game again.
17:50
Like, I guess the point is to go around and do things and like
17:52
have fun and see all the, the gear.
17:54
And I, I totally hear your argument and I, I guess I think
17:57
that, like it. I, I, I think that you probably
18:01
win that globally. I think that most people agree
18:04
and aren't excited when they're doing, you know, then they see
18:07
world quests that have boosts. But I I thought it was fun.
18:12
You know if you just stop raiding Lex, you get everything
18:15
you say you want. Just don't raid and you'll
18:18
always get upgrades from world quests time.
18:21
With my friends, I love my raid team.
18:25
Yeah, we'll all just. Immediately ditch them.
18:29
I, I, I don't think the, the solution is removing content off
18:34
the plate. It's making all the content
18:37
valid for the people who want it to be valid.
18:39
And I think that's what Blizzard's trying with like, you
18:41
know, the delves and everything to like make, to make it more
18:44
open. Something that we didn't have
18:47
much time to talk about actually.
18:50
In fact, it came out as packs. Is is that in Legion Remix
19:00
they're doing a Shattered World variant where the open world
19:06
content is going to be harder? Is that something that interests
19:13
you? Lex says.
19:14
Like, hey, I want my open world content to be more rewarding.
19:17
If they increase the difficulty of that open world content in in
19:21
respect to that and make it more rewarding, is that something
19:24
that you're you're interested? In Oh, absolutely.
19:26
I think that I I really, and I I've said this with delves and I
19:29
will say this probably until the day I die, I want Blizzard to
19:32
stop being scared of making open world content hard.
19:35
I would like challenging open world content that that also has
19:39
power like that gives me things in progress with my increasing
19:43
difficulties. I think that would be really
19:46
fun. And I think that there's this.
19:48
I think the the problem is, and again, I've said this many times
19:52
with Delves that the World of Warcraft community is so used to
19:56
open world content being the silly thing that you face roll
19:59
for the first week and then never do again.
20:02
That when they are faced with challenging open world content
20:05
and they don't just get handed whatever the open world content
20:08
is supposed to give them, it feels like an affront, right?
20:12
Like it feels they're like, no, this was the thing that was
20:14
supposed to be free, easy and nothing.
20:16
And then they yell at the Blizzard devs.
20:18
And I will say, I do kind of feel like what I, one of the
20:23
reasons that things feel like messy and things are being
20:26
scattered is that the thing that I've said since the beginning,
20:29
which is that I, I'm a little worried that Blizzard is overly
20:32
responsive to the players. And because they are overly
20:35
responsive, like I, I think I need Blizzard to go back to
20:37
feeling comfortable putting their foot down and making a
20:41
firm decision, right? Saying like, Yep, this is we've
20:44
run the we've crunched the numbers.
20:46
This is a good way to do it versus players are saying they
20:48
want this. So we're going to figure out how
20:49
to make that happen. And anyway, this that was a long
20:53
ramble on the side to I think that what we've seen with things
20:57
like delves is players expected it to be very easy.
21:00
Nothing who cares? They yelled at Blizzard when it
21:02
wasn't a faithful and Blizzard folded and I I, I I guess I
21:06
don't really trust Blizzard not to fold with open world content.
21:08
I think that and I I'd like them to prove me wrong, but I think
21:12
the Blizzard historically has proven that if the players yell
21:15
at them when open world content doesn't feel easy then they will
21:18
make it easier. OK.
21:22
Sean, on your end, is challenging open world content
21:26
something that you would like to see more of or is it something
21:30
that you feel could not really be done right?
21:34
I don't think it could ever be done right.
21:36
I mean they they gave us challenging open world content
21:38
for zero like caverns. And as soon as all of the
21:41
Raiders stopped doing the rares because there was no power in
21:44
them anymore, all of the casual people who said they wanted
21:47
content in the open world to be fun cried that the rares were
21:50
too hard to kill alone. And the same thing happened I
21:54
think on that island. This not the which?
21:56
What was the? The island and dragon flight up
22:00
north? Forbidden Reach.
22:01
Forbidden Reach. Same thing happened there with
22:03
the rares. Why are these rares so high?
22:05
I'm trying to kill us by myself. And obviously Lex was one of
22:08
those people. She wants them to be hard, but
22:12
nobody else does. Lex.
22:14
And the balance of rares is particularly complicated because
22:16
it needs to somehow be balance like I, I, I think that, and I
22:20
guess this kind of gets into the definition of open world
22:22
content, right? Like how do you make it so that
22:24
something like delves are are defined are called open world
22:28
content, but they're kind of not?
22:30
I would not consider that. I would find, yeah, open world
22:34
content is open world where anybody can come up and join it
22:38
delves. I would consider instance
22:40
content. OK, I'm trying.
22:41
I swear to God somebody said that.
22:42
Yeah. Sorry.
22:43
What do you say I talked over you like in?
22:45
I just said I definitely agree delves should be harder, but I
22:47
think open world content should be a face rule.
22:50
I mean, I'm yeah, I don't really care though.
22:52
I'm not going to spend that much time there.
22:53
I think whatever they do with it is.
22:54
Fine, I think for open world content, I I don't, I'm not
22:57
backing down on what I was saying, but I do think that if
23:00
open world contents gonna be harder, they have to somehow
23:02
find a way to like phase it or something so that you can feel
23:05
the difference between 20 people hitting it in one right.
23:08
Like I, I think that the issue with that, like, yeah, you know,
23:13
you have to make it so that it's not going to fall over if the
23:15
entire server's playing, but also it's not going to, you
23:19
know, like you don't have to queue to, to kill it basically,
23:23
yeah. I think that based on what you
23:27
guys are saying, I think that open world content needs to be
23:32
less homogeneous. I think that when you have the
23:36
general area where it's pretty accessible to everybody, kind of
23:40
what we have now, you know, the quote UN quote face role, as you
23:43
were saying, but just generally like people can solo this stuff
23:46
at a relatively entry level item level so they don't feel stuck.
23:50
But then you have certain pockets of the world, certain
23:54
like corners of the world that have the elites that have the
23:57
like more dangerous place, places to go.
24:01
And then that can be where the the more challenging open world
24:06
content is. And if you do things like that
24:11
and you like, I'm not sure if you guys were playing back in
24:15
Mr. Pandaria, but obviously we've had Mr. Pandaria remix,
24:18
but they had the timeless aisle and the time of aisle on the
24:21
ground level. Things were pretty, pretty weak,
24:24
pretty base level. And as you went up that path
24:28
towards Ordon, the enemies got a little bit more complicated, a
24:32
little bit harder hitting. Obviously people could gear
24:36
through it and such, and I think the same would be true with any
24:39
open world content. But the higher reaches, the
24:45
nooks and crannies that have those more difficult enemies, in
24:48
my mind just give a little bit better reward.
24:51
They dropped rarer skins or higher qualities skins more
24:56
frequently and such, so that people have a reason to keep
24:59
going back there for professions or whatever.
25:02
But you don't necessarily feel you're forced to go there
25:06
because you could still get this stuff elsewhere if that's where
25:09
you feel like it meets your challenge sort of thing, if that
25:13
makes sense. I have an argument to make and
25:15
it's very half baked. I'm literally coming up with it
25:17
as you speak, which is why I'm about to interrupt you with
25:19
something completely different from what you were saying.
25:21
So it's probably going to be a bad idea, but I'm going to.
25:23
I'm going to make this argument anyway.
25:26
I think the open world content that Blizzard has made that has
25:28
consistently been the most successful and people actually
25:31
enjoy to the highest degree, or maybe it's just me and I'm a
25:33
dork, are like the fun little games, right?
25:37
The Stew, the theater troupe, that sort of thing where the
25:40
point is like coordination with other people and like playing a
25:43
fun, silly little game. But also you kind of have to be
25:45
on it, right? And I think that that's a space
25:49
where Blizzard could get creative and find ways to make
25:54
the fun, cute little games a little bit more exciting and a
25:57
little bit more interesting and a little bit a little bit
26:00
harder. Not necessarily in the like your
26:02
gear needs to be at higher level to do this, but more in the like
26:05
the mechanics are more complicated.
26:06
It's more difficult to like coordinate with the other people
26:09
and then figure out like, again, not you'd have to be thoughtful
26:11
about how many people would be doing it at certain times.
26:15
But I think that's actually a space where the team could dive
26:21
into a more creative, more unique, more challenging sort of
26:26
open world content that would actually draw people in.
26:30
Am I lying? Do you guys not enjoy the fungal
26:33
the fungal open world games that they give us?
26:36
I love specifically the 2 examples you gave and I'm going
26:39
to throw a nightfall in there. I think those are amazing open
26:42
world content. If they made them harder I would
26:43
never do them again. I have no desire to go to soup
26:47
and have to coordinate with the 3500 other people doing soup on
26:51
who's going to put the fish head in the bowl.
26:53
I like it because it's easy and I can mindlessly go through it.
26:57
I actually and this this might come as a surprise to Manny, but
27:01
in previous iterations, so the Super boom event, I was
27:03
notorious for AFK ING. I would just follow that tree
27:06
around while everybody else did the work and I would collect the
27:08
rewards and I loved it. The nightfall event, you can't
27:10
do that, you have to. Your bar only fills based on
27:12
your work alone and I enjoy the nightfall event exponentially
27:17
more than I enjoyed the Super bloom event because they make me
27:20
play and engage with it. But if they made it harder, I
27:22
would never do it again because I'm not going there for
27:25
challenge, I'm going there to get some fun trans trans mog and
27:29
just sort of vibe outside. That's fair, that's fair.
27:31
That the point of it is that it is a silly I, I, I wonder if
27:33
they would like again, they, they would have to do like some
27:35
weird like hueing content thing or like instanced situation.
27:40
Like maybe they could I, I don't know.
27:41
I don't know, maybe I'm the only one who thinks it'll be fun for
27:43
this to be like a fun way to, to make an open world challenge.
27:46
I am nostalgic for soup now though, so thanks Soup was so.
27:50
Annoying. Yeah, soup was great.
27:53
I, I enjoyed soup. I just felt that Dragonflight
27:57
did way too many of those events on a timer.
28:00
And that was the thing that I disliked about soup was the oh
28:05
shoot, I missed it. I've got to wait three hours or
28:09
did I get my weekly for like one of those trials of elements or
28:13
water or anything like that? Those the timers were the part
28:16
that I disliked about those. And so in my mind, I go to
28:19
Mechagon. If you guys remember Mechagon,
28:22
it had a bunch of different events that you could trigger.
28:26
Somebody would get there 1st and be like, oh, I'm going to start
28:30
like the entire slime protection thing, and then everybody would
28:34
just swarm in and you'd have an event like that.
28:37
The other reason I point to Mechagon is because Mechagon
28:40
also included hard modes. If you did certain things, a
28:45
harder version would start a start up that needed a little
28:48
bit more complication. And if you did it without
28:51
anybody really knowing what to do, yeah, you could fail that
28:53
harder version, but you would still get the you still get the
28:59
benefits of the base level. You just wouldn't get the better
29:01
benefits. I think maybe that's the happy
29:04
medium that I would want where it's like, let's have the start
29:08
because people are here and they've they've triggered it.
29:11
Let's have this bonus objective available for for people to do
29:15
if you if you trigger it and the event will complete should be
29:20
relatively easy. But if you if you do this
29:23
trigger like defeat the treasure goblin before it goes through
29:26
the portal or or something like that, you get these extra
29:29
bonuses. And I think that's a big thing,
29:32
especially if they announce it probably like it used to be that
29:36
TomTom and all of those things would be like this is spawning
29:39
and everybody would swarm in with the I guess the clock
29:46
hitting 11 here on add-ons. Blizzard needs to make sure that
29:51
they are like zone wide notifications of like this is
29:56
spawning everybody get here. And I I think those those are
30:00
fun. You can either call up your
30:02
friends or your guildies or random people in the area.
30:05
We'll just swarm into that. And that I think if that's the
30:08
spontaneous world content that I enjoy, if you can scale to be a
30:11
little bit more difficult, I would enjoy that even more.
30:14
Yeah, I think what makes the the, the, the strength that open
30:18
world content has that I think other contents lack is that just
30:22
like really joyous short term community, right?
30:26
That thing where we all come together and none of us know
30:28
each other. We're not like actually we don't
30:31
we don't have to communicate. So it's like nobody is actually
30:33
getting annoyed at each other, but it just feels like you're
30:36
part of a party, right? Like it feels you're in like
30:39
you're in this big energetic, happy group.
30:41
And I think that that is something that if Blizzard wants
30:45
to make open world content more of a thing, that's something
30:48
that they need to be prioritizing is that it's the
30:50
sort of thing that joyously people together and you get to
30:53
have this fun party, whether it's to, you know, wreck a rare
30:58
or do an event or whatever. And, and I think I think I agree
31:01
with you, Sean, and also encourage like make it so that
31:04
people have to do it right, that you can't just join a group and
31:06
then like let the three people who are actually invested handle
31:09
it. I.
31:13
Don't remember how we got here but this was a great side side
31:15
side tangent. This was fantastic.
31:18
I'm going to go log in and do a soup after this.
31:21
Well, one thing that people are logging in to do, one thing that
31:25
I feel is a bit of content that scales really well right now is
31:31
of course heroic Visions. I am really glad that they're
31:36
back, but it feels like Blizzard has sort of fumble the launch of
31:45
her of horrific Visions. And I I've said in the past,
31:54
long before Sean, you joined the show, before Lex joined the
31:59
show. So for a long time, listeners,
32:01
this is going to sound like a broken record for new listeners.
32:06
Strap in. I generally dislike when
32:13
Blizzard feels that it needs to socially police their player
32:18
base. It is annoying, especially when
32:23
it is heavy-handed. Players want to engage with your
32:29
game. Let them engage at the pace and
32:32
in the manner that they want to engage in your game.
32:36
If you need to somehow throttle it, you must do it in the most
32:46
nuanced way. It has to be that their
32:50
progress, their literal progress through the system is that if
32:55
they get to the rewards when you need it, rather than you put in
33:00
an artificial wall that says no, friend, you don't get this until
33:04
we say you get this. That is the worst thing to
33:07
happen. Everybody who plays match at the
33:09
gathering hates permission. Mother may I you don't get, you
33:13
don't get to have this spell resolved.
33:15
Nobody likes that when you go, when you go to the right and
33:18
you're like, oh, I want to jump on this, this roller coaster and
33:21
they go, Nope, that's that sucks, right?
33:26
Nobody likes just being flat out said know before they even get
33:30
to experience something. What people like to do is to try
33:34
things to get in, get into stuff.
33:36
And if they find their limits or they find where that wall is as
33:40
they're doing it, so be it. But to look at a, in some cases
33:45
to look at a vendor and say not available until week 3,
33:50
horrible. And there's a lot to it.
33:52
But I went through the horrific visions and it is pretty much
34:01
what I remember. They've added in a few more toys
34:04
and stuff but like mechanically it is fairly one for one without
34:09
me having to worry about my own cloak level.
34:12
And I am really glad to see this back.
34:15
I, my, when I actually got in to play it, I was enjoying it.
34:21
But all of what's been happening in the World of Warcraft around
34:27
Horrific Visions has really soured it a bit.
34:33
So I've got to, I've got to ask you to what has been your
34:37
experience with Horrific Visions, both now and compared
34:42
to how you originally played it And the gating, which thankfully
34:48
Blizzard has pulled back on. What's your, what's your take on
34:54
that? I'm going to throw this one to
34:56
Sean first. So historically I love Horrific
35:00
visions. They are in my opinion, no
35:03
discussion even possible the best single player content
35:08
Blizzard has ever designed, bar none period.
35:11
Across the board nothing comes close.
35:14
Now with that said, I didn't play challenge modes when they
35:16
originally existed so maybe those are great, I don't know.
35:18
I heard they were pretty good but.
35:22
By your definition, you're good. Perfect by my definition.
35:25
And then we rock. They're the best gameplay
35:27
they've ever designed with the cloak.
35:30
The one issue I had with Horrific Visions in the past was
35:33
that they were limited in how many you could do a week by the
35:37
vessels and Blizzard's credit they remove that.
35:41
You can run Horrific visions till your eyes bleed.
35:44
The only thing that limits you is your instance lock basically
35:48
so you can run them as much as you want.
35:49
And like you said, it's a it's a one to one.
35:51
It is it's not almost the same. It's the same.
35:54
It is one to one, identical, the same and it's great.
36:01
It feels good. It's a nostalgia bump because
36:03
we're coming into this stronger this season than we were when we
36:07
got it in BFA. They are way easier now.
36:11
So if you're playing this, First off, don't use the Sorodorman
36:15
companion because it's it's currently buffing the mobs
36:18
damage and health by more than double.
36:23
So do it solo unless you're a healer and then find a friend.
36:26
Do it solo as a tank or DPS because it is.
36:30
If you're anywhere in the 475 plus item level range, you're
36:34
going to face roll this and probably lower as well.
36:38
I haven't done any lower geared characters and yeah, so I so I
36:43
didn't play last night. I was at the Avril Lavigne
36:45
concert in Halifax yesterday. It was amazing.
36:47
She's fantastic. I cried thrice, but I so I came
36:52
home today and in an hour I had completed everything that was
36:58
possible to be done because of Blizzard's time gating with the
37:02
exception of a full clear 5 mask run.
37:07
So I cleared all the zones. I unlocked all five of the masks
37:11
you can get this or 5 1/2 masks you can get this week and filled
37:17
my hourglass of power as much as you can fill it, which is also
37:24
time gated. They locked how much you can,
37:26
and not only do they lock that you can fill it, they locked
37:29
which direction you can fill it. So you can't just take your
37:33
three or your four points that you're given this week and jam
37:35
them all in the sanity decreasing column.
37:39
You have to fill it up row by row.
37:42
I can't purchase anything from the Heroic gear vendor yet
37:46
because you have to do A5 mask run complete with that, which
37:51
this week is extremely difficult as a solo player because one of
37:55
the five masks you're forced to wear because you can only unlock
37:57
5 full masks is the Long Night, which cuts your sanity in half.
38:02
I'm certain exceptionally good players can do it, and you can
38:04
probably do it as a group, maybe if your group is good.
38:06
I will most likely try to get it before the end of the week, but
38:10
I can't gain any more power until next week when the next
38:14
row unlocks and then I can get two more.
38:17
I can get the last three masks from Orgemar and then I won't
38:20
have to run the Long Night. So we knew that some stuff was
38:23
going to be locked behind doing it on Stormwind and Orgemar
38:26
because that's how it was in the past.
38:27
That's to be expected, but the other time getting the locking
38:30
of the tree of power, the capping of when you could
38:37
previously, the capping of when you could buy cosmetics, which
38:40
has been removed and now which isn't an actual cap, but it
38:45
it'll be. It'll feel like a cap for the
38:47
majority of the players of being able to buy heroic weapons from
38:51
the vendor, which isn't a big deal.
38:52
You can get heroic weapons just put anywhere.
38:55
But I mean, we're in, it's May 21st of a patch that started in
38:59
February, just unlocked. Just just let us do these,
39:03
please. And then lastly, the head
39:05
enchant, the item everybody was looking for, which are
39:08
corruptions in name only, Sinos, Sinos corruptions in name only
39:14
that they have ruined. Everybody's just going to wear
39:18
Void Ritual. That's all anyone's going to
39:20
equip. There's no reason to equip
39:21
anything else if you're a tank or healer.
39:24
The all of the other ones that aren't void ritual do 33% less
39:28
damage than they do if you're DPS.
39:31
And even if you are adps void ritual is the highest damage
39:35
increase by a decent amount. So just wear void ritual.
39:38
Which good news you won't see it.
39:40
It's just a stop bump so you don't even get the fun visual
39:42
effects that we got from corruptions that is time gated.
39:46
You can only get the lesser version this week and you unlock
39:48
the greater version I think in two weeks.
39:53
But it's like I I love Visions and I don't know who made these
40:00
decisions. If they it feels like they hired
40:03
staff back that had been laid off in the past and let them
40:06
start making decisions again, I'd like for them to just stop
40:09
letting those people make it. I'm glad they got hired back,
40:10
that's great. But let's have the Dragonfly
40:12
team come back and decide how we do this stuff, because the BFA
40:15
team didn't know how to do it then and they're doing it shitty
40:18
now. Yeah, sorry.
40:21
I I do kind of like to be honest when I'm looking at the time
40:24
gauge, the first thought that I have is bold of you to assume
40:27
that I'm still gonna be doing this in two weeks like this is.
40:31
And I, I feel like it kind of feels like Blizzard is
40:33
frustrated that people like they, they have patches drop
40:36
with a bunch of new content and everyone runs them for the first
40:38
week and then stops playing them.
40:40
Which like I get, but the solution there is not to just
40:45
make it so that everyone like, we all give up after a week
40:49
anyway and just don't ever get it right.
40:51
Like I, I, I feel like this is the worst possible solution
40:54
where I'm just like feeling like I, it just makes me feel like,
40:59
OK, I'm fine. I guess I won't get it then.
41:02
I did have a lot of fun with vision.
41:03
So I was a healer in BFA and too shy to ask anyone to group with
41:06
me, so I'm also kind of stupid. So I just kind of really didn't
41:11
do with them at all. And so to go in as a especially
41:14
Havoc Human Hunter is particularly well suited to solo
41:18
content because it does self heal so heavily.
41:20
So to be able to like go in as a havoc to even Demon Hunter,
41:23
we'll say I didn't feel any different with Soradami.
41:26
I, I equipped her to see if it was as bad as people said.
41:28
And like, I think it was just such a faith role that like, I,
41:31
it didn't, it didn't matter to me.
41:33
Like I, I, I could just continue on through.
41:35
I was still, you know, wrecking things, but I like they, they
41:39
were, they were objectively very fun.
41:41
I was having a lot of fun bopping around and just like
41:45
live in my little dreams. But I I on the other hand I
41:48
filled my 3 bars of thing and then I was like oh I can't get
41:53
any better. OK, and I logged off.
41:57
Yeah. So my character, I was doing
42:03
this on my shaman it my character is about 6 high 670 is
42:11
lower than 680 and it felt that it was much easier than I had
42:19
ever done it when it first came around because of just the gear
42:24
difference. Jumping back into it,
42:28
remembering everything, doing A5 run without having to touch any
42:33
of the potions was a little little over the top.
42:37
Mask. Run not 5 mask.
42:38
Run 5 areas. Sorry, all 5 areas.
42:42
I've only done 1 mask. I haven't done all 5 masks
42:45
right. I was ready to pray at the altar
42:47
of Shamani there for a second. Shamans are quite good for it
42:53
because it just in general guys treat this like a mythic plus
42:57
the what's going to slow you down is how many pulls you need
43:00
to do you pull everything that you need to you avoid stuff.
43:04
You don't need to kill things as fast as possible.
43:07
Just make sure you have that burst AOE going and that should
43:11
just make these runs super smooth so you can actually get
43:14
anywhere close to that instance cap you're talking about.
43:19
But I found that one of the things that that really annoys
43:28
me about this is Blizzard PR or whatever it is, they need to
43:36
understand that expectations have to be managed.
43:41
This would not be as rude of an upset if like literally the week
43:50
before he has go through this, hadn't put out saying like, hey,
43:53
we understand that this time gating has been bad and we've
43:57
not really been putting out stuff.
44:01
And like he can say that. And I think it was really good
44:05
for them to acknowledge the issue.
44:07
The one thing that should have been added on to that is this is
44:13
not something that we're going to be able to have shifted for
44:20
what we have coming next week or 11 point 1.5.
44:25
We are going to have our team looking at that and reacting
44:29
quickly. Then people would have had AI
44:32
think a better managed reaction in mind.
44:35
That they can. Don't make excuses for them.
44:37
Three hours. It took them 3 hours to turn off
44:41
the time getting on the cosmetics.
44:43
On the cosmetics, I don't think that's enough.
44:46
I genuinely. Turn it all off.
44:48
But they could do it like thinking, sorry, I'm I'm not
44:51
yelling. I'm not mad at you Manny.
44:52
I'm mad at the situation. They could turn it all off.
44:56
They could easily just they did it on the PTR.
44:59
It came on the PTR the next day. They had it turned off for PTR
45:02
testing. Do what you did there in live
45:05
retail, please. Well, I think they need to do
45:08
more than that. I think that for the longest
45:12
time, the Blizzard developers have erred on the side of
45:17
caution, giving us too little and then opening up the tap.
45:21
And I understand the reasoning behind that because it's easier
45:26
to start giving more than to try and claw stuff back.
45:31
And so I understand why that is the way that they would air.
45:35
I think that in a .5 and a .7 patch where you're about to make
45:40
things obsolete anyways, I would actually say that all power from
45:48
the visions is rendered obsolete on arrival because we have turbo
45:57
boost pushing everything because we have the DN Rs being able to
46:02
give you specific stuff. So this was the exact wrong time
46:06
to be cautious. It was right after they had
46:09
acknowledged the problem. It was right when that this even
46:15
in its most free form would have given I think 0 problems.
46:20
It would have supercharged some normal and heroic guilt.
46:23
But I think that is such a minimal.
46:26
Like, I mean it like a portion of those guilds, it's such a
46:31
minimal impact and those guilds would have been happy for the
46:35
problem. And so it's it's very weird
46:41
because I respect Ian as being somebody who's very careful with
46:47
his words. I think sometimes to a fault
46:49
even he is very careful about what he says and the way he says
46:53
it. But the team in general just
46:59
needs to trust its player base a bit more at this point.
47:04
We've grown up. We're not teenagers.
47:06
We can decide when we're done ourselves.
47:09
Now stop putting in these walls and stop trying to to like cage
47:17
in the playpen and say no, Sean, you can't get your greater
47:22
upgrade even though you've cleared through everything.
47:25
You're going to clear through this tier.
47:27
I think at this point, many of the people who are extremely
47:31
pushing power or power focused have reached their AOTC limits.
47:38
It would give them a bitter push to get to KSL to push into
47:42
Mythic. And I think that giving people
47:46
reason to try that is actually beneficial for the health of the
47:50
game to be like, oh guys, we're we're never going to be stronger
47:53
and we've cleared through this AOTC faster than we meant to.
47:57
Why don't we try Mythic? And if the limitations of them
48:01
doing that is because they can't pare down their team to 20 or
48:05
they can't find more people to get to 20, that is so much
48:10
better a problem than the what was.
48:15
The truth of the matter here is that I looked at and said maybe
48:18
I want to try this in three weeks when it's actually open
48:21
for me to progress through that. That is never a good thing in my
48:26
mind. I think it's still a bit of a
48:28
reaction to the fact that, like historically World of Warcraft
48:33
was the addiction game, right? Like it was the game that if you
48:37
know, you'd go on like your whatever support forums existed
48:41
before and be like, my husband plays World of Warcraft.
48:45
Everyone's like, well, you got to accept never seeing your
48:48
husband again or getting a divorce.
48:50
Like, you know, I, I, I, it was like funny, this wasn't like
48:54
traumatic to me as a kid. I think I've even told this
48:56
story on this podcast before. But like, I remember it was like
48:58
a running joke in my family because my dad played World of
49:00
Warcraft that you asked dad a question and then you go do
49:03
something else and you come back 5 minutes later because that's
49:05
when he's going to process. You asked him a question, right?
49:08
Would you know, again, it was, it feels like a funny story, but
49:10
it, my father was so deeply addicted to World of Warcraft
49:13
that like, you know, he would laser focus in which is tough
49:16
when you have young children. So I think, but I, I think I
49:23
kind of agree with you, Manny, that they're now reacting to a
49:25
problem that hasn't been a problem for like probably a
49:28
decade, right? Like if anything, right now, the
49:31
issue is that people are like log, you know, don't do content
49:35
for a significant period of time.
49:36
Maybe that's my friend group, but I feel like we like I, I
49:40
don't feel like I know anyone that I'm like, Jesus, man, how
49:42
are you? Like?
49:43
How do you have anything else going on in your life?
49:45
You're playing too much World of Warcraft.
49:46
I feel like everyone is, you know, pushes really hard for a
49:50
few weeks and then raid logs. And so I think, I think that I,
49:56
I do agree with you. When this conversation first
50:00
started, I expected to go a different way that like World of
50:02
Warcraft does have such a history of being such a dopamine
50:05
lock that you do need to be thoughtful about how you're
50:07
doing it. But I think the more I think
50:09
about it, I think that problem is well and solved.
50:11
And I think that at this point also, there's so many other
50:13
dopamine locks competing for our attention.
50:15
So like World of Warcraft is not the only thing that people are
50:18
getting addicted to. And so we're probably going to
50:20
be fine. And I think that we can allow
50:22
players to manage their own time because we're no longer in a
50:25
world where players managing their time means that, like, you
50:30
know, the concept of a Wow widow is like common parlance.
50:35
Yep. And we're, we're, we're coming
50:36
into like, there's going to be people who hear this.
50:39
They're like, yeah, but who cares if it's time gate every
50:41
three weeks, Just come back and do it in three weeks.
50:42
But we're heading into the summer, which means family
50:45
vacations, time off work, travel.
50:47
There are people who are not going to be able to do this in
50:49
three weeks because their schedules fill up because
50:51
they're doing stuff on the sun, right?
50:53
This is the week they want to do it.
50:55
And I'm just so tired of this loop this.
50:57
And I agree with everything you both said, by the way, this is
50:59
fantastic. Manny said it way more
51:02
eloquently than I could have. So I'm going to vote to just
51:04
make some wild claims here. I am just tired of this loop
51:08
that we're on Where Blizzard does something that makes the
51:11
player base angry. The player base gets upset.
51:14
Blizzard goes back on what they did.
51:16
Ian comes out and makes a statement telling us it won't
51:18
happen again. Blizzard launches something
51:19
doing exactly the thing that Ian said they won't do.
51:21
The player base gets angry. Like, I don't know what game
51:23
he's a director of, but it sounds awesome and I would love
51:26
to play it, but it sure as hell isn't World of Warcraft because
51:29
every time he tells us something won't happen again, they do it
51:32
immediately, within a month. So like, I don't know.
51:36
I, I mean to give, not to steal, man, Blizzard, as somebody once
51:42
said in this show, but it's a large project.
51:47
There are multiple teams dealing with multiple things that are
51:51
coming down the pipeline. Not everything that Ian says is
51:55
going to be implemented in the very next day.
51:58
Or at all, ever. And so I think that the player
52:04
base is always looking for that instant gratification.
52:09
And sometimes it just can't happen that way.
52:13
But there is a conversation to be had about like where the
52:17
player base is at right now. Lex, you said at the beginning
52:20
of the show where you're like, hey, maybe the devs shouldn't
52:25
listen to the players sometimes. And she would like mark their
52:29
their line and say no further. Sean, you just said that where
52:34
it's like, like, hey, like they listen to us and it's great that
52:37
they're listening to us. But then where's the actual
52:41
change? Those are obviously conflicting
52:46
when you put them right against each other.
52:48
But when you allow for nuance, when you allow for some things
52:53
to be like, hey, the data bears out and the and the community's
52:57
right or the data bears out and sorry, guys, like this isn't
53:02
something that we're going to do.
53:04
Yeah, you're going to have sometimes where they do what you
53:08
want and sometimes where they don't do what you want.
53:10
There are going to be times where the like, what you're
53:15
going to see and hear from the team is going to be exactly what
53:20
you want. And then you're going to come on
53:22
your favorite podcast and Manny is going to be saying stuff
53:24
that's going to that. You're going to be like, what
53:27
game are you even playing, Manny?
53:31
And it's just because guys, they're catering to me.
53:35
One time they're catering to Lex.
53:38
The next time they're catering to Sean.
53:41
Currently never. And I also honestly don't think
53:47
like I, I, I hear what you're saying 100%, but I also don't
53:49
think that what Sean and I are saying are directly in conflict,
53:59
right? Like I see, I, I agree with you.
54:00
It feels like it's in conflict, but I think that kind of what
54:03
I'm reacting to is that the Blizzard team is making
54:09
decisions based on like, like what people yell at them, and
54:12
they're kind of trying to figure out what the people are yelling
54:14
about. They're like, oh, the people are
54:16
yelling because they feel like we have too many.
54:19
Like, like, I don't know, I'm not thinking of a great way to
54:23
word this, but like, everyone's screaming that they think that
54:27
this mechanic is too difficult, so we're gonna make it easier in
54:31
this way that makes sense to our devs.
54:33
But because they're not coming up, like these ideas aren't
54:35
coming from Blizzard, they're coming from people yelling
54:37
internally and Blizzard kind of trying to translate rage into
54:40
action. Umm, it's not being done in a
54:44
like, how could we make the game better?
54:46
It's being done in a oh, Jesus, people are screaming at us like
54:49
about time gates and we said we're gonna listen to the player
54:51
base. We have to do the player base
54:52
says. And so we gotta figure out how
54:54
to deal with time gates in a way that it seems like people want.
54:57
And I want my game professionals who've made games for as long as
55:02
I've been alive to make confident decisions based on
55:06
their own expertise. I don't want them to make
55:08
decisions based on people screaming at them and then being
55:12
like, well, I guess we have to figure out what the player base
55:14
wants. And it sounds like what they
55:15
want is this, But I, I think it's similar.
55:17
I think that they're like chaos is because they're like
55:22
frantically trying to make everyone happy in the game and
55:26
like, translate what they're saying versus knowing how games
55:32
work and listening to feedback and listening to what's feeling
55:34
frustrating and pulling that in and a like, OK, based on our
55:38
expertise and how video games work, how do we make this
55:41
possible? Instead of, well, players said
55:43
they want this, we got to figure out how to make it happen.
55:46
Does that make sense? Yeah, it does.
55:48
And I I do think we're in like, I don't want them to figure out
55:51
how to fix Boss XI, want them to figure out how to stop making
55:54
bosses like Boss X. You know, that's it's not.
55:59
And, and as long as they keep making boss XS, people are going
56:03
to keep screaming and then it's going to this cycle continues.
56:06
But if you just listen to the first one, you know, smoulder on
56:11
in the mirror's a mirror's ale back to a mirror's ale or
56:15
tendril. Stop making those boss XS.
56:18
Then we don't have to keep saying it every tier up to this
56:20
point, you know, and your world events, the world events are the
56:24
same thing. We say these same things every
56:26
time a world event comes out. Why are you gating?
56:28
Why would you? Why?
56:30
On what planet does gating cosmetics like forget the power
56:34
stuff? They're gating because, OK,
56:35
sure, you want to keep everyone in the even playing field for
56:38
whatever reason, because it's this this side thing that is
56:41
sort of fun. Maybe in three weeks is you.
56:44
You wanted to be balanced, Cool. There's solo content.
56:46
You want to make sure that Alex and I are at the same level?
56:48
OK, cool. Who anywhere ever thinks we
56:52
should probably get these cosmetics from BFA then I can
56:57
farm in BFAI, can just fly. I can just go to nightlife and
57:00
get them. Should probably get these.
57:03
Hey, Jerry, you going for lunch? Yeah, hold on.
57:06
Let me check with this time getting really quick on
57:07
everything. This is going to go great.
57:11
Oh, who's doing an interview today?
57:12
Ian? How?
57:12
Cool. We'll check that out.
57:14
What game is it for? So I, I do want to apologize.
57:21
I, I meant to say that your two comments might sound like they
57:29
are in conflict, but they're not actually in conflict, right?
57:33
I meant to say that like, the devs can listen to the
57:38
sentiment, but not necessarily the words of something.
57:43
And so when a change comes through, it might not be the
57:48
change that you were asking for exactly, but it does work
57:52
towards the the problem. So I do apologize if I if I
57:57
misspoken with saying that like what you 2 are asking for is
57:59
completely incongruent and unable to to work together.
58:06
Yeah, stop trying to make us fight, man.
58:07
Yeah. Man, it's like that.
58:09
We fight because then we don't fight with him.
58:10
If, if, if you and I get together, Sean, we make Manny's
58:13
life so hard. He's over here trying to like
58:15
explain nuance. And we're like, actually, this
58:17
is terrible. Yeah, Manny's like well spoken
58:21
and his responses are all well thought out and very measured
58:24
and balanced and I'm like, what game is he making?
58:28
You, you definitely beat inflammatory this episode.
58:31
But like, I think that the, the thing that makes it work is when
58:37
you say an inflammatory statement and then the question
58:41
is why? Like we will give feedback, all
58:46
players will give their feedback on the forum and and such.
58:51
All players, actually everyone legally has to give their
58:53
feedback on the forum. It's part of the social
58:55
agreement you signed. I mean, I am a proponent of
59:00
required voting federally and and levels, but you know.
59:04
Things nothing says democracy like someone with no idea what
59:07
the what any of the candidates are about being forced about.
59:11
Sean, I'll fight you on this one, but not on, not on this,
59:13
all right? TuneIn next week for red versus
59:19
blue, which means different things in our different
59:23
countries. People should make their voice
59:29
heard, give feedback. The more feedback they have,
59:32
however rough or refined it is, is still better than allowing
59:39
certain loud voices talk for you.
59:42
Well, unless Blizzard feels like they have to do everything that
59:44
we say that it's worse. No, because I don't.
59:49
If everybody speaks what they want, they personally want and
59:52
not just parroting what like pawn, God, X or Sean says.
59:58
And I do want to be clear, all of my issues with Blizzard are
1:00:01
my issues. I give zero thought to how they
1:00:04
affect the community. They are my issues and my
1:00:07
concerns. I am not trying to speak for the
1:00:10
every man but. That's the point.
1:00:12
Like that's the conceit of this show.
1:00:15
That is literally why we have three people who play 3
1:00:18
different ways. We want different voices, and
1:00:22
Blizzard would benefit from every voice.
1:00:26
If every player said what they were, what they liked or
1:00:30
disliked about the game. No matter how stupid I might
1:00:33
personally think it is, I think that Blizzard would be better
1:00:37
for having that data set. The next level that I was trying
1:00:42
to get to was giving reasoning behind that I hate this, why
1:00:52
this is clunky, how I don't want to engage with this.
1:00:58
What would make it more appetizing for you, right?
1:01:02
Even if they don't take your your reason for like, hey, you
1:01:09
know what would make this better for me?
1:01:10
If I got 1000 gold just for logging in, they could still
1:01:14
take that. Could seem to be like, oh this
1:01:16
person wants to be more rewarded, how can we reward them
1:01:19
in a way that isn't as what Manny would consider stupid as
1:01:25
giving everybody 1000 gold every time they log in?
1:01:27
People 1000 gold every time they log in.
1:01:30
OK Lex, what happens when people keep logging in and logging out
1:01:33
every 5 seconds and then the game inflates?
1:01:37
Then we get to. Then we go, OK, OK, no, I'm,
1:01:40
I'm, I'm not actually going to make this argument.
1:01:42
But I am. I know, I know you weren't, but
1:01:44
but the but like the reason I actually threw that question,
1:01:47
even though like obviously Lex, you were just Oh yeah, doing a
1:01:50
throwaway sort of joke, right? Is that there are immediate
1:01:54
follow up questions and consequences for any
1:01:56
implementation that might be done.
1:01:58
And the reason that Blizzard might not do the the
1:02:01
implementation that we want, suggest or demand for is because
1:02:05
of things that we haven't considered further down, like I
1:02:11
think all of us. Conflict with the dastardly duos
1:02:13
we're getting in three weeks. We'll have to lay off half the
1:02:16
team every two weeks, so you know, that's the most important
1:02:19
thing that Microsoft can do right now.
1:02:21
The 11.5 box featured dastardly duos were getting 2 1/2 months
1:02:27
after 11.5 and only 18 days before 11 point 1.7.
1:02:34
I did have a moment today that I was like, God, wait, wasn't
1:02:37
there supposed to be a dastardly duo?
1:02:38
Did I miss that? Did that already happen?
1:02:40
I'm such a bad podcast host. Don't worry Lex, you did not
1:02:44
miss it. It is so bad that it it deflates
1:02:48
the patch so much where like these things that people
1:02:52
arguably could have been the most excited for are so far in
1:02:57
and then are about to get eclipsed by what's coming down
1:02:59
next. Like this thing is going to
1:03:01
launch 11 point 1.7 is like starting to eat up head
1:03:06
headlines. 11.2 is going to show up in the middle of this thing,
1:03:12
this thing coming out and people are going to just literally do
1:03:18
what you did Lex forget it existed.
1:03:20
And that to me is such a crime. I obviously Ian has had and the
1:03:26
team are aware that this level of gating is just not it.
1:03:33
I don't want to say that time gaining in general is not it
1:03:36
because I I do want to concede that there are points where it's
1:03:40
like, yeah, you do want to like space some things out, but this
1:03:44
is ridiculous. This is clearly ridiculous.
1:03:47
I don't want to beat that dead horse any further.
1:03:49
What I do want to say is for better or for worse, whoever you
1:03:55
are, if you're in the sound of my voice, go ahead and give your
1:03:59
feedback. Either throw it on to bit dot LY
1:04:02
slash fast discord right and we will hear it and it'll help
1:04:07
shape our opinions right. Go on to the forums.
1:04:11
Put that put that thought out there into the forums.
1:04:15
I think it was like Epidemi who like put out the the weight
1:04:21
within and that has stuck in my head all day, right?
1:04:27
Like, I think that's brilliant. In fact, I'm going to name this
1:04:29
episode the wait within. Right?
1:04:31
There you go, Epidemi, right? You anybody and their voice can
1:04:38
have that sort of influence to plant those ideas and get it
1:04:40
forward to like a much larger, larger audience than you may
1:04:44
even be expecting. So I say put it forward.
1:04:47
I don't know. That's my monologue.
1:04:51
I'll give mine in three weeks. We're going to have three weeks
1:04:57
of Dead Space and then and then your monologue there.
1:05:03
But I I do want to ask you, Lex, are you going to be playing this
1:05:09
in three weeks? Does this seem like something
1:05:10
that's going to hold your interest?
1:05:12
Did you play Horrific Visions back in BF?
1:05:15
AI didn't really in BFA, especially since I was healing,
1:05:18
so I I didn't like I was kind of scared to group.
1:05:23
I don't think so I don't know if this is going to hold my
1:05:27
interest for a week, but it was fun when I did it.
1:05:30
But I think it like, I, I think it would have been more fun if I
1:05:35
was, yeah, if I was able to like, grind out.
1:05:40
And, you know, like I've said multiple times on this podcast
1:05:42
now, every single thing in World of Warcraft has to compete with
1:05:45
snuggling with a puppy. And so am I going to want to do
1:05:47
Horrific Visions more than I want to snuggle a puppy in three
1:05:49
weeks? Probably not.
1:05:51
It's the same thing every time. Right.
1:05:56
And I, I think that that is a big problem for World of
1:06:00
Warcraft. Not horrific visions in itself,
1:06:03
but the fact that they are putting together these systems
1:06:07
that have a, that have a tail or shelf life that is far smaller
1:06:13
than they are putting the reward track.
1:06:17
I do not care what my Galaggio renowned track is at, even
1:06:23
though there is mounts at the end of it.
1:06:25
That to me is just like I don't want to go through that until I
1:06:29
hit renowned 20 there. The machina there are reward
1:06:35
their amounts that you could get and the grind rate on that is so
1:06:40
ridiculous that I'm done with it before I really pushed and
1:06:45
pushed into it. I haven't bought one thing with
1:06:47
that and I've already done with that.
1:06:49
I think that if Blizzard wants to allow people to walk away
1:06:53
from this game, they need to just allow us to progress
1:06:59
through it at a reasonable rate that we're like maybe playing a
1:07:04
couple of days or week longer than we than we would have just
1:07:08
to get that final award. But like 3 weeks from now, no, I
1:07:12
don't care. Two weeks from now, do I care
1:07:15
about nightfall? Not really.
1:07:18
Are you dive? Any of you open question to both
1:07:21
the audience and my 2 Co hosts. Are you guys going through the
1:07:27
undermine outside of when you have to raid?
1:07:31
No, I couldn't tell you that. No I don't.
1:07:36
I get cartel Rep from doing a dungeon every week and.
1:07:40
I actually have, I, I actually, I think it's not terrible if
1:07:44
patches are relatively short in holding our attention.
1:07:49
I think that's kind of the new. I think there's thing to be said
1:07:52
for like, if you want to say, oh, we're going to listen to the
1:07:53
player base, the play race is telling you in their actions
1:07:57
that they don't really want content that stretches out
1:08:00
right. And I, I think that that's an, I
1:08:03
think it's OK if an MMO is something that you play with
1:08:06
your friends heavily for a while and then like for however long,
1:08:08
you know, you pick something that's hard enough, that's going
1:08:10
to hold your attention for the amount you want it to and then
1:08:13
you kind of let it fizzle. I think that's fine.
1:08:17
I think that, and honestly, I think the only other option is
1:08:20
the type of MMO that we had in the early days of World of
1:08:23
Warcraft where, you know, everyone felt like they had to
1:08:25
be playing constantly 24/7. And I don't want that either.
1:08:28
So I think it's OK. I think it's OK that, you know,
1:08:30
patches are exciting for a couple weeks and then we go and
1:08:34
play other games and then we come back when another thing
1:08:36
comes up. Yeah.
1:08:38
And I like, I think that is great.
1:08:40
But my, my question is like, are there rewards and such that
1:08:46
people would be interested in? Right.
1:08:48
But even then, it felt like too much of A grind to go and get
1:08:54
that. And if there are like some
1:08:57
things that I could show you and be like, oh, that's cool, what's
1:09:00
that? And then I show you what it
1:09:01
takes to get that and you go, you know what?
1:09:04
I'm never going to bother. I think there's too many of
1:09:06
those things in the game right now. 500 jet pieces or whatever
1:09:10
the hell it is. I just, I mean, I just don't
1:09:13
like the zone. I don't like the drive system.
1:09:14
I don't like being forced into a car.
1:09:16
I'm growing weary of being underground.
1:09:19
I would I, I like some of the the trans mug and stuff, but I
1:09:23
just, it's not fun. I don't enjoy it.
1:09:27
And yeah, it's like there's like some chatting.
1:09:29
You know what it is? It's so I don't even know what
1:09:30
the the reward is. I just heard somebody talking
1:09:32
when they had to grind 500 pieces of chat and I couldn't
1:09:36
even be bothered to look up what chat was because that just
1:09:39
sounded so insane to me. They're like, I have to go do my
1:09:43
Chet runs with your what, what are you doing?
1:09:45
I'm digging through trash piles hoping to get a piece of Chet.
1:09:50
Like what? What is that?
1:09:52
What are we doing? What is what is happening right
1:09:54
now? It's a it is a acronym Lex.
1:10:00
Lex's Lex's screen has just I like my world.
1:10:03
Like what's the screen just gone, right?
1:10:05
I'm just trying to get allow her to like look it up.
1:10:07
It's an acronym, so you have to put the period in between each
1:10:10
letter that'll help you look it up.
1:10:12
Like you're like her screen just like dude, like.
1:10:14
I like this guy. Like what's?
1:10:17
Look at the pictures of guys in polo shirts and deck shoes.
1:10:21
What is happening? What is Sean talking 500 of
1:10:23
these? I don't want that either.
1:10:25
It's an audio show, so you like people may not have realized
1:10:28
what happened. Lex like tabbed over to a
1:10:31
different screen or something. At which point, like her, what's
1:10:36
the right descriptor? Her Milky complexion turned
1:10:43
further ghostly. You're going.
1:10:45
To have to mark this show as explicit.
1:10:50
Yeah, fun fact about me is that I don't use Google in dark mode.
1:10:55
So if I'm on camera and I switch over to Google, something bright
1:11:00
white light. Everybody knows the.
1:11:02
Whole neighbor, incredibly reflective.
1:11:07
Alexa's window lights up like the beacons of Gondor.
1:11:13
Yeah, Gondor calls for aid. Alexa's Googling something.
1:11:26
Well, until next time, no. But yeah, I honestly, this is a
1:11:35
great episode. I'm really glad that everybody
1:11:37
is back in the seats and we're we're talking again.
1:11:40
It's more of your stuff coming. I'm just hoping that it has a
1:11:43
little bit more of a shelf life and we will be back again next
1:11:47
week. So until next time, may all your
1:11:49
hits be good.