Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #382 - For Azeroth!: “Preeminence"

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#382 - For Azeroth!: “Preeminence" · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
Back. Welcome back.
0:03
OK, I had. A good hold on, I'm going to put
0:04
some nuts in my mouth. We're going to use that as a
0:08
cold opener. Victory for the Forsaken, for
0:11
Lauderon for the Karen Tour, for Pandaria.
0:19
For calendar to the. Burning region for Gilneus, but
0:25
has not done for the Lich King, for the Sindori, for the
0:32
Alliance, for the. Horn.
0:36
For Azeroth. Hello and welcome back to
0:41
another episode of For Azeroth. I am your host Manny, AKA the
0:45
Truvan Manny. And joining me is not Lex.
0:49
She is away this week and will be returning in two weeks time
0:54
but the show must go on. So joining me from one of his
0:58
villas in the east we have Sean. Hello Sean, how are you and how
1:03
is the World of Warcraft cheating you this week?
1:06
Hi Manny, I'm doing quite well. We actually have had a a banger
1:11
week. No banner.
1:12
A banner week. That's the phrase that old
1:14
people say in Warcraft. This week my Guild killed Crown
1:19
of the Cosmos Mythic on Sunday. We jumped about 100 world ranks
1:24
because we were able to kill it much faster than I guess some of
1:28
our other teams around us and we're getting ready to work on
1:32
the bird. We're bringing Bella Ren and
1:34
hopefully we get that down. I am in for Bella Ren because
1:39
not not because Prot Warrior is especially strong on it, though
1:41
it is good. The mobility is good, but
1:44
because arms and Fury do negative damage, I think they
1:47
actually heal the egg during the egg phase.
1:51
They do so little damage to the egg face.
1:53
So. But I'm in for that fight.
1:55
I, I, I will unfortunately miss our Sunday raid, not this week,
2:00
but next week because I will be in London for LFG.
2:03
But we have our DPS warrior who's going to fill in for
2:06
fraught for me for that week, that night.
2:08
Yeah. Yeah.
2:10
So that's, that's how that's been going.
2:12
It's been going really well. And I've been sort of enjoying
2:15
my time in Warcraft slowing down a little bit.
2:18
I have like really pumped the brakes on all of my alts and
2:24
yeah, yeah. I mean, that's how about you?
2:29
Well, let's let's say congratulations on the the crown
2:33
kill. That's great.
2:35
I'd love to actually talk a little bit about your prep on
2:39
for like Bellerin, Bellerin, but for people who are listening to
2:43
this on audio, Sean is streaming.
2:46
So we're doing this on his stream and after this stream,
2:50
sorry, rather after the show completes, we're going to be
2:53
doing more of his stream and he's going to be doing the prep
2:55
there. So make sure you do check out
2:57
the VOD and check out Sean's stream.
2:59
But it's not just one team you're rating with.
3:02
You've got a number of teams that you're rating with,
3:04
including your weekend team. And I think they're doing some
3:07
gangbusters as well. How they doing?
3:09
Yeah, I, I forgot about them. They also did really well.
3:12
So we have a, a weekend team. It's one night of Prague a week
3:16
for two hours. So Saturday night for two hours,
3:18
that's our Prague. And we just killed Midnight
3:23
Falls Saturday previous, so like 5 days ago as of recording.
3:27
Four days ago as of recording, we do like some of us get
3:31
together on Friday and do a it would be a pug if we ever had
3:35
not enough people show up, but we've had enough people show up
3:38
every week. So we do like our farm then and
3:41
that's still a 2 hour window. So while the Prague is just
3:44
Saturdays for two hours, you could make the argument that
3:48
because we clear the raid on farm on Friday that you you
3:51
could argue that it it's two nights a week.
3:53
But whether or not people showed up, I would still be pugging.
3:56
I don't consider the, you know, my, my raid team euphoric is a
4:01
two night a week Guild, but I play 5 days, I play seven days a
4:04
week. I don't consider as a seven day
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a week Guild because I'm doing mythic plus and prep and stuff
4:08
outside of those times. Our Prague metric tonight.
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So anyway, our, our, our Rd. team.
4:12
It was and I'm really proud of that because a lot of the people
4:15
hadn't rated in a long time and some of them hadn't rated at a
4:22
really high level before. We do have some that are like
4:24
former mythic Raiders and some that are coming back that are,
4:26
are very skilled players. So that helps a lot.
4:29
But yeah, we we killed Lura. It was one, it took US1 full
4:34
night of Prague. So we had 20 minutes on her the
4:37
previous Saturday and then 10 minutes of setting up the
4:39
Northern sky add on so that we could use the memory game
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components to that. And then this Saturday it was an
4:50
hour and a half. I think we we had 30 minutes
4:52
left in the raid I think when we killed her.
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So hour and a half of Prague it went super honest to honest to
4:57
goodness. The hardest part was me not
5:00
dying while entering the macros for the mini game and tanking
5:03
the boss. I was the biggest problem.
5:06
So yeah, it it went really well. It was good.
5:09
We had a lot of folks. So we're doing one more heroic
5:11
clear this weekend and then we're we took a poll to see if
5:15
the team wants to try to dabble in mythic.
5:18
And if we get, you know, 15 to 18 people that say yes, the 20
5:22
man team, then we'll probably, we'll probably do some, some
5:26
light mythic stuff. Not it would be we would cap at
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like Chimeris and then two or three bosses and void Spire.
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We would not get higher than that if we do it.
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So yeah, but it's been good. It's been a good time.
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OK, lot of fun. So then to answer your question
5:42
on my end, yeah, we are going through I'm still rating with
5:45
two teams going to finish out the the tier and then I'm going
5:50
to drop back down to one team. So that means like back to more
5:58
manageable hours for my rating. I I'm sorry, doing 5 hours a
6:03
night for two nights at 10 hours of rating is just like, it's a,
6:07
it's a little bit much for me. I know after what you've just
6:11
said with your like 2 nights on one team and two nights on
6:14
another team is just like. Wait, you raid for five hours in
6:18
a city? I go from one team directly into
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the other team if one team ends fast enough.
6:28
I got you. I was thinking it was 5 hours
6:30
for each. Like one team was rating five
6:33
hours straight. That's what I thought you were.
6:34
Saying, yeah. And so I was doing it on the 2
6:37
characters because like you had said, you don't want to do the
6:40
loot lockout. I was exploring the different
6:42
characters and all of that. And no, I was I was having I was
6:47
just burning out and then rather going to the point where I just
6:51
was hating the game. I have just been pulling back.
6:54
So warlock is officially an alt, which is sad because I do love
6:58
playing that warlock. I switched the shaman over to
7:01
elemental in the last couple of weeks as being like re gearing,
7:05
learning and everything so I can do damage.
7:08
It's inconsistent. There are I am still trying to
7:11
learn to pull my my maelstrom to go into the next pool and all
7:14
that sort of stuff on mythic plus.
7:16
And the reason I remember this is because Windrunner Spire, I
7:21
was so focused on some things that like some of the mechanics,
7:24
I was just like going right out of my head.
7:28
So getting rid of the curse on the undead boss or like going
7:35
and getting another arrow to get rid of the the dot when you're
7:39
doing the final boss. Those were things that I was
7:42
like forgetting while trying to do my DPS and the T, the T that
7:46
I ran with because I'm plugging through all of these, they they
7:48
were not happy with me. They were like, you might not be
7:51
ready. For 13th, I was on that team,
7:54
no. No, no, this was a different
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team. Oh oh I was going to say I we
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ran everyone winners by together.
7:59
I definitely did not say that to you. 5 hours at a time rating is
8:03
not When I was rating with Faith for Forged and Euphoric.
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My raid days were Thursday, Sunday for both teams and it was
8:09
3 hours for you, faith for Forged and three hours for your
8:12
fork. But I had a 3 or 4 hour window
8:16
in between where I could break. But you could do.
8:19
Syncing them up on the same day. I think is smart because you get
8:21
all of it done in one day. You basically just block 2 days
8:24
off of your calendar instead of blocking off 4.
8:26
But you need going from one rate right into another.
8:29
That is that. I can't believe you've done it
8:31
this long in the tier. Yeah, especially when it's like,
8:34
oh, we get it, just one more pool and I and I have to be
8:36
like, no guys, I'm the bad guy, I'm out.
8:38
Yeah, I don't have a choice. I got to leave.
8:40
Like drop from Discord, like like Cinderella man, just turn
8:43
into a pumpkin and so don't like that.
8:45
How far? How far along are those teams?
8:47
So one team is on Midnight Falls trying to get the AOTC.
8:54
We've got through phase one fairly consistently,
9:00
intermission by the end of the night fairly consistently.
9:05
Phase 2 still, still figuring that out.
9:10
I would say the other team is working on Bellerin and I think
9:15
that's because they got crown and then went to Bellerin while
9:22
one team did Bellerin and then did crown.
9:25
So like I think by the end of this week both teams will be on
9:30
be Midnight Falls if not AOTC just because Bellman heroic is
9:35
not the the monster that it is on mythic.
9:39
Yeah, I'm going to ask you some questions now, because this is
9:41
what I do when I hear somebody's progging a boss.
9:44
What? How are you solving the memory
9:46
gain from Midnight Falls? So we have one person who is
9:51
assigned to call it out. They are not using any kind of
9:56
add on, they are just remembering it themselves and.
9:59
Just repeating it. And then repeating it.
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And they've been pretty consistent.
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I was like, oh, OK, this doesn't seem that bad now in Phase 3
10:11
when we're back out again, right?
10:14
Is it only in Mythic where it's in the different layer?
10:17
So yeah, I think this this should go through just fine,
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assuming that that person and their backup, there's a backup,
10:25
don't fall over dead by the time we get there.
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OK, we tried that. We did.
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We gave that 20 minutes and I unilaterally made the decision
10:37
to not do that, that we would use the the tool.
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I didn't force the tool on anybody, like anybody who didn't
10:42
want to use it. It wasn't required to.
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But I think 19 of our twenty players swapped to it and then
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we had 0 memory game fails from that point forward.
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Wiping to that mechanic isn't something I'm interested in
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doing in progging. So that's why we we went with
10:56
it. But if, if they're calling out
10:57
is working, that's great. I just think having that visual
11:00
on the screen for players is good.
11:01
And it takes a little bit of the heavy lifting off of one person
11:04
being responsible for the whole thing.
11:07
Yeah, I, I'm all about cutting down, cutting down poles in P2.
11:11
Let's talk about P2. I love P2 as well.
11:14
Are you using the method where you put the four markers down,
11:17
you assign the groups to them and then just tell them two
11:19
steps to the right and then the next beam you're just on the
11:21
marker and then just two steps to the left?
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Or are you having them move around and try to track them?
11:27
No, minimize movement on that 'cause then otherwise they might
11:30
like run over the crystal and ZAP the crystal and that sort of
11:33
thing. So it is markers down make micro
11:37
adjustments so that you you line them up.
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And then the problem with that is that sometimes the person
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who's got the beam does the micro adjustment and there's a
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they adjust like left instead of right.
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So there becomes a gap and then they have to start compensating
11:54
for that gap. And that's what we're trying to
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get people not to do. Yeah.
11:58
So if you if you put the markers down at the four cardinal
12:01
points, when you look at the map itself, there's 4 spikes in the
12:07
in the ring in the ground of that map, there's 4 spikes.
12:10
And if you put the markers down on those spikes, you you never
12:15
have to guess. The first beam is 2 steps to the
12:19
right of the marker and it will hit every time.
12:22
The next beam is directly on the marker and it will hit every
12:25
time. And then the last beam is 2
12:27
steps to the left. But there's only one or but for
12:29
each person at that point. So you should, nobody should
12:31
ever be left to. And I say this, I guess if
12:36
people want to play this way, they can.
12:37
But in my like, it should be a completely controlled dance
12:40
where it's always a perfect cross.
12:42
So everybody should be moving the the exact same direction
12:45
every time. And it's it that if with the
12:47
markers in those spots, 2 to the right, like 2 steps, it's 2
12:50
steps, but your your beam is still touching.
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I could bring up the stream. I'm going to show you you.
12:56
Don't you don't need to bring up the screen, but like that's
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true. Like what what we're doing is
13:00
instead of it being a full cross, we're doing like a very
13:05
narrow X. So like, you know.
13:08
The that's ready check pull recommends that it's it's not it
13:12
it is it's a it's a bad the bad way to do it.
13:15
The I, I, I don't want to, I don't want to talk about my, my,
13:19
my raid leader. But when they make up their mind
13:21
about something, good luck trying to convince them about
13:24
anything else. There's.
13:26
A couple of bosses this year were ready check pull I I am a
13:29
huge ready check pull fan. I, I, you check their videos.
13:32
I am an Excelsior level patron. At the start of each season.
13:36
I am usually like a huge advocate, but there have been a
13:40
couple of bosses this year where the strategy that they advocate
13:42
for is not the easiest or the best.
13:47
And they're the one that they advocate for specifically in
13:50
that one is not either. It's if you do a perfect, the
13:54
perfect cross is it's. It completely turns off any room
13:59
for error in that mechanic. I disagree.
14:02
OK so here's the thing. The perfect cross is good when
14:06
you have people who are consistent.
14:08
The people the the perfect cross is good when you have people who
14:11
are consistent as that consistency waivers the chances
14:17
of you hitting one of the the orbs as people freak out and
14:24
make more adjustments than they should right increases because
14:27
you can't drop the the crystals further away as you can in their
14:32
X. There's also the thing that we
14:33
encountered and hi Axe, I see you there don't get don't send
14:37
that back. There's also the thing where
14:38
people would run out of their line prematurely, pick up the
14:41
crystal, not realize they have the crystal because they are
14:45
focused on other things. And now they run that back in
14:47
for the next one and it's like, no, no, drop the crystal, drop
14:50
the crystal. And yeah, we've had a wipe where
14:52
somebody accidentally ran into the line with the crystal and
14:57
killed the solve. That I mean you can't fix that,
15:00
but the the perfect X removes inconsistency because the ray
15:03
leader just says everybody 2 steps right?
15:06
And like you, it's not a question of will players
15:09
consistently do the right thing. They're they're literally only
15:12
doing what they're told and it like it.
15:14
I don't know. It's just it is it is much
15:16
easier it it works in pugs, it works in I've killed that boss a
15:20
lot and that strategy is by far it's it's it is foolproof.
15:25
It it it like it it cannot fail as long as everybody just does
15:28
what they're told to do I I I'm a huge advocate for I I would I
15:32
would suggest re looking ready check poll.
15:33
Like I said this week did not do do in that in that fight.
15:40
I didn't, I don't agree with that that solution that they
15:43
came up with. It can work but it's but anytime
15:45
you're progging a boss, whether it's heroic, mythic or normal,
15:48
whatever your difficulty level is, the 100% best thing is
15:52
consistent pulls and things removing chance.
15:56
If you can remove chance you are able to replicate it and get
16:00
further in the in the fight. So if you remove the the if you
16:04
remove the chance for people to miss those beams you then P2
16:09
becomes automatic. Now your crystal people can get
16:11
better used to dropping crystals and getting in in soaks like
16:15
you. It's just removing chance,
16:17
removing RNG the closer you can get to a scripted fight.
16:20
Is is is going to support that? Nick in chat mentioned that.
16:25
I mentioned it to them as well face or forge during their
16:27
progress. So I I helped them out with a
16:29
bit of some of the Strat stuff and they swapped to it and then
16:31
never missed another planet. I have to.
16:35
Say that one of the like hidden joys of rating with two teams is
16:41
watching the different teams do different strats for the same
16:44
fight and just seeing like the difference in like how it works
16:49
out. It's it's pretty.
16:51
It's pretty cool. So I I do enjoy that.
16:55
We'll see how it goes. I'm pretty sure I'd love to see
16:58
what my other team goes with if this gets suggested to the the
17:03
earlier team and if they adopt it, we'll see see how that goes.
17:09
I'm not going to say anything. I I'm OK dealing with a little
17:12
bit more just to see how it goes.
17:16
But yeah, so that's that's basically been my week.
17:19
I have also bounced off of 12 point O .5 I every single thing
17:30
that's offered in 12 point O .5 I have just flipped to the bird
17:34
and said I'm not dealing with it right now.
17:36
I'm going to go work on other things other than of course the
17:41
void forge with the bonus rolls because why would I do that to
17:46
myself? And I was really happy that
17:48
after we had finished last episode that they had again made
17:53
a number of hot fixes and they had done a post apologizing for
18:01
the state of 12 point O .5. Kyvax went to many different
18:04
things, including the forums to apologize for that and just talk
18:09
about how they were going to do better.
18:12
But it's just a post. It was words.
18:15
I was hoping to follow up with action.
18:18
Obviously the mass amount of hot fixes is great, but we got an
18:23
interview from Taliesin and Avatel where they talked about
18:28
that more in depth. And so Sean, give us a little
18:31
bit of a rundown on like 'cause it covered a lot.
18:33
So let's talk about one part part of it first.
18:36
Go ahead about the you want. Me to talk specifically about
18:40
the past rollout and how awful it went.
18:43
So they they explained 5 XS post explained why and Paul Cubitt
18:49
goes a little bit more into it in the interview.
18:50
And it was basically that their internal tests, the internal
18:54
development servers are not set up the same way that the live
18:57
realms are. So the PTR isn't set up the same
18:59
way as the live realms are in that information is stored in
19:03
different databases. So it's stored on realm servers
19:07
in one space and somewhere else in another.
19:10
But this was how they identified that the error was able to
19:14
happen in the duplicates of bonus loot and all went to great
19:20
lengths to let us know that, hey, we hear this and we're
19:22
going to make sure this doesn't happen again.
19:25
But I didn't hear any actions. I like, like, I would really
19:32
like to know like I, I, I'm glad that you recognize that, you
19:36
know now what the error was. I kind of feel like you should
19:39
have known that they were pulling from different databases
19:41
from your internal development realms and the live realms.
19:44
I think that's something that maybe should have been known
19:48
ahead of time, but I didn't hear any actions and we, we haven't
19:52
like, I want to know as a, as a, as a player who is really
19:56
invested in this game and loves this game, I would like to know
20:00
what you're going to do to ensure this doesn't happen
20:03
again. Are you just going to implement
20:04
another layer of checks where you verify that everything is
20:08
pointing to the right spot? Are you going to change the way
20:11
that you handle the internal databases so that they mirror
20:14
the, the, the, the live servers? What?
20:17
What are you doing? Don't just tell me you're going
20:20
to do better. It's like, I want to know what
20:24
you're going to do to improve. And this is, I mean, you can
20:26
take this back to to rating as well.
20:28
If you have a player, you say you're progging a boss that will
20:31
will you. We'll talk about Crown of the
20:32
Cosmos because I'm familiar with it.
20:33
We were just progging. They have a player who dies to
20:36
they get shot by other people's obelisks consistently a couple
20:39
of times in a row because they're in the wrong spot.
20:42
I, I, I don't want to come over comms and say to that person,
20:45
hey, you keep dying to this and have them say, yeah, I know I'm
20:48
going to figure it out. I want to know what you know by
20:51
the third death. I need you to tell me what
20:54
you're going to do differently to make sure you're not dying to
20:57
the same mechanic. Though I'm glad that they have
20:59
said, hey, we recognize this isn't up to our standard, which
21:01
I 100% think was only done because it hit larger media
21:05
outlets. I don't think this comment if if
21:08
PC Gamer and and IGN are not picking up these news articles
21:13
about how bad the patch launched.
21:15
I don't think we're getting apology.
21:17
Well, I think. That that itself wouldn't have
21:20
happened if the community wasn't so loud about it.
21:23
That PC game was like, oh, this is worth writing about, Yeah.
21:27
Exactly. But I, I like, I, I'm glad they
21:29
recognized what caused that specific issue and that they're,
21:33
you know, hey, we're going to do better.
21:36
How how are you going to do better?
21:38
Let tell us because unfortunately at this point, you
21:44
know, with the track record we have and you know, they say
21:46
death of 1000 cuts and you never know when that first cut was.
21:49
Some people would say it was BFA, some would say it was
21:52
shadow lands with the covenants. But wherever it is, you know,
21:55
we're at a point now where just telling me you're going to do
21:57
better isn't enough. You know, I need to know how
22:00
like I for this relationship to continue.
22:03
I need to see or be told exact steps you're going to take.
22:09
We don't have that yet, so we're definitely still in the
22:13
counselling required phase of our relationship.
22:18
Yeah, I I think that one of the things that was said in the fast
22:23
Discord bit dot LY slash fast Discord if you want to join in
22:26
the conversation, was that your test environment has to mirror
22:31
your live environment. I, I think that even if you do a
22:36
checklist of we're going to double check it, we're going to
22:39
check it three times, there's still things that are going to
22:42
fall through when you do something like that just because
22:46
of the, because of the nature of some bugs you've never
22:50
encountered before. So you don't know to check them
22:52
at all. And just having the, the
22:56
environment mirrored means that you, those things will like
23:01
actually be expressed on your test environment, which is the
23:04
easiest way to find it. So instead of having one realm
23:09
as a test realm, spin up two, right?
23:13
Yes, spinning up two is going to be more.
23:17
But then at least when they're looking for that stuff, it's
23:20
it'll happen rather than one round for testing.
23:24
And so nothing at the higher level is ever touched and
23:28
anything like that. So I would have loved that.
23:31
That would have been a quick little line to like it, help
23:34
ensure that hey, like any bug of this nature is now, it will be
23:40
way easier for us to catch. I'd also would have liked them
23:44
to say that like we're hiring additional manpower because one
23:51
of the things that came up this week was former, sorry, he
23:57
wasn't president. They they dropped that role.
23:59
He was the Co lead, the former Co lead and then they dropped
24:03
the other Co lead. Mike Yabara said that Blizzard
24:09
needs to do a restart reset to like right the ship which is
24:16
which was met with the appropriate response from the
24:19
from most of the player base, which is.
24:23
Aren't you the guy who said that QA isn't really a career path?
24:28
Aren't you the guy who like SAT at the helm while they while the
24:33
team lost 1900 staff, staff members?
24:39
Aren't you the the guy who like shredded the QA department while
24:45
your tenure was going? So it really feels plastic.
24:50
We're going to say plastic for him to stay like, Oh, yeah, it's
24:53
got to do better than this when a lot of the the issues were
24:59
compounded by what he did, when he was, when he actually had the
25:02
power to do anything. Yeah.
25:05
I would I would suggest everyone do with Mikey Barra what I did
25:11
when it became super apparent that he was just a corporate
25:16
shill. And that is block him and stop
25:19
giving any weight to anything he says because he's a useless 2
25:24
faced human being and his words aren't worth the effort it takes
25:29
to read them. He contributed nothing to
25:32
Blizzard as a company other than to have them be acquired by
25:34
Microsoft. He made lives miserable for the
25:38
staff that were there. I don't think anybody misses
25:40
him. And he was carried to every
25:42
single title and achievement he ever got in the game by players
25:45
who were much more skilled than he was.
25:47
So yeah. Yeah, blocky Barra.
25:50
I have no desire to to hear anything that that that windbag
25:56
has to say. He's he might as well be.
25:59
I almost said Atchison. He might as well be as been gold
26:01
for me. I spent so little time thinking
26:03
of Asman gold now that when I reach for the a name of the
26:06
person who sucks, the first one I thought of was was Atchison
26:10
who does not suck. Atchison is lovely.
26:15
Atchison is lovely. I I was going to start going to
26:20
a conversation about nuance about like levels of bad, but
26:23
you know what? Toss them all out.
26:25
We don't need to sort that out. I don't it's.
26:27
I mean honestly, I it's not. I make extensive use of mute and
26:31
block on social media. I just don't have the energy.
26:35
It's bad enough that I get so much force fed into my feed
26:39
despite my massive firewall from the horrible country to the
26:44
South of us and their clown show of an administration.
26:48
I don't need it in my hobbies. I don't let's.
26:50
So yeah, I with the nuclear precision, and by that I mean
26:55
all of it, just burn it all that I remove any mention of American
27:00
politics from my feeds. I do the same with people like
27:04
Ibarra because not worth it. Well, I, I have to say that that
27:09
would not work for me. I'm not actively on Twitter
27:12
anymore. So the way that I came across it
27:16
was that another game article decided to write about it.
27:22
And so I saw it and I was like, what?
27:24
Check this headline, saw it, decided that OK, I'll go check
27:28
to verify that's true, 'cause like, you know, you can't just
27:31
go by headlines and articles anymore.
27:33
And yet it happened. So there we go that.
27:37
But that that Paul Cuban interview with Taliesin ever
27:39
tell there was a lot of good gems in there.
27:40
I'd like to pivot to something positive from that interview.
27:44
They talked about gearing and how, you know, Taliesin asked
27:47
how gearing is so much faster this season than it has been and
27:51
how does how does the team feel about it?
27:52
Where do they land on it? And Paul Cuban gave some really
27:55
good insight where he said that at the top end, gearing isn't
27:59
really much faster than what we've seen in the past.
28:01
Top end players are gearing at about the same speed that they
28:03
always have, and it's not until you look at the lower end where
28:06
you see people are gearing a little more quickly, he said.
28:09
It's a little more quickly than they expected that it was going
28:12
to be, but they're not overall unhappy with where it is.
28:17
And Evitel, you know, echoed how that lets her get into more
28:20
content sooner that she might not have normally done.
28:23
That's the way the gearing works.
28:24
And I hope, because I think gearing this season has been
28:26
decent. The only complaint I have is
28:29
that the the best way to gear should never be gear and alt and
28:34
downgrade their crests to then make your mains gearing easier.
28:37
That we need to find a fix for that.
28:39
But I think gearing has been pretty good this season and has
28:42
contributed to why things like mythic plus and the raid have
28:45
felt more accessible. So I hope that carries forward
28:49
into the next the next patch cycle with very minor touches if
28:53
they slow it down at all. Hopefully they don't though.
28:55
Paul seems sort of somewhere in the middle of whether or not
28:58
they would. How do you like is that, does
28:59
that resonate with you? Do you think gearing is at a
29:01
good spot? Do you think it's too fast?
29:03
Do you think it's too slow? I think that the curve is a big
29:10
thing. So like at the higher end it
29:13
didn't speed up that much. And so when you are sitting at
29:17
like, what is your main geared at?
29:20
282. Right.
29:23
So you're like at the higher end and it hasn't speed up that much
29:26
for you. Yeah, I'm.
29:28
Not at the high like there, there are plenty of people
29:31
already at 285, which unlocks the myth crests.
29:35
Yeah. But yeah, so I'm like, I would
29:37
say I'm average. You would say you're everybody's
29:42
going to say their average. So OK, so I'm, I'm below average
29:45
is what you're saying. And as somebody below your
29:48
words, man. Those aren't mine, those aren't
29:50
my words. I'm just.
29:51
Saying I'm below you which is average so therefore I'm below
29:56
average. I'm sitting at 270-8279 ish
30:03
right? I know part of that is because I
30:07
change specs. So a couple of vault trinkets
30:11
like I don't I have a puzzle box that's just gathering dust in my
30:14
my bags. I have a crafted weapon that's
30:16
just gathering dust. So like that hit my item level
30:19
and it took me a bit to like it catch back up.
30:21
So I guess I may be a bit behind where I would be, but at any
30:25
point I'm I'm I'm below average and average at this point is 7
30:32
out of nine Mythic 3400 IO score item level.
30:38
What do you say, 280-3280? Two, I think it's a 282.
30:42
That's, that's what we're going to consider average for the
30:45
point of this conversation, right.
30:47
So I would say that people below that point have received more of
30:52
the curve, right? They're on the the faster point
30:55
and putting myself in those shoes, I think about like how
30:59
quickly world content became a joke, how quickly Elevens became
31:07
whatever. And I, I don't know, I guess
31:16
because I got to walk away from it, I don't feel that bad
31:22
because I was running with two characters and saying like, Oh
31:25
my goodness, this is too much and I need to cut down.
31:27
It helped me, but in a world where like that was my
31:31
fulfilling gameplay loop and now I feel like I've got to add more
31:35
on top just because the stuff that's being offered doesn't
31:39
last. I I think that they got to be
31:43
careful about that balance. Yes, things are happening really
31:47
quickly and after our conversation last week, I did an
31:51
entire like look into it breakdown of like what what in
31:55
the world's happening, but gearing is part of it.
31:58
Like we clear through normal and heroic so quickly because we
32:04
have access to gear at par, if not better so quickly.
32:09
Right when you hit that mythic level, it there aren't as many
32:14
things that help you gear as quickly or over gear.
32:17
It is in in the case of other things.
32:20
And so your progression is roughly where it's supposed to
32:24
be with just like, Hey, you caught up to a mid level as
32:27
fast. And I think that's kind of what
32:28
he's talking about. And so I feel like, man, I, I
32:35
would have loved Lex to be here and to say, and if she in her in
32:42
her playthroughs has recognized like, oh man, my power level is,
32:46
is much higher than it would normally be at this point.
32:49
Or I felt like gear is becoming more easily.
32:52
But like, just that initial point, I found that like, we
32:56
cleared through the point where gear from lower levels was
33:01
relevant at such a incredible rate that I, I feel sad about
33:06
that. And I, I'm hoping that that part
33:08
of the bell curve might be adjusted.
33:10
But I also know that people are going to scream bloody murder,
33:13
but it's like you're going to slow down my gear and not yours.
33:16
Yeah, I, I think I like, I, I think it's good for the game
33:21
that we gear up faster and those bosses that can be beaten by
33:25
just having more gear can get get rolled over faster.
33:29
And I think it's good because when we get to bosses like Crown
33:32
of the Cosmos or Midnight Falls, you're not going to oak gear
33:35
that. So now it does really come down
33:37
to can you beat the boss fight? Can you beat the mechanics?
33:40
Where is your skill level? It's not just, OK, well, you
33:44
know, it's week 8 and now I'm 30 levels item levels higher than I
33:47
need to be. Like you're already at that item
33:49
level now. Like if you look, when Liquid
33:51
killed those bosses, what item level they were at and where we
33:54
are now, it's like we're very close.
33:56
So now you're at a point where it's like, OK, I just have to
33:58
play better now as opposed to waiting for the gear to get
34:01
better. But I think I think it, I think
34:04
bosses to me rating to me feels better when you know, you're not
34:10
killing the boss because of skill, because of performance.
34:14
I would rather fail a boss because I mess a mechanic up
34:18
then fail a boss because I'm just too low item level.
34:21
I don't ever want you know you're.
34:22
Killing a boss because of skill, because of performance.
34:26
So you, you kind of switch that around.
34:28
Yeah, yeah. But I also feel better about a
34:30
wipe if I know I wiped because I made a mistake and not I wiped
34:34
because, you know, in two weeks I'm going to have 10 more item
34:37
level. So by all of us sort of like
34:39
that ramp to item level, that ramp to gearing being really
34:42
fast in the beginning. It it it almost from the
34:45
beginning puts us on that point of if you're dying, it's because
34:48
you played poorly, not because you're under geared for this.
34:51
And I like that. I think that is a strength for
34:54
the game. I think you're talking about
34:57
that again though. Because when you're talking
35:00
about the end bosses and hey, you've gotten to the right gear
35:03
for that and you're not over gearing it now it's based on
35:05
performance. But the by the same token the
35:08
earlier bosses which should be balanced for you having less
35:11
gear and being more entry, you're now over gearing those
35:15
way faster and instead of beating those bosses based on
35:19
your performance it's because you out geared them and you just
35:23
flatten it like you kill bellerin IN22 phases because you
35:26
just gear out gear it Bellerin's.
35:30
A penultimate boss, but I would have to go back to like shadow
35:33
lands before I could remember a early boss that was difficult
35:37
and required like the, the, the, the, the, you know, other than
35:42
the random wall bosses, we've had every tier.
35:44
The the rule of thumb is early bosses are going to fall over.
35:49
They're easy. So it, I don't think like
35:51
there's no mechanical complexity or very little mechanical
35:54
complexity in a lot of those. Like if you look at Voracius,
35:57
there's no mechanical complexity in that fight.
35:58
If you look at Saladar, other than coordinating kicks and
36:01
kiting the orbs, there's no mechanical complexity though.
36:04
There's nothing in those fights that would make you, those are
36:07
gear based fights. You're going to kill Voracius
36:09
because your item level is correct for the damage check.
36:12
You're going to kill Saladar because your item level is
36:14
correct for the damage check. So for those fights, I think it
36:17
makes sense that you gear up faster because you want you
36:20
don't want people to be limited by that gear.
36:22
So you gear up faster to get over that hump.
36:24
But then as you get to like blinded vanguard, that becomes
36:28
more of a a mechanical fight. That's a dance.
36:30
You know, it's coordination. So the gearing gearing levels
36:33
off at that point. I, I think they nailed I really
36:35
do. I think this tier they nailed
36:37
that. I.
36:38
Think dream roof is a good one for gear levels versus like
36:42
damage, because like that one, you only get a certain amount of
36:47
phases and then it that enrage is pretty like pretty much a
36:51
wall. I think that if people were able
36:57
to gear that so quickly that they're killing that on week 2IN
37:03
heroic and and normal when they're not normally it normally
37:06
doing full clears on for AOTC at that space.
37:13
That's part of like the gear just pushing it so fast that
37:16
like I think by the second week we were killing it before he got
37:21
to do his first strafing run. Not second week, that's probably
37:25
third week. No, we're at week 4 now.
37:29
What are we? We're at week 4 now.
37:30
So yeah, may have been second week.
37:34
There's I'm gonna UN UN heroic. No, no, normal.
37:39
Just like before. You got to fly up just like
37:41
you're gone. And now I think.
37:44
Well, your team could. Probably do the same thing on
37:47
Earth and Earth Mother. And Captain Garrick, you could
37:49
do it on normal. It's normal, normal, normal
37:52
rating is not there is no normal rating is for people that are
37:56
like, I don't really have anything else to do today.
37:58
I might as well normal raid like it's Wow.
38:00
Wow, the disdain, the casual disdain.
38:04
But I think that I I. Legitimately think LFR is harder
38:06
than normal. I I agree LFR, but that's.
38:09
Because of like the coordination gap that's in LFR, but I think
38:14
that that people who do friend, friends and family raids, which
38:17
is where I put normal, right? Just like, hey, we're not, we're
38:21
not like Uber competitive. We're here for a fun time sort
38:26
of thing. But like they could have a
38:28
number of people who also love playing with their friends and
38:32
family. So are doing normal but also do
38:35
mythic plus and other things that could that will gear to the
38:38
point where they will kill it before it goes into they see
38:43
most of the fight. Yeah, I don't.
38:48
I'm sorry, I just don't. I don't even know why normal
38:50
rating exists. I don't know what purposes other
38:53
than to give us champ track versions of the best trinkets.
38:56
I don't know what purpose normal raid serves.
38:59
You can oak your you can oak your it with delves What like
39:03
what is the other than the the best of slot trinkets?
39:06
Why do we have normal raid? What is the what is the what
39:09
purpose does it serve in the Warcraft antheon, I mean.
39:13
Why do we have like heroic dungeons or mythic dungeons?
39:16
There seems to be like an entire gap with that where it's like,
39:20
but that's, that's because we don't cap out at that level.
39:25
There are people who cap out at that level that that is their
39:29
target, and for them it exists. And for the people who don't
39:35
play at that level, whether they're playing below it or
39:37
playing above it, they like, they don't know 'cause it's
39:42
like, why would I do that if I can do something easier?
39:45
Why would I do that if I can do something harder and it doesn't
39:48
give me the rewards? So like, yes, you and I are
39:51
going to be blind to it, but that doesn't mean that there's
39:54
no reason for it except for a big zero.
39:56
What the hell guys? What did you do?
40:01
I don't know, man. There's.
40:02
Didn't you just tell me there's people for everything.
40:04
There's people who, I don't know people.
40:08
It's their cat. Yeah.
40:10
It's easy to get blinded to the fact when you play, all of your
40:13
time is spent playing with people at a certain level and
40:15
you're only surrounded by these people.
40:17
That's obviously how like we get into these situations where I
40:19
think normal serves no purpose. Yeah, I, if you are somebody
40:25
who's on a normal raid team and you're working your way through
40:29
and you're struggling and you're like, hey, listen, asshole, this
40:31
is hard for some of us. Join the Raid Leader Exchange
40:34
discord and they're going to give you strats.
40:36
They're going to make all of those fights much, much easier
40:39
for your team. And then just tell your team to
40:40
do what you tell them. Tell them you want to be the
40:42
raid leader and just give them direction so that they can
40:45
follow it and clear those bosses easily.
40:49
It's just so easy to gear it. I don't understand.
40:52
I don't and there's no mechanics.
40:53
I don't what I don't I don't even think there.
40:56
I don't I struggle to I I don't know what purpose normal.
41:00
I really don't. I really don't.
41:04
You know what we're going to do? We're going to turn this into
41:05
something actually useful in a future episode.
41:09
We're going to talk to people about raid leading and
41:11
strategies and such so that you can like switch off of that,
41:16
that ready pull Strat that you can get the more consistent
41:21
people to follow your directions more consistently.
41:23
And I think that would be the way of doing this rather than be
41:26
like, why you all that difficulty?
41:28
I don't even get it. That just doesn't seem helpful.
41:31
I want to talk. To somebody.
41:32
I I honestly, I legitimately want to talk to somebody who's
41:34
in a raid team that doesn't go above normal.
41:36
Normal is their cap. They I and I'd like I want to I
41:40
I if you are out there, if you're listening to this and you
41:43
exist and and normal raid is your cap, please come to the
41:47
discord bit that I'll watch slash 5's discord.
41:49
Tell me I I genuinely want to talk to you and I want to know
41:53
why. I want to know what benefit
41:55
there is there. Like how do you enjoy it?
41:57
How do you prog it? Why?
41:58
What are the hang ups? What makes it difficult to prog?
42:02
Because I don't know. I I honestly don't know.
42:04
And I, if there is somebody listening who is in that
42:08
situation, please come, come, let me know because I obviously
42:12
need to have my eyes opened. Yeah.
42:14
I I'd appreciate somebody educating Sean.
42:17
That would be greatly appreciated.
42:20
But that wasn't the only thing that was the topic.
42:26
In fact, we just went down a rabbit hole about normal
42:28
difficulty. The gearing itself effects more
42:31
than just raid. It affects the progress through
42:34
Mythic Plus, which we've seen a tremendous rush through.
42:38
It affects the progress through delves.
42:40
It affects, to a point, PvP. But I feel like that is if
42:45
everybody's gearing at an accelerated rate, they kind of
42:48
bounce themselves out. But it also effects how quickly
42:52
people can switch to like alts or switch specs, in my case, and
42:57
have those viable for the content that they're running.
43:00
So does that mean that like more people find it easier to go
43:04
towards that cookie cutter? Oh, we're missing a hunter.
43:07
All right, Sean, jump on it. Go go gear up your hunter and
43:11
have it ready for raid next week is a lot more viable in when the
43:16
curve at the lower end is so quickly skip through than it has
43:22
been in the past has. Do you find that like that is
43:27
good or do you find that like if that it might cause them to be
43:31
like, yeah, we have 0 issue with you requiring death grip to make
43:36
this fight easier because it's that much easier for you to go
43:40
get a death knight. I wish I could.
43:43
I want what Final Fantasy Fan Fest just announced that a thing
43:48
where your mains gear, whatever your main job is, jobs are like
43:53
glasses in Final Fantasy. Whatever your main job is,
43:56
whatever gear that character has, when you switch jobs, your
43:59
gear switches to match at the same item level.
44:02
I want that for alts. If I'd never had the gear and
44:05
alt again in my life, I would be happy.
44:08
I would be very happy if I only had to grind gear and do the
44:13
Crest grind and do all the farm on one character and, and, and.
44:17
That being said, gearing alts is faster now and better now than
44:20
it's ever been. We are in a very good spot for
44:22
alts right now and I I enjoy it greatly.
44:24
I'm very appreciative of where we are for alt gearing.
44:27
But if I could just log into a brewmaster and hit a button and
44:30
get a set of gear that matches what my warrior has that would
44:33
be ideal for me. I like, I would be happy just
44:37
playing on tournament realm style servers that the
44:40
acquisition of gear is not my chase.
44:42
That's not what I do. I I recognize that it is for a
44:45
lot of people that power build is what they play for.
44:47
That's not it for it's boss kills for me.
44:49
Are we clearing dungeons? Are we clearing raids?
44:52
Are we clearing them faster? Are we clearing them more
44:53
efficiently? That's my dopamine hit is, is
44:56
our pull count lower? That's what I want.
44:58
I don't care about parses. I don't care about gearing.
45:01
I don't care about mounts. I don't care about pets.
45:03
I care a little bit about transmog.
45:06
Yeah, but that is for me, it's how efficient and how fast can
45:09
we clear this content. And I recognize that that is not
45:12
normal, but I don't, you know, I'm speaking what I want.
45:15
You know, I don't, I would never pretend to imagine what the
45:17
community wants. I have no idea what the
45:19
community wants. And so I'm OK with that.
45:23
I think it's we, I mean, we literally had that happen.
45:25
We had our Ferrell Druid. Ferrell's in a kind of a rough
45:27
state this tier. He had a hunter alt that he
45:30
could play at a good level. He we swapped to it, geared it
45:34
up to 278 and we used it on our kill pool for paladins because
45:38
three marksmanship hunters on that fight was very, very good.
45:41
Not, not necessary. You could kill it without, but
45:44
it made it so much easier that it doesn't make if you have
45:46
access to it, why not do the thing that makes it easier?
45:49
I don't understand intentionally making your life harder.
45:52
That doesn't make any sense to me.
45:53
I think the world does a good enough job of trying to make my
45:55
life hard. I don't need to help them.
45:57
But yeah, so I'm OK with it. I I think it's good.
46:01
Again, I think that some people take longer to adapt to new
46:05
classes and rotations. So that's part of it, right?
46:10
Some people with that thing might feel pressure to switch
46:13
off of like they're like underperforming spec to go like
46:17
I switched off of enhancement to go to elemental specifically
46:20
because I wanted to like try my best to like see if I could get
46:24
into that 1% for mythic plus this season.
46:27
And that could very well be a pipe dream.
46:29
But in order to give myself the best chance, I switch to a
46:32
better performing performing spec.
46:35
If that was much harder to do, would I have stayed enhancement?
46:40
Probably. If the gear was much harder to
46:43
like to like get, which would have set me back even further
46:48
there that would have that resistance would have altered my
46:51
choice. There's also the fact that like,
46:55
quite frankly, you can have teams where they they will like
47:06
bench people based on like what on like, hey, their performance
47:11
isn't working and that kind of kind of puts on pressure.
47:16
Like we've heard, let's talk about it where they'll get to a
47:19
point where they're hitting a wall and they'll be like, OK,
47:22
we're going to start talking about sitting some people till
47:26
we can get it down. And then we're going to bring
47:27
them along with those people being SAT.
47:31
Start thinking, oh, what if I switch spec?
47:34
What if I get my alt alt up? There's so like that's the
47:39
pressure that I think people could have when you make these,
47:44
these switches easier. And there are people because
47:48
this is not like fun and fancy where it's the same character
47:50
and you're just switching roles or switching jobs.
47:53
This is like a character that I've played since like back in
47:56
vanilla and everything that now I have to drop because it's not
48:00
doing well. This is this season.
48:02
And that that can become sort of a, a resistance and a pressure
48:07
to people who are switching. I'm like players like you and I
48:11
where it's like Nah Nah, I'm playing.
48:12
And like I don't care if I'm on my paladin or my druid or
48:16
whatever, like it's just me defeating the fight that much
48:20
more efficiently. In which case, who cares which
48:22
character you do it on? But I I want to pontificate for
48:26
a second though go for it just because I have heard like to
48:29
mention that and if I was on a normal or heroic grade team who
48:34
sat players to kill bosses I would leave that team in a
48:37
heartbeat. I, I fully believe that unless
48:42
you're in a situation where you're roster capped, so you
48:44
have 30 plus players in the team and you have to fit the comp to
48:47
work, I don't think there's any reason to sit a player in those
48:53
team if they're, if they're, if whatever the minimum
48:55
requirements are laid out by the team, if they're hitting those
48:57
minimum requirements, I don't see any reason to sit that
49:01
you're killing these bosses as a team.
49:03
You're together as a team, you win and you lose as a team.
49:06
Telling somebody I'm going to sit you so we can kill this
49:08
because it'll be easier without you.
49:10
To me, that's telling that player you don't matter as much
49:13
to this team. And that that was, I mean, when
49:16
I joined Fates, that was the the number one thing that we like
49:22
sort of talked about at the very beginning that joined the midway
49:24
through Prague in a fight and they were discussing this exact
49:27
thing on that boss. And I was very, very adamant
49:31
that First off, the reasons you want to sit these people are
49:35
wrong. The people you should be looking
49:37
at are different people, some of them in this room.
49:40
And if that's the position we want to be, if that's the
49:45
position we want to be in, then like it's, it's just you don't
49:49
need to do. And they, they were, they are,
49:50
you know, the officers all, all saw the reason of that and they
49:53
didn't sit anybody. And they killed the boss the
49:54
very next week. I I don't you're a team, you
49:59
know, especially if you're asking your team to not pug
50:01
things ahead of the team, like you want to kill it as a team
50:04
when it like we want to kill this as a team.
50:06
We want to succeed as a team, but not you.
50:09
That to me, I like I'm not I would leave.
50:12
I would G quit that day and find a new team.
50:17
Yeah, at that. Like yeah, it's and this is so.
50:21
And obviously when we talk about mythic, it's different.
50:22
You have you're locked in a 20 year Raiders.
50:25
Performance matters, comp matters, You know, who's going
50:28
to be in for these later Prague bosses?
50:30
All of that stuff matters. That's all factors.
50:32
But if we're talking specifically heroic and normal,
50:34
whether you had, you can take up to 30 people.
50:36
I don't think there's any excuse for sitting people for
50:40
performance as long as they're like, as long as they're hitting
50:42
like you, obviously, hopefully you're a great team who has
50:45
like, here's the requirement. You have to do X number of
50:48
vaults lots per week. You know, you have to be X item
50:51
level. And if the person is doing that,
50:54
they're doing all you've asked them to do to be on this team,
50:57
then sitting them for performance when you don't have
51:01
to, just to make it easier for yourself.
51:04
And then looking down on people who want to swap to alts to make
51:06
a fight easier. No, Lexa.
51:09
Lexa doesn't look down at anybody.
51:10
That's Lex doesn't. Look down on anybody.
51:13
But I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to move it away from Lex's team
51:16
because yeah, no, I'm just. I well, that's why I shifted to
51:18
Fates. No, Yeah.
51:21
But like, I have been on teams, I'm actually currently on a team
51:26
that is performing well. I'm not going to say to anybody,
51:28
but they don't keep that minimum standard going.
51:33
They don't check on it. They don't encourage people,
51:37
encourage people. And that to me, that's shitty.
51:40
Leadership, then the leader. That's on the leaders of the
51:42
team. That to me is a failure of
51:46
leadership. Like, rather than calling them
51:47
shitty leaders, let's, let's criticize the, that they are not
51:53
fulfilling their role, right? Because that then leads to a
51:57
point where you have people who weren't doing what you asked for
52:01
and now you're hitting this wall because they weren't doing what
52:03
you, you asked for. And then you're, you're going to
52:07
sit them. And sometimes people recognize
52:11
that soon enough and they're like, hey, listen, we're now at
52:13
XY or Z. We're now hitting this wall.
52:16
And I haven't been enforcing this, but the reason that we're
52:19
going to sit you is because you haven't been doing this and you
52:21
can't correct this in a week. So congratulations, you're going
52:24
to be sad is a bit better. And I've been like that, but
52:28
like the failure is that you weren't correcting it along the
52:31
way. So now they're stuck in this bad
52:33
situation. So I don't I don't want to say
52:36
that like sitting people is a reason for you to quit the
52:41
Guild. Right.
52:43
Yes, there is a failure in leadership in like it not making
52:48
sure that people were following it, but it can fall back to that
52:51
person who's being sat where it's like you weren't doing it.
52:53
And because they let you get away with it now you're going to
52:56
blame the the raid lead. You kind of both failed.
53:00
Your failed each other there, right?
53:02
Yeah. If they're not hitting their,
53:04
like, if somebody's not doing the minimum requirements set up
53:06
by the Guild, 100%, that needs to be a discussion that needs to
53:09
be addressed and earlier rather than later.
53:12
And if a person gets sat because of that reason, I, I fully
53:15
understand that and support that.
53:17
But sitting somebody for somebody, somebody who is
53:19
hitting the requirements you've asked and then sitting them for
53:22
performance or because you know, the, the boss would be easier
53:25
with this person in. If you set your minimum item
53:28
level at 260 and then you're out of boss and you're like, well,
53:31
if we were all 276, this would all be a lot easier.
53:33
But if you're not 276 this week, then you should have said it at
53:36
276. At 90 to 95% of all Guild
53:41
problems are derived from leadership or direction.
53:44
Poor execution, poor management, or what's the word that you like
53:51
to use? Not accountability.
53:52
Poor accountability, though, is up there.
53:54
It's expectations, poor setting of expectations that Rolly at
53:57
me. Rolly knew what I meant.
53:59
It's all about leadership. I 14 years in the Navy and a
54:02
year of that, literally revamping and teaching
54:05
leadership to the next generation of people and being
54:09
brought in to help to change the way that that worked.
54:12
It's, it is the biggest unforgivable thing for me and
54:15
it's why I am such a huge advocate for people that are in
54:18
bad guilds who leave because there are so many good guilds
54:22
out there that you just don't know about yet.
54:24
Go and find one where the leadership is good.
54:26
Don't stay. I promise you the days of
54:29
getting screamed at for more dots that doesn't exist anymore.
54:32
When you see clips of people calling their players dog shit
54:35
because they're missing arrows in a fight where even the best
54:38
players in the world are missing arrows that don't, don't settle
54:42
for that. You don't have to.
54:43
You can find a spot that's better.
54:45
And if you can't find a spot, make a spot that's better.
54:48
There's enough players out there that you can you can bring them
54:50
in. And Paul Cuba didn't talk about
54:52
any of this in that. This was a great this was, but
54:56
it was such a great aside. I I do, I do want to say that
54:59
like from my project management background that if you do not
55:06
outline your expectations, that is just premeditated
55:09
disappointment. You are setting yourselves up
55:12
for that disappointment. But yeah, let's go back to the
55:15
interview here. Yeah, what?
55:18
Else have you been talking about?
55:20
The last thing I want to well two things.
55:22
The last thing I want to mention is the second last thing I want
55:24
to mention is they talked about tank tuning and how brewmaster
55:27
is so far ahead and the other tanks are so far behind if you
55:29
look at like mythic plus keys. Now that that being said, if you
55:33
are any of any of the tank classes right now are capable of
55:36
doing plus 20s might be harder though it's if it's easier on
55:40
one, that's why you see that shift, but they're all capable
55:43
of doing it. You need help, just go.
55:44
You need proof. Just go and look at the leader
55:46
boards. They're all due in 20s and 21.
55:48
But he talked about how they don't want to adjust brewmaster
55:53
down too far that they would rather use a light touch to
55:56
bring them down a little and then raise the other tanks up to
55:59
match. Which means I'm getting buffed.
56:02
So let's go, let's go. I mean, where was that when
56:10
druids were having their Guardian day?
56:14
Where was that light touch? Yeah, exactly.
56:17
But that it's good to know that they're watching, they're
56:19
keeping an eye on that stuff. It was a good interview overall.
56:21
All goes into detail and stuff. There's a lot of nuance are
56:23
missing here. You know, this is the aggregate
56:25
version of what happened to that interview.
56:28
Oh yeah. And.
56:28
We can only give the aggregate go watch, yeah.
56:30
Go watch it, it's good. Talia Sammons will do great
56:33
interviews. And then the last thing I've
56:35
been pretty happy saying 12.1 is going to be a Talu tech in the
56:39
island off of Zulaman. Taliesin asked Paul and he said
56:44
I realize you can't do spoilers, but heading into 12.1 if I
56:47
wanted to set my Hearthstone in Zulaman would that be a good
56:50
idea? Paul Kubit responded with do you
56:53
really like the view off the coast?
56:54
Is that why you're asking and said yes?
56:57
And Paul Cuban said, well, if you really enjoy the view off
57:00
the coast, then yeah, I would say Suleiman is a good spot to
57:02
set your host over 12.1. So we're getting a troll raid,
57:05
Manny, let's talking. Go, go, Paul.
57:10
Cubit in like absolutely reframing that question because
57:14
that was not a confirmation, but very sly, very sly, definitely
57:20
paid attention in his PR courses.
57:23
Yeah, it. Was good stuff.
57:25
I had a couple of facts to talk about this entire thing 'cause
57:32
like it's not only fast, it's because of the false start that
57:37
it also feels faster 'cause it wasn't like we had full rating
57:43
right away. So like next next tier when it
57:47
goes when there is no heroic week, right, Those teams that
57:52
like we're doing pushing through heroic an extra week before the
57:56
raid really came out. And then we had the launch of
58:00
March or call Donna, Sorry, that false start is going to be all
58:05
compressed into one week. And so it'll feel like we we had
58:08
more time where we were just gearing.
58:10
So that'll help slow it down for for Raiders as well, right.
58:15
But with this eight week cycle, that eight week cycle started
58:18
from the launch of the expansion, we had levelling
58:22
including early access. We then had the heroic week, we
58:26
then had the week before the March.
58:29
So that ate up three weeks right there from the time of March
58:35
releasing to 12 point O 5 was 4 weeks and 12 point O five had
58:43
more content than 11 point O 5 and 11.15 combined.
58:50
Well, it it had more named pieces, I don't know that you
58:56
could say it had more content. There's exactly 1 ritual site
59:00
and exactly 2. Sorry.
59:02
Yeah, two ritual sites, 2 void assaults and decor duels.
59:08
I guess Abyssal anglers. Yeah, and abyssal anglers.
59:11
So what? 11 point O .5 had the 20th
59:15
anniversary celebration. Yeah.
59:18
So that came with a new RAID. Which came which came with the
59:21
the revamped anniversary rate, right?
59:24
Came with the the mount. Mini game you had to like mount
59:31
your things. You had to get on your mounts to
59:33
show your mounts off. Right.
59:36
Yeah, the the amount off the, the, the fair attractions that
59:39
were in there, Yeah. And then the secret solution
59:43
puzzle thing where you had to go around and find stuff that you
59:47
got the the because the girl, remember the girl's name kept
59:50
getting longer as you did it. Right.
59:53
Yeah, what it was called. So that.
59:55
The detective one, yeah, and. It also has a ball island.
59:59
Of was that. Siren Island as well and point O
1:00:03
10 point O .5 was anniversary. It wasn't 11 point O .5 that was
1:00:07
the anniversary. It was 10 point O .5 right two
1:00:10
years ago. Double check.
1:00:11
I guarantee you it was. It was definitely two years ago.
1:00:14
11 point. O it was twenty O 4.
1:00:19
Oops, I went too far Atchison. Says 11 point O .5 as well.
1:00:24
O .5 is 11. Point O .5 two years ago.
1:00:31
Yeah, 2024. We're at 2026 right now, 11
1:00:35
point. Siren Isles was from
1:00:36
Dragonflight. Siren Isles is not war within,
1:00:39
no no. No no no.
1:00:40
Siren Isles is war within. That is the like where they did
1:00:45
the experimental note. Yeah, but like crazy by losing.
1:00:53
It tyrant, I will. No, but like, OK, so I I'm just
1:00:59
I'm going to go to this. So 11 point O .5 we had the 20th
1:01:06
anniversary, a celebration, the classic dungeons added to time
1:01:11
walking yeah additional drag theory classes, new ascendance
1:01:19
form for shamans, Dragonflight PvP ensembles and changes to
1:01:27
trans mod collecting. That was 11 point O .5.
1:01:32
OK, OK. I believe Siren Isles was 11
1:01:37
point O .7 and that's what you're conflating.
1:01:41
Dude I thought Siren Isles was from Dragonflight.
1:01:43
I no, no, I think the. I.
1:01:45
Think the issue is my brain thinks that 11 point O was just
1:01:50
last year. Yeah.
1:01:52
No, it was not, was it not? Years back.
1:01:55
Yeah, 2 year expansion cycles and no, it's. 18 months, it's
1:01:59
not 2 years, it's 18 months, OK year.
1:02:01
And a half then sure. Oh man, I'm losing it.
1:02:04
All right. I am on a Warcraft podcast.
1:02:10
But more importantly, you tune in and listen.
1:02:19
So yeah, Oh my goodness. All right.
1:02:20
Sorry, Manny, sorry. That's.
1:02:22
OK, I was so. Confident, Anjali says.
1:02:24
I do that, she says. I speak with the confidence of a
1:02:26
mediocre white man on the Internet, and it makes her
1:02:27
question herself. And you speak with.
1:02:32
Confidence Luckily I had actually looked this up and I
1:02:35
wasn't just pulling it from my mind because I could misremember
1:02:38
and I am willing to admit that I.
1:02:43
Yeah. OK.
1:02:45
So yeah. But the 12 point O features are
1:02:48
the void forge which is if you want to start subdividing it,
1:02:51
which is the bonus rolls as well as the upcoming turbo boost at
1:02:58
item levels right? The decor duels, the ritual
1:03:04
sites which you talked about, the void assaults, the abyss
1:03:10
Anglers, which you said was delayed or sorry rather, if you
1:03:14
guys check out the interview that Sean did from Raider IO,
1:03:18
they delayed the abyss anglers because they wanted to give it
1:03:22
more time to shine. And I would actually argue that
1:03:26
it's been buried with the amount of stuff that they threw out and
1:03:30
things that just people have been looking at more.
1:03:33
So I feel like that might have also been a good thing to like
1:03:37
push off to the Talaman when we were looking off the coast
1:03:41
because we set our Hearthstone. And.
1:03:44
So when you look at not just like this short period of time
1:03:48
when we were actually in the full end game to 12 point O 5,
1:03:52
but the amount of stuff that came with 12 point O five, yeah,
1:03:55
I can understand why Lex was saying last week, oh, I feel
1:03:57
overwhelmed or why a lot of people like this is just too
1:04:00
soon because like this delayed launch has kept things fresh for
1:04:05
so long that like we didn't really have a time to come down
1:04:08
from the high. Yeah, yeah.
1:04:10
I've been high since launch. But yeah, so I know once you get
1:04:18
through the levelling up, the gearing up, the like launch of
1:04:21
everything, like, yeah, you're just getting into your stride.
1:04:25
Yeah, yeah, I, I mean, I, I one thing from the interview
1:04:31
Taliesin mentioned how he loves the eight week, eight week patch
1:04:34
cycle. I don't know that I do.
1:04:36
I think a little slow. I think 10 weeks I think
1:04:39
probably feels better for me. And week patch cycle, I would
1:04:42
like a little more breathing room, gives a little bit more of
1:04:45
a tail for teams once they've killed stuff to relax.
1:04:48
Gives folks a chance to start and go back.
1:04:53
Yeah, I don't know I but in saying that I'm Decor duels came
1:04:59
out. I was done with it.
1:04:59
In four hours I had achieved all of the rewards I wanted.
1:05:03
Ritual sites came out and I'll do those once a week with my
1:05:06
friends. Go to Bega for like just
1:05:11
instantly jumping me into a rank 54 challenge mode.
1:05:15
You get a bunch of crests. So that's like a it's not
1:05:18
something I really have to spend time with.
1:05:20
I did 1 void assault. I'll do one now that it's in
1:05:22
ever song and then I'll probably never do those again.
1:05:25
So there is content there. But yeah, I guess it's OK that
1:05:31
it comes because I don't. Initially I felt overwhelmed.
1:05:33
I like I resonated with Lex big time.
1:05:36
Like, OK, there's still like I'm still working through the raid.
1:05:38
There's a lot going on. Do I need all this extra stuff
1:05:40
on top? What do I have to prioritize?
1:05:41
But after having done it and been like, OK, this is something
1:05:44
I need to do once or twice, I realized this content is
1:05:46
actually here for maybe it's there for those people in those
1:05:49
normal rating guilds who were like, well, we cleared the radar
1:05:51
normal in a week because it was super easy.
1:05:52
And now we're spending our time doing whatever it is normal
1:05:55
Raiders do. Can't wait to talk to a normal
1:05:57
Raider. It's going to be so much fun,
1:05:59
gonna be great. They're gonna be like you're an
1:06:01
idiot. See, normal readers can have
1:06:05
accurate perspectives. Anyway, I would say that I'm OK
1:06:14
with the eight week cycle normally, but I think at an
1:06:19
expansion launch where there are like the heroic week where there
1:06:26
are people levelling and such that shouldn't fall into your
1:06:30
normal cadence. Maybe that's where you have the
1:06:33
10 week sort of set up. And then from there we can do 8
1:06:36
weeks going going forward because like 12 point O .7
1:06:41
coming out in eight weeks or seven weeks from now, 8 weeks
1:06:44
from the patch. I think that'll be OK, right?
1:06:48
And then we won't get the full next tear until we eight weeks
1:06:53
after that. I still think that'll be OK as
1:06:54
well. Just so rather than change
1:06:57
everything, maybe just a just for start of an expansion, just
1:07:00
expansion launch, we're going to give more time for people to
1:07:04
like get into the swing of things.
1:07:07
I just feel bad for those late CE teams.
1:07:09
I don't know why. I guess it's probably because I
1:07:10
was in the late CE team for a long time and I just feel bad
1:07:14
for them because when you lock us into the eight week patch
1:07:17
cycle, it really, really puts pressure on those teams.
1:07:21
There's no break. They're they they spend all of
1:07:24
their time in Prague mode and that's exhausting.
1:07:29
And teams split up because of that.
1:07:31
And you lose players, you have high roster churn because of it.
1:07:34
And that's who I'm thinking of, what I'm thinking of.
1:07:37
Like we need like a 10. And my brain still sort of puts
1:07:39
me in that category even though I know we're not now I'm just
1:07:43
like, why now? I want a longer break.
1:07:44
I want a longer farm period, but yeah, I don't know.
1:07:48
I just think about those teams and there's got to be late AOTC
1:07:51
teams as well, teams that get it right at the wire, right?
1:07:55
There has to be, if there's late CE teams, there has to also be
1:07:57
late AOTC teams. So for those teams as well, I'd
1:08:01
like for them to have, you know, maybe a little bit more time
1:08:04
anyway. So I just want more time.
1:08:07
But just if you shift it to 10 weeks, you just shift now
1:08:12
there's just new late teams. So yeah, that's not a solution,
1:08:16
I guess. Yeah, somebody.
1:08:19
Somebody's going to be getting the short end of stick.
1:08:22
You try and balance it as much as you can.
1:08:25
Yeah, yeah. OK.
1:08:28
Well, I, I think that in general, adding the extra 2
1:08:35
weeks, maybe we'll give them some more time to test things if
1:08:41
they're not going to add more bodies to this situation, maybe
1:08:45
giving the people who are there more time to work on things.
1:08:49
Because regardless of whether it comes out in eight weeks or 10
1:08:51
weeks, going right back to the beginning, it's got to come out
1:08:55
and make a good impression. There's so many people who are
1:08:58
like going crazy about what Final Fantasy 14 is offering.
1:09:01
And I think part of that is due to what Warcraft dumped on them
1:09:05
recently. And be like, you know what,
1:09:07
maybe I will look somewhere else.
1:09:09
Typically, other businesses don't gain customers when you're
1:09:15
doing a good job. You lose customers when you're
1:09:19
doing a bad job. Yeah, that's how it works.
1:09:24
That's how it works. It's just like relationships,
1:09:26
right? They didn't steal your partner.
1:09:29
You lost your partner how that worked.
1:09:32
Or maybe your partner never wanted to be, was never your
1:09:35
partner to begin with. What am I saying?
1:09:40
Either way, do better do. Either way, yeah, do better.
1:09:44
Do better. We'll just be happy being alone.
1:09:46
Being alone is great to do. Miss Angelina, though I.
1:09:50
Mean yeah like this is this rings hollow from the from the
1:09:53
guy in a wonderful relationship with a.
1:09:56
I'm very lucky, a beautiful woman.
1:09:58
And incredibly. She is incredibly understanding.
1:10:03
Yeah, I'm not any less opinionated off of camera, so
1:10:08
she just spends a lot of time rolling her eyes at me and
1:10:11
telling me I'm wrong. There you go, this.
1:10:18
Episode is a tribute to Anjali, wonderful person, but I think
1:10:23
that's going to do it for us today.
1:10:24
Is there anything else that you wanted to discuss before we go
1:10:28
that's. Everything Manny, your camera
1:10:29
just turned off. Well, until next time, may all
1:10:33
your hits be good.