Monday, November 5, 2012

Playing dumb

I think it's pretty silly how the CMs are responding to players complaining being "forced" to do Raid Finder by saying in no way is this content compulsory, it's just optimal.

Come on guys, we know you're smarter than that. For many players, being sub-optimal is not an acceptable option. We know you know this because we've seen whole game systems designed around this fact so many times in the past. All you're doing by feigning ignorance is insulting the players who pose these legitimate questions.

But to the people who ask, the reason is not hard to figure out if you think about it. Blizzard just can't admit to it.

Raiders are "forced" to do Raid Finder because bad players need to be carried. Raid Finder is designed around this idea. It's about preserving the illusion of competence and therefore self-esteem of the bad players; to keep them feeling good about the game and keep them playing. Pretty much every developer decision that unfairly inconveniences raiders comes down to that same reasoning: to protect bad players from realising that they are bad.

2 comments:

  1. I had thought that Blizz had gone to some effort to provide multiple paths to gear optimisation in this xpac - I'm assuming here that LFR gear is comparable with rep gear - so you can do LFR or grind rep or both. Of course raiders will always seek to optimise as fast as possible so I agree with what you say there.

    As regards your comment re carrying players, consider this - back in the day bad players were carried in 40 man raids which required a LOT of cat herding. Wouldn't you rather the bads in LFR rather than in your progression raid?

    I also like to think LFR is not for bads (although sure that's where you will find them) but also for people who can't raid regularly such as myself, and I have the hubris to think that I'm not a baddie :P

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  2. I've seen one or two CMs talk about how the reason Raid Finder is 25-man only is specifically to allow people who have no idea what they're doing "to get lost in the crowd" instead of being singled out.

    I've also heard them say the reason it does not share a lockout with organised raiding is specifically to incentivise raiders to join Raid Finder in the hope that they will "teach" the newbies.

    It may not be designed solely for bad players, but it's not hard to read between the lines on the intent.

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