Pig & Whistle Tales - A World of Warcraft Podcast

Exploring WoW Heroic Raids, Bots, and Boosting Controversies in Azeroth

• Gabriel • Season 4 • Episode 62

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Can heroic mode raids truly ruin the game for casual players, or do they enhance the World of Warcraft experience by fostering camaraderie and achievement? This episode, we navigate through the bustling streets of Stormwind to the Pig and Whistle Inn, unraveling the complexities of these challenging raids. Drawing from personal adventures with my casual guild, we explore the thrill of taking down formidable foes like Halfas and Magmaw. Through heartfelt anecdotes, I share how the essence of raiding is not just about collecting gear but about the triumph shared with friends and the unforgettable bonds forged along the way.

From there, we shift gears to tackle the ever-evolving landscape of Classic World of Warcraft and the persistent issue of bots. These technological nuisances are wreaking havoc, effortlessly bypassing the game's mechanics. We also scrutinize Blizzard's controversial stance on boosting services, weighing the implications of these decisions on player engagement and the in-game economy. As we wrap up, the discussion turns to the Random Dungeon Finder and its effect on XP distribution, urging a call for a more balanced system that doesn't overshadow the efforts of lower-level adventurers. Join us for an insightful journey that promises to shed light on the dynamic world of Azeroth.

Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!

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Speaker 1:

Music do. Hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, I go for a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft. Grab a bottle or a pint, tip back and enjoy.

Speaker 1:

This week we'll be going over a few things from world of warcraft, cataclysm and mainly going to be looking at this intriguing post that I found on the forums. I'm not gonna lie. Um, as always, we have the weekly news. So this world boss, or the week this world boss this week is orta. He is located within howling. Why do I keep thinking howling fjord hello, fall.

Speaker 1:

Um, very simple, top middle of the map and you can get some loot from him. Very nice and easy. Arena skirmishes are your bonus event for the week. This just means that you get more honor for competing in these arenas. Very, very simple and Deep Six is your brawl for the week. This is very much 6v6. And there's not much more to it on simple maps such as the excuse me the World of Warcraft, warsong Gulch, temple of Kotmogu and stuff like that. So let's get into it.

Speaker 1:

I want to start off with a very simple one to begin with. Can classic players please explain to me why having heroic mode raids killed the game. So this person states. I keep seeing the statement in the forums casual slash classic mains complaining that heroic mode raids, heroic fights that are challenging and require progress. I should say kill the game for casuals. Please explain how offering another optional version of the raid that is meant to be challenging, targeted for players who are much more skilled than what normal mode requires, kills the game, please somebody. Now I think this is a very good statement.

Speaker 1:

I do see a lot of people complaining about heroic mode and heroic versions of raiding and the person below actually sums it up quite well Because those people who can't do the content because it's too hard, just want the gear because it says that it's on their best in slot list. They aren't actually raiding for fun, they are chasing the carrot. Only they don't actually understand what coming together as a raid and accomplishing something hard makes it worth it. They just want shiny, purple items. Now I actually very much agree with this. I I very much agree with this entire post. Heroic modes are meant to be somewhat challenging. Now, cataclysm is the first step in heroic modes and can be a bit more challenging down the line in Mists of Pandaria, all of the Draenor Legion, you know, so on and so forth. You get more and more challenging, in my opinion, as you go through the expansions. But there are casual guilds that will struggle.

Speaker 1:

Now we are a very, very casual guild when it comes to raiding um. I'm a pvper and I'm the raid leader, so that can tell you a lot about it. I still understand the mechanics quite well. We have a very decent raid group, but they're just something doesn't click when we raid raid group but then just something doesn't click when we raid um. Now that isn't the sort of atmosphere or you know the fun that we have in the raid. In terms of just the mechanics, sometimes we mess up. Sometimes someone pulls a boss accidentally, someone accidentally taunts the boss like a dps, someone runs some explosive into the raid. You know there's multiple shit that happens and we laugh it off. Yes, it is annoying every now and again, but it's meant to be fun.

Speaker 1:

It's a game at the end of the day and we as a guild have enjoyed several heroic kills. Um. Certainly in phase one of cataclysm we enjoyed. Well, technically we're in phase two because of the sandalari patch, but we enjoyed a few heroic kills. Now we didn't get like full 13 out of 13, clear, you know all that bullshit, but we did decently well and the ones that we did attempt, we eventually got um, these came after a bit of trial and error and we felt some very good accomplishment from it. The first one that really kind of had us stuck was halfas. I think that's where a lot of people might get stuck. You know, very first heroic boss, if you're a very casual guild and I do mean we are very, very casual, by the way, very casual um, we got stuck at halfas. When we first did it we were like over the moon. We were so happy with it, got an extra piece of gear. We got an extra like heroic pieces. You know it's something that we can work on and build towards. And then we went into the uh black wing lair, like sort of raids and stuff, and we did magma, we did the uh chimeron, mal Malorok, maloriak that's the one, I forget the name every time but all of these we completed and when you complete them you actually have that sense of relief Not relief but satisfaction when you kill them. And you didn't do it as a pug, you did it as a raid team. You did it as a raid team, you did it as a guild, you did it as friends. You know that's what it's all about and I couldn't agree more more with this post.

Speaker 1:

The whole point of heroic isn't meant to be yep, blitzed through it cool, got me gear and now I'm raid logging for the rest of the week. It's meant to be. You spend a couple to a few hours with some mates. You have a laugh, you have a chat, you have a, you know good, go at it. And then you like see each other next week or throughout the week or whenever, like on different versions of wow, whenever it might be. You might go to your raid night on Classic. You might do 13 out of 13 heroic. Yeah, you blitz through it within two hours, absolutely annihilate the bosses. Then you log off and don't speak to your guild for the week.

Speaker 1:

I speak to guildies throughout the entire week. I don't speak to everyone, but I speak to, I would say, over half of the guildies, uh, like during the week, and that's just on different world of warcraft battlenet, wherever it might be. And this is the point of raiding. This is why I raid, so that I can enjoy the company and find people that I enjoy company with and I think people have lost sight of that in classic and I even think they lost sight of it back in actual classic, in my honest opinion, because a lot of people that I see who are toxic in classic are the classic players, to say the least. They're the ones who say, oh, go back to retail, when the people who actually play retail aren't causing any of the toxicity or chaos and don't get me wrong, there are some people that will but at the same time they just aren't. They really, really aren't. And it's a bit ridiculous. It really is, but people have lost sight of this and I think that it needs to be brought to people's attention that they do want to actually play the game just with friends and enjoy their company, rather than yep, logged on, killed 13 out of 13 heroic, got two pieces of gear logged off, didn't speak to the guild ever again for that week. You know complete radio silence. It's ridiculous. It is ridiculous.

Speaker 1:

But the main one that I wanted to go over today was this post Please remove the late TBC anti-dungeon farming changes in Cater Classic. Now you might be thinking, oh, what are these? He goes over them. But the biggest part that got me intrigued in this post was one paragraph that says, in regards to hashtag one okay, this is a bit farther down, so I'll get to it first.

Speaker 1:

So in late TBC, the last phase Blizzard added some changes to dungeons which actually came from the season of mastery. Okay, firstly, season of mastery whatever that is was not out yet when TBC was released. Tbc, or Season of Discovery was released when Wrath of the Lich King was released. So a bit wrong. There already they did the following within dungeon instances, instances number one mobs which are gray level to you will stun you indefinitely if you have been in combat and not killed within one minute of entering combat with them. This stun cannot be or bubbled. Very simple number two mobs which are gray to you but appropriate level for others will grant basically no xp if killed with the higher level in your party. This was an anti-boosting feature. Very simple, right? Okay? So in regards to one, this was likely a change to made a curb bots, which it did not. Bots have never really been hurt by this. They can be. They can abuse the z axis, which is up axis, um, forcing mobs to constantly run back and forth in just about every dungeon, as if you are jumping between two ramps and they need to path to get around. They need a path to get around to you. We have literally seen videos of mage bots climbing in the air and dropping back down over and over as a hundred mobs with increased speed, ping pong around, eating living bomb and flame strikes. Okay, firstly, the mobs that are gray level. This was to curb boosting. Okay, they both were to curb boosting. I will say that right now.

Speaker 1:

Now, the reason bots are always going to be a thing in classic world of warcraft is because the simplicity of classic world of warcraft is its downfall for bots. Bots have become so much more what? What's the word? Not sophisticated, but trained, um, and essentially it's surpassed the outdated versions of world of warcraft. Going through the years. We have technology in this year that in back in you know, even 2010, when cataclysm was released is far superior. So therefore, the bots that are being made on this technology are just always going to be very easily implemented into world of warcraft, because you follow a set pattern you go do this quest, you go do this objective and then you come back.

Speaker 1:

Does it check? Check this box? Did it complete the objective? Is there something to hand in at this location? Yes, so you run back there, you run back, you put aspect of the cheater on and then when you get in combat, you take off aspect of the cheater, put on aspect of the Hulk and you send your pet in to attack. You know it's very checklist-y, checklist-y. Yeah, it's very checklist-y, checklist-y. Yeah, that's a word, that's a word. But these both were with regards to mage boosting and paladin boosting, because the paladin boosting was Stratholme and for Stratholme you didn't do what mage boosting did. So mage boosting was very much don't get hit by the mobs, just blizzard and move them back and forth, the mobs. You did this via the pathing method and you jump from one place to the other and essentially the mobs will path back and forth in one spot whilst you're blizzarding that spot to keep them slowed and clumped together. That's what number two did, which is, if a higher level that had these mobs as great to them killed them, you'll get no xp. Fair enough.

Speaker 1:

The first one was very much for paladin boosting. So in tbc paladins could go into stratholme if they were decently enough geared and they could clear stratholme in about three pools. They could clear the living side of Stratholme in about three pools. Now this obviously took a bit longer than a minute to pull the mobs. So when they are killing the mobs they would eventually get stunned and then kill them. This is to quell that sort of method of um. Essentially, you know, boosting. It's that simple. But he carries on.

Speaker 1:

This hurts people who actually like to farm. This change doesn't even exist in retail and comes from a vanilla seasonal server. Okay, it didn't um, there are still farms you can do, of course, but this does limit it and it's really just a buzzkill and not something what happened in any real version of WoW. Farming old dungeons and doing giant pools is actually fun. I'm on my level 85 gear DK farm in Zulfarac for some transmog and it is just wrong that a bunch of level 40 mobs have permanently stunned me until I die Completely inescapable. It is made worse because the mobs hit for so little, but I can do nothing. I can get up and go to the bathroom and not dead when I get back, but I will be in another minute or so.

Speaker 1:

It's also worth noting that this change does not exist in classic era or season of discovery. It came from season of mastery. What is season of mastery? Did I miss a world of warcraft or something and persist through late tbc until now? What is season of mastery? Did I forget something? I don't think I forgot something, did I? I don't think I did.

Speaker 1:

Look, he does make a good point. If you are trying to farm old transmogs or anything along them lines, it shouldn't be an issue that you get permanently stunned by level 40 mobs. It shouldn't. What they can maybe do is do a checklist to see if people are in the group. If people are in the group around the level that the mobs are anywhere between 10 levels, then essentially this will check this box and then they will start stunning. If it is a couple people who are level 85 and they're both farming Zulfurak, for example, but you know they're both level 85, so it checks, oh okay, they're both not leveling from this, so they don't check the box, and then the mobs do not stun. You know it could be something along them lines which I think would be good.

Speaker 1:

In regards to to number two, it seems odd to stop boosting, which is part of the economy and actually does drive engagement. It's literally a service. This is made worse by the fact that Blizzard's store sells multiple level boosts. Yes, I'm not too keen on the store level boosts and I do agree with the fact that boosting is a service in World of Warcraft. It genuinely is. If you go on to World of Warcraft right now, retail and you go on to the services literally titled services, trade services you will see people selling boosts of the current raid. Okay, it might not be level boosts, but they are selling boosts of the current raid for some gold. And this was the best way to make gold via classic, via these boosts. Um, so I I don't really understand why they stopped that. I really don't know why. Um, I do have to agree with him here. This one is more contentious as people don't like leveling boosting, despite the fact blizzard has been selling it in the store since tbc classic.

Speaker 1:

If you have leveled any characters through razor fan or wait, rdf, what's rdf? Razor fan downs? No, I don't know. Um, you may have noticed this hurt your experience at some point. It is entirely possible for people who is a higher level to be put into your dungeon where some mobs may be gray level to them, and suddenly your full xp kill is reduced to low double, double digits at no fault to anyone there. Oh, random dungeon finder. Example you random dungeon finder at level 60 and get hellfire ramparts. Level 68 or 69 can also be placed here through random dungeon finder. Your xp will be hurt bad. This does make sense. But I I think you have to potentially scrap the level boosting. People will always find ways to help level other people and the thing is, if you are not, you're providing joyous journeys for people.

Speaker 1:

In cataclysm classic, I get that you want people to go out and experience the real world and not stand there with another mage or a paladin who's just killing 300 mobs for your character to ding. But it is a service. If people want to hone that skill and sell that service for gold, it's a good way for them to make their gold and again, it does provide a sort of player interaction, which is something that the classic community has always wanted. Um, I don't know, I I agree with him to certain points, but I disagree with others. I think that personally, as someone who did boost um back in classic, I did mara one pulls, I did scarlet monastery boosts, I even did a zg or two when I felt like it um, because these are things that helped calm my mind and helped me focus on the game and play and enjoy it, and it's just a way to make gold. I needed some gold to change my spec for PvP and stuff. I think that you can bring it back, but you need to do maybe a change to it.

Speaker 1:

It's very weird that they've targeted this specifically, because you can look at Season of Discovery, you can look at Classic Era Retail All of these versions well, do have people boosting and this is quite common. This is a very common thing. Uh, to be honest with you, it's yeah, I really don't know what to say to it. I I agree with him, I agree with this post and I think that it does need to be removed and you let the player base figure it out. You, you really really do, because it's getting to a point where people want to farm for transmogs now and if they can't do that because they're getting stun locked by level 40 mobs, even level 15 odd mobs, you can get stun locked by them if you don't kill them within a minute. It's ridiculous. So you, you do kind of need to maybe up the restriction or have a different checkbox for it. I don't know, maybe something along them lines, but who knows, who knows? It's something that I agree with. I thought this was a post that I wasn't going to agree with, but you know it's actually got me on its side and I think it's well written and I think there's a couple couple points that were a bit out there. I'm not going to lie, but you know it's well written, it's quite decent and I agree with it to a certain degree. Now I do need to say that I appreciate you guys being here. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1:

Over the next couple weeks it might be a bit choppy in terms of the episodes. I will do my best to get out what I can, but I might miss a Wednesday or two and I do very much apologize for it. I've been really, really trying my absolute best to get these done, but Not it's been tough. Ok, it's been very tough mentally, um, and I've not been it. It's just been tough. That's all I'll say on the matter. But I will really try and get these out as and when I can. Um, these are kind of recorded prior to when they're actually going out and live to you guys. So I'm kind of not here at the moment, but this is why I'm trying to get everything done beforehand. It's just been very tough the past few weeks. I've not felt myself like mentally or physically. I feel completely done, uh, done over. Essentially, my body's trying to fight itself is the best way to describe it. But I'll do what I can for you guys. I will get episodes out as and when I can do.

Speaker 1:

Check out all of the socials down below concert stuff happening up there, uh, as well as updates and stuff like that. Do check out the etsy shop. All right, I really appreciate it, everyone who does. There's constant stuff going up there, from wow to dnd, bits and bobs, all 3d printed, all sent off within the week, um, if you order them. But thank you all very much once again and go eval a friend, goodbye all. Thank you.