A guildie of mine couldn’t get a pug spot in VoA. Why? He didn’t have the achievement for the latest boss. The fact that he had cleared three wings in ICC or that he had ridiculous good gear, spotting four pieces of T10 and belonged to one of the most successful and well established raiding guilds on the server didn’t matter. “Link achievement or no invite.”
I know I probably shouldn’t write another rant about this, it’s like beating a dead horse, as I think you English people put it. Everyone knows about the Link-achievement and Gearscore stupidity that has invaded our game, sucking the fun out of it. But I just can’t refrain from having another go at it because it makes me so mad and I need to get it out of my system.
The VoA embarrassment
Asking for achievements as a qualifier for an invitation to VoA is nothing but insane. The instance is so ridiculously easy that it’s embarrassing. Embarrassing for Blizzard, who put it up in the first place, without any proper design, just reusing some old models, not putting any effort whatsoever into the environment. And it’s embarrassing for the players, since it’s the essence of a loot oriented playstyle, where challenges and efforts mean nothing.
VoA is far easier than many, if not all of the five-man heroic instances. Totalbiscuit did a lust murder on the topic in his last Blue Plz Show, and I can’t but agree on everything he said. That place IS an abomination. It’s disgusting, it’s lazy design, and it’s actually an insult towards any raider who has spent a number of nights wiping on pretty challenging bosses in ICC to just hand out those tier pieces in a weekly lottery.
So thinking closely about I maybe should congratulate my guildie for not being invited to that horrid place. He hasn’t missed anything, except for the opportunity to become incredibly bored with a boss that, to quote Totalbiscuit, is just standing there doing NOTHING, just waiting to be looted.
Nevertheless – I can’t blame him for wanting to see the frost dude at least once with his own eyes. Content is content, right? So when I ended up in a 10-man pug for VoA this weekend (greedily collecting the last few frost emblems I needed for a crafted upgrade – I promise, I won’t make it a habit to go there) and there was a spot open, I quickly managed to get him invited. He got his achievement and I guess it will do as an entrance ticket for the 25 mans in the future. If he ever wants to do it again that will say. I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.
But to all those little boys with small egos and probably even smaller… well you know… to those disgusting little creeps, I just want to say that you should be GRATEFUL if a player of the calibre of my guildie wants to join your run. I despise you when you request achievements and a skyrocketing gear score for such a pathetic mission as to clear a place that doesn’t deserve to be called a raid instance, since it’s nothing but a loot machine. If anything you should be begging for him to come and help you out, because he’s far better than you deserve.
Awwww. Feel the rage!
A few thinking people
Thanks God there still are a few thinking people out there, who gives me some kind of hope for the future of mankind. There are players who make their own judgements, based on knowledge about the game and all the classes, players who look upon Gearscore requests as an insult. A few days ago I saw someone advertising an ICC pug, saying: “If you link your Gearscore I’ll put you on ignore”. More of that, please!
I know I probably shouldn’t write another rant about this, it’s like beating a dead horse, as I think you English people put it. Everyone knows about the Link-achievement and Gearscore stupidity that has invaded our game, sucking the fun out of it. But I just can’t refrain from having another go at it because it makes me so mad and I need to get it out of my system.
The VoA embarrassment
Asking for achievements as a qualifier for an invitation to VoA is nothing but insane. The instance is so ridiculously easy that it’s embarrassing. Embarrassing for Blizzard, who put it up in the first place, without any proper design, just reusing some old models, not putting any effort whatsoever into the environment. And it’s embarrassing for the players, since it’s the essence of a loot oriented playstyle, where challenges and efforts mean nothing.
VoA is far easier than many, if not all of the five-man heroic instances. Totalbiscuit did a lust murder on the topic in his last Blue Plz Show, and I can’t but agree on everything he said. That place IS an abomination. It’s disgusting, it’s lazy design, and it’s actually an insult towards any raider who has spent a number of nights wiping on pretty challenging bosses in ICC to just hand out those tier pieces in a weekly lottery.
So thinking closely about I maybe should congratulate my guildie for not being invited to that horrid place. He hasn’t missed anything, except for the opportunity to become incredibly bored with a boss that, to quote Totalbiscuit, is just standing there doing NOTHING, just waiting to be looted.
Nevertheless – I can’t blame him for wanting to see the frost dude at least once with his own eyes. Content is content, right? So when I ended up in a 10-man pug for VoA this weekend (greedily collecting the last few frost emblems I needed for a crafted upgrade – I promise, I won’t make it a habit to go there) and there was a spot open, I quickly managed to get him invited. He got his achievement and I guess it will do as an entrance ticket for the 25 mans in the future. If he ever wants to do it again that will say. I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.
But to all those little boys with small egos and probably even smaller… well you know… to those disgusting little creeps, I just want to say that you should be GRATEFUL if a player of the calibre of my guildie wants to join your run. I despise you when you request achievements and a skyrocketing gear score for such a pathetic mission as to clear a place that doesn’t deserve to be called a raid instance, since it’s nothing but a loot machine. If anything you should be begging for him to come and help you out, because he’s far better than you deserve.
Awwww. Feel the rage!
A few thinking people
Thanks God there still are a few thinking people out there, who gives me some kind of hope for the future of mankind. There are players who make their own judgements, based on knowledge about the game and all the classes, players who look upon Gearscore requests as an insult. A few days ago I saw someone advertising an ICC pug, saying: “If you link your Gearscore I’ll put you on ignore”. More of that, please!
40 comments:
Always a good read, but the last two articles have been really amazing!
My favorite thing to do when someone complains about achievement links in VoA is to quickly armory them... I find that more than half the time THEY do not have the achievement, or don't have the 25 one when they're trying to run a 25. Nothing shuts them up as quickly as pointing that out. :)
This past week my DK was lucky enough to get into VoA10 with no achievement and no gear check. He'd never been there before, so now his recent achievements are filled up with VoA bosses.
I'm curious.
What did people do before Achievements and Gearscore existed?
Yes, its absolutely insane that we now play a game where you must know a fight before ever actually doing that fight.
From what I've gathered, the "link achiev" and "GS" requirements are more prevalent on some realms than others. The realm I play my Horde toon on, sadly, is probably at the extreme that every PuG requires ridiculous requirements (5200 GS for a ToC run, for example). Conversely, I don't see GS requirements nearly as much on my Alliance toon's server. And I've heard there are some servers that mock people that require GS.
What I'd love to see is somebody compile a list of realms that are and aren't GS-dependent slackers, and maybe I'll raid on those in Cataclysm.
I wouldn't be so harsh on VoA in terms of design. Yeah, most of the assets used in VoA are recycled assets, but it all fits with the Titan theming and whatnot. It's not like they made Torovon a giant murloc or something like that :)
Requiring achievement or gearscore for VoA is just stupid. When I run my own pugs, of course I accept both if they're linked to me, but they're not a requirement. If I see your guild tag and it's one that I know are doing current content, you're fine for me.
And it's just a loot pinata, yes. Would I pass on my tier loot if it dropped in it? No. I won't pass on a free upgrade, it's just as stupid. And since I'm usually a tank or a healer in the VoA group, I actually have to do a little work to get it, so I don't feel that much insulted.
Of course it's much easier than ICC, but still the bosses won't drop it if I just look at them and think nasty insults.
And I wouldn't say it's far easier than many 5-mans. They are all more or less basic tank and spank fights, but I don't remember any 5-mans that have adds that kill most of the group if they're not killed in less than 15 seconds. Granted, now Emalon is a joke, being two tiers behind. When he got released, not that much. I'm pretty sure that the frozen orbs could pretty much do the same as Emalon's adds if they're not dpsed down fast enough, especially later in the fight.
The funniest by far is asking for the achievement for Toravon...... on the Tuesday Patch 3.3 dropped.
heheehe. The naughty little Gnome I am often responds to "link acheivement/gs" ads just so I can tell them to shove it up their .... Ummm... Twisted nether when they have to prompt me for it.
Apparently Aman'Thul has a fixation for it. You need a high gearscore just to get a post to Dalaran... (OK, I might be the only Mage asking... But why not join in the insanity?)
there was a guy advertising the other day requesting <5000 gs. I dare say the 5000 would have been overkill, but at least it was reverse gs'ism... He was probably looking for a challenge.
Did FoS last night.. My 4.5k GS was beaten by the guy with 3.4k GS... Bet he can't get a raid...
Stupid, stupid GS.
PS: my trick is, I say I can't link the achievement on this toon as it's alt No. 8... But the other 7 did it solo!
PS: 7 of my alts are < level 10... 6 of them level 1... But they have all solo'd VoA ;-)
K?
Crucifer, stats or no of epics or inspection. But stupidity could still prevail ie asking for minimum spellpower for naxx of +2100 when my resto druid who had Undying acheivment and one single upgrade left was @ 2k spellpower, or in TBC era. LFM for kara must have xx epics ie 12-16. Of course if you had 16 epics you had very little reason to actually go to Kara..
In the last week my resto shaman 4500 gs, not quite +3k healing got told he was undergeared for the kill XT weekly and my 5100 gs, 251 ilvl weapon warrior got told he was undergeared for toc25.
"it’s like beating a dead horse, as I think you English people put it."
Yeah, that's what them Englishers say. "Beating a dead peon" is how ya sez it in orcish.
Gs has only 1 good thing about it, if someone ask's for it, then they are a retard.
Blizzard gives away epics now, VoA is an excellent case in point. its possible to get a +4500 Gs without having done ANY RAIDS....
As to the achievements, blizzard only installed that joyous piece of shit to extend the play time of current content, the person who came up with the idea is a genius, it must of gone someting like this....
"I know, to save us thinking up better content, lets get these dumbasses to pay for a little banner that pops up on their screen saying they have 10 achievment points!!!"
Yes i know its all about buisness and i appreciate that. But surely gamer satisfaction has to play a small part in it?
Yes i keep harping on about the good old days before WoW became such a mainstream game, but believe me, it was a better place, with better ppl.
Cacknoob (Stormrage's anti-GS defence league!)
Two schools of thought with people who insist on an Achievement before issuing a Raid Invite.
1. They want people who've at least cleared the Instance before, and thus should know what they're doing, or,
2. As Gnomeaggedon already pointed out they don't have the Achievement themselves, possibly don't know what they're doing, and so are trying to fill the Raid with people who do.
And when all else fails, there's always UnderAchiever
I've taken to posting in trade "LFG Wailing Caverns, 100 GS and achievement required, PST!" just to see what people say.
When I do it immediately following some ridiculous LFG message, I think it gets people thinking....
and it definitely gets a laugh.
Angry bartender is *hot* ehm I mean. ehh no more ale for me!
For me GS has always been the bad players excuse. Its been something to hide behind when you want to pick a group but do not know anything about how to play the game.
I once took my priest to a 25 voa where they asked for achi on the new boss - that had been up for a day.
Another time we where 25 men all gathered up and had passed the GS test and the raid"leader" called out:
"healers type 123"
I typed "123"
--- Then there was silence.
me: "great"
/leave.
Usually when people ask me for gearscore I usually end up saying "You haven't done this? Want me to lead?" At least I don't get to raid with them then :)
So much QQ over achieves and GS, time to get off your high horses. In fact, if you actually think about it, having high requirements make perfect sense.
1) The raid leader frequently has no knowledge on who are good/bad players. Setting minimum hurdles ensures a higher chance of raid success. Don't forget, it takes time to organise raids (15 mins sometimes) and it can be stressful (keepig track of tanks/healers/ranged, etc). The raid leader has to put in a lot of effort whilst some raid members /afk. Also, people are impatient and keeping a raid failure can mean ppl leaving and the leader having a hard time controlling the group. High GS + achieve means all this time investment has a less chance of going to waste. Don't forget, the leader invests organisation + raid time. Your investment is merely raid time.
2) Reading posts like and from experiences show that the raid leader has to put up with QQ all the time. e.g. Why did you invite people who don't know what they are doing? etc. High GS + achieves mean that the chances are higher that the person does know what they are doing.
3) Asking for GS/stats + achieve is an excellent way of weeding out players who can't read. If someone replies with "inv" it's obvious that they don't care enough to do as the raid leader instructs. What guarantee that they'll perform during the raid?
I've done my share of raid leading in the past and I know what a difficult task is it. Too many members feel that they have a sense of entitlement (e.g. the RL "should" be thankful that so-and-so is coming to this raid). My early RL career did not involve any minimum stats or achieves. And guess what?
I'm not the only raid leader who realises that GS/stats + achieves = more chance of success. That's why these requirements exist today. And in some way, these requirements actually do attract the best players. Because they realise that having minimum standards mean a higher chance of raid success. If asking for GS/stats + achieves did not work, people won't be doing them in the first place.
If you think raid leading is all so simple, and you feel that minimum standards are not important, by all means, start your own raid. You can /2 LFM no GS/achieves neccessary!`
: Thanks!
Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. I’ve seen those pugs more than once – lvl 70:s wanting to run a BT pug, but only lvl 80s invited… They could as well be honest about it: “hey, come and boost me in BT”. The sad thing is that this is an effect of the system as such. It seems as if the only way you can get a raid for VoA if you don’t have the achievement is to create one yourself. That’s ridiculous. But still they should know better than asking for achievements themselves.
: grats!
@Crucife: well, I suppose you actually looked up people in armory. At least I remember doing that back in the days pugging places like ZA. I don’t remember any fail pugs, I only have bright memories from it. My memory may be selective though.
@Teej: Oh, I would have LOVED to see a giant murloc boss! Give us that in Cataclysm, please! I guess the biggest problem about VoA is the same as with much other content – that we keep doing it for badges and random tier drops, even though we outgear it immensely. But it certainly didn’t help that they emptied the place for trash. I remember that you actually had to look out a little for the things dropping from the ceiling first when it was launched. You could even die from it, whoaaa! But those packs have been removed. The whole place feels very empty.
@Saithir: Yeah, it’s strange that common sense has disappeared. To me a guild tag says a lot more than an achievement link.
: That advertising for a gear score BELOW a certain level really made sense. I hope we’ll see more of that in the future. Like Gevlon’s Undergeared project. For people who think that zerg mode sucks because it’s plain boring.
@Ngita: Yeah… those requests are indeed insane. Why would anyone with that kind of gear they ask for want to do that kind of content? Obviously there are no upgrades that can drop.
@Ratshag: aww, cheers and thanks! I’ve got to learn the orcish ways now that I’ve rolled a troll!
: being a stockholder of Blizzard Activision, do you really care about player satisfaction? The more mainstream WoW becomes, the more gold in your pockets.
However I guess I’m part of the problem. Azeroth was obviously a batter place in the old days… when I didn’t play. I arrived with TBC and I’m a living example of the modern mainstream player with no previous gaming experience that the game now is designed for… So I guess I’m the one to blame for the current state of the game?
/hiding in shame
@Cap’n John: It’s interesting that achievements still seem to have such a high credibility now that this fake-achievement addon has been around for such a long time.
: Don’t be surprised if you one day will get serious replies on that one.
@Dwism: hm… yeah I might have looked a little bit too deep into the glass there… That example of the blindness that the gearscore obsession leads to is brilliant. Great gearscore but no healers… Exactly. I’m a bit surprised though that they don’t accept your offer to raid lead.
@Azzur: with all the respect for the pains and stress in raid leading, I beg to differ.
I don’t say that you shouldn’t have requirements when you’re putting together a pug group. You SHOULD be picky – when it’s appropriate, when you’re tackling challenging content. (which VoA is NOT). But in those cases achievements aren’t enough to judge people, since they could be sleepwalking through the content, being dragged and boosed while laying dead on the floor anyway.
Back in the old days, pugging for instance ZA, we did just fine without gearscore and achievement links. A very short exchange of words, a quick look at gear and spec in armory will take you WAY longer than any kind of achievement link can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flogging_a_dead_horse
I think beating a dead horse is possibly an American English version.
Personally when I put a VoA together, I just say "/w me class and spec" and build the raid off there. I've heard these horror stories about the 800 DPS rogue, but as a general rule I think players who have no clue either don't know what VoA is, or (as I'd like to think) realise that actually their gear isn't really up to it.
I put a 10 and a 25 together every week, (so I can make sure there are no other enh shammies, obviously :P) and I've never had to kick someone.
"If you think raid leading is all so simple, and you feel that minimum standards are not important, by all means, start your own raid."
I do that sometimes. Instead of asking for some gearscore I simply armory everyone and look for the right stats, gems and enchants. From my experience completely gemmed and enchanted equipment that is right for the spec is a much better indicator for a good player than an arbitrary number that you reach simply by leeching from heroic groups. There are quite some DDs out there who simply wear a ragtag mixture of tank, frostresist and DPS gear without enchants or gems. Simply throw it all together, as long as the gear score is high enough the rest doesn't matter!
underachiever addon is your friend
Everyone agrees that it's stupid. Yet people still do it...
The only solution I see is to host your own pugs.
Larísa, you're very lucky that Toravon is easy for you. Believe me, I've struggled to down him on 25-man (the 10-man is certainly a lot easier). It took me about 10 attempts with 4 different 25-man pugs before I finally managed to down him. I certainly found it harder than all of the 5-man heroics. Are you perhaps beating your own drum?
Anyway, I quickly noticed that in several of these raids, some ranged DPS were ignoring the frozen orbs on the first attempt (wipe), even though the raid leader asked them to take out the adds. I have come to believe that the reason for this is that they don't realize the first time just how dangerous these adds are (and think the healers can heal through the damage), or even don't realize that the frozen orbs are in fact the adds he was talking about.
So I have some sympathy for the raid leader who knows that after the first wipe, he'll have people dropping out, and he'll have to go and start recruiting again, and so he wants to take Toravon down first time. At least by asking for the achievement, he knows that the candidate has at least seen the fight before. Of course, I suppose your guildmate would not have caused a wipe such as I describe, but who knows? Sometimes it is the top raiders who cause wipes on "easier" content because they think they can stroll/faceroll through encounters they haven't seen, because they're one of the elite (I notice that you think he'd be "incredibly bored" fighting Toravon).
You wrote:
"Back in the old days, pugging for instance ZA, we did just fine without gearscore and achievement links. A very short exchange of words, a quick look at gear and spec in armory will take you WAY longer than any kind of achievement link can."
Well I think you probably meant that a quick look at gear and spec in armory will take you way FURTHER ...", but you inadvertently stumbled upon the truth of the matter: it's far quicker to ask for GS than to tab out and look in armory (missing however many whispers while you're tabbed out).
And what are you doing in armory? Getting a subjective impression of the person's gear and spec? Gearscore will tell you about the person's gear far more scientifically than your inspection, and only takes about a second rather than about a minute. So it is very useful as a first check on anyone asking for an invitation. Once they have a reasonable gearscore, then it's worth the time to check the rest of their spec; as "anonymous" said, it's possible now to have a GS of 4500+ without having done any raids, but I've had people with sub-3000 gearscores asking if they can come along on a pug to kill Lord Marrowgar. I don't really want to waste my time checking them out on the armoury.
Finally, rather than get annoyed at raid-leaders for daring to reject such a wunderkind, your guildmate could start his own PuG, and recruit for it however he wants. If he walked a few miles in the other person's shoes, perhaps he would see the point in the stupid requirements, even if he chooses not to be so draconian about filling his own pug. I think in a guild such as yours, where you can raid all content in the company of trusted and competent companions, you are very lucky to be insulated from the realities of PuG raiding.
I agree with Dacheng's post. If you make pugs for ICC and consistently get asked by people who have absolutely no business going there (because of wrong spec or *gasp* ilvl 200 gear) Gearscore can serve as a useful tool. If somebody with a gearscore of 3500 asked to come along I'll pass if I don't know that person.
I say let's meet in Dalaran middle. There I scan the person with gearscore which also shows spec and I can scan the items just as in armory. A lot easier than opening up armory and typing in names with many "special" letters or accents etc.
Sure gearscore doesn't show if a person can play or not, or if he/she is an alt of a great raider or Gevlon. But if I don't know the person how else to judge? It's somewhat silly for VoA (although I have wiped there as well) but not so much for ICC. If you judge by inspecting Gearscore or opening Armory, what's the difference? Both tools can look beyond just the number, but a Gearscore of 3500 means I don't need to even bother with any further inspection for ICC 25. There are multiple other players with better gear, who I know equally little to nothing about. If I had enough skilled guildmembers or people I know on, I wouldn't be making a PuG in the first place.
@Larisa
"I remember that you actually had to look out a little for the things dropping from the ceiling first when it was launched. You could even die from it, whoaaa! But those packs have been removed. "
They only removed one of these mobs and moved the rest a bit further. They're Archavon's trash anyway.
@Azzur
"Don't forget, the leader invests organisation + raid time."
Haha, really. Then why always when I join a raid by linking my VoA achievement, then a bit after there is the inevitable and immensely stupid "healers press 3, tanks press 1" (and the proper answer is "I pressed one and it says 'You need more rage'"). I thought that leading a raid at least required some common sense, so if you don't remember who you've invited and were they a healer or not, then what are you doing with that raid leader tag. Spamming trade chat in Dalaran is not organisation at all.
Just did a VoA on my druid. Saw a "LF 2 healers for VoA-25" in trade, relogged, asked "you still need healers for VoA?", got the invite immediately after. Nobody commented on that I've got the Toravon-25 achievement after the kill.
Rule No. 1: All the people who DPS below the tank, will ask for invites to PuG raids.
Anon has a point. It's sad but I noticed this when running open invite guild raids also. The first and more enthusiastic people to sign are either the undergeared alts or the undergeared non-raiders who are thrilled that we're running a 'starter' raid for them.
Which would be great if it really was a starter raid. If you actually want to go kill bosses quickly and not have to pause to explain every fight, make sure people have their addons sorted out, etc, I can see why it's tempting to take shortcuts.
"to those disgusting little creeps, I just want to say that you should be GRATEFUL if a player of the calibre of my guildie wants to join your run."
That sentence bothers me a lot and I hope it was written while you were still angry.
In my opinion, it is even more elitist than the raid organizers asking gear score and achievement for simple content.
Let me explain.
A raiding guild will examine any candidate which applies to a raid spot. They can accept or reject candidates based upon any measurable (gear score, spec, achievements, etc) or abstract (probably not a good fit for the guild, does not know his class well) reasons they deem applicable.
If you can believe a PuG is more or less a virtual guild of short duration, the gear score and achievements become the sole interview questions, and acceptance or rejection of candidates is based entirely on their answers.
I believe it is a stupid way to form a PuG but it is certainly consistent with the minimalist effort standard put forth by the typical WoW player.
Also, from my perspective, I believe a request to join a PuG is also a minimalist effort and players wanting to join a PuG, regardless of qualifications, should not expect the raid organizer to put any effort in screening them other than by a minimalist approach.
Rationalizing it does not matter imo.
Gearscore filtering is flawed and the silly situations it brings just comes to show the ignorance of players involved.
A top guild raider whithout the achivement is no doubt, as larisa said it a blessing to a pug like that because he can more or less carry the entire group. Furthermore having the achievement does not prove one knows what to do.
Gearscore coupled with outrageous requirements for the silliest encounters (I've seen GS5200 req for ToC10) are usually used by stupid kids who generally want to be boosted in an encounter and take all the loot themselves.
: thanks! I’m definitely not consistent in my English. I mix US and UK and probably some self invented expressions as well, hoping that I somehow make myself understood.
: yeah, I really don’t think that VoA is such a big deal that you need to have an insane weeding procedure to get a group that is good enough.
@Kiseran: /sign
@Gevlon: I suppose so. Euripides just wrote a brilliant rant about it.
@Dàchéng: It doesn’t sound like anything I recognize at all. Maybe you’re on a bad server or something, or just have had some bad luck? I really don’t look upon myself as any sort of exceptional player, on the contrary. Elitist is the last thing I want to be.
However I disagree completely with you that Gearscore should give a more scientific evaluation of a player’s capability than a look in armory. It doesn’t. It’s very easy to fool it. There’s another addon called Elitist group or something like that, which is supposed to be a lot better. But that one doesn’t give you a simple number the way GS does, and I guess that is why it isn’t as commonly used.
: Once again: This post is about VoA and no other instance. About ICC I agree that you need to be picky, however I don’t think Gearscore is the best tool to decide that.
: It’s really sad that those “starter raids” don’t exist anymore. It’s somehow contradictive to me. Why are people playing the game if they in the end don’t want to actually PLAY it, just rush/zerg through it and then hanging in Dal, bored to the bone? Incomprehencible.
: angry – yeah maybe, but honestly I think it’s a bit about rhetoric as well. It makes more fun reads if you exaggerate a little bit, at least I think so. And it’s more fun to write as well. Once again I’m NOT an elitist in any way. If you’ve read a fraction of the almost 500 posts I’ve written over the years you should realize this.
Anyhow: I honestly doubt that this “minimalistic effort” really serves the purpose of it, that it really reaches the goal. At least if I was planning to pug ICC, I would question the competence of the raid leader if the only criteria he had forming the raid was gearscore. The good old way of forming ZA pugs, by just putting a few questions, looking at the guild tag and checking out armory was a better way to take out the weeds imho.
@Okrane S: Yep.
Yesterday's Ctrl+Alt+Del webcomic summed up the mentality of this whole attitude for me pretty sweetly. And you know what? I'm going to have to to macro the link to it now, just in case I ever stumble across such idiocy myself....
"It’s really sad that those “starter raids” don’t exist anymore."
They kind of do because I'm too nice to turn people away and tell them I was hoping to have a shot at blood queen, so instead we take it easy and wander through the lower spire. And the newbies are ecstatically happy.
And I'm bored out of my skull and burned out on 10 mans because I wanted to see something new and differernt.
Err ... hypothetically. But the question is, who is it that should run those newbie raids, and why? If it's just out of the goodness of their soul -- that explains why there aren't many.
@Larisa
I have read more than just a fraction of your posts and I do not consider you an elitist, no worries :)
The minimalistic approach is successful enough for many pug organizers to continue using it. Is it a good appoach to building PuGs? I don't believe so but I understand why they are using it and it does not upset me one iota when they choose to apply those filters.
Let's go back one year for the fun of it.
Was gearscore a better measure of preparedness? I believe so because you could not purchase emblem rewards to outgear content you have yet to see.
Was achievement a better measure of preparedness? Maybe, maybe not depending on your goals. If your goal was to have an easy run though current content (Naxx), then I would tend to say yes. If your goal was to do current content with players who are ready for it, then no.
@Azzur: I'm with Larisa on this. I think you missed the point. It's not that it's bad to have requirements for pug raids, it's that so many have such outlandish requirements that don't make any sense...and they refuse to consider anything that doesn't meet those same over-the-top requirements.
If it's true that there was a time when GS & achievement linking wasn't a part of the game, and people were successful, then it must be possible to find 9 other people who are good enough to get the job done without the stupid GS+Achieve ONLY mentality.
And if you (meaning you's guys all ya'lls anyone or nobody) never want to fail at anything, go raid Northshire or something. LFM 25man Northsire mine Kobolds, GS 7500+, 42k DPS, link Achieve noob!
@Spinks - People like me. As someone who is trying to set up a newbie raiding guild where a group of us can all learn together, all I seem to get feedbackwise is " oh we'd love to but it's the wrong server" or "no one ever wants to run Naxx, it's too boring, you can get better gear here or there, they want to head straight to ToC/ICC stuff blah blah blah....." It's seriously frustrating. We're currently running Naxx with seven.
I'm not requesting gear scores, or achievements... All I'm asking for is enthusiasm and willingness to learn!
did you read about this today?
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/underachiever.aspx
You can now fake your way to invites! Serves those idiots right for having stupid requirements.
VOA is ridiculous for the simple fact that it's still called V O "A", and yet nobody visits ol' Archavon anymore.
Poor lil guy, back there with his Naxx loot.
Honestly, though, Toravon is a quick shortcut to ICC gear, which is why I'll go there. 60 frost badges, or a 5 minute dice roll once a week? Yeah, I thought so...
But wait, if you CAN put a 25 man group together with GS>5000 and have all done the content, why wouldn't you?
And maybe the RL has his own subpar group of friends along and he needs some real players to carry them?
Or maybe it's just somebody puffing up his feathers after Wintergrasp because that's the only way to actually get a group going?
I've sat on trade for 15 minutes after winning WG and there are rarely any PUGS even forming, and if they do, you sit there in group for another 30 minutes while they search for 2 damn tanks which they're never going to get.
I think the Dungeon Finder has decreased raid PUGs from forming. It takes some effort and people aren't up to it anymore.
I have mixed feelings on this topic. I use to start VoA PuGs all of the time, when I invited I put heals in group 5, tanks in group 1 (marked them in raid), put melee in first few groups, and ranged in the rest. Some raid leaders do this and some don't. But for me, it was a time investment and some organization to create a 25 man PuG. It takes a long time sometimes finding a tank or healer that you need, and sometimes certain types of dps. People get pissy if you invite too many of one class, so you try to balance the raid. It did take time, and many times people left while waiting for you to fill the raid. No one cares that you are putting together the raid, no one cares that you are getting tons of whispers from people you can't invite b/c have four mages already. They just sit there and kill the boss.
Having said that I have never asked for achieve link or GS. But I don't have an issue with raid leaders who do. After we win WG, there are plenty of raid groups to go around for people who have different views on the issue. But there is a lot of pressure on the RL if the group fails. If you didn't check GS and achieve, the raid yells and calls you a failure. It isn't fun. So try to see both sides, because there are groups that fail at the new content, especially if there are a bunch of people who are under-geared and un-experienced on the fight.
My husband and I are planning an experiment this weekend. We're tank/heals, so we're going to spam Trade looking for dps with gear scores *less than* 4k. Maybe 4.2k, it's hard to have worse than that these days. They have to be willing to take constructive criticism though. Then we'll go to some instances, and see what we shall see. We are getting sick and tired of total morons with good gear slacking because they either don't know their class, or just aren't even trying.
Hopefully it will make a good post for our blog.
I just popped in to share something hilarious. The first time I saw someone asking to link achievements for VOA was during the first week it was released. The guy asking for achievement links was laughed out of trade after I pointed out a rather glaring problem.
Hint: If it's the first week the boss is out, and you can link the achievement, you're saved for the instance.
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