Thursday, August 6, 2009

What a mess

Last night was not a clean and pretty raid. In fact, it was fairly embarrassing for the second ranked guild on server. Sure there were lag issues, but for the most part, it was simply poor play.

We knocked out the Coliseum first. Very few of us had seen the fight on the PTR, so we were going in blind. We poked and prodded the three beasts for awhile before getting them down, and then moving on to Ulduar.

Oh, XT still isn't fixed. No, he doesn't spawn Bomb Bots throughout the Heartbroken phase; instead he just spawns all the adds at once, regardless of where you tank him. I counted a solid nine Bomb Bots up at once. The good news was that we managed to get the Nerf Scrapbots achievement. The bad news was we didn't kill him Hard, or even Super-Mega-Hard, and so no new gloves for the hunters.

Kologarn was buggy (or laggy) for me, and my DPS was curled up in the gutter, sobbing. Auriaya somehow found an additional 7M HP and Vezax somehow lost 9M. Hmm.. I wonder what those two were up to during the downtime.... o_O

After finishing the night on Hodir Hard (wipe after wipe, oh, Neg dies from being hit with back-to-back cave-ins as she tries to run out, I guess that means a kill! -_-), I decided to leave the equally messy Vent channel and hide in the designated PvP channel as I vent my frustration through the new battleground.

As I'm sitting there, waiting for the queue to pop, one of the officers came down to chat. And eventually all my annoyances just came streaming out. After making sure I was clear that I don't feel it is my place to lecture the officers on how to run their guild (after all, that's no longer my privilege), I told him what I saw wrong with the management of the raids and my own frustrations about my DPS. Admittedly, some things I just need to get over: How loot is done, the fact that I no longer have the choice of spec specifics and first-picks at gear to figure out my DPS. Things like that I just need to grit my teeth and bear it (which is none-too-easy with my patience for such things). But the vent chatter, the demeaning of people, the lack of help, the overall STUPIDITY needs to change if this guild wants to maintain an aspect of professionalism I know they are capable of. I even got to use my "if you just belittle people with out helping them, you are equally as responsible for their badness" line.

The summer season is always a difficult time, and I empathize with the guild's dissatisfaction for attendance. They have to put the bad players in because they are the only ones around. I've been there - I know exactly what it's like. But it doesn't change the fact that a guild that got their Black Protodrake was wiping on Hodir Hard. What happened to that professionalism, that leadership that spurred on 20-some other raiders to do their best?

This patch brought frustration all around.

7 comments:

Thunderhorns said...

This new patch has caused me to lose enthusiasm for the game. I don't know if I'll keep on playing. The Ulduar patch took too long, this coliseum patch came too soon. I'm not at all enthused about fighting a bunch of creatures in a big old coliseum.

I think I'm moving on from WoW. They don't seem to be managing the challenge level very well anymore.

Fig said...

Thunderhorns-The new patch was definitely rushed. Only four months between content patches? Excessive bugs that could have been found on the PTRs had they given it more time? A largely uninspired coliseum raid that the bosses are unlocked one week at a time? I like new content as much as the next guy but they definitely half-assed this one. (Half-assing may be giving them too much credit)

Topic at hand: Every raid has their off-nights, and the summer just tends to excerbate the issue. The day after we got our Thorim hard kill we raided like complete retards and couldn't even kill Yogg before the reset. How's that for embarassing?

Negathle said...

@T-Horns

I feel the exact same way. The only thing really keeping me going right now is the opportunity to see Arthas, but I have this bad feeling that it won't be anything as epic as Illidan was.

The whole Argent Crusade gives me a bad vibe.

Ayonel said...

You are describing most raid nights for my guild. (sigh)

WRT the patch, it's utter chaos. The people who aren't working are apparently having a blast running heroics and ToC all day and night, but the runs I've gotten into have been mostly abortive fails. Everybody wants their new emblems and tier 8/9 gear that they aren't bothering to get heroic or Tier 7.

And the ToC runs I have been in are worse. On Wednesday I got into a 10-man pug with some folks I have run OS with before, and a few of the people in there were 1) clearly upset that we didn't all know the fight(!) and 2) expecting the geared players(me, which is a sad statement) to 'run them through'.

When I suggested that this would require people to work and might require a number of tries, I got heckled. We wiped three times and broke.

I don't know anyone who has enjoyed playing WoW this week and most of us were looking forward to the patch. Well, this one guy in my guild who ran ToC 5 man and got 2 tier 8 pieces...

T-Horns: Agree, I would have been happy continuing to work on Naxx 25/Ulduar, maybe with the emblem change, but folks around me aren't up to the challenge. :(

Thunderhorns said...

Yeah it's pretty sad because the Wrath of the Lich King was a really great expansion, probably the best one they've had yet. But they managed it poorly after release.

I too might come back for Icecrown Citadel. I do want to see Arthas. He looks very cool and I imagine they'll make him tough and fun.

The only thing I'm dreading is the Ulduar gear is now for the most part obsolete. So I'm going to have to slog through the Coliseum to get geared up for Icecrown Citadel.

I can't believe that at this point it is more profitable for people to run heroics again. And that's what my guild is doing to get Ulduar 25 equivalent at the moment, and I hate doing heroics I've done over and over again. No challenge, no newness, and thus no fun.

It's a real bummer has dropped the ball on an otherwise great expansion.

Stormcloud said...

Did the raid go something like this?

http://fiftydkpminus.ytmnd.com/

lol

Stormcloud said...
This comment has been removed by the author.