🚀 go-pugleaf

On Apr 11, 1:53 pm, Urbin <ur...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Apr 2011 04:05:50 -0700 (PDT), bob wrote:
> >  On Apr 8, 5:13=A0pm, Neil Cerutti <ne...@norwich.edu> wrote:
> > > Dungeons that don't depend on there being damage, healers and
> > > tanks are possible. Portions of Wrath dungeons provide models.
>
> >  I would extend this to say that most dungeons don't actually require a
> >  tank, a healer and 3 dps in the way way the LFG system currently
> >  works.  Back in the old days, there were lots of times when (usually
> >  in a guild group) going with a high dodge rogue or a Voidwalker or
> >  hunter pet as "tank" when we couldn't be bothered to get a "proper"
> >  one.  I was in an instance the other day where the healer DCed, and we
> >  decided to keep clearing trash until we could get a replacement, I was
> >  tanking as a protadin (using the holy power heal spell whose name I
> >  can't bring to mind and the moonkin druid was sending the odd heal my
> >  way), and we were doing fine 4 manning it like that.  With an
> >  automated LFG system, you can't chose to have a go like that, it's
> >  "standard group nothing".
>
> I, too, remember the vanilla days of improvising for dungeon runs and I have
> also 4 manned dungeons with one of the two roles missing recently. While
> that is certainly a possibility, it depdens on having a character that can
> serve as "off-tank" or "off-healer" and a group that is willing to try this.
> I think dumping this on people enlisted in the /lfg queue might not be
> appreciated by everyone or in all setups. And if you are willing to do this,
> you are still free to form your own non-standard group outside the /lfg
> tool.

Agreed, I see no way of implementing it within the /lfg system, but I
can't help but feel that there was more flexibility in the old days
(and perhaps the odd reluctant tank/healer who discovere the fun of
healing/tanking due to being cajoled into it).  On the other hand the
"good old days" did mean spending half an hour sitting in Ironforge
spamming "LF1M LBRS - need tank" in the LFG channel, which was no fun
to anyone.  On the other hand, I did occasionally used to receive
whispers from random people asking if I fancied coming on a dungeon
run with them, which was always good for the ego.

> >  Personally I rate vehicle quests as only slightly less bad than old
> >  style escort quests
>
> I love vehicle quests, provided they are not bugged (I'm thinking of those
> Howling Fjord dailies) or really hard to understand/see (I'm thinking of
> riding that damn giant in Zul Drak).

I definitely noticed that the Cata vehcile quests are way better than
the WotLK ones, and I got the distinct impression that vehciles were
"flavour of the month" and somewhat overused in WotLK.  That fad seems
to have passed, and vehciles are now used much more selectively.  Of
course without the vehicle mechanic, we would have no chucking baby
bears out of trees, which would be a shame to all involved.

> >  I only actually did occulus twice
>
> My problem with Occulus wasn't really the vehicle interface but fighting in
> 3 dimensions and finding it really hard to grok whether a mob was in front
> or behind me and losing orientation and my system of reference all the time.

Definitely agree on that one.  There are a number of other air-to-air
combat quests that suffered from that problem.

> > > In short, the vehicle system is robust enough to create any kind
> > > of non-role-based scenario the designers can dream up. However,
> > > it would not be a huge improvement for masses of damage role
> > > queuers to get shafted to a small handful of entirely vehicle
> > > based dungeons. Some people already everything to do with
> > > vehicles, in addition to that concern.
>
> >  The problem with most vehicle mechanics is that every one is slightly
> >  different, and because the mechanics are new, they use intrusive aids
> >  to help you understand what you're supposed to do, making them feel
> >  really dumbed down (but they aren't acutally easy).
>
> If they went this way, they would need to give players a chance to practise
> the controls beforehand, like they did with the argent tournament. You could
> learn how to joust doing the dailies before entering ToC. So, unlike
> Occulus, people already knew (or could have known) how to work the vehicle.

If I had a vehicle I knew, that had fighting techniques that actually
resembled the class I chose to play (if I'm playing a paladin, I don't
expect to have a "glass cannon" type weapon to work with, if I play a
mage, a tanking vehicle just feels wrong), I might be happier with
it.  If they wanted to revisit the Occulus type instance, perhaps one
way to do it would be to have a set of pre-quests for each of the
vehicle types.  Not only would there be a better chanec that players
would know what they were doing, they would also be able to introduce
more complexity and subtlety into the vehcile mechanics to make them
more fun, without just confusing people.  Of course then people would
whine that "I did all the prequests on my main, and I can't be
bothered to on my nth alt, why can't I just use them all
automatically?"