This was written a while ago as a reply to a reader style question that was featured at wow.com. The question itself was along the lines of “WoW is far too complicated. Imagine my shock at discovering that rogues have three separate hitcaps!” That would be for specials (yellow damage), poisons, and auto attacks (white damage), for those not in the know.
It’s a little harsher than most of my other posts, which is partly why it never got posted in the first place.
This orphan post goes live today, as I figured it would be… interesting, in light of changes that were announced at Blizzcon.
Armor Penetration is too “mathy”.
Jesus Christ in a handbasket.
~=~
Now here’s a complaint you don’t see very often.
WoW is too complicated!
I know, right? Ridiculous.
Blizzard has always been in the habit of not telling us players how things work. Stuff like spell hit, crit, things like haste, stats like that were never given an explanation. They were just there, and it was up to the players to figure out what they did. Its always been that way.
Stuff seemed, admittedly, more archaic back then (remember when they nerfed the crap out of the haste buff to Berserker stance, and nobody cared because nobody knew what it did?), but it was an older, simpler time, when nobody really knew how anything worked, including Blizzard.
For instance, take spirit. You know what spirit used to do? Well, spirit controlled how high your proc rates were. The more spirit you had, the more often your procs would… well, proc. This was why even warrior plate had spirit on it.
We, the general population, had basically no idea that this was so. How could we? The game didn’t tell us diddly squat, and the ability for us to gather feedback was nearly impossible. There was no such thing as WWS or Recount.
But then… then the community began to mature. The combat log became more detailed, and we developed addons that could use it. Sites like Elitist Jerks and Thotbott began to surface, and the knowledge of how this game works, the actual things that make it tick, was finally beginning to be unraveled.
It was a simpler era, where casters wanted intellect and lots of it, and things like crit and spell damage and healing (remember when those two were different stats? Seems like ages ago…) were barely understood.
The community matured a lot over the course of Burning Crusade. We discovered spell coefficients. We found a spell hit cap, and how much hit was needed to get there. We discovered and theorycrafted the many uses of haste.
And so it was that we strode bravely into the world of Wrath, armed with thousands of skilled theorycrafters, theory engines, simulation programs, and a very deep understanding of the game, all without Blizzard so much as even acknowledging that such mechanics existed.
So, go ahead and say the game is too complex, has stats that are too hard to understand. I say you’re simply too lazy.
Maybe four years ago such an excuse could have held its own. You could say that you aren’t hitcapped because you have no idea what the hitcap is. Four years ago, where would you find that out?
But now?
Google “hit cap [insert your class here]” and you will find your answer, and probably some helpful gearing guides on how to get there to boot.
So sure, maybe as a melee class you’re wondering about your multiple hit caps (no really) and how expertise and armor penetration fit into that. Maybe you don’t know, and don’t have the time to experiment on the training dummies that are standing right freaking there for exactly this purpose!
I’m sure you’ve been on the internet for a while, I’m sure you’ve figured out how to use it by now.
WoW is not too complicated.
You’re just lazy.
BigBearButt mentioned a long, long time ago that he felt WoW needed to be simplified a little bit. He didn’t really see why this game should require one to do calculus to figure out how to gear properly.
But here’s the thing. YOU don’t have to. OTHER people, who actually like that sort of thing, already HAVE and published their results in the public domain for your perusal.
And hey, maybe you don’t want to peruse elitist jerks, maybe you just want to skim.
Well, hey, there’s a blogosphere out here with literally HUNDREDS of blogs with information simplified enough even a “stupid old bear” can understand them and even post guides to understanding them!
Even failing that, WowWiki is sure to have the answers.
Gearing is not supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be hard. You don’t need to know what your hit cap is if all you’re doing is questing, but you do if you expect to raid.
You can wear whatever and quest very effectively, but if you expect to step your game up, if you expect to do end game content, whether it be raiding or PvP, you are going to have to learn your shit.
Maybe you expected the game to spoon feed you. Sorry, that ain’t gonna fly here at the end game.
Maybe you’re a brand new hunter and you show up to raid naxx, and you pull a wopping 900 DPS on Patchwerk.
Good lord, you suck, /kick.
But I don’t knows how to play! This game is too complicated!
You’re right, you don’t know how to play, now get the hell out of my raid and don’t come back until you do. Seriously. Google “WoW how do i hunter”.
Let’s take me, for instance. I don’t really know anything about tanks.
I’m aware that there is something called a defense cap around 540, that parry and dodge are good but dodge is way better, gemming for stamina is good, and expertise and hit do something regarding threat generation. I have no idea what Block Value does.
And you know what? I don’t tank. I don’t even pretend to tank, or know anything about tanking.
But if I ever had the tanking bug? If I ever wanted to know?
I’d press control + T, go to google, type in “tankspot”, and start goddamn learning.
It takes more effort to make freaking toast.
TA;DR: Too Asshole; Didn’t Read.
Rip, the naysayers can say what they want about you – they may call you an asshole, a jerkwad, a douchebag, perhaps even an Elitist Jerk (cwhatididthere), and you know what?
Maybe they’re right.
But it doesn’t mean you’re wrong.
We, the players, have had almost 5 fucking years to figure this shit out. It should take a newbie at least two months to level a main, assuming said newbie spends time making alts that are forgotten at level 15, no RAF, getting rest XP normally, ect ect. In that two months, if you never figured out how to get your shit together, then get it together now, because you’re right – there is no excuse. We have official forums for discussion. We have blogs full of information. We have Elitist Jerks telling us how to spec for X DPS / Y Survival / Z Maxhealing. Use the goddamn resources available to you.
I’ve been called all of those things multiple times, and it’s perfectly fine, because it’s all true.
I am, in fact, quite the pompous dick, according to friends and family.
Though honestly “too asshole, didn’t read” is freaking hilarious.
Personally, I love reading about a new class I am leveling or changes to my old favorites, I like to read others opinions and theory crafting, formulating my own opinions and figuring out how stuff works best for me. Anything worth doing is worth putting some effort into figuring out how it works.
In other words, I mostly agree with your rant lol
When I watched the stream, I knew it will be like this in a lot of places.
It’s just a removal of unneeded stats from gear. Druid tanks had it done for a good while now – they get crit immunity from talents and no leather gear has any defense on it.
It’s not “dumbed down”, it hasn’t become HP, MP, Power only. Most of the stats will still be there on your character sheet.
I’m glad they are removing Arpen. When I need a freaking excel to play this game properly, it’s not good. And official forums, EJ and stuff? Don’t make me laugh.
Go make an alt and ask in the Rogue forum for advice, “I have a geared and hit capped rogue, should I pick up more haste or rather focus on arpen now”, or something similar. 99% of the time you’ll get “check the spreadsheet” as an answer. “What am I doing wrong?” – “check the spreadsheet”. “How do I do more DPS?” – “check the spreadsheet”. Blogs? “Use SnD, Rupture, Evis, and check the spreadsheet”. That’s bullshit, not a helpful community resource.
And no, gearing should not be TOO hard. It shouldn’t be TOO easy as well. Losing a few stats is not going to make it TOO easy. But it is starting to be too hard when I need a completely external tool, be it excel or rawr, to see if I want this item or not.
I’m trying to see it that way, I really am.
I suppose it’s a “wait and see” thing, but I just don’t think I could really handle a world of loot where it takes no effort to decide if a drop is an upgrade.
So – here’s my take on it. It’s complex, but the real problem is that it’s complex and opaque.
There’s some good advice out there on the far edge. “Hey, I’m level 80 and want to do my role in raiding or PVP.” Anything outside of that is much harder to get constructive advice on. So, there’s a massive potential range that just never gets discussed.
Why have the range of choices at all if there’s only one or two sets worth having? What if there’s a set of talents that works perfectly with my talents and role in the raid that I’ll never discover because I’m doing exactly what the folks at EJ are saying?
What about: “Hey, I’m level 14, and I have some friends at 80 and I’ve made a mage but I keep dying. What’s the best talents to pick for a noob who doesn’t know how to play yet?”
Or: “I’m a paladin who needs to solo most of the time, but sometimes my friends play with me with their alts, so I need to be able to heal too, because no one levels a healer. What’s a good balance between the two talents and glyphs? I can’t afford dual spec yet.”
Combo this with three more facts:
1) It’s hard to tell if many talents are going to make a difference in how I play until after I get them (is 3% crit to an attack useful?)
2) It costs money to change failed talenting experiments, which will tend to hurt the people trying to learn what’s going on (generally the noobs)
3) WoW has lots of tiny stacking additions (3% here, 1.5% here, 7% here, +10 here) so it’s hard to get a feel for the effects of those changes vs picking up a new attack.
And the the net result is a game is totally unfriendly to new people trying to figure it out.
Well, I think that your post is pretty much right about people needing to take the time to learn on their own, from the resources available to them, how to gear their classes appropriately for what they want to do.
Mainly, my objection has always been that in order to provide that mathematical foundation for others, the community had to work and study like madmen (and women). I really just wanted us to have less guesswork in some of the formula.
I always just wanted Blizz to open up a bit more, be more transparent.
But yes, the tools are now in place, thanks to the efforts of the community. So if we can spend hours developing the data, yes, google should be your friend before complaining you don’t have any idea what to do.
I think it is reasonable to describe armor pen as too complex, given that Blizzard had to tell the theorycrafters how it worked.
I just, well, love you.
But Google is too complicated to use too! Look at Google.com and tell me how I’m supposed to make sense of all that clutter! What with the hundreds of buttons, dials, meters and flash ads on Google.com you shouldn’t expect people to use it.
Why don’t other people do the math, publish the info, search for the info, and plug it directly into my character ingame for me?
I have important things to tweet, I don’t have time for this.
Raider101.com
However, I’m not sure how often that site gets updated, seeing that the mage guides that I wrote up eons ago are still being deemed the most up-to-date.
“No effort” to determine if something’s an upgrade?
It already takes almost no effort, thanks to gear lists and stat weights. Hell, if you just go with whatever has a higher i-level, you’ll do great 85% of the time.
Now don’t get me wrong—I like the idea of itemization playing a role in the game. Right now it doesn’t. There’s no decision on my part when a bit of clothie gear drops—the stat weights and mathamancy have already made the decision for me. Did it take time to learn why? Yes, about forty minutes. After that, the only “effort” involved is that of grinding dailies so I have the money to regem for just enough hit or grab the speed ‘chant on my new shoes.
I do not have the option to, say, stack haste with a fire mage. It’s subpar and will get me laughed out of the guild. There’s no experimentation or trial and error any more. There’re no decisions. It’s completely stagnant—just farm Heroic Whatever until that pretty hat drops, because you know it will eventually and you know it’s an upgrade.
The only part of the game, I think, where itemization is still even somewhat interesting is in the realm of PvP twinkage.
Perfect example? Glyphs. There are dozens of them doing all sorts of cool things, but only three, maybe four get any serious attention from any one spec.
Sadly, much the same goes for talent trees. In PvE, it’s usually one build per spec, with maybe some debate over the last two talent points. In PvP things are slightly more variable, but even that has generally agreed-upon best builds for 2v2 or 3v3 or BG’s or whatever.
If gear and talents are supposed to let us customize our character, to be different and try cool new things, why are they so very fixed? If there’s all this complexity, why isn’t there any diversity?
I think Blizz is trying to take a hard look at that, and do something about it. I don’t know if they will be successful. Or if they can be. The community’s mature enough that somebody will crunch all the numbers out, and then there’ll be another best build. Still, I’m hopeful. The change can’t make things worse.
I’m hoping Cat gear will turn out like:
Theodore’s Chaos Spaulders
+185 Stamina
+211 Intellect
+126 Haste
+177 Spellpower
Rather than stuff like this:
Mr. Gee’s Spaulders of Everything
+185 Stamina
+188 Intellect
+86 Haste
+66 Critical Strike Rating
+51 Hit
+177 Spellpower
The chance is there to make gear more diverse, more personable, in the same way they’re taking the talent trees.
There is no diversity because the raiding world is focused on achieving the maximum from each class. If you look at Maintankadin there are a bunch of maths threads on how to select talents and several builds come up as best for TPS, survival, and in specific situations, these then become the standard build because they are exactly that, the most efficient.
Anyone that understands the game though can build a talent spec that is within 5-10% of these (if not closer, we are talking hundreds of TPS not thousands) with basic understanding of GCDs and similar (people refusing to take 1s off judgement so its CD isn’t a multiple of 1.5 for example).
Diversity occurs in the lower parts of the game where imperfect is ok, or where you need flexibility. Each time a flexible spec comes up however Blizzard kills it as it is hard to balance. At one point raiding WotLK paladins had:
Baconadin
Shockadin – Light off healer
Tankadin
Retadin
Sheatheadin – Melee HL healer
Shock and Sheathe were killed, sheathe especially because it was more efficient than bacon for its specific task.
As with any game your top end players produce whats effective. If you have played games like command and conquer you don’t tend to build light tanks, or units that have high attention requirements (due to not having it when being smacked by other players), instead you build the most efficient time x cost x survivability x damage units and ignore the rest of the tech tree.
To make multiple builds useful they need to be < 1% away from each other so there is no noticeable difference. At current with the talent trees a Worgen X will be 1% better than any other race, which begins to become a balancing issue… thats the level of competition the top ranks get and its needed especially for tuned fights (1% damage across a brutallus fight: 28,500 raid DPS would be 285 extra damage, yet a melee group would stack a Ret Paladin for the + damage bonus…).
Just discovered this little gem of a blog. Thanks for the great advice and commentary.
This game is way, way too easy as it is, and Blizz does nothing but continue to make it easier. All I know and hear about are people that are leaving the game because it is not a challenge any more. Threat has been nerfed so hard that I don’t even have Omen loaded half the time…and don’t notice when its not. I wait maybe have a second on my Mage before I just start unloading and don’t let up till the boss is dead. On my healer(Pally) I just spammed my biggest heal the whole fight and and still ended with full mana.
Personally, I am glad they have done what they have done because I am a casual player and was really straining to meet the time requirements before. But I really don’t want them to make it any easier than it is now.
To say the game is still too hard is just ridiculous, you need play something else.
The discussion is kind of missleading from my point of view. It is damn hard to figure out how to do the optimal DPS.
It took me 4 weeks to figure out and equip in the better direction.
But it is doable, but there is a need of research and it was nothing that you could have learned the way to level to 80.
I looked for help on this page and found usefull first information, but still you really have to go to EJ to find out the rest.
For you guys doing the endgame content with your chars for many days now it is trivial. But all other have to figure out again.
Even if you have been in the game for long, everything is changing, sometimes slow sometimes fast. Each time you have to figure out what is the new spec to go and how to handle it.
Of course this is interesting, but it leads also to a huge need to adapt.
For me the way from 2K DPS to 4K DPS was tough, but I am glad that I finally managed it with my mage.
Nonetheless, keep the good stuff up.
Pallynoob, I am confused. If you read your tooltips it will tell you damage done per strike, your optimum DPS rotation would therefore be highest Damage / cooldown. For other classes its slightly harder (Locks having to immolate [boo] to conflag [yay] so worse to do better) but its really not more than grade school math.
Also first google result for “retribution paladin dps rotation” : http://www.wowwiki.com/Paladins_as_DPS
Which has the FCFS listed in DPS order.
Many of us went through Vanilla, and even TBC without a lot of guides to start, we worked out what seemed to work best and got by easily. Normally the theory crunchers work things out fast, its no more difficult really than an RTS expansion where they add new units that are specific or simply better than others, you just need to crunch a little experience or maths.
Hi 2ndNin,
thanks for your reply. I was not speaking about my paladin, I was refering to my mage. Please excuse my missleading name.
Of course you make your thoughts about highest spell damage and stuff like that. And after a couple of hours you may think: Now I got it.
But unluckily you can never be sure. What it the right number of DPS that I should deliver with the gear I have?
If you are in are lucky you will group with another mage, who has similar gear and you will than notice that you are short on DPS.
Than you have to rethink.
If get even more complicated when you add ping time and other delays.
Of course you get tips like use X with highest priority…..
I can only tell for myself, it was a huge field of expierience, with three skilltrees and different hit caps, need of haste, need of crit and so on.
And it is different for each char. I had to learn for my DK, I had to learn for my Paladin, I will have to learn for my Warrior and for Schaman and Druid.
What would really help is a calculator like:
Input gear,
Latency,
=> output Theoretical max/average/min DPS
(optional) buffs in Raid
This way you can check where you are and it is clear that you have to improve.
I think mathifications make Blizz’s collective head hurt.
When they’s designing new rules and gear and all, they cain’t be looking it up on EJ or wherevers, ’cause it ain’t there yet. So, they’s on they own. And I don’t think they’s very good at it. Which be why every time there’s a patch and the community goes and figgers out how ta make the most of the new system, Blizz goes “dangit!” and rewrites half of it in the next patch. So we players is forced ta zig-zag every couple months, re-speccing and re-gearing and re-learning a spell rotation, all because the designers is pissing in the dark.
I thinks a less mathified game would be a good – not ’cause is too much fer us, but because is too hard fer them.
I think the issue is not that we can Google info on our classes. It’s that we are forced to Google info on our classes.
Wow caters to people who don’t play MMOs, and perhaps don’t even really play computer games. There is no cultural, natural, or suggested instinct to search the web for game info. No other type of game requires is, save perhaps competitive gambling.
So once a new player learns that there is info out there, then yes, the impetus is on them to use it. But I still point the finger at Blizzard for not even informing the new player that there is more information at hand.
Very few games ever provide you with all the information you need. From the 100% casual never going to read anything perspective more stats = better generally guided by armour class. Think of it like an RTS or similar, you can build a highly optimised task force (In Generals Humvees with repair drones, 1 snipe, 4 rocket troopers could take apart almost anything they met), or you can build some of everything and play.
Imo its fun to have hidden depths so you can build the highly optimised force rather than 150 stam > 100 stam.
[...] a bit more crazy for the casters, with removal of both MP5 and spell power, so they are panicking a bit more than we rogues are, but remember folks. It’s getting easier, not too easy. You [...]
This just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.
People who don’t take responsibility for learning their class (and then complaining in raid about not being top DPS or whatnot) irk me. Now I don’t have to QQ…
<3
[...] WoW is the Most Complicated Game Ever @ Critical QQ Before reading this, I was against all the people arguing that Blizzard is simplifying too much, because I am sick of all the mathiness. But Euripedes has a good point, it’s not that complicated… the people who enjoy the mathiness have done all the work for us, anyway. [...]
I’m kinda indifferent to the stat simplification. It doesn’t bother me as long as there are still interesting gear choices to be made.
My theory about stat simplification is that stats have gotten more complicated over the past 5 years. Changes are made with every patch and even bigger changes and additions are made with each expansion. There’s no reason to assume it wouldn’t have continued to get more complicated in the next patch if Blizz didn’t do something.
My assumption is that Blizz is attempting to “reset” stats so they can begin to grow on them again. I’m sure in time they will become sufficiently complicated.