How can people learn?

01/06/2011 8:30 AMPosted by Greendeath

How are people expected to learn new content, roles, skills, if the ones that can help refuse to?

It makes me sad to hear that you've had trouble finding players to help you through the new dungeon content. Even so, it's important to keep in mind that altruism isn't a universal trait and not everyone may feel compelled to lend a helping hand.

Try not to let that limit you, though. There are several ways to learn new fights, and none of them is really more correct than the other. While asking others for assistance in-game is perhaps the most straightforward, you do have other options available to you. For example, trial and error can be a great educator. I don't know exactly how much experience you've had with certain encounters, but after you after you complete a fight or wipe to it, trying looking over your Combat Log to see what happened. This way, you can find out what abilities a boss has, how much they hit for, and what kind of spells other players in your group might be interrupting (certain AddOns can help you parse this data). You could also check out online material, like dungeon guides or encounter videos. Or, since you seem to be an both articulate and compassionate person, you may want to reach out to your fellow players in the Dungeons and Raids forum, perhaps even your realm forum. Heck! You might even find a great guild to join that approaches the game the same way that you do.

Now, I know you're a bit dismissive of the idea, but guilds can be a wonderful resource, as well as a lot of fun! Simply because you've encountered a few unhelpful players in your journeys doesn't mean that all players behave similarly. In fact, I'd argue that most players are kind, fun-loving, helpful people, and having a guild full of individuals with which to communicate and explore content together can be invaluable. Don't write off the possibility completely. Look outside the box. Keep your options open. Etc.

Extremely long post short: Everyone learns in different ways, and it's possible that another method suggested in this thread might work out better for you than having to rely on party chat. Just the same, they might not work, and that's okay. Don't be afraid to try them out, though. You never know, you could find that an alternative is more enjoyable. :)

I wish they were, but let's be reasonable. This is World of Warcraft. There are a lot of bad apples. Not to say there are no kind people playing -- just that the jerks really seem to outnumber the nice ones.

That's not been my personal experience, so I'm willing to remain naively optimistic for the time being. I will admit that the bad in-game experiences I've had tend to stick with me longer than the good ones, though, and that it's difficult sometimes not to let those color my perception of a larger community of players.

But, good-hearted players certainly do exist. I've just found that they may not always be the most outspoken individuals and can be easy to miss. On that note, here's a /hug to all the nice people I've grouped with these last couple of weeks. :)

Let's keep this discussion civil, please. It's been going well so far and I'd hate to have it locked.

01/07/2011 12:18 AMPosted by Primitivism

Then you've never ventured outside your little bubble of guildmates and RL friends.

I never said that I haven't had poor in-game experiences. I have. After playing and interacting with hundreds if not thousands of players, it's inevitable. People have bad days. That doesn't mean, overall, my experiences haven't been positive.

To wax a bit philosophical: When our expectations aren't met, we're likely to remember how disappointed we felt in that moment. It's rare, though, for us to keep track of all those situations where everything went according to plan, where we killed all of a dungeon's bosses without much to-do. That's just human nature. The bad will often stick with us longer than the good or the neutral. While it's hard sometimes not to let the more grumpy players of Azeroth affect our judgment, it's important that we still try. Otherwise, we may end up painting a good person in a poor light or assuming that a community is "rotten to the core" when it isn't.

Just take a look this thread, for example: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/981608215

There are still rad players out there who are kind, fun-loving, and helpful. And there're more of them than you might think.

My advice for the blue here: take a high-level (80+) character that can dual-spec into a (non-DPS) role you don't normally play and dual-spec them, then play about 50 PUGs using the dungeon finder. For best results, only play dungeons you are unfamiliar with. See what you think of the gaming community then.

There seems to be this perception that those of us who work at Blizzard either don't play the game we support or, if we do play, that we exist in some sort of bubble and only interact with other Blizzard employees. While I can't speak for everyone, most employees I know play on wildly different realms in totally separate guilds. And we represent a wide variety of players, too. Some of us prefer solo content. Some are of us PvP masters. Some of us are those people you run into who seem compelled to stand in fire. We're not above anyone. We play by the same mechanics and the same rules, and we have to overcome the same challenges as you do.

Speaking personally (and perhaps more to your point), my main is a healer that sometimes queues as DPS. In my time using LFD, I've wiped because I've run out of mana. I've been kicked from dungeons for not knowing a specific encounter. I've been berated for forgetting about a boss' frontal cone attack once. I've waited in long queues. I've also had amazing runs where players have worked together to learn a new encounter or taken the time to explain a specific mechanic to those who are having trouble.

I know it might be an easy thing to do, but don't assume that simply because we're blue we don't "get it." We do. And even though we may try to provide suggestions for how players may improve or overcome certain challenges, that doesn't mean we don't also value what you have to say and won't be relaying your concerns onto our designers. We do, and we will. In the meantime, we just want to make sure that players aren't limiting themselves arbitrarily and are exploring all the options available to them.

01/09/2011 7:24 AMPosted by Bankaltbob

Experiential learners get ignored and dismisssed here.

Offering alternative methods of learning is not being dismissive of one particular type of learning, particularly when someone is asking for assistance or insight.

That said:

01/07/2011 5:17 AMPosted by Zebú

Sincerely, the game should have ways to teach players without burdening parties. Or, if a way can be found, some kind of reward for helping other players learn the content.

We know that it can be difficult sometimes for pick-up groups to accurately identify what went wrong after a fight or what could be done better (more CC, better interrupts, stronger heals on the tank, etc), which in turn can cause players to get frustrated and leave. This is a concern we've heard expressed through a number of different mediums and we agree that there's not a whole lot of in-game education available outside of trial and error. This is something the game could perhaps do better, so we definitely appreciate all the feedback we've received and continue to receive on the topic on how that might be accomplished.


As sort of an aside, Ghostcrawler just recently posted a new blog that delves into dungeon difficulty. For those of you who are invested in this topic, I'd encourage you to check it out: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2053469#blog

01/13/2011 9:01 AMPosted by Madia

The reason for this, in my humble opinion anyway, is because when a blue posts in the forums, it appears that you are naively ignoring the dark side of WoW as far as the negativity we non-Blizzard employees encounter in waves.

01/13/2011 9:01 AMPosted by Madia

"This is not what I am experiencing" responses is annoying to read from a blue.

I believe the exact quote you're referencing is "[t]hat has not been my personal experience," a statement I made in response to someone who claimed that the World of Warcraft community is primarily made up of rude and belligerent players.

Overall, the experiences I've had with other players have been positive. That's not to say I haven't encountered negativity or been treated poorly. I have. Or that I believe my experiences are somehow more representative of the community than yours. I don't. Your mileage may vary, and that's important feedback. It would be remiss of me, however, to just blindly agree that the community is no more than a snarling pack of slack-jawed vote kickers when, in fact, the time I've spent in game using LFD, negotiating deals via Trade, and running cross-realm battlegrounds has indicated otherwise.

Acknowledging that good-hearted players do exist and have left a lasting impression on me doesn't make me ignorant of the "dark side," as you've called it. It simply means that I appreciate the sincerity and politeness I've encountered in-game enough to call it out. I look for the good in people, so I find it. I'm sure that if I spent my time believing that all players were wretched, vile little cretins instead, I'd be able to produce a myriad of examples to support that expectation -- because, hey, we're not all rays of sunshine 24/7.

You have a lot of power over how you perceive the world. If you (the global "you") insist that the community is terrible and are unwilling to seek out the good in it, then, yes, you're probably going to have a bad time since you'll only be looking for behavior that validates your viewpoint. I was merely offering a different perspective to show that, no, everything is not hopeless and that, yes, it's possible to embrace the World of Warcraft community as something that's inherently good.

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With all that said, I just want to thank everyone who's participated in this discussion. As I noted earlier, we agree that there's not a whole lot of in-game education available outside of trial and error, and that this can sometimes lead to players becoming frustrated and dropping group. This is something the game could perhaps do better, so we definitely appreciate all the feedback we've received and continue to receive on the topic and on how we might continue to make your in-game experiences more epic.

01/20/2011 7:13 PMPosted by Aloeverra

I sure wish I could get some of those rose-colored glasses you have on.

I crafted them out of good nature, love, patience, elbow macaroni, and glitter. I'd make you some, but their power comes from within.

We're definitely looking into ways to add more information about raid and dungeon bosses directly into the game client. For example, as discussed at BlizzCon 2010 in the Raids and Dungeons panel, we're already discussing the possibility of incorporating loot tables and boss abilities into zone maps. While "enhanced maps" are still in their formative stages, we love the idea of a player being able to access a variety of information about a specific boss -- including what it drops, what abilities it has, and maybe even some lore about who it is and why everyone in Azeroth wants to kill it -- just by opening the instance map and mousing over an icon.

This is all still on the horizon, of course, and would likely be something that's implemented in stages. Nevertheless, we agree that the game could provide better tools for players who are adapting to new content and are currently working to bridge that gap for the future (in a meaningful way that doesn't undermine or spoil the experience).

01/20/2011 4:05 PMPosted by Lucang

Please put a library or something in game where there are books players can read that describe all the dungeon/raid fights.