World of Warcraft: Current Year

You guys are really underestimating how bad the average pug player is.

There are tons. It amazes me how bad some people are. G/f has been playing one or two days a week for about a month now. Finally have her ilvl up to the 180’s without me bankrolling her. With as little as she plays games, and as new to Wow as she is - I still end up healing people in groups more than her. It blows my mind that she knows to avoid the bad more than people that have a chiev list a mile long.

My least favorite thing about doing those groups with her is that the general takeaway those people have from those runs is that paladins need to be nerfed. Like no, you fuck wit. Just because I use my cd’s to save your ass does not mean the class is broken.

Never mind the fact that even as new as she is, she gets amazed more often than not when she’s in first place for dps. Needless to say, I get amazed too but not for the same reasons.

There are a non-trivial amount of players that don't push buttons. You know all the stuff you do? When you're doing that stuff they aren't doing anything. I don't mean they're doing the wrong thing. I mean they aren't doing anything. GCDs are going unused one after another after another. Resources sit unspent and good abilities are not put on cooldown.

Arbitrary said:

There are a non-trivial amount of players that don't push buttons. You know all the stuff you do? When you're doing that stuff they aren't doing anything. I don't mean they're doing the wrong thing. I mean they aren't doing anything. GCDs are going unused one after another after another. Resources sit unspent and good abilities are not put on cooldown.

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The easiest way to see this is to track how many interrupts each person in the party is doing. Even being off GCD doesn't matter to a lot of these kids. They don't interrupt shit.

Merrith said:

The easiest way to see this is to track how many interrupts each person in the party is doing. Even being off GCD doesn't matter to a lot of these kids. They don't interrupt shit.

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There was a discussion on reddit about how they could make interrupts more widely used. A bunch of people were on the boat for getting a DPS boost out of it, which is a good idea. But I also think there should be much more punishing mechanics for some mobs. I want to see an NPC that casts a spell that is specific to DPS and Tanks. A spell that has resilience enough that it needs multiple interrupts on the same spell to interrupt it. So a trash mob would need to be prioritized over others and needs 2 interrupts on that one spell, a boss needs 4 interrupts etc. with a 45 second CD on that spell being cast again. Either it wipes the group, or kills the individuals that it targeted and didnt interrupt it. Damage boost, sure. But until people start dying and complaining about it, then its not going to change.

Make those spells start at Mythic 10 if the concern is about casuals. As a tank, I have to learn shit to do 10's so everyone else should too.

Daidraco said:

There was a discussion on reddit about how they could make interrupts more widely used. A bunch of people were on the boat for getting a DPS boost out of it, which is a good idea. But I also think there should be much more punishing mechanics for some mobs. I want to see an NPC that casts a spell that is specific to DPS and Tanks. A spell that has resilience enough that it needs multiple interrupts on the same spell to interrupt it. So a trash mob would need to be prioritized over others and needs 2 interrupts on that one spell, a boss needs 4 interrupts etc. with a 45 second CD on that spell being cast again. Either it wipes the group, or kills the individuals that it targeted and didnt interrupt it. Damage boost, sure. But until people start dying and complaining about it, then its not going to change.

Make those spells start at Mythic 10 if the concern is about casuals. As a tank, I have to learn shit to do 10's so everyone else should too.

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Ironically, Night Fae Hunters already have possible dps boosts from interrupts depending on soulbinds/conduits. One of our Finesse conduits gives back X amount of focus per successful interrupt (which indirectly can help dps), and the bottom of Niya soulbind's tree behind the 2nd potency conduit is her row 8 ability that puts a dot on mobs we successfully interrupt, plus further direct damage if we interrupt it again with the dot on.

I don't know about the whole multiple interrupts and resistance that forces everyone to "chip away" at a spell or something. Good M+ groups and raid groups you'll already have interrupt rotations where it's relevant, is it better to pile that all up into just one cast every 45 sec, or does it take more skill/organization to arrange individual interrupts for multiple casts over X amount of time? I don't know the answer, and obviously length of CD on each spec's interrupt comes into play in some of these situations.

Koushirou said:

Isn't that basically what Wildstar had with their interrupt system (spells had a "shield" that required X number of kicks to break, then the spell could be interrupted)? I don't remember it being particularly popular, but I also didn't stick around long with that shit game.

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Now that you mention it, I believe they did have something similar. But like you.. I didn't stay around very long in that game past max level either.

Im sure the conversation comes up periodically between devs among several MMO's. There's just no clear answer on how to teach what is likely a very fundamental difference between those two groups of players that reach higher in keys and those that don't. I don't see anything relative to Interrupts on the Kyrian conduits, but it's interesting to know they are trying something with Ardenweald's. In my mind, interrupts are entirely too easy to do but as a tank.. I clearly see the benefit of not getting chunked for 60% of my health in one shot. As a DPS, its entirely possible to get into higher keys and know fuck all about the instance, not interrupt and still get carried through it. That's not guaranteed, but we all know it can and does happen. Without them having a deadly component tied to each individual's success in the group.. it'll only perpetuate.

Koushirou said:

Isn't that basically what Wildstar had with their interrupt system (spells had a "shield" that required X number of kicks to break, then the spell could be interrupted)? I don't remember it being particularly popular, but I also didn't stick around long with that shit game.

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Yes. Basically the whole group had to pay attention or it wasnt getting interrupted.

Mist said:

On casting packs in high keys, interrupts are already a pretty big thing, not sure how you could make them even bigger.

Interrupts on bosses are a little too easy but bosses have lots of other mechanics to watch out for.

I can't imagine there's a huge audience of people who think 16+ keys are too easy and need even more mechanics to react to.

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When I'm thinking of mechanics to add/change, I'm not necessarily thinking about the keys past 12+. What I want the dev's to figure out is how to get the players that don't focus interrupts to start doing so. Whether by baby steps or otherwise. It really doesn't affect you or I, but whenever I take my g/f through a dungeon.. occasionally, I see some outstanding dps. But they really give shit all about an interrupt. They would be valuable players to have if they felt like they had to give a shit. Get them to be on guard/ready for an interrupt that is required and I anticipate that they would more often than not interrupt a random NPC. At least that's what I "feel" would be the right direction towards closing the gap.

I want them to change their goal in order to be more inclusive. Being that I feel like the goal should be closing the gap between casuals and hard core, not separating them from my skill level or higher.

Daidraco said:

When I'm thinking of mechanics to add/change, I'm not necessarily thinking about the keys past 12+. What I want the dev's to figure out is how to get the players that don't focus interrupts to start doing so. Whether by baby steps or otherwise. It really doesn't affect you or I, but whenever I take my g/f through a dungeon.. occasionally, I see some outstanding dps. But they really give shit all about an interrupt. They would be valuable players to have if they felt like they had to give a shit. Get them to be on guard/ready for an interrupt that is required and I anticipate that they would more often than not interrupt a random NPC. At least that's what I "feel" would be the right direction towards closing the gap.

I want them to change their goal in order to be more inclusive. Being that I feel like the goal should be closing the gap between casuals and hard core, not separating them from my skill level or higher.

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Individual punishment rather than collective works better for that kind of thing. Like what they did with volcanic, where getting hit launches you into the air and interrupts dps. For a lot of those people, the link between 'mob x casting a spell' and 'tank suddenly dies' isn't clear. A better UI wouldn't hurt either, as well as some way of telling what the fuck abilities do on trash. As much fun as people screaming 'Why THE FUCK did you interrupt shadow crash instead of shadow bolt?!!' is, that still leaves them in the dark as to *why* they should do that other than that people yelled at them.

They should tie interrupt mechanics with raider.io score, a lot of players will suddenly remember there's a button taking dust in their UIs.

Serpens said:

As a casual myself, I think the easiest way to ingrain interrupts is to make the mobs they encounter most, leveling and probably outdoor WQ mobs, really hurt if they don't interrupt. Mobs that complete heal, take a huge chunk of health or put on a big dot, root/slow, or an annoying 5 minute debuff. Classic has a lot of those types of mobs, especially while leveling in the 50s.

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Yup - because that will make the game fun to play. Totally not just frustratingly annoying of preventing you from pulling multiple mobs, etc. The game is nowhere near what it was like in classic and trying to adjust it based on what works in Classic is a recipe for disaster.

The solution was already elaborated upon above, make interrupting a benefit to the player. Want to have DPS smash that button and beg to be first on a rotation? Add a % modifier to their damage when they successfully interrupt something for 20 seconds. Higher M+ is already about interrupting (and knowing what needs to be interrupted). Reward Jimmy casual by making his numbers go higher when he hits the button as appropriate and he'll use the button (albeit probably at the wrong time), which is a heck of a lot better than adding annoying as fuck abilities to random mobs.

Mist said:

Torghast also has a bunch of these mobs. For people who aren't super geared, a bunch of those spellcasters really hurt, and the bosses, oof.

What they need to do is make it clearer which mobs can be interrupted by stuns. A lot of people don't even try to stun trash mobs because half of them are randomly immune to stun and half aren't and there's no clear designator of which mobs are stunnable or not.

Loyal Beasts is not kickable, but is interruptible by stuns, and this is not clearly communicated to the player for such an important trash mechanic for that dungeon.

The same goes for other spells that can be used as interrupts on some mobs but not on others. Disorients, etc.

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Of all the mobs they nerfed in dungeons the one most people annoying they left alone. Those gorgons are just plain brutal. 2 stacks of their bleed and I start running away kiting to soothe them.