07/01/2010

My take on the Oculus changes

So the Oculus has received some updates yet again, this time in the form of some extra loot drops from the last boss. A lot of people have already commented on this, but I wanted to think about it a little longer before making a post on the subject.

The first conclusion that I came to is that the fact that the blue drake now also drops in Oculus kind of sucks for people who already had one from Malygos and were priding themselves in having a truly rare mount. My boyfriend is one of them. I do feel a bit sorry for him, though we'll see how common the drop actually is. We might not yet see a wave of blue drakes flood the skies of Northrend after all.

Secondly... the whole thing just strikes me as pretty stupid; I'm sorry but I have to say it. I'm not an Oculus hater myself (not anymore anyway), but from what I can gather those who still do avoid it like the plague don't do so because it doesn't drop enough loot.

Basically, as far as I can tell, people expect to get fun out of any part of the game in two ways. The first is from basic gameplay, like running around, exploring and whacking stuff. The second is in the form of rewards that improve their character.

If a piece of content is lacking in the first department, say because it's very difficult and people end up spending much more time dead than alive (which isn't very fun), then you can make it more appealing by making it easier, so people can spend more time actually playing (i.e. running around and whacking stuff). That's what they did for Halls of Reflection in the last batch of changes for example and it makes sense. I can say that I personally enjoyed the challenge of that instance as it was, but I also had enough wipes on the ghost encounter to understand why a lot of people considered it very un-fun. In this case making it slightly easier should help to make the dungeon more appealing again.

If a piece of content is lacking in terms of rewards, like a raid whose gear drops have become obsolete, you can make it appealing again by adding new and better rewards. (Hello there, achievements for Molten Core and the like!) That's also what they've been doing with heroics throughout this expansion, by upgrading the emblems to a higher tier with every major content patch.

What Blizzard has done with the last amount of Oculus changes however, is trying to fix a category one problem with a category two solution. People might cite different reasons for hating the Oculus, but I'm sure that the really deep-seated dislike, the kind that makes people drop from the group as soon as they zone in, has never been inspired by a lack of rewards. It's having to play a stoopid dragon when you want to play a priest/paladin/whatever, it's navigating an instance in three dimensions, it's wasting endless amounts of time mounting up and dismounting again (which does take a good ten seconds each time, what with the silly vehicle interface) and so on. People won't suddenly increase their tolerance for that kind of crap just because you offer them two extra badges and a gem.

In my battlegroup I actually haven't had any massive problems with Oculus groups falling apart as soon as people zoned in; I always only read about that elsewhere. Yet when the luck of the draw threw my shaman in there today, on the first day of the new additional rewards, two dps instantly quit the group. I think that says it all really.

I don't blame Blizzard for wanting to lure people into doing content they spent a long time designing and putting together. They haven't failed completely for sure, just to use myself as an example: My first two runs of the Oculus were horrible and painful experiences and I never wanted to go back there again after I got my Champion of the Frozen Wastes title. A few months later I ended up braving the instance with an alt anyway, and found that the drakes scaling with better gear really helped a lot on the last fight, making me more open towards the experience again. (Eregos being too unforgiving when people didn't use their drakes' abilities correctly all the time was a playability problem that received an "increased playability" solution, as it should be.)

However, there's also a point where you have to admit that something just doesn't work, and then it's time to either leave it be or to scrap it altogether. A lot of people hate the drake riding mechanic, no amount of increasing the loot tables or nerfing overall mob health is going to change that. They could either accept that a large portion of their playerbase simply doesn't like the concept, or they could revamp the instance entirely, say by connecting all the platforms on the same level and adding a lift or teleporter to move between them. Leaving the drakes for the last fight only might be just about acceptable to a lot of people (just like they tolerate the jousting as part of the first encounter in Trial of the Champion).

Sound too drastic? As I said they could also just accept that not every part of the game is for everyone. So what? The World of Warcraft didn't end when people stopped collecting Silithyst either. And anyway, at the rate at which things are going, it might be easier to revitalise silithyst collection than to make the Oculus popular...

7 comments:

  1. People who instantly dropped out, will probably continue to do it. Normally it's the tank who quits first.

    The extra reward is for the remainder of the group who waits TWICE 15 minutes for a tank. I think a better solution would be to add a shortcut that not-full fully random Oculus groups get a replacement before any other group. :)

    About the drake. Yes, that sucks. You know why? Because it was incredible easy to form it before. 10 man S3D speed kills are very very very easy. Now, the drake is purely luck based and much harder to get (you need to be assigned to Oculus and you have to be lucky and get one). I wish I farmed it before. :)

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  2. @Kring: You're thinking of the black drake, that's still available the same way as before. The blue drake used to be a rare random drop (and thus not farmable) from Malygos.

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  3. Oh, you're right. :) Hmm... interesting change... Then it doesn't matter do me. Luck based rare items suck anyway, IMHO. Yes, I'm looking at you Anzu.

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  4. I guess I should end making a post about Oculus in my blog,but since I've already expressed my thoughts in several places would be too repetitive... oh well, let's focus on your post :)
    I agree that there's something not working correctly in that instance and trying to lure people with more loot is not the perfect solution. However I think the problem comes mainly from people who refuses to learn the instance. But let's go bit by bit:
    - Using drakes. Ain't that bad, you only need to learn 3 buttons and they're only used for the last boss (I don't count the flight times to reach Centrifuge Constructs or Urom). If drakes were a failure why Flame Leviathan was a success? It's the same! Ok, your siege engine can't fly, but fight mechanics are the same.
    - Mounting/dismounting. I agree it could be faster, but I see a lot of people describing it as "clunky". Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see it's that bad. And unless you aggro a dragon when dismounting you have plenty of time to land safely then dismount.
    - 3D environment. I agree here lies the main problem. As I said somewhere you need a good navigation device, not that shitty Netscape logo that doesn't help much. Again here people is part of the problem, because they need to learn to move in such environment. I know moving in 3D can be complicated and Oculus is a place with few good reference points to situate yourself (I'm scuba-diver, so I know what's this in real life). Once you know where to go it's a piece of cake.
    As I told Jess when she accused me to call her lazy, learning the place with a pug can be hard, but people refusing to learn the place from start as she stated it's what makes Oculus fail.

    So what could be done to fix the place cmpletely? I'd remove the drakes from the first boss and put teleporters (like Ulduar and ICC) to reach the different places and bosses. Once Urom is dead you get the drakes and fight Eregos. VoilĂ ! No more people getting lost. And once this is done, downing Eregos is easy as 1, 2, 3.

    I should end with a t-shirt saying "I love Oculus" or "Eregos for president" :P

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  5. > I agree that there's something not working correctly in that
    > instance and trying to lure people with more loot is not the perfect
    > solution.

    They don't even lure you into the instance. They only lure you to stay
    if fate puts you into the instance. They lure us into doing a daily
    random with the two frost badges. They don't lure us INTO Oculus,
    because you get the reward only if it's a random draw.

    > If drakes were a failure why Flame Leviathan was a success?

    It wasn't. A lot of perople hate FL.

    There is one difference. It's the first crap you have to do to get
    into the instance.

    In Oculus, the endboss is the vehicle fight. It would be better if the
    vehicle fight would be the first boss and then you get a beautiful
    instance.

    > It's the same! Ok, your siege engine can't fly,

    And 3 dimensions different than 2. I really really hope there won't be
    3 dimensional underwater crap in Cata. :)

    > but fight mechanics are the same.

    Only that you don't dismount during FL (unless you're entering him).

    > - Mounting/dismounting. I agree it could be faster, but I see a lot
    > of people describing it as "clunky". Maybe I'm missing something,
    > but I don't see it's that bad. And unless you aggro a dragon when
    > dismounting you have plenty of time to land safely then dismount.

    We don't wan't to have "plenty of time". We're there for two frost
    badges. Everything that prolongs the time in an instance is bad. And
    if something feals like hours, you feal like wasting hours.

    Don't get me wrong, I love 5 mans. But if you outgear the instance and
    there is no challenge whatsoever, it's not fun. We're only there for
    the emblems.

    > - 3D environment. I agree here lies the main problem. As I said
    > somewhere you need a good navigation device, not that shitty
    > Netscape logo that doesn't help much. Again here people is part of
    > the problem, because they need to learn to move in such environment.

    We don't "need" to learn that. We can just drop out of Oculus. That's
    exactly the point. :-)

    > Once you know where to go it's a piece of cake.

    Even a pieco of cake run of Oculus takes 20-25 minutes. Yyou have to
    clear the anoying trash before boss 1 which in itself is the worst
    thing I've seen in WoW since vanilla. This trash is so boring and
    stupid and repetitive...

    Most other instances can easily be done in 15 minutes and you can even
    have fun in them. :)

    > So what could be done to fix the place cmpletely? I'd remove the
    > drakes from the first boss and put teleporters (like Ulduar and ICC)
    > to reach the different places and bosses. Once Urom is dead you get
    > the drakes and fight Eregos. VoilĂ ! No more people getting lost. And
    > once this is done, downing Eregos is easy as 1, 2, 3.

    Yep. That sums it up perfectly well.

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  6. @Kurnak: The problem with your argument that it would all work if people only put more effort in, is that people really have no reason to do so. If I put more effort in, I could be better at PvP than I am, but I'm not really into it so I don't. WoW is a game with so many different facets, it's by definition designed for you to find something that you like and stick to that. So you can't really blame anyone for not finding Oculus fun and thus not wanting to run it. The game's not some kind of chore that you have to do.

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  7. The thing I find strangest about this whole Oculus thing is that they put bonus loot in it to stop people just quitting the moment they portal in, but *nowhere in the game does it tell you that*. You have to find it out from reading third party material (of course the extent to which third party material is a required part of the game is one of the things I find baffling about WoW in general).

    In defence of Kurnak, I think the thing about vehicle fights is that there's no clear line between "gimmicky game element that should die in a fire" and "important boss mechanic that people need to learn to use". I'm not sure there's a concrete difference of type between "I don't like having to fight in a vehicle" and "I don't like having to run around clicking the portals on those Valkyries".

    That said, I hate vehicle combat, and wish it would die in a fire.

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