Prompted from some discussion late last night, I'm curious to find out what kind of player you are...
After a few wipes on Flame Leviathan +2 (25%, 15%, 4%), the group decided that they wanted to take down an additional tower to down levi, and move on to other content. My initial reaction pushes me to keep trying--mostly, because I love the challenge. Hard is what I'm here for...But, on the other hand, there's still a lot of Ulduar that remains to be seen, so taking down a tower for the sake of progress is fine by me. Later on, this provoked a discussion about fights, and either the presence or absence of luck. Personally, I don't really believe in luck--I like to have more faith than that. I look at the group we're running with, I know what everyone is capable of, and I'm good to go. Now, this isn't to say that I don't believe in glitches....Maexxna shooting invisible wraps across the room is a glitch. Invisible flame walls in OS is a glitch; there's no escaping these things, and they cannot be controlled. On the other hand, 2 sentinels spawning at the same time at razorscale: shitty, but manageable. Big ring of death spawning under Steelbreaker right before a fusion punch: really shitty. Manageable? Perhaps...
The point I was trying to make last night (whether I was able to come close to it or not), was that these fights are hard. Any minute thing can cause a wipe. No matter what Murphy may have in store for us (referrring to his law), I cannot let this disuade me from trying a fight. We should know by now that these are coordination fights...if we are all individually good at what we do, yet we can't seem to get something to work, then, either is true:
(a) Someone is messing up or
(b) We are all messing up or
(c) We need a new plan
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When working on difficult fights, its very easy to write one off as, being "too difficult," or say things like "we don't have this" (blaming either group composition or player ability). After 6 or 7 wipes, I might concede to this way of thinking...but I don't expect to go in and one shot every boss. When I read blogs from progressive guilds, or tweet with some reknowned players-- I get to see that they stumble just as we do. I see that some fights take 8, 9, or 10 wipes to get the hang of (think back to the very first night of 3.1, working on leviathan for over 2 hours). They don't attribute success to their gear, or to luck, or to God. They attribute their accomplishments to their hard work. Because they're in there, every night, wiping, and wiping, and wiping; theorycrafting, trying to find the strategies that best work for them. This. Is. Resiliency.
So I'm curious to see what kind of player everyone is...
I myself, probably should be in an extremely hardcore raiding guild--But I enjoy Honor and Glory waaaaay too much to ever consider leaving (you guys really are the best. Never had so much fun as I'm having right now). I like challenges, and I try to push myself to the limit, without being overzealous. Do I want to try X2-002 hard mode? Absolutely. Do I think its feasible right now? Not quite. FL+2? Fuck yeah. FL+4? Not even close....yet. Sarth+1? SOON =)
This is me. I want it all. Money, cash, clothes, diamond rings. Fo Shizzle.
What kind of player are you? When we raid, am I pushing too hard? Or not enough? What are your goals?
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I agree that you have to wipe many times to succeed. However, the people that do all of the hardmodes and try 10+ times to get them are people that have cleared most or all of Ulduar. They have no content to get down, except for Algalon. I do think that we could get 2 towers down, but I think that I would rather move on and get more attempts at the other bosses rather than prove that we can do 2 towers, which we all know that we can. Just my take on things.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Thanks for letting me tank! I was so excited :D
Great discussion, Chris. I guess what I meant by "luck" was that -- even with players not making mistakes -- a series of events in a fight can lead to an insurmountable situation. We can have the right group put together, but if we get too many Sentinels for adds on Razorscale, and there is more blue fire than usual, it may lead to OOMs, deaths, and wipes. Will that happen every time? No. And that's what I mean by "luck". There's this balance between the skill and gear of the players, the class make-up of the group, the general difficulty of the fight, and the "bad luck" that occurs as part of the randomness of the fight. Could we have downed FL that night? I think so. But the combination of the elements I mentioned above says that it was possible that getting him down to 4% was a very good showing by that group, and might not have been repeatable in the next 3 or 4 tries. There's no guarantee that each time you go into a fight you do BETTER. So, I weigh the likelihood of repeating -- and improving upon -- the performance, how much gold I've invested in repairs, by frustration level, and my desire to try other fights. That night, at that point, I would rather continue on. Next time? I don't know. Depends on those factors. I will say that I am with you on the "this should be relatively difficult or it's not fun" viewpoint. I want to try these fights. I want to go for achievements. I want to try 1- and 2-drake OSs. Effin BUH-RING-IT!! But sometimes it's a diminishing returns kind of deal, and it's best to save the fight for another day.
ReplyDeleteNow this is what I'm talking about...great insight Hazl. Its easy to misplace diminishing returns--especially for me sometimes, cause i'm always all jacked up on mountain dew.
ReplyDeleteAnyway...this is the kinda discussion i like to see!