10-16-2004, 03:02 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-12-2005, 10:29 AM by MongoJerry.)
THE ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: Schooling Scholomance, part I
On Tuesday night, I was putzing around with Neriad doing some of the new quests in the Western Plaguelands, and I got the usual spams that priests get, asking if I'd like to join various instance groups. (Rogues, hunters, and pre-talent warlocks never seem to sympathize when I describe this burden of being a priest). I turned down most such invitations. Did I want to run BRD? Aw, come on, I farmed that place into the ground a couple patches ago. Did I want to run Stratholme? Maybe after I see some more of the newer content, but definitely not in the 10-15 person raid groups that most people want to run the place in. Did I want to run BRS? Not a chance. It's boring, I've done all the quests, and there aren't any drops in the entire instance that would interest a priest. (One person spent 10 minutes trying to convince me that BRS had good drops for priests by linking all the cloth drops he and his friends had found there. Every one of them were equaled or beat by BRD drops or by green items I had found elsewhere).
Ah, an invitation for a Scholomance group. Now that sounds interesting. I had run Scholomance in an 8-person party on the first evening of the patch, and it seemed like a fun instance. I had picked up a few Scholomance quests by this point, and I was itching to see what those quests were like and to see what kind of followup quests they had. Plus, the way our 8-person group had cut through Scholomance like a hot knife through butter, it looked like Scholomance was well balanced for a five-character party. Three times, however, I received invitations to Scholomance and had conversations like this one:
JoeSchmo: Want to run Scholomance?
Neriad: Maybe, how many people are going to be in the group?
JoeSchmo: We have 9 now, you'd be the 10th.
Neriad: Ah, no, sorry. I just want to do a 5-man run.
JoeSchmo: I just talked to our group, and they think you're nuts. No way can you run Scholomance with five people.
Neriad: I ran Scholomance in an 8-person party on the first night, and it was so easy that it looks like Scholomance could be done with a 5-person party.
JoeSchmo: We still think you're nuts.
Neriad: Possibly, but I don't like doing raiding parties if I don't have to. They're not as intense and you don't get as much loot from them anyway.
JoeSchmo: Just quest items. You still get boss loot.
Neriad: I want to do the quests. Besides, in raids, you have to split up loot you find more ways and end you end up with less.
JoeSchmo: Quests are lame. Boss loot rewls.
Neriad: This is a beta. I like items as much as anyone else, but there's no sense obsessing about items that are going to be deleted in the not too distant future when the game is released. Besides, how can we find out if the quests are "lame" if we don't do them in the first place? Some quests now lead to epic rewards, you know.
JoeSchmo: Nah, I just want boss lewt, and you can go faster in a big party.
Neriad: If you count all the time it takes to organize the party and all the extra downtime as people squabble over loot, go afk, buff extra people, etc., big groups only go a little bit faster than smaller groups. And then you have to divide what decent items do drop among a bigger group of people. Plus, each person gets a smaller share of "junk" vendor items to sell. When I come back from a 10-15 person raid on Stratholme or BRS, I usually find that after a several hour run I end up with no items and hardly any cash. They're just not worth it.
JoeSchmo: So, are you coming?
Neriad: No.
JoeSchmo: @$%$%^#*@R#%!
I sighed and kept on doing some quest stuff in Anderhol. (Most of the mobs in Anderhol have been changed to non-elites, by the way). Then, I got a message from Kronos, a level 60 warlock with whom I had done a lot of instance runs in the past.
Kronos: Want to join a Scholomance group?
Neriad: How many people in the group?
Kronos: We have eight now, you'd be the ninth.
I stopped and thought for a few moments. I had adventured with Kronos many times and have found him to be a great instance group member. He was only one of three regularly played PvP server level-capped alliance warlocks before warlocks got their talents. I respect a guy who's willing to buck the trend by sticking with a "gimped" character to a high level and is willing to experiment to find ways of getting the most out of his underpowered character. Now that warlocks have talents and are no longer so gimped, Kronos is even better for his experiences. He's also shown a willingness to take on challenges. He was in a 5-man Stratholme group with me that made it pretty far into the instance before wiping. I figured it might be worth it to join his group and then convince he and others in the raid to join a 5-person run later.
Neriad: Sure, I'll join. I'd like to do a 5-person group at some point, though. I did Scholomance with an 8-person party on the first day and it was really easy. I think a 5-person group is doable.
Kronos: Yeah, I agree. It's been hard finding people who want to run Scholomance with only five people. (pause) Hey, a paladin friend of mine wants to come. If we can get a warrior and a mage, want do a 5-person party now?
Neriad: Yeah!
Kronos: Got a mage!
Neriad: Got a warrior!
SCHOLOMANCE: Take 1
The five of us got together and started running Scholomance. I'm not going to lie to you. We ran into many problems and wiped several times. The instance was still very new to the party members. Two people had never been inside Scholomance at all and the rest of the party had only been there a couple times each. However, each wipe or near wipe taught us something new about the instance, and each time we came up with new tactics to get past difficult challenges. This dynamic is another reason why I prefer smaller groups to larger ones. People who adventure in small groups seem more willing to take responsibility for their actions and are more willing to accept that they can improve their play. It's a lot harder for people to hide from their mistakes, and therefore there's a better chance that people will change their play and become better players. People who play in raids a lot, or as I diplomatically call them "raid lamers," rarely accept personal responsibility for a group wipe. The typical response of a raid lamer to a wipe is that the instance is badly designed, that there's "no way" it can be done with a small group, and that even more raid lamers need to be summoned in.
The final wipe of our first five-person group came in the "room from hell" that houses Jandice Barov. It's a room that requires a lot of skill to pull correctly, as you'll see later. The thing that pissed us off the most about this wipe was that we did everything right. Kupeludo, our warrior, did an excellent job of pulling, while the rest of the group waited patiently in the back corner to safely kill everything Kupe pulled to us. So, how did we wipe? Respawns, of course. That room, and indeed the whole first section of Scholomance has an incredibly fast respawn timer. I am one of those weird people who actually like the idea of respawns in instances as a "death penalty" on groups who wipe too much. But the respawn timers in the first section of Scholomance are too short even for my taste. I submitted a /suggest that Blizzard increase the respawn times by about 15 minutes. That would allow there to be a death penalty while not punishing groups who are careful as they move through the instance.
This wipe was the final straw. It probably didn't help that we realized afterward that we shouldn't have been down in that room in the first place. Jandice Barov is a quest related boss and therefore doesn't drop anything of value as a random drop, and none of us in the group were at the point in our quest series where we needed to kill her. Our paladin had to leave, and the rest of us needed a break. However, after talking things over, the remaining four decided that after a 15 minute break, we would be ready to start again. I decided that at this point, we had a special group and that we had learned enough along the way to be of interest to others who were adventuring in Scholomance. I decided that this time I would take screenshots and would write up the adventures.
Stay tuned.
Coming up: Schooling Scholomance with a 5-player party.
On Tuesday night, I was putzing around with Neriad doing some of the new quests in the Western Plaguelands, and I got the usual spams that priests get, asking if I'd like to join various instance groups. (Rogues, hunters, and pre-talent warlocks never seem to sympathize when I describe this burden of being a priest). I turned down most such invitations. Did I want to run BRD? Aw, come on, I farmed that place into the ground a couple patches ago. Did I want to run Stratholme? Maybe after I see some more of the newer content, but definitely not in the 10-15 person raid groups that most people want to run the place in. Did I want to run BRS? Not a chance. It's boring, I've done all the quests, and there aren't any drops in the entire instance that would interest a priest. (One person spent 10 minutes trying to convince me that BRS had good drops for priests by linking all the cloth drops he and his friends had found there. Every one of them were equaled or beat by BRD drops or by green items I had found elsewhere).
Ah, an invitation for a Scholomance group. Now that sounds interesting. I had run Scholomance in an 8-person party on the first evening of the patch, and it seemed like a fun instance. I had picked up a few Scholomance quests by this point, and I was itching to see what those quests were like and to see what kind of followup quests they had. Plus, the way our 8-person group had cut through Scholomance like a hot knife through butter, it looked like Scholomance was well balanced for a five-character party. Three times, however, I received invitations to Scholomance and had conversations like this one:
JoeSchmo: Want to run Scholomance?
Neriad: Maybe, how many people are going to be in the group?
JoeSchmo: We have 9 now, you'd be the 10th.
Neriad: Ah, no, sorry. I just want to do a 5-man run.
JoeSchmo: I just talked to our group, and they think you're nuts. No way can you run Scholomance with five people.
Neriad: I ran Scholomance in an 8-person party on the first night, and it was so easy that it looks like Scholomance could be done with a 5-person party.
JoeSchmo: We still think you're nuts.
Neriad: Possibly, but I don't like doing raiding parties if I don't have to. They're not as intense and you don't get as much loot from them anyway.
JoeSchmo: Just quest items. You still get boss loot.
Neriad: I want to do the quests. Besides, in raids, you have to split up loot you find more ways and end you end up with less.
JoeSchmo: Quests are lame. Boss loot rewls.
Neriad: This is a beta. I like items as much as anyone else, but there's no sense obsessing about items that are going to be deleted in the not too distant future when the game is released. Besides, how can we find out if the quests are "lame" if we don't do them in the first place? Some quests now lead to epic rewards, you know.
JoeSchmo: Nah, I just want boss lewt, and you can go faster in a big party.
Neriad: If you count all the time it takes to organize the party and all the extra downtime as people squabble over loot, go afk, buff extra people, etc., big groups only go a little bit faster than smaller groups. And then you have to divide what decent items do drop among a bigger group of people. Plus, each person gets a smaller share of "junk" vendor items to sell. When I come back from a 10-15 person raid on Stratholme or BRS, I usually find that after a several hour run I end up with no items and hardly any cash. They're just not worth it.
JoeSchmo: So, are you coming?
Neriad: No.
JoeSchmo: @$%$%^#*@R#%!
I sighed and kept on doing some quest stuff in Anderhol. (Most of the mobs in Anderhol have been changed to non-elites, by the way). Then, I got a message from Kronos, a level 60 warlock with whom I had done a lot of instance runs in the past.
Kronos: Want to join a Scholomance group?
Neriad: How many people in the group?
Kronos: We have eight now, you'd be the ninth.
I stopped and thought for a few moments. I had adventured with Kronos many times and have found him to be a great instance group member. He was only one of three regularly played PvP server level-capped alliance warlocks before warlocks got their talents. I respect a guy who's willing to buck the trend by sticking with a "gimped" character to a high level and is willing to experiment to find ways of getting the most out of his underpowered character. Now that warlocks have talents and are no longer so gimped, Kronos is even better for his experiences. He's also shown a willingness to take on challenges. He was in a 5-man Stratholme group with me that made it pretty far into the instance before wiping. I figured it might be worth it to join his group and then convince he and others in the raid to join a 5-person run later.
Neriad: Sure, I'll join. I'd like to do a 5-person group at some point, though. I did Scholomance with an 8-person party on the first day and it was really easy. I think a 5-person group is doable.
Kronos: Yeah, I agree. It's been hard finding people who want to run Scholomance with only five people. (pause) Hey, a paladin friend of mine wants to come. If we can get a warrior and a mage, want do a 5-person party now?
Neriad: Yeah!
Kronos: Got a mage!
Neriad: Got a warrior!
SCHOLOMANCE: Take 1
The five of us got together and started running Scholomance. I'm not going to lie to you. We ran into many problems and wiped several times. The instance was still very new to the party members. Two people had never been inside Scholomance at all and the rest of the party had only been there a couple times each. However, each wipe or near wipe taught us something new about the instance, and each time we came up with new tactics to get past difficult challenges. This dynamic is another reason why I prefer smaller groups to larger ones. People who adventure in small groups seem more willing to take responsibility for their actions and are more willing to accept that they can improve their play. It's a lot harder for people to hide from their mistakes, and therefore there's a better chance that people will change their play and become better players. People who play in raids a lot, or as I diplomatically call them "raid lamers," rarely accept personal responsibility for a group wipe. The typical response of a raid lamer to a wipe is that the instance is badly designed, that there's "no way" it can be done with a small group, and that even more raid lamers need to be summoned in.
The final wipe of our first five-person group came in the "room from hell" that houses Jandice Barov. It's a room that requires a lot of skill to pull correctly, as you'll see later. The thing that pissed us off the most about this wipe was that we did everything right. Kupeludo, our warrior, did an excellent job of pulling, while the rest of the group waited patiently in the back corner to safely kill everything Kupe pulled to us. So, how did we wipe? Respawns, of course. That room, and indeed the whole first section of Scholomance has an incredibly fast respawn timer. I am one of those weird people who actually like the idea of respawns in instances as a "death penalty" on groups who wipe too much. But the respawn timers in the first section of Scholomance are too short even for my taste. I submitted a /suggest that Blizzard increase the respawn times by about 15 minutes. That would allow there to be a death penalty while not punishing groups who are careful as they move through the instance.
This wipe was the final straw. It probably didn't help that we realized afterward that we shouldn't have been down in that room in the first place. Jandice Barov is a quest related boss and therefore doesn't drop anything of value as a random drop, and none of us in the group were at the point in our quest series where we needed to kill her. Our paladin had to leave, and the rest of us needed a break. However, after talking things over, the remaining four decided that after a 15 minute break, we would be ready to start again. I decided that at this point, we had a special group and that we had learned enough along the way to be of interest to others who were adventuring in Scholomance. I decided that this time I would take screenshots and would write up the adventures.
Stay tuned.
Coming up: Schooling Scholomance with a 5-player party.