Shooting the Guy Who Cut You Off
In internet games, there are three types of players. The first, and the player I am, is the casual player, not in the sense of their devotion to the game, but with how they take winning and losing. You screw up, you figure out what you did wrong, you go back and do it again. There are the hardcore players who blame people as cheaters when they lose, because they could not possibly have lost otherwise.
The third group is the focus of this post: The whiners. These are players who have to deride other players' abilities to play the game and companies' ability to make the game in order to feel better about the fact that they just got owned. These are the people who go to a message board, and post "Nerf Shamans!" because they just got beat by one.
What they don't realize, however, is that, for one, the company is aware of this fact, moreso than the players think they are, and therefore interpret any opinions without real data backing them up as straight whining. These are the posts you simply ignore. Well, you don't ignore them, if there's like 50 of them staring at you. You take note that someone didn't like something, and you move on to more important things.
For another, people tend to forget the 20 times they killed a Shaman if, one time, that Shaman completely wrecked them once. To quote Mike McD, "walking in here, I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can't stop thinking about how I lost it." When you have a slightly lopsided fight, you assume your skill carried you through, you feel good about yourself, or you assume you need a little better gear, or you need to do "this" next time.
When you have a very lopsided fight, you remember it. I remember that poor level 16 Priest who was standing outside the Deadmines entrance flagged. No way he thought there'd be a 45 Shaman bearing down on him there. He died in one Windfury proc, and I immediately giggled to guild and parents about the affair. Likewise, when someone beats you down, and I mean flat out owns you, you think about it afterwards, what you could have done differently.
Most players give up after about 10 minutes, assume the other guy was cheating, hacking, or their class is overpowered, and then they go to make a post saying so, as if anyone cares. The fact is that no one does, and it doesn't help your case to say something. You only come across as a whiner.
So, you've played for a while, you really think Shamans might be overpowered. What do you do to tell Blizzard this fact? First off, calm down. Capital letters begin sentences and names, they don't come somewhere in the middle unless they're "I." Likewise, post with decent English. People ignore typos. But u r not gonna get nowhere if you use internet shorthand.
Next, go to another server, and roll that character. Play it for a while, over the span of a month or two. See how to play the toon. Then determine if you're getting owned due to skill or due to overpowered abilities. Chances are, the guys that are owning you just play the game better, they know their class, and they know your class, and they use that to their advantage. Ignorance of your opponent's abilities is a failing in your skill, it does not mean they're overpowered.
If you still think they're too strong, then start doing math. Lots of math. Break out Excel, and make lots of equations. Find someone to help you who has that class, and run tests. Lots of tests. Enough that a thousand might just not be enough. Collate the data, make it easy to read and understand, and have the raw data available.
And finally, present your opinion in an unbiased format. Show a baseline with justification saying "this is what should be the norm," then show how the target goes outside that norm, how he does more damage than he should. Prove that it wasn't a fluke, it wasn't play skill, prove that you know what you're talking about, and that your opinion is valid.
Unfortunately, most Americans take "freedom of speech" to heart and assume their voice has weight. To put it bluntly, it doesn't, and you have to do a lot of hard work to prove your worth.
Good lesson to learn for life, not just for complaining about Bainshees.
The third group is the focus of this post: The whiners. These are players who have to deride other players' abilities to play the game and companies' ability to make the game in order to feel better about the fact that they just got owned. These are the people who go to a message board, and post "Nerf Shamans!" because they just got beat by one.
What they don't realize, however, is that, for one, the company is aware of this fact, moreso than the players think they are, and therefore interpret any opinions without real data backing them up as straight whining. These are the posts you simply ignore. Well, you don't ignore them, if there's like 50 of them staring at you. You take note that someone didn't like something, and you move on to more important things.
For another, people tend to forget the 20 times they killed a Shaman if, one time, that Shaman completely wrecked them once. To quote Mike McD, "walking in here, I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can't stop thinking about how I lost it." When you have a slightly lopsided fight, you assume your skill carried you through, you feel good about yourself, or you assume you need a little better gear, or you need to do "this" next time.
When you have a very lopsided fight, you remember it. I remember that poor level 16 Priest who was standing outside the Deadmines entrance flagged. No way he thought there'd be a 45 Shaman bearing down on him there. He died in one Windfury proc, and I immediately giggled to guild and parents about the affair. Likewise, when someone beats you down, and I mean flat out owns you, you think about it afterwards, what you could have done differently.
Most players give up after about 10 minutes, assume the other guy was cheating, hacking, or their class is overpowered, and then they go to make a post saying so, as if anyone cares. The fact is that no one does, and it doesn't help your case to say something. You only come across as a whiner.
So, you've played for a while, you really think Shamans might be overpowered. What do you do to tell Blizzard this fact? First off, calm down. Capital letters begin sentences and names, they don't come somewhere in the middle unless they're "I." Likewise, post with decent English. People ignore typos. But u r not gonna get nowhere if you use internet shorthand.
Next, go to another server, and roll that character. Play it for a while, over the span of a month or two. See how to play the toon. Then determine if you're getting owned due to skill or due to overpowered abilities. Chances are, the guys that are owning you just play the game better, they know their class, and they know your class, and they use that to their advantage. Ignorance of your opponent's abilities is a failing in your skill, it does not mean they're overpowered.
If you still think they're too strong, then start doing math. Lots of math. Break out Excel, and make lots of equations. Find someone to help you who has that class, and run tests. Lots of tests. Enough that a thousand might just not be enough. Collate the data, make it easy to read and understand, and have the raw data available.
And finally, present your opinion in an unbiased format. Show a baseline with justification saying "this is what should be the norm," then show how the target goes outside that norm, how he does more damage than he should. Prove that it wasn't a fluke, it wasn't play skill, prove that you know what you're talking about, and that your opinion is valid.
Unfortunately, most Americans take "freedom of speech" to heart and assume their voice has weight. To put it bluntly, it doesn't, and you have to do a lot of hard work to prove your worth.
Good lesson to learn for life, not just for complaining about Bainshees.
posted by Kindralas at 7:23 AM
3 Comments:
You've played and worked with CCGs how long, and still believe people will follow that advice? When bitching in capital letters is so much simpler?
THIS CRD IS BROKN!!!!!!!!!!!!1 U GYZ SUCK SO BAD!!!!!!!!!
Ah, walk a mile in my moccassins, that's a good suggestion.
Blogs are not a place in which one provides constructive advice, nor is it a place where one takes such advice.
Blogs are a place to bitch about things. Bitching accomplished.
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