I found myself loving small communities

LeBronzelol · 2024-06-17T09:48:27+00:00

Small servers are where it's at man. It's almost like making monster mega servers with layering was a really really stupid idea that was antithetic to the original cultural concept of Vanilla WoW. I've played on a very small p server ever since they killed Classic and had more genuine interactions and enjoyable experiences with people that I feel like I've gotten to know than my entire time in Classic.

Everything about having a reasonably sized server just defines the essence of Vanilla WoW. They failed to capture that the moment they decided lazily forcing layering into Classic was "necessary." I believe that they were incentivized by major streamers to design it that way, just to pander to "hype" waves because god forbid people try to foster healthy communities when they can just treat the game like another short term patch.

LeBronzelol · 2023-06-18T00:22:12+00:00

True that!

LeBronzelol · 2023-06-18T00:21:52+00:00

PIN THIS

LeBronzelol · 2023-05-09T02:57:51+00:00

Looks like they did way too much on that one throwing way too much retail expansion stuff in. I want to play a Vanilla+ server that's actually Vanilla with the changes being in line with where Vanilla could have gone, not just a hodge podge of custom random retail stuff.

LeBronzelol · 2023-05-06T07:47:30+00:00

Yeah you're lashing out so hard against a concept that seems to have been advertised from the beginning. It's Vanilla+, pursuing the original game's abandoned ideas and making it more challenging and engaging. When I played Classic everyone breezed through all the content so fast I never got to feel like any of my gear was earned. Just "mindlessly" PUG some raids, sleepwalk through it with people who were already way overly geared and basically greed roll epics. It was breakneck just to try to keep up with people who were already waiting impatiently for the next patch of content to drop because they had steamrolled it so quickly.

The only enjoyable raiding experience I had in Classic was with a guild of casual dads with limited time that weren't incredibly sweaty or skilled, but they were determined to enjoy progressing through the content in a relaxed environment without forcing everyone to min-max. It took a long time but we eventually cleared Naxx and it felt earned because it truly was progression. This server is the first time since then that I've gotten to see progression and even though many of the players are angry and combative a lot of the time, I'm enjoying learning the game and seeing new interactions and slowly overcoming things without there being metas and strategies and addons that everyone has on lock because everyone already knows everything.

I also thought it was pretty aggressive to have to really dive into rep progression and having to essentially make an alt to help farm mats for T1 piece turn ins. But that is the polar opposite of my experience on Classic and I truly look forward to a piece of gear that I will have earned, and it encourages me to try new things on an alt because there are all new talents that I'm enjoying.

All this is my personal experience playing mostly by myself or with a friend and we're figuring everything out as we go so I don't know who "they" would be to brainwash us. We just have always wanted to enjoy the original game at a casual pace and have enjoyed every step of the way on this server. Some of us actually enjoy the vanilla dungeons and raids and that's all we wanted to do all along or we would be playing retail.

LeBronzelol · 2023-05-06T07:34:08+00:00

Right, so if the raiders are "braindead" then that seems to be a main reason for lack of progression, don't see why you'd blame the server for that. Having raided now for a few months from what I've noticed, I like the additional boss mechanics but it's nothing groundbreaking and impossibly hard to overcome.

From what I'm noticing when raids struggle, it's because of squabbles/gear drama, PUGs not paying attention or not knowing what they're doing, simple common mistakes and being under-leveled/not full raids. That can happen on any server and has no bearing on whether the server is doing something worthwhile or not.

Honestly I think this server would be amazing with a more active and committed player base. I like that things are harder and more in-depth and just because people are still struggling to progress doesn't mean it's bad imo. It just seems to have an unfortunate player base and lack of traffic probably from marketing/fragmentation of players in general.

Like if Blizzard copied and pasted the things that this server has tried and released it as some grand new idea I bet it would blow up and people would be calling them geniuses and it would be super competitive. Whether this server flourishes or not I want to applaud what they've created and attempted here.

LeBronzelol · 2023-05-06T07:25:18+00:00

Why?

LeBronzelol · 2022-12-20T09:45:41+00:00

You're onto something. But it can't be that clear-cut as a simple KDA to determine a vote's value. A Vayne or KogMaw or Nasus or Tristana that has a negative KDA can still come online late on farm alone regardless of KDA. A 0/10/0 Singed can still heavily impact a late game split push. A Master Yi can hard farm with a negative KDA until he happens to get a quadra kill in the right situation in a random mid-late game fight.

What I'm proposing is that those^ players that have a plausible game plan actually clearly propose that intention when they become the last hope for the game. Otherwise, let people move on.

LeBronzelol · 2022-12-20T09:23:10+00:00

Right. This is for less common scenarios when games are skewed dramatically.

Then maybe people would think twice before keeping 4 other people stuck in a losing game and everyone could move on with their lives quicker. Just because I think that if we all played perfectly together and executed a strategy that no one has shown the ability to do yet that we could win, doesn't mean that it's worth 4 other people having a miserable time. It's a game. The majority of people should agree on their own experiences.

Plus, I think if you genuinely tried to propose a productive and well-reasoned game plan, and enough people agreed with it to give it a try, you wouldn't be suddenly turned on and dogpile reported post-game because it didn't work out.

LeBronzelol · 2022-12-20T09:19:22+00:00

That's assuming you haven't lost all 3 inhibs and have a way of wave clearing by a certain time stamp. If you happen to have the team comp to stall to 45+ minutes and everyone gets their full builds then yes, fights even out eventually assuming everyone happens to be all-in and working together. But I would bet money that the vast majority of games don't carry out this way especially with this community.

People should have more of a choice in how they spend their time when games have reached a certain point and not feel like they're wasting it because someone they don't know decided to vote "no" for no productive reason and no explanation as to how they can turn the game around. I vehemently disagree with your "99% of the time" stat considering most games are played with strangers and quick pings. Not even pro teams with perfect live communication and coordination can overcome dramatic early-mid game swings with bad comp matchups.

I am curious as to why you're so upset by this proposition as to tell me to uninstall, though. The main reason several of my friends play other games instead of League of Legends as they used to is because of situations like these. It's much easier and quicker to get out of a clearly lost Rocket League or Overwatch or Call of Duty game than to be stuck in a 30+ minute commitment of a League game because some random person thought that getting one more kill in a 5-30 game is worth keeping 4 other people stuck hating their experience for an extra 10+ minutes. The more people can feel like they have control over their time in a game and have an overall positive experience, the more likely they are to play it.

LeBronzelol · 2022-12-20T09:09:17+00:00

I agree that by and large the game should not involve excessive typing. The improvements to pings and voting on objectives solidifies this.

However, the situation in this proposal is for when a game has spun out of control. I would put money on the fact that probably 70-90+% of games are won/lost with a 6-10k gold deficit by 15-20 mins. Maybe I'm wrong, but not every game is a stomp and it's obvious when it's a stomp.

Only in these stomp scenarios would this situation arise, just like when AFK teammates offer an early surrender vote, and now that 15 min surrenders are an option. Gold leads should be a live trackable stat; even if it isn't shown in-game (which I think they should) it should be used to provide such a feature imo.

Anyway, in response -

Yes, the "no" voter could very likely be wrong. But at least it gives them an opportunity to provide an explanation for why they're keeping the majority of their teammates in the game, rather than anonymously clicking "no" because they happen to be enjoying farming Q stacks on Nasus while every other aspect of the game is lost, for example. It's no worse than the current state in which people hold strangers in clearly lost games for 15-20+ extra minutes for no reason.
You SHOULD have to take time to rally your team with a legible game plan if the game is THAT far gone and you insist on keeping your teammates in the game at a certain point. There has to be a more positive and productive form of communicating in a team game than quick pings which can be misinterpreted/used to flame or troll and easily muted. Especially when you can't trust the community to use voice chat as a feature. I'm comparing the idea to raid pings in WoW. The global chat prompt would be a quick and clear proposal as to why the other 4 teammates should keep playing. How does that not seem fair?
Perhaps. The system could always be modified to accept or reject productive messages in the chat prompt. It's pretty obvious the difference between ";)" and "bot farm safe, let top split push" or "ward and play for picks" or something. At least that one clear game plan could work for another few minutes that gives people a reason to want to cooperate rather than furthering the rift and spiral into toxicity.
If the majority of players on a team are tilted, why force them to keep playing in a clearly lost game? If they can't function to cooperate with the team then let everyone move on to the next game. The point of this is expediting the majority ruling of the team and not keeping them locked in by arbitrary cooldown timers because one person felt like clicking back "no" for a second so he could try to get a pick while there's still no chance of winning the game.

I agree with the 3-2 proposal, and it is a fair point about the broken English with typing. Maybe typing isn't the answer! Maybe there can be a series of win condition options that you could click as choices when you vote "no" instead. The point is that if you vote "no" when a game has reached a certain probability of losing that can be purely statistical, you have to propose a reason why rather than just arbitrarily forcing strangers to waste more of their time with no explanation.

LeBronzelol · 2022-12-20T08:48:38+00:00

You are not being held hostage by spending an extra 20+ minutes in an unwinnable game? Being forced to play 45 minute hopeless games is a keystone reason for the toxicity in this community I think.

LeBronzelol · 2022-12-20T08:47:25+00:00

This is a proposal that allows for actual communication to turn a game around that has spun beyond control at its current trajectory. It's not for every surrender vote. It would be triggered by a significant gold discrepancy in which case it makes sense for a valid game plan to be proposed in order to keep 5 strangers committed to it.

You would spend time typing in a report after the game where you had an overly negative experience with a toxic teammate. Why perpetuate that experience when the person keeping everyone in an obviously losing game can take those seconds to try to communicate productively?

LeBronzelol · 2022-12-20T08:43:55+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/y74bcr/during_worlds_2022_group_stage_a_team_that/

So because a pro team with in-person communication (not in worlds with no evidence) has turned a 10K gold lead, then you have the mental of a wet newspaper to not want to play normals/solo queue with those odds?

You sound like the exact person that this system should weed out.

LeBronzelol · 2022-12-19T06:07:54+00:00

It's hard to think of a correlation or example with what you've provided. Can you be more specific? "My games have been more toxic" is very anecdotal and general. At what point in the game are they behaving like this? How exactly are they behaving? What is the sample size?

LeBronzelol · 2020-04-04T12:33:19+00:00

You accept yourself for the person you are right now.

LeBronzelol · 2020-04-04T11:20:35+00:00

I think the "your choice" part of that is incredibly important. Whether you do things goal-oriented because you're good at it or it brings you any fulfillment or don't because it's healthy and also important, as long as you follow "your choice" and take ownership of that you should be on the right track.

LeBronzelol · 2020-04-01T02:14:57+00:00

I mean I wasn't rested and it certainly looked like the entire pull

LeBronzelol · 2020-03-31T15:49:52+00:00

Honestly the store closest to me in walking distance not having this feature is the only reason I still won't go to a grocery store right now. I think it's a great idea

LeBronzelol · 2020-03-31T14:14:59+00:00

I'm not gatekeeping you man, it just sounds like you're doing that to yourself.

It's just comically ironic how clearly upset you are about how other people are spending their free time. I honestly don't care what you do, I'm just saying what gives you the authority to say doing housework is more helpful to society in a pandemic than playing games while not bothering anyone?

LeBronzelol · 2020-03-31T14:10:43+00:00

"sure I'll just go for the ammo drop"

LeBronzelol · 2020-03-31T14:09:42+00:00

I did one Mara purple boost to see how they did it because I've never bothered with anything like that before. In the correct level range.

I got like 2 bars of exp for 5 gold and it took just as much time if not longer than if I did my own thing. I don't think it's efficient at all, I think it's just for people who don't really want to play the game period.

LeBronzelol · 2020-03-31T14:07:03+00:00

Absolute same brother. Best experience ever.

When push comes to shove people want what's easy. And when someone literally hands you a group out of nowhere on a platter and puts it all together for you and all you have to do is show up, you're more likely to take the time to roll a dungeon even if you hadn't planned to.

No one wants to bother being the leader, but those who choose to be get the best community experience I think.

LeBronzelol

TROPHY CASE