Anti-Boosting Mechanics / Reduction to group XP Changes

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
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First of all, I want to point out before anyone jumps in with the “another mage just moaning because he cant boost anymore” comment that I do not boost for gold, nor did I ever spam or considered spamming offering boosting services for any sort of gold profit - I agree that this spam is annoying in trade - I am only looking at this from a genuine player prespective.

While questing, farming etc. I pull large groups of mobs, aoe them down and usually quest quite quickly - this has been my style of play for years, constantly pushing myself and improving where I can - those skills often come in very handy in sticky situations inside dungeons - let me give you a typical scenerio:

In the past, lets say Shattered Halls Heroic or Shadowlabs Heroic and the tank dies for whatever reason… it happens as we all know, I have kited, kept slowed and aoe’d the mobs down preventing a wipe many times - no exploits, no evade spots, just me playing the class as intended and not farming solo instances, boosting for profit or selling gold… a genuine player - so for me, these changes will disrupt my normal play and enjoyment of the game.

So do I farm gold, yes, obviously I do, I often farm the bog lords up in Zangamarsh etc, sell the life on the auction house, go out farming ore and sell the gear/bars etc etc. So whats stopping these gold farmers doing exactly the same and still selling the gold? - do we then cap the number of times mobs in the open world can be snared, slowed etc.? - seriously, its wrong to make the genuine players suffer because of those gold sellers breaking the rules.

For clarity, I have no issue with the Evade Spot / Pathing changes that are implemented but the cap on slowing mobs in an instance is just plain stupid.

I’m sorry but, this for me is a typical “genuine players suffer over gold farmers” again - I also feel you (“Blizzard”) are going down that same dark path of bad decision making.

I want to quote from a us blue post:
“we will implement a reduction to group XP earned when there is large disparity between player levels in the same group”

I really dont agree with this change either - I personally get a lot of fun and satisfaction from boosting friends and guild mates in the starting dungeons such as deadmines or wailing caverns and helping start off their personal journey in wow, this is something ive done for years, not for personal gain, no advertising whatsoever, but only offering help to my friends and guild mates on their alts.

Suggestion:
Why not implement a check such as all players in the party must be in the same guild and for a certain period of time, or on realid for a certain length of time, this would prevent gold farmers inviting u to guild/realid, boosting and then kicking you after the run - this would then not cause issue to those genuine people wanting to help out their friends in instances. Why make paladins, mages etc suffer for rule breaking players and bots?

Please remove the slowing/snaring cap, its not needed, seriously - consider something like above instead and if those are not met above when theres a considerable difference in levels then stop xp gains - problem solved.

We are heading in the direction of some retail changes, i.e. no xp to friends if I boost them on retail.

For me, history is starting to repeat itself sadly.

This is not me whining, I am just offering my personal opinion.

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I think that more and more people is starting to understand the #nochanges movement. It’s not that no changes is good. It’s that the alternative is worse.

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Just thinking as a fellow professional software developer myself (of 35+ years).

If its detected there is a large disparity between player levels then do a further check, check if the players are on Realid for a certain length of time (few weeks, months?) or in the guild for a certain length of time (I know alts just join and level to 10 before Deadmines but you could also check if they have another character in the guild on the same account for this duration) - if these conditions are not met then stop all xp gains in the instance.

This would stop it all dead.

Just offering an alternative to making every genuine player suffer because of the minority who break the rules.

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It’s not good when Blizzard goes the same direction again as in retail. I realy hope Microsoft is doing more good to WoW then the harm Blizzard have done. I realy looking f forword to see what Microsoft whant to do with the game. Maybe they can clean it up and do so WoW is the greates MMO ever again or close to it :):slight_smile:

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What you would then have are people selling invites to boosting guilds as well, yes the people who buy a few boosts from SM, Strat or SL would not be able to be boosted for gold, but the person who wants to be boosted from lvl 10-70 would most likely be willing to have a alt sitting in a guild for 1-2 weeks to then have it boosted. So the only thing that would happen is that the market get slightly smaller and move a little bit. People are good at coming up with creative ways to beat systems. Within a month people would know for sure how to get past the system and therefore the system would be useless.

The big thing this did when it comes to boosting is that 1 run to get your quests done is still worth it but just afking in SM for a few hours wont get you anywhere really.

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so you are also against the RFD removal?

BTW boosting the low levels is harmless… they just get EXP… the real problem is boosting in endgame which makes the game P2W… this have not been addressed

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I think blizzard could easily track boosting guilds tbh, it wouldnt take long for several to report the guild if this should be the case - right now, in the current changes we have all players suffering and we need to avoid that.

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The funny thing is this changes cant stop duo mages from boosting , this only shifted slave pens meta to paladins only , shadow lab is still easy to do as double mage , how you might ask ? Well they become snare immune but not root immune , so you just rotate the pet nova twice after they become snare immune and you have a 15 second window to blow them up , even if they get to you somehow you can double mage frost nova.

This changes indirectly buffed the duo mages farm , you could charge double the price as the competition is way less , price of enchanting mats , marks and armaments have skyrocketed so boosters are pocketing insane amounts of gold , 1.5k gph is not that hard to hit.

Once pre patch hits mages will make insane bank from DKs , there is no stopping them. Blizzard have to literally change the mage class to break them.

Yesterday i was helping guildies with MGT heroic and the bear tank accidently pulled way to much mobs from first boss room and i couldnt help him because they were snare immune , resulting a group wipe…Fun times

IMO they should create a new servers like SOM Wotlk classic but they have to be a carbon copy of the game that was release in 2008. #NOCHANGES at all , RDF included and everything as it was back then. Let the player base decide if they want to play the abomination they created with thoose changes or stick to the OG game.

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And then we’ll get the complains about server queue times dozens of them a day. Fun times for the forum.

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RDF was not available until later half of expansion.

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My point exactly, this change is just plain stupid.

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You know what would actually help? Having actual GMs instead of automated systems…

But no, bobby kotick had to fire 800 employees to earn his 5th yacht…

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I would actually like a reply regarding the slowing cap in instances and the xp reduction as detailed above because its ridiculous - we pay for a subscription to have fun yet again and again the fun is removed due to others actions.

Its basically making everyone suffer because of gold farmers, seriously this needs to be removed because its spoiling my personal enjoyment now in terms of levelling alts and periodically running through instances with my wife and her mage.

Lucky for you I missed stopping the recent 6 month payment because it was my intention just to cancel the subscription, sadly I am here again for another 6 month but I am actually finding it hard to login right now… its like history repeating itself for me and I am not going through all this again.

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But;

Hmm. This looks like really sus.

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Just like every dev, the arrogance is astounding. Your hot take is the same as every hot take Blizzard has come out with. Its just a slightly different flavour

If you’ve been in “the dev game” this long and haven’t learned than all encompassing, monolithic designs/solutions aren’t viable due to the constantly evolving needs of end users… then either you’re lying about being a dev or you’re astoundingly bad at it.

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I do (did) boost for gold. I also boost guildies for free.

I also support these nerfs.

My preference would be pure XP nerfs, as I enjoy soloing dungeons (which these nerfs stopped in many cases). But I accept losing this ability as the price we pay to have a better low-level experience, especially for new players.

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Ive always boosted guildies alts, as did they with others - was always a thing we did and it wasnt us spamming trade or offering services for gold, it was a social thing supporting friends and helping them along the way.

I support a lot of blizzard changes such as the evade port etc. i get that and fully understand why they implemented it, thats different to my issue here.

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Oh dear, here we go… lol, what has my programming skills got to do with this anyway? - I have nothing to prove here.

This change is to stop gold farmers, and had you read my post “correctly” I get the reasons they want to stop it and I support that, but to target normal genuine players and cause issues for them is just stupidity… go read the rest of the forum, people are wiping due to this slow/kite/aoe change so i am not alone here.

I have absolutely no issue with the evade, port mob mechanic because those are exploits for pathing - no issue there as that doesnt cause me any problem.

Again, regardless of what I say or do they will continue in the direction of retail bad decisions… wasnt it the point of classic to play the game how it was, #nochanges, because the players who played since the original lauch preferred the game how it was and not the way it is now?

…or am i missing the point?

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Yeah i’d pick the SoM wotlk original version, the more time has gone on the less inclined i am to play this new wrath.

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You’re missing the point. The end user has changed, so the product needs to adapt.