Deadvulcano's Rumblings

Battleground Scorebroad

Updated blog for battleground scoreboard portion that will later be combined into the full twink guide.


Zorglub said:
Looking forward to your new rumbling

I'm also quite interested in what you mean when u say that "The f2p bracket has changed considerably" ?
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The f2p bracket seems to be more 'imbalanced' in that each side seems to have around the same total number of 24s and or new players except they are not arriving in the same proportions. My battlegrounds generally feel constrained. There is either so much fire power on our side that my presence is nearly pointless, or the other side has so much firepower that it also hardly matters that I'm there.

In other words I enjoy playing for the underdogs, but the underdog side seems random during my gametime. The good games are once every twenty rather than the old once every ten or so.
 
i think that you're really barking up the wrong tree with your analysis of the WoW battleground scoreboard. you're going into this analysis with the frame of mind that the vast majority of WoW battleground participants are interested in 1. objective evaluations of skill, and 2. winning battlegrounds. i can tell you for a fact that this is not the case. very few people who participate in WoW battlegrounds are actually interested in either of these things.

people do not play WoW pvp to win BGs. they don't play WoW pvp to prove their "skill" to themselves or others. they play WoW pvp to enjoy themselves. what exactly constitutes this enjoyment varies with each individual person.

what you're doing with this analysis is attempting to dictate to other people what they "should" be valuing and taking away from their WoW pvp experience. i'm not sure if you realize that you're doing this, but you are. there's nothing inherently wrong with this, i just want to point out to you, to save your time, that this is never going to go anywhere.

when i pushed arenas to this f2p (and previous WoW twinking) communities, i made sure not to tell people what they "should" be doing or what they "should" enjoy. i took the complaints of others (hunters, 24s, noobs not playing by the objectives) and parroted them back to them, letting them know that there was a way to avoid these problems while still enjoying pvp (arenas). as i'm sure you yourself noticed, many (most?) people made it very clear that they were not *actually* interested in avoiding these things by doing arenas - they're not looking to get "skilled". they're not looking to "win". they're just looking to enjoy themselves by messing around in BGs and mindlessly beating up on noobs, while still retaining those convenient above-mentioned scapegoats to siphon off any negative feelings they might retain about the experience.

in fact, i don't think that even you are concerned with winning battlegrounds or displaying "skill". as you said in your post, what you really enjoy is playing the underdog and overcoming adversity through your own volition. i'm much the same way, and i'm the same way in real life too - i love beating assholes at their own game(s) - it just never gets old.

my point is not to try to belittle what you're trying to do; i just don't want to watch you waste your time writing about this kind of stuff when it is really pretty fruitless. remember your audience.
 
also: as an objectively highly skilled WoW player (yep), i think that your evaluation of the BG scoreboard is great, and definitely useful for someone who is aspiring to become better at *actually "winning"* battlegrounds.

but i do have to take issue with your analysis of KBs. for one, the reason why the scoreboard is sorted by KBs as default is because.....that's the way it works in every single other game, ever, and most people care about getting KBs over anything else in PvP. why would they not be the default?

secondly, i think that you're drastically under-valuing the importance of being able to KILL other players in WoW battlegrounds. you point out that damage done is a rather poor indicator of "skill", which is true, for the reasons that you mention. but actually killing other players is very important in WoW pvp. a bunch of retarded noob hunters can mindlessly sink all the damage into the world into a target(s), but if they're just being intelligently healed, they're not really accomplishing anything. good players *actually kill* people in BGs. they don't follow some random 500 hp priest into a corner of WSG so they can get one KB. they rack up a ton of KBs, killing other players as efficiently as possible, denying the other team the chance to accomplish objectives.

would you rather work with someone who is fantastic mechanically at their job, constantly cranking out quality work, but unable to ever finish a project? or would you rather work with someone who may not do a pretty job, but always gets the project finished to satisfaction no matter what? there's a reason why we live in a results-oriented socioeconomic system - because results get wins.
 
C O T U S said:
i think that you're really barking up the wrong tree with your analysis of the WoW battleground scoreboard.
[...]
my point is not to try to belittle what you're trying to do; i just don't want to watch you waste your time writing about this kind of stuff when it is really pretty fruitless. remember your audience.
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I could respond to this except you already did...
C O T U S said:
also: as an objectively highly skilled WoW player (yep), i think that your evaluation of the BG scoreboard is great, and definitely useful for someone who is aspiring to become better at *actually "winning"* battlegrounds.
[...]
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There are many reasons I'm making this guide, but for people who are primarily 'WoW' players the purpose is two fold:
  • Provide a place for people to come and learn on their own without the pressure of an experienced player looking down on them.
  • Provide a place for those experience players to send aspiring players without the need to explain the same concepts repeatedly.

C O T U S said:
[...]
would you rather work with someone who is fantastic mechanically at their job, constantly cranking out quality work, but unable to ever finish a project? or would you rather work with someone who may not do a pretty job, but always gets the project finished to satisfaction no matter what? there's a reason why we live in a results-oriented socioeconomic system - because results get wins.
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As for the KB 'feedback' whether intentional or not the straw-man is just sad. You already know full well that the KB analysis is correct. Being realistic, no matter what dps toon I'm playing I will be near the top if not the top dps and kb player on the scoreboard. Getting the kill is the best choice many times, but not all times. I'll expand on that in later entries. Skilled players will be at the top of the scoreboards because they are skilled, but the converse is not always true. If the best player in the battleground is defending/being the flag carrier in a match they may not have the same kb score as lesser players. Additionally, consider the "World-Wide Top 50 PVP Rankings" and those three multiboxed hunters. Each individual hunter is played with next to no skill as the multiboxer must use inputs across all 5 of their toons. Higher skilled players may not be able to out 'kb' them, but you can certainly win matches against them.

The way you attack that straw-man in the last portion of your post is very nearly the point of my entire blog. Specifically to help people perform in real life. In the end, I'm writing for myself, and anyone who seeks to improve. People that want a pat on the back, or want medals for everyone, can look elsewhere.

Also a concise consolidation of your objection to the kb section would make a great FAQs entry to the finished guide. Make it that way and I'll add it, just be clear that the thing you're objecting to exists
 
right - i just don't think that there's actually anybody who will read your blog who is interested in increasing their world of warcraft BG skill :p . sorry, i can be pessimistic sometimes, but mostly just realistic. i'm speaking as someone who tried to reach out to help a lot of people get better at pvp during my time playing WoW. i found that the only people who were ever interested in getting better were the ones who sought me out, not the other way around. but you said that you're writing this blog for yourself anyway, which is of course the best reason to write, so my point is really just moot and irrelevant.

i actually just plain don't agree with your assessment of KBs - i think that you're just wrong, and have some kind of bias toward KB-counting that has probably resulted from your interactions with thousands of obnoxious kids and noobs throughout your gaming career (man, i don't blame you). the KB column in WoW BGs is actually very useful information, much more useful than almost all of the other ones provided. as a DPSer, you're going to want to assist the best KBers in target acquisition. as a healer, you're going to want to concentrate your heals on the players who are getting the KBs. as a player of any kind of utility class, you're going to want to use your abilities to protect and assist your most effective tactical asset - the player who is getting all the kills. this is just the sad reality of the way that WoW battlegrounds are set up. it's completely irrelevant whether the converse that you point out is true or not - "skill" has nothing to do with the fact that it is in an individual player's best interest to behave this above-described way if they want to *actually win* WoW battlegrounds.

i know that it's nice and reassuring to talk about "skill", and it makes us feel good to pretend like the most "skilled" players are the ones who are winning BGs, but that's just not true. player skill has actually very little to do with winning BGs in WoW; it's probably one of the least important factors that goes into, for example, the result of a F2P WSG game. and yes, this does translate over to real life as well: whether people like to admit it or not, "talent" or "ability" or "hard work" or "insert feel-good adjective here" have very, very little effect on an individual's objective socioeconomic success or failure, except in isolated cases.
 
very nice :p

Also, just for those that may be following in general. My blog is going to become much more focused on game development and indie resources. The WoW portions that I'll will continue to occasionally address are really only because of the love I had for the game. But I mean them in a much more abstract way that I hope will make sense to future designers, or current entrepreneurs, as well as the players. I will continue to work on the guide, just be aware that the goal is to be a resource for people that want to improve and to assist analysis of game design for the development side of my blog. Understanding how to translate skill components into game mechanics and ensure that the feedback is appropriate is non-trivial.

Once I start fleshing out more 'skill' ideas, I'll be leaning heavily on the experience of other skilled players. A good example of this is seen in Cotus's response above. Everyone has solved various gameplay decisions with their own set of tools, it would be nice if those tools were a resource anyone could view.
 
Defining Skill

Updated blog with a verbose definition of skill that will later be combined into the full twink guide.

Hard work and dedication beats natural ability.
 
are you familiar with john boyd and his theories on strategy? the way you are breaking down "skill" into different factors reminds me of the OODA loop and the different connected processes that go into "strategy" ("skillful" play) in a 'combat' situation.

John Boyd (military strategist) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
OODA loop - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

it would be an interesting angle to incorporate if you ever decide to discuss ways to optimize gameplay (you said "This is designed to show what skill is rather than go into details on how to improve each section--which is another article entirely." so perhaps you plan on doing this in the future).
 
Deadvulcano said:
Defining Skill

Updated blog with a verbose definition of skill that will later be combined into the full twink guide.

Hard work and dedication beats natural ability.
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I just wanted to comment to say I love the most recent post. It's really kind of a... philosophical look into aspects of gaming. I really enjoy it and it makes me hopeful to see a developer approach gaming the way you have in your post.
 
C O T U S said:
are you familiar with john boyd and his theories on strategy? the way you are breaking down "skill" into different factors reminds me of the OODA loop and the different connected processes that go into "strategy" ("skillful" play) in a 'combat' situation. [...]
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I served in the military for 10 years and never heard of that system. I'm more familiar with whiskey methods of explaining how to improve, but it's a little too rigorous for most people.

rsq said:
I just wanted to comment to say I love the most recent post. It's really kind of a... philosophical look into aspects of gaming. I really enjoy it and it makes me hopeful to see a developer approach gaming the way you have in your post.
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MarzRider said:
Enjoy the reading Dead! Quite interesting! keep it up.
[...]
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I'm glad a few people have enjoyed it so far. For development I've been learning unity. It is much faster for prototyping than sdl and opengl. I expect to make more prototypes with unity this weekend, but this is also the last gw2 beta weekend before release. The prototypes may have to wait :p
 
Deadvulcano said:
I'm glad a few people have enjoyed it so far. For development I've been learning unity. It is much faster for prototyping than sdl and opengl. I expect to make more prototypes with unity this weekend, but this is also the last gw2 beta weekend before release. The prototypes may have to wait :p
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If that means your hinting at writing another article on this weekends beta, I give you a thumbs up.
 
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