The Weekly Marmot -- AVR & Encounter Design

[2ndNin]

It takes longer to read text and understand its meaning than to interpret being inside or outside a circle (at least from what I have seen), I can't find a medical text to back me up but anecdotally its true. Going by a few sites (like http://www.billiondollargraphics.com/infographics.html so no credible research) its saying images are 60,000 faster processing than text due to their parallel nature (you can assess multiple things in a picture at once in a way you can't with text - context is generally quite spatially related). Most range meters are text based, I suppose you could go on the simple presence of a name if there is only a single spread mechanic but that's not as finely grained information as the circles.

You said it yourself, "Personally I prefer the graphics", but that is largely irrelevant, why should all mechanics use a graphical representation rather than relying on an interpretation of movement (malleable goo). For objects they want us to use "don't stand in the circle" techniques for, they put down a circle, for others they create invisible circles with interpretable clues. Defile would be a huge non issue if it created a circle where it would be spawned, instead it requires raid awareness on behalf of the target and the raid (2 people moving at 180degrees from each other travel 2x as only one moving). This then links into the valk'yrs mechanic whereby non-coordinated spreading results in a manageable but much more difficult and inefficient handling of this mechanic. Again this would be simplified by placing two circles saying "raid goes here, defile target here".

Personally I like having the differentiation between knowledge, implicit, and visual effects even if the underlying mechanics are the same they feel different and the raid responds differently too them.

Do your raiders actually play the chat bubble game? At least in raids I have been part of (ICC 10 12/12, ICC 25 11/12 + various hardmode attempts) I don't play a game of watching chat bubbles, I see what is coming and I know where the raid is, I respond to that and act on it, I follow the path of the ooze and I try and predict things like the landing spots for the ooze puddles. I guess I just like the idea of having to watch where the missiles fall as well as tracking the other boss mechanics and the raid rather than having it all reduced to the fundamental essential truth of "safe area" vs "not safe area".

[kedicik]

shoot me for not reading all the posts so far, but i just want to say what i have in my mind.. i will take the weekly ICC quest example...

• this is the way blizzard designed the encounter, this is the way the encounter is,

• this is the mechanic which makes this encounter something other than tank and spank,

• this is where you need fast clicks (to see who hasnt debuff) and a lag free environment (this comment is to most beloved blizz) to spot the one without debuff and run to him/her in 10 secs,

• the coordination to avoid deaths bec of disease is the thing which seperates pugs (i have seen and been in some really succesful ones but u know most r just pugs) from guilds and guilds from raiding guilds and raiding guilds from succesfully progressing guilds,

• this is why we (the raiders) are still playing this game, doing hard modes, heroic raids, to satisfy our need for overcoming a challenge

now, i have AVR (and maybe AVRE too not sure about that) installed, but used it once to draw some circles in darnassus and thats all... i am not saying blizz should remove it, people using it arent good raiders, nor i am saying it shouldnt be removed.. all i am saying is, check the list above, and decide if you really want to use this addon.. after all it is our freewill to use it or no.

back in the good old days of ulduar, i have experienced many wipes just because some people are standing under the snow (cant remember the name) in hodir encounter and dying which has already been showed by blizzard, so if you are a raider who knows what to do this addon wont give u anything and again if you dont know what to do this addon wont give u anything saying from personal experience.

the bottom line of wall of text is, i am very happy wiping on LK over and over and over, rather than using this addon showing me where to go, because this is what contributes to my gaming experience, makes it more delightful (not wiping on LK ofc, overcoming the challenge with combined skill of me and my guildies).

cheers

[Essq]

Or we could just turn this situation around

Instead of delivering the plague, why not pick it up?
Why is it the affected persons problem, to get rid of it? Just get one who do not have the debuff pick it up.

And whoa, now this is about teamplay, instead of one person having to throw his debuff away on his own. So now ppl are handeling the debuff instead of trying to get rid of it.

[Zellviren]

As Lore said (and this thread has meted out), this particular AddOn has caused a real split-down-the-middle regarding the viewpoints of players. Essentially, though, I think too many people are concentrating on the Professor Putricide example that he used and not the actual point; the default game interface is, quite often, not sufficient when dealing with complex mechanics.

I think we can all come up with examples of where that was the case and I'm not going to point any out because I think it could derail the point again. But arguing that things like VuhDo or Grid should be used is off base because they're not part of the default interface. Put bluntly, people seem to be arguing that you can solve Blizzard's lack of functionality in-game by using other AddOns to compensate.

Lore is saying that you shouldn't have to do this at all. The Blizzard interface should be good enough without AddOns being needed.

Funnily enough, my most recent blog discusses AVR and its removal and, I admit, I come to the same general conclusion as Lore on a couple of points. It's not really the AddOn that's to blame, more the encounter design. However, I believe that boss mods in general are way too sophisticated and are now forcing Blizzard to complicate encounters to the point of silliness. People working on things like heroic Professor Putricide and heroic Arthas are not telling me that they're having fun - they're telling me that they're stressed out. The slightest error in judgement is causing wipes. They're not playing the game without their hand being held, they're absolutely dependent on the timers in their boss mod to do what they need to do, at the right time. That doesn't take "skill" and isn't "fun" for those I speak to about it - it's learning an encounter by brute force repetition and hoping you down it before your tries expire.

[Dazdor]

I have an issue with your example of the Plague Sickness/Unbound Plague example. Their are debuffs and as such can be displayed on player's unit frames (which every raider should be running) making the managing of the Plague no more tedious than glancing at your unit frames to determine who is unplagued, clicking their frame, finding the little circle underneath them that is built into the game, and running towards them. As an example: I am the only Shaman in my 10 man raid. On BQL I have my grid set up to display a small purple icon on the right side of each player's unit frame when they have the Essence of the Blood Queen debuff. What this allows me to do is quickly determine the optimal time to blow Bloodlust.

Nonetheless I do understand what you're trying to say with that example and I'm willing to bet there are plenty of other similar examples available that would be better suited for what you're trying to say. AVR, in my opinion, is an addon for people that don't like to pay much attention to their surroundings or don't want to invest the time to learn how to use Grid or something akin.

My point is that there are plenty of other options that don't break Blizzard's Terms of Use (or Service or whatever) for handling encounter mechanics.

[2ndNin]

The basic UI is sufficient for all raiding needs, having raided all of ICC without a single mod up one night I can say that it is doable. It is not as simple, it doesn't present all the information you may want but it does give you access to all you need to complete the encounters.

[Erdinger]

Or we could just turn this situation around

Instead of delivering the plague, why not pick it up?
Why is it the affected persons problem, to get rid of it? Just get one who do not have the debuff pick it up.

And whoa, now this is about teamplay, instead of one person having to throw his debuff away on his own. So now ppl are handeling the debuff instead of trying to get rid of it.

Funny no one mentioned it earlier.

[Brutallic]

Very much of raiding revolves around reacting to and anticipating boss abilities.
Typical examples would be..
The boss doing an AoE from his position.
The boss targeting a random raid member with an ability that does AoE damage.

These are both typical examples of boss mechanics that you probably see most raid instances and there are PLENTY of addons that assist you in anticipating these things. Just about any bossmod will help define when exactly said AoE ability is going to be cast, and that further helps you react by being able to anticipate when you need to check your debuffs, or visual cues around you that show you where this AoE ability is being targeted.

However, everyone is so focused about AVR being "hand-holding" it goes further than just handholding, AVR can be used in many ways, it would probably have had some kind of use outside raids too if it had developed further with other things in mind, those that made it clearly had raiding specifically intended for its use but I'm sure that drawing objects in the game world can have other uses that might not be completely legit.

Anyways, what I really liked about AVR was that it showed a very precise and intelligible way of measuring whether or not you are too close or to far away from whatever it is you need to avoid or be close to.

I'm not worried AVR is being broken, there is this other addon called HudMap which will basically place a map spanning across your screen that shows you the players in your raid and where they are, and also paints them with a dot if they get one of those AoE abilities targeted at them, and it's 2D so it isn't as intrusive to the game world as AVR was.