Saturday, October 3, 2009

Tier 10 from Tier 7 content, joy!

Badges are a great idea. Allowing you to suppress the effect of random loot somewhat by filling gaps in gear and moving certain items off the loot tables and onto badge vendors (standard issue: relics) is definitely good. 3.2 was already taking this idea in the wrong direction with the abolition of tiered badge systems, and now here's 3.3 to rub salt into the wound with the handouts of Tier 10 gear from Tier 7 content.

As if Emblems of Triumph from daily heroics weren't bad enough, you can now get 10 Emblems of Frost every week from running "weekly raid quests". Except this implementation is much, MUCH worse.

You see, running the daily heroics for Triumph badges takes at least some degree of effort and time commitment. To get 10 Emblems of Triumph from heroics in a week, you will need to run a 15-20 minute heroic for 5 days of the week. All in all, roughly a 1 hour to 1 and a half hour weekly time commitment. Not too bad considering the difficulty of the content and the fact that the same emblems can be obtained from TOC, VOA, and Onyxia, none of which are much more difficult than heroics.

The candidates for the Emblems of Frost weeklies are:
  • Patchwerk
  • Noth
  • Razuvious
  • Anub'rekhan
  • Sartharion
  • Malygos
  • Flame Leviathan
  • Ignis
  • Razorscale
  • XT-002
  • Lord Jaraxxus
  • Lord Marrowgar
Lord Marrowgar will be an Icecrown raid boss, and following the pattern of the other bosses, will probably be the first boss of the instance.

Notice the pattern here? None of these bosses are difficult to defeat or access. Zone in, faceroll for 5-10 minutes, collect Tier 10. Part of the logic behind changing heroics to drop Emblems of Conquest/Triumph (from the dailies) was to encourage players to continue to run these where previously they would not have. I can only assume that this change is at least partly due to the same mentality. In which case, THIS CHANGE WILL ACCOMPLISH NOTHING. People will zone in to do the weekly boss, nothing else. If you want to keep players doing your content, then at least make it require the later bosses of the instance (i.e. Yogg, Vezax, Anub, KT). And make the rewards proportional. Noth is not the same difficulty as 25-Jaraxxus-Heroic, yet the game does not distinguish between them when it comes to dishing out emblems.

There's a whole wealth of potential problems that this change will cause to the playerbase itself, but those are to be discussed another time. I'm off to get some Tier 10 from The Stockade.

~P

12 comments:

  1. Holy shit, cry more. It's a WEEKLY quest that requires AT LEAST 15 people. 3 badges a week does not equal "Tier 10 from from Tier 7 content". With all the news coming out about 3.3, it's really sad you chose to cry over something as inconsequential as this.

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  2. It's 10 badges a week. And no, I wouldn't actually mind the change if they did it sensibly and made the quests require the later bosses of the dungeons. This way, a proportional degree of effort is required, and people that actually need the instance for loot aren't shafted because every single group will only be doing 1-2 bosses then zoning out.

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  3. Lol so your counter-argument is that it'll screw over people who need loot? Weren't you against the idea of free epics like, half a second ago? If people are getting carried to the last boss, wouldn't they get a shot at multiple purples instead of 1/5th of one? The people who need the loot will run with other people who need the loot, only an idiot would join a Daily run if they needed gear, and you KNOW raid leaders will make the distinction between a Daily run and a Gear run when they're advertising in trade, don't give me that shit. Guilds who have TotGC can go in and get some free badges in 15 minutes, and the puggers who need Naxx gear get a nice boost while they're doing their runs. If you're better, you should be rewarded for it. Why the fuck should I have to spend 3 hours in Naxx carrying bads if I'm geared for IC? Goods get in, get badges, get out; bads get badges as a bonus for doing their lower runs. Perfect system.

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  4. All I hear is "wah wah, I want my free epics for doing nothing".

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  5. Given the loot levels coming in the IC 5 man (219 norm / 232 heroic I believe) people have no excuse for being undergeared. This combined with the free epics they can already acquire from farming heroics. Rewarding tier 10 loot for doing tier 7 content is not a good idea. It's like giving someone an Oscar for being in a school nativity, it is a disproportionate reward. Should the guys who can do Patchwerk 10 man be given the same loot as the guys who can clear Icecrown Citadel? All the whining seems to stem from laziness "I can't be bothered to go and get the right gear for the endgame raids, I want it now1" or "I can't be bothered carrying retards through Naxx so they can still be retared in better gear" The answer to this is is you can't be bothered to find some gear from one of the many sources you have outside of proper raiding then you don't deserve to see Icecrown Citadel. And if you spend your time gearing up these idiots so you can raid with them your a complete fool. But for this change Naxx is dead. You can gear for Ulduar 25 by running heroics these days "i can't be bothered spending 3 hours with idiots in Naxx" is not a valid arguement for this system. Post 3.3 you will probably be able to gear someone for ToC 25, or IC 10 man by doing 5 mans. The only arguement for this system is "I want it! I want it now! (buy me an oompa loompa daddy!)"

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  6. It may not be a valid argument for, but it's certainly a valid argument against his proposal. At the end of the day, does it matter? The days of epics truly being epic aren't coming back. Ever. Blizzard has stated time after time that having the majority of the playerbase seeing the content is one of their major goals for the future. The top guilds on servers will still have the best loot on server, as it comes from hardmodes the average bear can't keep up with, so what the hell is everyone's problem with giving out gear that's half (2/3rds?) of a tier lower? They didn't earn it? Does it affect you negatively in any way whatsoever? No, everyone just gets their panties in a bunch whenever something is implemented that benefits others more than them. IT DOESN'T MATTER. YOU WILL STILL GET PURPLES FASTER THAN THE BADS. THIS CHANGES NOTHING.

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  7. Well it still does change something.

    It used to be that people who did a cetain type of thing looked the same in wow. PVP had their gear and Raiders had their gear.
    TBC changed that and PVP/PVE looked the same and there was poo-flinging.People lost something that made them look different in a game where that is already a hard thing to do!

    Wrath hit and the emblem system and Blizz keeps on chipping away the individual look of every player. Sure there is skill but can you see skill on a semi ToC/Uld geared player? can you see Emblem labels?

    I'm all for "show everybody the content", it's cool! they worked for it to be seen! but tone it a notch down. have them work for it as well. for instance with ToC up have them be able to get Naxx gear to run Uld to get to ToC not Uld Gear to run ToC... When the end of Wrath hits they can do a sunwell and have them get better gear to actually run Icecrown untill cataclysm hits.

    I'm not for witholding gear from people but how about they start working for it again?

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  8. It doesn't matter what they do TBH the game isn't the same anymore, people haven't had to work for anything in a long time. Blizzard caters to a new type of player base leaving the rest of us with nothing more than memories of the good times we used to have in Azeroth

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  9. I'll be honest. I've never understood why people care if someone who is less skilled has just as good gear as they do. Person A goes into raids at the hardest time gets loot and seems real awesome cause of gear. Person B does quest that are relatively simply and gets same gear and looks awesome.

    Why does person A think person B doesn't desever the gear?

    The truth I think is that people just want to be lazy and be like good gear = good player bad gear = bad player. When that could be totally false a player's skill is mostly independant from his gear.

    Sad thing is I just started with Wrath and everyone says I missed out so meh.

    Sorry for the wall of text.

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  10. Disclaimer: I stoped playing WOW for almost two years and came back when TOC launched. I used to be a hard core raider since launch of WOW. But these days times and lifestyles has forced me to change the way I play now. Bottom line, I am a casual player.

    I have read these posts and so many others on other Blog sites as well as the Blizzard web site. Seems to be the same themes and responses. I am in no way arguring against or for the changes that have and are about to occur. Just providing how I as a casual player now views the changes for Patch 3.3.

    I play a feral druid. When I first came back I was on a steep learning curve and had to run a lot of Heroics in order to get the gear just to get into the 10 man pugs. I have two pieces of Tier 9 and I have never stepped into 10 man TOC yet. It is very difficult to get into a PUG when the requirements now are to link achieve and a basic gear check is conducted on you. Having good gear does not necessarily mean your a good player. I have been in several pugs now for end game content where others had way better gear than me but either their DPS was lacking or they we're just plain dumb. After awhile people remember you by name whether you we're good or bad. Reputation can get you into groups as well.

    With that said, we live in a world of vanity. So many posts have been to the way items appear in game on ones character. So I read looking good makes you better? No, but it does personally inside I guess if you are like this. I can understand the argument of wanting to be different and stand out. And there are items in game that still identify you as a skilled player by tackling and completing the highest end game content at the current time. We all pay the same fee to play. If you want the better the gear than work for it. So what if we all look like dopplegangers of one another because the graphics of gear is the same or not to your taste. Personally I like the content and challenge of this and Blizzard does keep it fresh and regular. You cannot make everyone happy and there will always be trolls on anything that is ic and ooc. After all its just a game...

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  11. Oh noes, more people will be able to raid Icecrown! What ARE Blizzard thinking?

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  12. Whoa, take it easy on Panasi :/ I think the moral of his topic here is that we all want to feel like our in game accomplishments (ie: gear) is going to last more than several weeks b4 we get back on the endless hamster wheel that Blizzard keeps us on. I think Blizz needs to offer a new class of gear that is Upgradable and wont become obsolete in a short period of time. Hang on.... Im not sayin an entire upgradable Armor set, but it would be pretty frikin cool if there was an upgradable Tanking sword or shield that took a massive commitment to aquire, but would be upgradable by running new content for the life of your account. That would make me feel a little better about the Blizzard Hamster wheel!

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