PST - Episode 93

This week:
0:31 - Will Blizzard add the BMAH to the WoW remote, now that it's free?
1:42 - Is having wands available for Valor/Justice, now that they're as strong as staves, unfair to those that can't equip them?
4:14 - Now that dispels have a cooldown, will certain Cataclysm fights be unbeatable?
5:53 - Should Blizzard add Paragon levels to WoW?
14:47 - Will the talent and glyph changes close the gap between the top and bottom of DPS meters?
21:56 - Is Inscription worthless with the new glyph changes?
27:28 - Does the number of expansions needed to purchase deter people from buying the game?
34:03 - How do you feel about the Spirit of Harmony BoP crafting mat?
38:41 - Could Charms of Good Fortune make casual players skip out on raid nights?

As far as I know, the warlock portals do in fact drop aggro, so tanks can't use them to kite(at least thats what I heard during a beta raid stream from Six of Midwinter)

* Holy Paladins can't use Wands either, so priest healers have a one-up. Then again, with lvl90 systems at level 85, classes won't be balanced anymore, so I doubt a single item is going to be the sole cause of skewed DPS meters.

* The Illidan ability was called "Shear". (now you can sleep easily)

* On spirits: it's so they can keep them as 'orbs' throughout progression, because raiders keep finding the current item but currently, casual players are 'forced' to buy them from raiders, which means they need to farm e.g. flasks/food table mats to sell to those raiders. This change short-circuits that, pushing raiders to go out and farm more themselves, as well as prevents "crafting alts" that never actually leave a city. On the flipside, dual-gather characters are basicly getting totally useless BoP items. Maybe it's going to push players towards gather/craft combos on their characters rather than double gather/crafting alts.

I agree that crafting works better as a service of clicking a button instead of having to go out and gather mats. I think they are making the spirit of harmony bop to limit the number of crafting alts so that some professions are more profitable than they have been in the past. I think a better solution would be to make the desirable recipes obtainable through normally playing the game. Things like rep grinds, raid drops, mob drops, quest chain rewards, and stuff like that. The recipes would have to be bop though to prevent crafting alts from just sitting in town and buying recipes and whatever they to need to provide the service.

Make the spirits of harmony boe, but make recipes more difficult to obtain and bop.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by joshvolt

Make the spirits of harmony boe, but make recipes more difficult to obtain and bop.

---

The problem with that is that the 'best' solution for it is for those recipes to drop in raids, BoE or BoP. So yet again, you'ld be forced to base your server economy on the raiding level on either side. Rep is usually a bad idea, because then you can either pre-farm the rep for when a patch comes out (instant craft spam the day of a patch) or you need a new rep vendor every patch, à la Molten Front, which means yet again a) farming rep with every alt (something they want to step away from in MoP) or b) make it BoE, which means that 1 week into the content patch, it's just a regular vendor recipe.

Imho, I think the original intent was for spirits to be BoE, so that every item craft required some "out-in-the-world-time", but that would just mean people that didn't care about crafting got 'free stuff' to put on AH, similarly to DPS/healer classes now get free gold when finding cloth.

Quote:

---

Imho, I think the original intent was for spirits to be BoE, so that every item craft required some "out-in-the-world-time", but that would just mean people that didn't care about crafting got 'free stuff' to put on AH, similarly to DPS/healer classes now get free gold when finding cloth.

---

You mean people actually use First Aid? I only levelled it on my paladin because I wanted to have more achievement points than our Guild Master.

I agree with the earlier poster that one of the intents of the spirits of harmony is to get crafters out into the world. I posit that Blizzard most likely has metrics on the behavior of crafting characters. Consider the following statement.

1) To maximize sales, a crafting character offering a service *wants* to sit in a capital city monitoring/spamming trade chat full time.

That means that a player who wants to raid from 7:30 - 10:30 will miss out on three hours of sales on their crafting character. That means a player spamming trade chat for five hours *looking for work* on a weekend could end up with zero sales to show for it. Gathering characters can do what they want when they want -- if I want to raid, I can gather after the raid. When I gather for five hours, I have stacks of materials in my bag to show for it. Blizzard may have metrics showing greater player activity (doing stuff out in the world) and in turn greater subscriber retention for players who primarily play gatherers. Blizzard may have metrics showing greater player inactivity (idling in capital city spamming trade) and in turn poorer subscriber retention for players who primarily play crafters.

Revisiting statement (1), we need to ask the question of *why* this behavior arises in the first place. The reason is that the current system of 'buyer provides the materials + tip' requires the crafter and buyer to be online at the same time. A player who needs an item crafted can spam trade chat for an hour with, "LF leatherworker to craft XYZ, my mats, will tip" and end up with no transaction. A crafter who spams trade chat for an hour with, "[Leatherworking] looking for work" can end up with no transaction. I wouldn't be surprised if someone clever at Blizzard has come up with a way to parse trade chat logs and item creation logs to derive metrics for how often these sort of transactions go unfulfilled.

This begs the question, "Why isn't the auction house utilized more for crafted items?". The answer is that players have learned that they can get a better deal as buyers by getting the materials together beforehand and paying a tip for a crafter to press a button. By making the spirits 'bind on pickup' from lootable mobs (dungeons, out in the world), this causes crafters to be out in the world. If the crafter is out in the world, then they are no longer idle in the capital city. This in turn *trains* buyers to go to the auction house to look for items because they have a harder time finding a crafter idle in a capital city with spirits of harmony in stock. If you re-read the Blizzard blog post (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/6968167) you can see that they are considering making the spirits bind on account instead of bind on pickup -- this accomplishes the same goal: players are out in the world on their alts instead of idle in a capital city on a crafter. I think Blizzard should go one step further and make it possible to obtain spirits of harmony by looting player corpses in level 90 battlegrounds so that all three bases are covered: PvE in dungeons + PvP in battlegrounds + questing out in the world = all types of player activity can reward spirits of harmony.

This may be a situation where the crafting system is just broken. If the crafting system channels players into 'unfun' activities like idling in Ogrimmar spamming a "[Blacksmithing] looking for work" macro every minute, then it may be time to get rid of it. I'm really hoping that spirits of harmony can train crafters and buyers to utilize the auction house more so that players can get back to playing the fun parts of the game.

-HP

The reason they didn't just raise the level cap to 160 in D3 is because an increase in character level signifies access to new skills and runes, and changes in your combat tables against the mobs you're fighting, neither of which would happen past 60.

Also, frozen orbs and chaos orbs and stuff could never be as obnoxious as good ol' primal nethers - when heroics were hard, LFG was worthless, and dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Airowird

* Holy Paladins can't use Wands either, so priest healers have a one-up. Then again, with lvl90 systems at level 85, classes won't be balanced anymore, so I doubt a single item is going to be the sole cause of skewed DPS meters.

---

I think Lore missed how far reaching it was anyway, being able to buy a vp ilevel weapon is the point - this puts every none-caster that can't buy a weapon at a disadvantage. Hunters, warriors, DKs, paladins etc, none of those can grab a normal mode raiding weapon for VP.

That said, it's the last month of raiding so I don't think it matters in the slightest.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hp2

This may be a situation where the crafting system is just broken. If the crafting system channels players into 'unfun' activities like idling in Ogrimmar spamming a "[Blacksmithing] looking for work" macro every minute, then it may be time to get rid of it. I'm really hoping that spirits of harmony can train crafters and buyers to utilize the auction house more so that players can get back to playing the fun parts of the game.

-HP

---

The crafting system funnels players into "unfun" activity?

No one is holding a gun to their head. The heart of the problem is that you can make more gold sitting on your ass in Orgrimmar or Stormwind than getting out into the world. That.... is the real problem. Dailies are a waste of time in relation to the reward when compared to what can be made by crafting. Give the players a real incentive to "go adventure". If you want people out in the world, give us a real reason.... real incentive.

Until that happens, people will remain parked. There will always be people parked in SW or Org like that simply because people will do that while doing other things (laundry, cooking, etc). But when the return on the time invested isn't there for going and just doing stuff... people won't. Especially when you factor in how not-engaging it is. Poor gold for doing very repetitious, boring crap that eats up a lot of time?.... oh please give me more. -_-

Make DOING STUFF more interesting and rewarding, and people will go forth into your world.

The biggest blowback of the current system will be that players with a (double) crafting main will have no reason to go out and farm as they will be doing dailies/heroics enough to get spirits and sell those, while people that 'balance' professions (classic gather/craft combo) will actually be shafted and have to farm on their alts.

Oh, and spirits are just going to end up as being a commodity of X gold per spirit, crafting tip included. It was like that the first time they introduced the BoP tBC primals (nethers, vortices,...) and I see no reason why people should treat spirits any differently.

But I agree with Leucifer, going out in the world should be a purpose in itself, not a means to get something (in this case, spirits). It's not going to be considered a 'bonus' to get spirits, it's going to be a chore to farm them and within a month we'll have a MoP version of the Elemental Plateau, or atleast the same amount of people/bots farming a certain location.

I had so much fun PvPing in the elemental plataeu though...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TraduTN

As far as I know, the warlock portals do in fact drop aggro, so tanks can't use them to kite(at least thats what I heard during a beta raid stream from Six of Midwinter)

---

THey place a debuff on you for 15(?) seconds that causes you to be ignored as an entry on the aggro table.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Leucifer

The crafting system funnels players into "unfun" activity? No one is holding a gun to their head.

---

You're looking at this from the perspective of a long time player. If you're a new player to the game, you're leveling a warrior and it's time to pick a profession at level 5 and think to yourself, "Hmm, blacksmithing sounds kind of cool" and you end up dragging that profession along until you reach level cap. Once you're at level cap, a surprise is in store for you: in order to make money with that profession, you need to idle in Ogrimmar spamming a macro and hoping for buyers to be online. There is no gun to a person's head (why do people keep using this argument?) -- new players don't know any better. These are the players you see in LFR. These are the players who most likely aren't aware that there are other ways to make gold. As soon as this player spends hours of time sitting in Ogrimmar making gold in a boring way, the game becomes boring to them, and they are less likely to stay subscribed.

This is acquired behavior. A new blacksmith may try to craft BoE items and place them on the auction house only for his listings to go unsold. Why? Because the rest of the WoW player base is trained to undercut him by gathering the materials themselves and finding someone in Ogrimmar to craft it for him plus a tip. My reasoning above is that if BoP or BoA spirits of harmony drive crafters to be somewhere other than Ogrimmar, it may make it possible for the system to gravitate away from spamming trade and back towards the AH. I have my doubts which is why I think the crafting system may be broken.

In terms of being out in the world, consider a gathering profession like an herbalist. New players that roll herbalism will be out in the world. They may come across a non-combat pet and engage in a pet battle to tame it. On PvP servers, they may run into other players and engage in PvP. They may see an archaeology dig site on their radar and actually dig it up. They may accidentally aggro a monster and have to fight it off. Heck, even when you're flying around, at least the scenery is changing. When they spend hours *farming* with herbalism, they have stacks of materials in their bag to show for it. They can put those up in the AH and log off. When they log back in, there is a good chance there will be gold in the mail waiting for them. Examine this pattern of player behavior versus that of a crafter -- gathering professions that are out in the world have a greater opportunity for player engagement even though the act of gathering by itself is pretty dull. If you're a crafter, you see the same walls of Ogrimmar. You don't engage in any PvP. There are no monsters around. There is nothing engaging around.

-HP

I just have to say I was yelling "SHEAR!!! SHEEEEEEEEEAR!!!" at my screen when you were talking about Illidan with the Shield Block change. Funny thing is, the armory still shows that as one of his abilities. My guildy linked me it the other day and asked me, "what's wrong with this picture?"

Way off topic, but I just had to say that for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

I'm super excited about the warlock portal ability. Not only does it look amazing graphically, but it will be super useful in raids. If what teng is saying is true then it effectively gives every healer in the raid the priest fade ability for aggro. Plus so many mechanics would be made more interesting with it available. Have to run out of the raid with a debuff?... click the portal, blow up, click the portal, win.

yeah pretty much, though for the most part is see it used as a way for DPS to ninja pull with impunity :(

Looks like someone from Blizzard CS has watched this PST ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yyK-GGvnbQ&t=3m44s

Well I was going to go into the Spirits of Harmony question, but HP has said pretty much everything I was going to. This is one of the ways they are trying to get people to go out into the world, and as long as the items you make with SoHs stay infrequent per profession (both in amount per item and the diversity of items) it shouldn't be a huge deal. It will make crafting alts and double gatherers have to change up their strategy if Blizz does not make them BoA, but for any character that is actively played, you should be able to get enough just doing dailies or whatever else you are doing anyway. Hell, you can literally farm the things with the Tillers.

Going to try and sneak in a quick response, as my more detailed one got ganked yesterday.....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hp2

You're looking at this from the perspective of a long time player.

---

No.... I'm approaching this from the angle of logic and reason.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hp2

If you're a new player to the game, you're leveling a warrior and it's time to pick a profession at level 5 and think to yourself, "Hmm, blacksmithing sounds kind of cool" and you end up dragging that profession along until you reach level cap. Once you're at level cap, a surprise is in store for you: in order to make money with that profession, you need to idle in Ogrimmar spamming a macro and hoping for buyers to be online.

---

This is simply not true. You're up against the AH in any case, because if your price for goods/services is not comparable to the rest of the market for that identical item, you'll never make the sale. In fact, your argument actually gives better weight to actually using the AH, as I can post something there at a reasonable price compared to the rest of the market, and let the buyers decide.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hp2

There is no gun to a person's head (why do people keep using this argument?)

---

Fair enough. I invited that criticism. Main thing is.... you ACTUALLY HAVE A CHOICE. You are ELECTING to sit in Orgrimmar and spam trade.... in an effort to undercut the people who have posted on the AH (you actually are, whether you realize this or not) or your fellow crafters who are spamming trade. Look below..........

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hp2

-- new players don't know any better. These are the players you see in LFR. These are the players who most likely aren't aware that there are other ways to make gold. As soon as this player spends hours of time sitting in Ogrimmar making gold in a boring way, the game becomes boring to them, and they are less likely to stay subscribed.

This is acquired behavior. A new blacksmith may try to craft BoE items and place them on the auction house only for his listings to go unsold. Why? Because the rest of the WoW player base is trained to undercut him by gathering the materials themselves and finding someone in Ogrimmar to craft it for him plus a tip.

---

Which is what you are doing by sitting Org spamming trade........

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hp2

My reasoning above is that if BoP or BoA spirits of harmony drive crafters to be somewhere other than Ogrimmar, it may make it possible for the system to gravitate away from spamming trade and back towards the AH. I have my doubts which is why I think the crafting system may be broken.

---

It'll drive them out of Org briefly to go and acquire that item, and once they get them.... guess what? they'll be right back in Org spamming trade. Oh..... and plus.... we'll get to hear on the forums about how life has been made inconvenient to your money-grab mechanism by forcing you to spend precious time away from Org getting mats, or how we're forcing you to play your alt with blacksmithing in order to make money because they're BoP

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hp2

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hp2

In terms of being out in the world, consider a gathering profession like an herbalist. New players that roll herbalism will be out in the world. They may come across a non-combat pet and engage in a pet battle to tame it. On PvP servers, they may run into other players and engage in PvP. They may see an archaeology dig site on their radar and actually dig it up. They may accidentally aggro a monster and have to fight it off. Heck, even when you're flying around, at least the scenery is changing. When they spend hours *farming* with herbalism, they have stacks of materials in their bag to show for it. They can put those up in the AH and log off. When they log back in, there is a good chance there will be gold in the mail waiting for them. Examine this pattern of player behavior versus that of a crafter -- gathering professions that are out in the world have a greater opportunity for player engagement even though the act of gathering by itself is pretty dull. If you're a crafter, you see the same walls of Ogrimmar. You don't engage in any PvP. There are no monsters around. There is nothing engaging around.

-HP

---

The crafter can use the AH just as well as the gatherer. The gatherer will be "undercut" by their competition just as much as the crafter will. The issue is volume. The gatherer will more likely see some sort of sale as they are posting more items. A crafter.... especially one trying to to make a maximum profit per item, is going to struggle as the demand to pay top-dollar for an item in some cases just isn't there....

.... unless I make the crafting item BoP.... at which point, I've effectively forced a bit of a monopoly. This is exactly what happened at the start of Cata when chaos orbs were BoP and crafters could make RELEVANT (key idea) items for raiding.

Look back at it. Blacksmithing shields and chest pieces were MEANINGFUL. They were 359. Unless you were fortunate to get one of those in raid, these were the best gear available to the starting raider. Heroics had NOTHING on par with them. This created a big demand for them. Then when you add into it BoP mats.... you just increased the price as the supplier now had a limited supply of materials against greater demand. The people who were spamming in Org/Sw were making fat cash only because they were UNDERCUTTING the items posted on the AH (because, logically... why wouldn't I buy from the Ah unless I can save myself $$$?) The combination of factors contributing to the situation actually caused an INCREASE of people sitting on their asses in Org/Sw spamming trade because it was much more lucrative at that time.

Really, when you get down to it changing these items to BoP instead of BoA or BoE is simply NOT going to affect the number of people sitting on their butts in Org/Sw spamming trade. Those people are going to do it regardless. What WILL increase that is if crafting items are RELEVANT again. When those crafting items are more readily obtainable or outperform their counterparts from raid/heroics/points..... then you will see an increase.

Really though, your argument falls a bit flat because you skip over some significant contributing factors. This doesn't even touch on the issues of it becoming more valuable to craft my own items, or simply forgoing all the crafting stuff for heroic/raid drops. Like Dragon Soul..... who cares about the crafting items when you can run LFR? Or run a pug on normal (especially over the past few months)? You just ignore so many other factors.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I'm betting you're a crafter who sits in Org and spams trade? I can understand your frustration, as you're not making a hefty return on your investments at this point.