PST - Episode 94

This week:
0:45 - How do you decide who to give loot to when first gearing up?
5:20 - Could Blizzard use the gear normalization feature of Challenge Modes to scale us back for older instances?
9:41 - Will we be able to skip tiers in MoP by buying Valor Point items?
16:36 - Should Blizzard stop itemizing multiple items of the same type per tier?
24:21 - Would Symbiosis work better if both players got to choose what spells they traded?
30:20 - Will raiders be forced to grind reputations for Valor items in MoP?
36:31 - If we're getting a talent point every 15 levels, how will that work in the next expansion?
39:20 - How many cooldowns is too many for one class?

You need to consider Blizzard's reputation grinds along a temporal axis. Head enchants were removed from reputation grinds because they were required across all tiers of raiding -- a fresh level 85 gearing up for Dragon Soul felt compelled to grind reputation for their spec's head enchant because it was an increase in power that was expected and had no alternative source.

All of the other 359 epic and 346 rare gear tied to reputation grinds became irrelevant as soon as Firelands came out. Why? It was faster to gear up via crafted gear which was more readily available.

The heartache you describe with Mists of Pandaria faction grinds will be relevant for the entry tier of raiding. As soon as people reach maximum profession levels, the need to grind out a MoP faction will diminish because there is an alternative. I'm pretty sure once tier 15 comes out, you won't be telling your fresh level 90s to grind out factions -- you will tell them to get enough crafted gear or BoEs to qualify for tier 14 LFR.

-HP

It doesn't really matter how long it's an issue. Poor gameplay for one tier is still poor gameplay.

The problem I have is with LFR only having a 15% drop rate and no guarantee that its not going to drop something you already have, poaching is going to make a comeback if Justice or catchup heroics arent included.

15% means its going to take 8 bosses per piece of gear with 16 pieces and increasing chance of rolling duplicates as you gear up.

Tier 16 is going to be the unseen raid again without some sort of catchup system.

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Originally Posted by Lore

5:20 - Could Blizzard use the gear normalization feature of Challenge Modes to scale us back for older instances?

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I had this crazy idea that sometime in the future they could free time to expand LFR to provide a 5 level window to visit each of the old Raids. Not for the challenge or anything like that, but for the fun, lore, transmog and even stat loot for the leveling process. And use the normalization feature to make sure it is easy no matter the group.

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Originally Posted by Lore

9:41 - Will we be able to skip tiers in MoP by buying Valor Point items?

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I don't recall any Blue Post about that. But think that I read something about LFR being the gap closer for the in-between-tier item level that people not doing normal (or maybe for those who don't reach heroic) Mogu'Shan Vault and that want to get to the other raids (Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring).

The path for this non-raider is MSV (LFR) first then the other raids (LFR to) because they will be blocked by item level. Maybe for some normal-guild raids those raids, that will come after are going to be useful too. Some of their gear may come from VP.

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Originally Posted by Lore

30:20 - Will raiders be forced to grind reputations for Valor items in MoP?

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I have some assumptions about how the Raiding and gearing is going to happen. One is that MSV raid in normal mode is going to be easier than DS and heroic at most in the same difficulty of DS. So everybody that have an organized group is going to clear first, maybe second week the whole thing. So the pace of which raiders are going to get better gear than the the one from VP is going to make this whole 'forced to do grind rep' pointless.

The reasons from blizzard to the the rep thing and so could be found here.

Now that would be an epic final boss.

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Originally Posted by Lore

It doesn't really matter how long it's an issue. Poor gameplay for one tier is still poor gameplay.

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Just so that I'm not basing this on anecdotal evidence, time for some math.


Wildhammer/Dragonmaw reputation:
Neutral to Friendly = 3k
Neutral to Honored = 3k + 6k = 9k
Neutral to Revered = 3k + 6k + 12k = 21k
Neutral to Exalted = 3k + 6k + 12k + 21k = 42k


If you exclude the tabard (which is what Blizzard is doing in MoP), you now had a hard cap on how fast you could reach the revered threshold (346 iLvl gear = equivalent to grinding heroic 5 man dungeons) and the exalted threshold (359 iLvl gear = equivalent to grinding tier 11 normal raids). You got approximately 5k reputation just by doing all of the Twilight Highland zone quests to unlock the daily quests. If you did all five daily quests, you could earn 1350 reputation per day. Let's determine how many calendar days it would take to *actually increase your character's power via reputation gear*.


(21k - 5k) / 1350 = 11.9 -- Twelve days to reach iLvl 346 gear. If you're a player that hates reputation grinding to increase character power, just grind out heroic 5 mans instead of wasting 12 days grinding reputation.


(42k - 5k) / 1350 = 27.4 -- Four weeks to reach iLvl 359 gear. If you're a player that hates reputation grinding to increase character power, just raid for four weeks of LFR + normal instead of wasting a month grinding reputation.


You have to consider reputation grinds along a temporal axis. If your increase in character power arrives *so late* that it doesn't contribute to your progression, it's not a required action. In the case of Cataclysm, Blizzard made the mistake of adding reputation tabards. With a reputation tabard, you could force the timeline to shrink. In Mists of Pandaria, they are not making this mistake.


However, now that I'm poking around the wowdb.com database, it looks like the iLvl 489 valor gear is tied to revered reputation which I consider a mistake. The act of raiding should have a month or two head start over same iLvl valor gear. I disagree with the idea that reputation rewards should only be cosmetic items that don't increase character power. A player who makes the effort to grind out reputation should feel an increase in power as a reward just like players who make the effort to organize raids or players who make the effort to grind heroic dungeons. If reputation grinds interfere with raiding, the solution isn't to remove the increase to character power but to delay it so that it no longer interferes.


Also consider that for a casual normal mode guild, if normal tier 14 raid progression is so slow that reputation gear would help, then the infusion of reputation gear at the fourth week would serve as a soft nerf. Heroic raiders would be unaffected because they have four weeks of normal clears with heroic upgrades mixed in -- reputation gear wouldn't be on their radar.


-HP

Reputation grinds in general are the poor gameplay I was talking about. Grinding reputation isn't fun. People do it because they get rewards, not because it's entertaining.

Don't you get most of the rep needed while levelling in the respective zone?

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36:31 - If we're getting a talent point every 15 levels, how will that work in the next expansion?

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This is actually the first time we have got an awesome talent at maximum level. Prior to MoP the final talent points were always quite boring and the "spec defining talents" like Bladestorm, Ardent Defender, Chimaera Shot etc. were obtained a long time before max level. I can see them simply leaving the talents be, and just giving players class/spec abilities at 91, 93 and 95.

I can definately see the next(last?) expansion just giving a talent at 95 or 100 and just give you that max level boost like we have now.

Or simply move all the talent up a couple of levels so it matches out, which would be the cheap way to do it. (e.g. 16-32-48-64-80-95 or 17-33-50-67-83-100)

In respect of the discussion on weapons in DS, in particular the 2H'ers, it's worth mentioning that Hc Experimental Specimen Slicer (from Yors) is BiS for Blood DK's since the lack of stats and dps-only proc on Gurth isn't as worth-while defensively as the socket + mastery + ability to reforge the other secondary on the Slicer. If memory serves TG Fury Warriors were also better off using Gurth MH + Slicer OH, rather than 2 Gurths. Ataraxis is still fairly redundant though.

I feel like a lot of things could soften the "required grind" feeling of reputations in Mists:

* If they're so slow that they're superceded by raid drops by the time you can get them
* If they're so fast that they don't feel like much compared to leveling
* If Vaults is so easy that you don't need the boost (I've heard it is supposed to feel more like T7 Naxx than T11), and drops from Vaults mostly supercede what you'd get from reputations
* If they're all so great that they don't feel grindy at all (perhaps not so likely)

We'll see how it goes. In Cataclysm, I don't think very many of the people I raided with did much hardcore reputation grinding to exalted for the epic rewards, and we still got into T11 raiding without much difficulty. I'm much more concerned with how "mandatory" LFR is for raiders throughput the expansion (due to the legendary questline or just drops or whatever) than how mandatory reputations are for the first few weeks.

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Originally Posted by Lore

Reputation grinds in general are the poor gameplay I was talking about. Grinding reputation isn't fun. People do it because they get rewards, not because it's entertaining.

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Turning the computer on isn't fun either, is something that I need to do (see what I did thar). Now, rep grinds aren't unfunny per-se, what is unfunny is how the are presented, the actions that you need to do in order to achieve it; the problem is the implementation that Blizzard and many others have done about them, if you had read the link I posted maybe you could give it a better thought; because grinding is not the content, the content is what you have to do in order to get them and the reward you get from it. Because what is not funny is what we need to do.

For example, before the change in cataclysm (patch 4.2 I believe) dungeons were daily quests (then they became weekly), Raids are weekly quests, they are not presented in that way but they are and you "want to do" at least the latter as far as we know.

I think the gear normalization would work great for older tiers. The fights wouldn't have to work exactly as intended, but as long as it would take a little organization and made the fight last longer it would be a lot of fun. Explaining a whole fight and teaching people who didn't raid a lot when that older content was current, would be a pain any way.

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It doesn't really matter how long it's an issue. Poor gameplay for one tier is still poor gameplay.

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I think the focus on reputations is part of their effort to get people out in the world more. They probably looked at Molten Front, decided it was *too* grindy, and not encouraging enough, because most raiders (at least the ones I know) either ignored it completely or only did it if they wanted the little item at the end.

I think the thought process with the gear on reputation vendors was that it isn't required because you can get the same level gear from raiding (or other sources). They'll run smack into reality when it releases, they'll realize it was a bad idea, and it will go away.

Blizzard iterates. They try things. Maybe we'll all be wrong and somehow it will work out well (that has happened before in the past). They're going to be stubborn about it until they're convinced it doesn't work.

It will motivate people to get out in the world more, that's for sure. I don't think I would do the Molten Front even if it were significantly less grindy unless it had gear that was relevant for me.

Not everything has to be "fun" for everyone.If blizz tried to make the game fun for everyone by eliminating any "work" then there would be no such thing as progression and we would automatically be decked out in gear that would normally be 2 or 3 tiers ahead of what is currently out.

"I'd say at about that point a class has too many cooldowns."

XD LOL

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Originally Posted by Lore

Reputation grinds in general are the poor gameplay I was talking about. Grinding reputation isn't fun. People do it because they get rewards, not because it's entertaining.

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It is fun for some people, hence why there are two titles attached to pointless rep grinds. In BC I got three characters exalted with the Timbermaw. Was it fun for me? Yes! I am I crazy? Yes! Regardless, it was still fun for me, if not the entire population of the game. Hell, right now I'm, working on getting exalted with all the Steamwheedle Cartel and the Bloodsail Buccaneers.

Edit: At the same time!