PST - Episode 66

[Lore]

This week:
0:31 - If people will always do what gives the best numbers, how would "easy mode" glyphs work?
6:27 - Will there be tanking leather with dodge in MoP?
11:56 - How will Blizzard handle Engineering in challenge modes?
16:54 - Would it be a good idea for Blizzard to allow all classes to cast while moving?
21:43 - Why do PvE and PvP gear need to be separate?
28:56 - What if you got 0 honor for losing a BG?
33:59 - Would Blizzard lose subscribers if they updated WoW's graphics?

[Arkroma]

Just an FYI Lore it's 2H frost DKs who are at the bottom of the DPS meters for Death Knights.

Does the sub-optimal DPS spec being "bad" still apply if it is better than other optimal specs within a raid? For instance at the start of 4.3 Fire Mages were well ahead of Arcane Mages but does that make playing an Arcane Mage, instead of Fire, a bad thing when they're still sitting above 99% of other DPS specs? Or would say Unholy DKs who are at the moment second to duel-weild Frost DKs be worse than either of the shaman specs which in theory are behind both DK specs?

[Toypop]

I can't imagine players saying "I play my spec badly so i will take an easy mode glyph to improve my performance".

No one will admit they play badly and take that option.

I don't mean admitting they are bad to other players by fitting the glyph, I mean admitting it to themselves - they personally will never accept that their poor performance is down to their skills and not "I need more gear" or "my class is underpowered".

Trust me, if easy mode glyphs were introduced I can guarantee you wouldn't see many in LFR, especially so amongst those that would actually benefit from them.

It is a psychological issue. A bit like surveys on driving skills where the results show that 99% (exaggerating a bit) believe they are above average in terms of their driving skills when clearly that statistically cannot be true. No one will admit their skills are weak.

Everyone believes they are a pro so naturally they will take the pro glyph! Everyone thinks that "someone else" will need the easy mode glyph

[Tengenstein]

See i thought DW blood was the lowests DK spec for DPS.

[Xenosaga]

On that last question in regards to PCs and MMOs with better gfx, I think you havent even tried looking at FFXIV. Rift/Tera look great, SWtor not so much. But FFXIV on max settings, is way better looking than any MMO out atm or incoming xD And with their new gfx engine for their 2.0 re-release, the Gfx will be mindblowing ^^ I even upgraded my PC purely for XIV, such as i7 3930K, P9X79 Deluxe MB, H100 Corsair CPU cooler and SSD's.

And if people can afford to buy new Consoles to play better looking games, why is upgrading PC such an issue?
How many people wont be standing in line to buy X720 or PS4 for example.

I know game companies wants to get as many people as possible, but it seems kinda wrong when they make a game not as pretty as it can be just because people still use Win95 PCs etc. Square Enix however with FFXIV seems to wants to allow highspec pcs to enjoy best gfx, and those with lowspecs can still enjoy playing the game, just with less shinier pixels and details.

Btw Lore, if you ever plan checking out XIV, come to server Saronia ^^

[Maziel]

I don't see the 'Glyph to make things easier' working either.

What will happen, won't happen in LFR. It will happen in the main cities. The person wearing the 'easy' Glyph will be trolled in Trade Chat.

There will always be someone in the main city who will inspect you. There will always be someone who will troll you in the Trade Chat for wearing an 'Easy Mode' Glyph.

Eventually, the Easy Mode Glypher will remove it. Or others who wanted to Glyph that way will just not want to be trolled for it, so decide not to Glyph it.

~

It may work better the other way around, making the Glyph a Hard Mode Glyph. A Glyph that complicates the rotation. BUT I fear in the end, the same thing may end up happening.

The Trolls will be Trolls and always look for a way to Troll or put someone down rather than help them.

~

Now if the Glyphs turned in to something like you are saying, completely for customization of the character, AND were HIDDEN from character profile websites and not viewable by others in game. Then this whole thing may work and people who aren't the best and don't want to be the best, may feel totally comfortable in using the Glyph easy mode system. But not if they're going to get trolled, and you know it will happen.

That's the only thoughts I had on the Glyph idea, Lore. Have a great day.

[Slyvar]

Lore,

In your answer to the second question about tanking leather you really seemed to focus on bear druids and why we won't see tanking leather, because there's only one leather tanking spec. You even went as far as to compare it to the lone spell plate spec. But you seemed to totally forget that there is going to be a second leather tanking class coming in MoP. One of your opening statement was even "Why isn't it OK for bears to have their own tanking gear....".

You touched on monks a bit at the very end of your answer, but your soul argument against leather tanking gear was that there's no need because there is only one leather tanking class. With two leather tanking classes, I wouldn't be surprised to see it go either way. But, I would be a bit disappointed if they used the "there aren't enough leather tanking specs to justify leather tanking gear" argument.

[Krenian]

BTW TERA > FFXIV in terms of graphics.

Just saying. Considering I played both.

[Xenosaga]

BTW TERA > FFXIV in terms of graphics.

Just saying. Considering I played both.

Seen the revamp gfx? Cause thats what i was comparing Tera to, plus the animations looks smoother thanks to full motion capture. Tera looks great, but for me, the animations on casting and running specially just kills it off for me. Sounds silly I know, but animations really matters to me. Last Remnant was a rpg I couldnt play due to its animation hehe. Call it my OCD ^^

[OinkingDragon]

bears and cats gem exactly the same unless theres really good socket bonus involving a blue slot
reforge is only slightly different with 1 going for dodge and 1 going haste/mast
however an average bear/cat would just reforge all into mast and have both stronger bleeds and stronger savage defense

the only different right now for bears and cats are helm meta choice and trinket choice in terms of gearing

[karaji.en]

What I don't get about people is worrying about the trolls. Trolls will troll. Fact of online interaction. Just ignore them and get on with your life? Idk, perhaps I'm in a minority, but I wouldn't worry what trolls say about me in Trade chat. *shrug*

In relation to the "easy mode" glyphs, I think it would be a good way to get used to a rotation (the intended implementation?).

For example, the one that comes to mind for me right now is the Ret Paladin one that extends the duration of Inquisition (?). I don't remember how much more time it gives, and I only used it briefly, but it helped to get used to it and to remember to refresh it before it expires.

Again, perhaps I'm in the minority, but being in a guild that does some heroic raiding, being able to do my best even if that means wearing training wheels for a week or two is OK (to me at least). Perhaps the average players are arrogant overconfident pricks, I might not be seeing the whole picture from my point of view. Just seeing someone say that clearly no one would ever use this just because of trolls seems a tad extreme to me.

Also @ Slyvar: I believe what he was getting at was that holy paladins are an anomaly and that most (all?) other specs in the game have gear shared with many other specs/classes.

That making it so that there was one (or two) classes that were the only one that used a set of gear would be silly and create more problems than solutions (as to not fall into another Holy paladin pit, where there is no easy, clear solution).

Whereas if they maintained agility leather, with similar stat arrangements and just tailored the class to use/adapt to it they wouldn't have to change all the gear to fit it. It might be easy to set it up either way (gear tailored to class(es) or class tailored to gear), but having more niche gear drop is probably what they want to stay away from.

Peace,
Karaji

[Lantis]

I also don't believe 5 engineers just for nitro boots being the way to go because of the RNG with the boots exploding. Five guys lucking out and it working for all of them every time would be incredibly rare. Though, come to think of it, if they want to land the highest possible number on the leaderboard, I guess they could always just keep trying until it works AND they do everything else perfectly all in the same run. But then, given the effort that would take, it'd stop looking so much like an exploit as it'd take a good deal of work by the end.

[Fomalhaut]

Challenge mode dungeons will most likely be gated in some way. Probably by bosses and trash packs. Such as killing the first 4 trash packs to even be able to attack the first boss. The second boss would be unlocked upon killing the first boss and the following trash.

As far as balance goes... I'm pretty sure classes with the best AoE damage will fly through them faster. Take the start of Cata for example. Everyone started out with quest greens and blues, CC was a must in many dungeons to clear them.... unless you had 3 survival hunters for dps. Our group was a paly tank bringing might, druid healer bringing MotW, wolf pet bringing crit, cat pet bringing agility and wind serpent pet bringing spell damage. All the primary buffs for the hunters were covered and the trash and bosses melted.

[Kagitaar]

To be fair, the majority of armor/stat types are used by 2-3 classes (going by class, not spec due to pures slanting certain armor types to the extreme) with the single spec exception of holy paladins and single class exception of priests. Yes, they could continue with agi leather being for bears, cats, rogues, windwalkers, and brewmasters, but at that point as long as there is some stat sharing or gear with neutral stats (think hit/exp/mastery plate or no spi/hit cloth) there is enough room for some dodge leather. Do they need to do it? No, but they could without treading into int plate territory.

P.S. Lore, holy crap your brain imploded hardcore. Had you just woken up or something?

[poot]

It's perfectly possible for Blizzard to solve the holy pally problem, but it would require them to do something drastic, and I don't think Blizzard has it in them.

Here's one solution I offered to a buddy of mine, and I'm certain it's not the only one.

Step 1: Rebalance all armor around a much larger "you're wearing the right armor type" bonus.
Step 2: Change every primary stat (Str, Agi, Int) on armor to a floating category called "Primary."
Step 3: Link "Primary" to spec choice - the player cannot modify it, it simply is. If you're a Blood DK, it's Str. If you're a Rogue, it's Agi. If you're a Holy Pally, it's Int.

Steps 3-6 (required, in my opinion, because of the fact that Spirit is a secondary stat For each talent spec a player has, give them the opportunity to "rank" secondary stats. Then, make armor have "first-choice secondary," "third-choice secondary," etc. instead of fixed stats - or, heck, do a combination of variable stats and fixed stats, with a bump-down system for when "1st choice" is the same as the fixed stat. Either way works. Keep reforging exactly the way it is.

What you're left with is a system whereby all armor of one type (Plate, for example,) should be equally attractive to every plate-wearing class and spec. An item with 1st-choice Second and 2nd-choice Second would be an amazing, near-perfectly-itemized item for most classes/specs. Some classes, however, might prefer an item that has 3 secondary stats instead of only 2 (though with reforging in the mix it's difficult to see such an item being hugely favored over the 2-secondaries item.)

In a perfect world (or at least my perfect world,) professions would include these new floating categories as well, such that 1 set of gear could - with just reforging - be used for multiple specs. Heck, I'd even push for tier set bonuses to be tied to spec, so people don't constantly suck up tier gear - a much larger issue now due to LFR.

[Lore]

That falls quite squarely in the "the fix is worse than the current problem" category I mentioned on the show

Given the choice between completely changing how a 7 year old game works on a fundamental level, and having gear drop that nobody wants sometimes, I'll take the latter.

[Lore]

P.S. Lore, holy crap your brain imploded hardcore. Had you just woken up or something?

No. I've had a mild cold though, I'm thinking that's why I was so out of it :P

[ironshoe7]

Just an FYI Lore it's 2H frost DKs who are at the bottom of the DPS meters for Death Knights.

Does the sub-optimal DPS spec being "bad" still apply if it is better than other optimal specs within a raid? For instance at the start of 4.3 Fire Mages were well ahead of Arcane Mages but does that make playing an Arcane Mage, instead of Fire, a bad thing when they're still sitting above 99% of other DPS specs? Or would say Unholy DKs who are at the moment second to duel-weild Frost DKs be worse than either of the shaman specs which in theory are behind both DK specs?

Unholy's w/ Guthalak are > than DW Frost atm

[joshvolt]

That falls quite squarely in the "the fix is worse than the current problem" category I mentioned on the show

Given the choice between completely changing how a 7 year old game works on a fundamental level, and having gear drop that nobody wants sometimes, I'll take the latter.

Well I can understand the fix is worse than the problem. I don't understand not having leather with dodge or 2 handed tanking weapons because only one spec would use them, while int plate is allowed to sit there.

[Ion]

Well I can understand the fix is worse than the problem. I don't understand not having leather with dodge or 2 handed tanking weapons because only one spec would use them, while int plate is allowed to sit there.

Probably because feral druids and blood DKs get along just fine without those things, but holy paladins wouldn't without revamping the entire way paladins work.