PST - Episode 77

[Fetzie]

They generally say something along the lines of "In patch x.y.z we will be reducing the power of some boss abilities to enable more raid groups to defeat the encounters" which is followed by a list of changes. They don't need to mention percentages and reasons.

[Knighterrant81]

Professions

I think professions for the most part are doing fine, but there are some things that could be improved.

Here is what, theoretically, a crafting profession should provide:

1. Allow you to craft epic items for yourself or to sell that are relevant to the current PVE raiding tier.
2. Provide a minor bonus to your primary stat.
3. Give you a way to make gold, either by selling epic items you crafted or your profession's raiding consumable.

I feel like professions were providing relevant crafted items in t11, but in t12 and t13, they fell behind, especially if you were a heroic mode guild. Since crafted items are the same level as the current *normal mode* tier, if you clear all the normal modes and start progressing through heroics, there's only a very small window where the profession epics are relevant for you. If they are too hard to craft or get the patterns, you may just decide to wait until you get a heroic mode drop.

In t11, professions worked, because it was easy to get the patterns, but expensive (with early-expansion inflation), but the items were useful (because everyone was in blues going into t11 and a few epics on your raid team on day 1 meant faster progression).

In t12 and t13, you had to wait for rare pattern drops. The idea was to control supply so that raiding crafters weren't on the losing end of a price war with people who aren't even raiding. However, this just raises the opportunity cost for crafting too high. Since crafted items will go obsolete within the tier they are used for, and there's only a minor difference between the new crafted items and what you are wearing now (for example, you would only gain 6 ilvls going from heroic t12 to a crafted t13 piece). Its just too hard to craft, and too little incentive (especially since most guilds cleared normal DS the very first week).

All throughout the expansion, raiding consumables (except Inscription and Engineering) and gold making has worked for professions. You can still make a lot of gold. The bonuses are all still useful (despite JC complaints in DS) too, so #2 and #3 on the list are fine. Making the epics matter is what needs fixing.

Here's what I'd do:

Go back to the tier 11 system of acquiring patterns. Let us buy them from a vendor. In the first tier, let us buy patterns with crafting mats, like in t11 (at that point the mats should be pretty expensive and serve as a decent market control). In the next two tiers, have us spend a few crafting orbs from that tier on buying patterns. You don't want to buy with VPs, or raiders may avoid using their crafting professions. Gold is too easy, and in the later tiers mats will be too cheap. The orbs are nice because it favors raiders and keeps the orb price high.

Next, allow crafters to create some sort of "patch" that lets you upgrade crafted gear into a heroic mode item, similar to how VPs will work. Maybe this patch should require some type of heroic orb, so only HM raiders have access to it. Make the orbs BOP and make the patches BOE and watch the price skyrocket.

[Hellfrost]

Why... Why do you care if bob and his grandma's cat killed deathwing week 2 on velcro mode? I do not understand this obsession the QQ-ers have with end content not being available for what they call "casuals" or its previous name "bads" "Noobs" "scrubs." If only the first part of LFR would have been available for the first 2 months... all those "casuals" you like to look down upon would have been bored out of their mind and would have quit to go play swtor or something else. Besides, they pay just as much money for their account as you leets do so they have just as much right to new content when it comes available.

[Gregasaurous]

Now Eald, I don't want you to take this personally, but do you want Blizzard to hold your hand through a kill? Or do you want them to try to give you a extra foothold here and there? IMO, that's the difference between a full across the board nerf and a targeted nerf. We could go back and forth for hours as to "what benefits a larger player base", because a targeted nerf CAN'T fix the problem that EVERYONE is having with one fight. But it allows blixxard to be much more direct and in my opinion much more helpful. So maybe that really is just MY opinion, but that's an opinion i've developed not just from my own preference but from overall community reactions as well.

[eald]

They generally say something along the lines of "In patch x.y.z we will be reducing the power of some boss abilities to enable more raid groups to defeat the encounters" which is followed by a list of changes. They don't need to mention percentages and reasons.

Ok, nevermind that part if you want. I'm only making a example of how a "general nerf" could be justified, that what you see as Blizzard doing just a 5% nerf to everyhting can be translated to: we have enough evidence that there is enough players that requires every part in what you can dissect this change.

Now Eald, I don't want you to take this personally, but do you want Blizzard to hold your hand through a kill? Or do you want them to try to give you a extra foothold here and there? IMO, that's the difference between a full across the board nerf and a targeted nerf. We could go back and forth for hours as to "what benefits a larger player base", because a targeted nerf CAN'T fix the problem that EVERYONE is having with one fight. But it allows blixxard to be much more direct and in my opinion much more helpful. So maybe that really is just MY opinion, but that's an opinion i've developed not just from my own preference but from overall community reactions as well.

I can see how you get that from my post, because my example was regarded around the groups that can't kill for a bit that means that they only need to get a bit better to do get the kill. But what I was trying to discuss is only the different uses of a "targeted" nerf versus a general nerf in certain boss. I'm just not sold in the idea that we have a clue about why this nerf or that is done, Blizzard does both kind of nerfs (and at the same time if you know what I mean), they have the data, we don't so I see both kind of a tool for Blizzard to fix things, some things may be related with some initial error, some other with the social reaction of the people to the game like maybe people not wanting to stay too much time in certain fight without progress (just examples of reasons). I haven't really say anything about what I want or need. I just don't agree that the general nerfs are for baddies and the targeted nerfs are to make happier the life of the best players. Just different tools. I do accept your opinion in the same topic is valid.

[Therec]

Lore, you need to read Wolfheart. Maiev is coming back in a major way.

[syrn1k]

Ideas to make crafting more interesting (IMHO):
1) trasmog recipes, like in Darkmoon Faire. From making daily quests a person receives tokens, that can spend on top gear or on old tier replicas;
2) add more daily quests, not just 5 in main cities, but add more crafting quests around the world. These quests might only appear after finishing a quest line in a particular area, like with daily quests in Cata.
3) add randomness, for example, you were crafting a greater healing potion, but accidentally made free action potion (a recipe you don't have), you can't always be sure with alchemy
4) add periodical buffs, like with cooking. A person needs to make stuff to get benefits from its profession, not just lvl up, get 2 slots and forget about it. For example they can return sharpening stones and weightstone to blacksmithing, a buff that will give DPS in addition to the enchant it already has. May be add protection plates to help tanks, that will have durability and will fall off after a few wipes. Yes it can be annoying for people who don't like professions and are obliged, because they are hardcore raider, but if you are HC than getting prepared is a part of the game, if you are not, then it won't change much, anyway you can run LFR without it;
5) add daily quests that will reward you with valor/justice or any other useful tokens;
6) add engraving to crafted gear, for example, make a neckless to other person with warm wishes on her/his birthday.

[Gregasaurous]

Yeah, i get what you're saying Eald. And i don't think general nerfs are for baddies per say, i just feel that 99% of the time a targeted nerf get's more accomplished while doing less.... less is more? Something like that......

[Mwawka]

The thing is when it comes to Normal mode it isn't just the Paragons that clear it in week one. Pretty much any guilds deserving of the title "hardcore" nail it too, especially so from the second tier onwards when they go in there wearing heroic raid gear from the previous tier. Remember on week one of Firelands all the QQ about that how easy it was.

I don't see the distinction between pretty much all the hardcore guilds seeing all the bosses on day one in normal mode and average Joe seeing them in LFR. Yes the numbers are different but it is "goose and gander" again.

Especially so when it tends to be the hardcore guilds that complain most about lack of content due to them burning through it too fast where as the more casual players have seemed happy to repeatedly run 5 mans HC's and latterly LFR on a multitude of alts for months on end. Remember the 5 mans in Wrath that these guys happily hammered to death for 2 years for example. You also have to avoid making the mistake of projecting your play habits onto them - e.g. they don't even necessarily run the content or VP cap each week as you do.

Don't you find it curious that the players who most often complain about burning through it too fast are the ones requesting gating on behalf of another bunch of players who rarely if ever make such complaints...

If we look at the motives for gating here I think based on what we can see in game at the moment there is absolutely no justification for doing it on the grounds that casual LFR players get bored and quit to soon. There is no evidence to suggest that is even an issue. I think in that respect you invented a problem to satisfy a solution rather than visa versa.

The original DS gating was perfect as it allowed organised guilds to clear DS before Casual LFR players and I fully support that objective. The only legitimate issue with what happened was the shoddy, easily abused loot system and ridiculously over powered tier/trinket/weapons that forced HC raiders to spam it. First part has already been fixed, second part is extremely simple to fix. I hope Blizzard focus on that and don't get distracted by the red herring of gating.

I would argue that by making all the content available to everyone to easily, they would be setting themselves up for the casual LFR players to start whining about lack of content too. Successful game longevity requires working toward rewards. All the way back to pacman, you had to work through ever increasing difficulty to get farther in the game. That's what keeps people coming back, is the challenge and the next cookie, but for some reason Blizzard and the WoW community have decided that any sort of challenge to see content is unnecessary. There is no challenge at all in RF (and I agree that there really can't be), but because of that, if they don't gate it themselves, there's very little to look forward to in the game in terms fo progression and absolutely everything becomes a mindless grind, including running LFR. People may be happy getting their rewards more easily, but I guarantee you if there is nothing to look forward to or work towards they will move on eventually because it gets boring. So it then falls on blizzard to artificially create the sense of anticipation by artificially gating the content. Even the casual player will enjoy the game more if they knew that every Tuesday for the first 3 months they'd get to see another boss. It makes the reset something to look forward to. If you give it to them all at once they'll consume it and have nothing to look forward to until the next patch, which creates huge holes in the content. At least with organized raiding you can look forward to killing the next boss that you haven't downed yet.

As for the hardcore guilds clearing everything quickly. The number of players who down all the content in the first few weeks of each patch is so small, and they put so much time into it, that it can hardly be a consideration for Blizzard. If less than 1% of the games population is in that situation, it's just not a big deal tbh. By making the content available too quickly in LFR they'd be saying to 100% of the games population that they can see everything in the game right now. It'd be like putting a mode into Mario where you can't die and can run through the whole game the minute you open the box. I just don't think it's good game design.

So my question then to all the people saying don't gate my LFR is how would it hurt you if they did?

[tawnos]

It would 'hurt' a lot of people by slowing the rate at which people could gear to be incorporated into normal and heroic raids. How many people raiding in a given release were consistently raiding in the previous one or the one before that? I bet it might not even be 50%. That would be an interesting metric to see, but it seems Blizzard focuses heavily on the concept of allowing people to move in and out of the game without being completely unable to re-integrate into the raiding population after absences.

Adding one boss every Tuesday would go over about as well for people as it would doing the same for normal and heroic mode raiding. Its obviously the exact same concept as ICC gating, and how popular was that?

[Mwawka]

It would 'hurt' a lot of people by slowing the rate at which people could gear to be incorporated into normal and heroic raids. How many people raiding in a given release were consistently raiding in the previous one or the one before that? I bet it might not even be 50%. That would be an interesting metric to see, but it seems Blizzard focuses heavily on the concept of allowing people to move in and out of the game without being completely unable to re-integrate into the raiding population after absences.

Adding one boss every Tuesday would go over about as well for people as it would doing the same for normal and heroic mode raiding. Its obviously the exact same concept as ICC gating, and how popular was that?

The argument about slowing gearing does not apply to the first tier of the xpac. Everyone is starting on equal footing in terms of the gearing path they can choose and if you wanted to pick up raiding mid tier, most of the LFR content would be available by then. For future content tiers, that's what the H-5man dungeons are designed for, as far as I know, LFR was never really designed to fit that role, but was more a easy mode raid to give people not in an organized raid group something to do. Even then, at the beginning of an patch, running dungeons to get into equivalent gear to the previous normal raid level is sufficient to start raiding. If you are jumping in mid tier, there will be more LFR content available in any tier. So in that regard, gating LFR wouldn't hurt anyone.

I've already addressed your second paragraph. In normal and heroic mode raidng there is built in gating based on gear and skill, in LFR there is only the gear level to get in holding you back. Once you can queue, you will clear all the content that week. Therefore, as I've said before, the only way Blizzard can control consumption of this content is to gate it. I believe it is in Blizzard's best interest to do so. The problem with the gating in ICC wasn't so much that the content was gated, it was that you couldn't access Heroic content until you killed LK on normal. If they had allowed guilds who needed the challenge access to the hardest versions of the bosses and still gated it the same way, I am convinced it would have been less problematic. It's funny though, because people complained about gating in ICC then the same people complained that there was too much content released over Christmas at the release of Cata. Sometimes you have to take complaints with a grain of salt. I don't think many people left the game while they were waiting for the various wings of ICC to open up, they started leaving once they were tired of farming the place. So even if people didn't like ICC gating at the time, it was likely in Blizzard's best interest that they did it.

In the end, my game is better if there are more people in my world and more active players in my guild. I believe that controlling content consumption will keep people around longer, which benefits the game.

[tawnos]

For future content tiers, that's what the H-5man dungeons are designed for, as far as I know, LFR was never really designed to fit that role, but was more a easy mode raid to give people not in an organized raid group something to do. Even then, at the beginning of an patch, running dungeons to get into equivalent gear to the previous normal raid level is sufficient to start raiding.

In the one implementation of LFR gearing toward Normals/Heroic was undeniably a major part of its draw and use, so while its possible it may not always be the case in 100% of the 1 samples we have it was so it would be the default assumption that its the way LFR is intended to work. It also just makes sense that moving people along a smoother continuum of raiding content is a part of the goal of LFR. Your last statement is subjective and extremely questionable. It is almost certainly possible to move from heroic gear into raiding, but its clearly arguable that its not really viable for a large portion of the playerbase. You can only expect so many people to be willing to ice skate uphill to rejoin the game. Judging by the first implementation it seems that LFR was intended in large part to smooth this (arguably) rough transition that existed prior to t13.

I just don't see the problem that gating would ostensibly solve. The one and only problem with LFR in t13 was from stupid itemization. Fixing the stupidity of the itemization is a better way to resolve the issues than artificially constraining content in LFR. People in Normal/lowend Heroic mode guilds shouldn't have been driven to LFR because of gear and that is plainly why they went. The Monty Hall set bonuses, trinkets, and weapon procs warping the ilvl system were the issue. When people aren't even questioning the idea of moving from 391/397 gear to 384 its pretty obvious there is a problem. Now if the Paragons of the world are driven to LFR to get a 1% chance at a 0.1% dps increase then there is no issue - if you've tacitly accepted all of the other insane things those types of guilds have to do then the problems of LFR pale in comparison. But the itemization errors were so glaring that everyone was obviously gaining from a wide variety of LFR drops even though they were substantially lower ilvl.

[laxu]

Don't you guys think that a good way to revive professions would be having each profession have a mount or trasmog set or visual effect that only they can use? I thought of this because i like going arount with my flying carpet and flying machine A LOT!

[Mwawka]

In the one implementation of LFR gearing toward Normals/Heroic was undeniably a major part of its draw and use, so while its possible it may not always be the case in 100% of the 1 samples we have it was so it would be the default assumption that its the way LFR is intended to work. It also just makes sense that moving people along a smoother continuum of raiding content is a part of the goal of LFR. Your last statement is subjective and extremely questionable. It is almost certainly possible to move from heroic gear into raiding, but its clearly arguable that its not really viable for a large portion of the playerbase. You can only expect so many people to be willing to ice skate uphill to rejoin the game. Judging by the first implementation it seems that LFR was intended in large part to smooth this (arguably) rough transition that existed prior to t13.

I'd strongly argue that the difference between 378 and 384 ilvl gear is not enough to make getting into raiding an uphill ice skate. Half a gear level is not enough to overcome sub stat itemization in many instances, so I certainly don't think the difference between having a 378 ring or a 384 ring is going to hold anyone back from getting into raiding again. So the biggest gain from LFR in terms of gearing up is the set bonuses, trinkets and weapons, which you yourself said were a problem. Besides, I'm not advocating no LFR bosses available, just that they release them at a slower pace to control content consumption, for those not raiding in an organized setting.

The problem that gating would solve would be to lengthen the life span of content and give people some anticipation of what comes next. LFR lacks any and all form of gameplay reward. All it does is say, look at our content without offering any sense of reward other than gear. If the target audience of LFR is non-raiders and alts, there is no reason why they can't be given the content at controlled pace. For those gearing up for raiding, the path will be a little slower, but you will still have heroics and some LFR bosses, so there won't be an issue.

[tawnos]

The people using LFR to gear aren't the people 'running out of content'. The people running out of content/burned out on DS/whatever are those who should never have been in LFR to begin with. For those of us who restarted raiding with LFR gear supplementing/replacing heroic gear (which isn't going to fill in every slot in a reasonable amount of time of course) we still generally have more than enough content left at least for a few months, and if MOP delivers on the promise of not taking forever to be released its likely we won't ever get through heroic madness.

6 ilvls is a big difference even without over the top set bonuses/trinkets/procs. Providing an efficient way to supplement heroic gearing is an even bigger advantage though - running random heroics 50 times hoping for that one drop you actually need is pretty miserable. When returning to the raiding population the rational comparion you're always going to face is 1) green gear 2) pvp gear or 3) run a heroic 50 times with no guarantee you'll ever get the drop for the last 1-2 slots you don't have.

Having an additional source for an item slot is a welcome boon even if its only once a week. A greater chance of gearing to the point of getting into a PUG without having to wade through heroics long past the point of needing anything but one or two pieces is a big part of LFR's benefit. Sure you CAN fully gear out in heroic gear and be at a level that might get a PUG invite, but it has always been a large impediment having to fill in every slot from limited (realistic) choices which is why even WITH LFR you see lots of people in PVP gear trying to skate by. Gearing out solely from heroics has always been about like Bart Simpson writing things on the chalboard repeatedly - repetitive busy work to have the chance to get into a PUG. LFR gear doesn't solve that problem but it does help alleviate it.

[Leucifer]

I think there's some real truth to this......

The people using LFR to gear aren't the people 'running out of content'. The people running out of content/burned out on DS/whatever are those who should never have been in LFR to begin with.

By and large, I'd bet this is reasonably accurate.

6 ilvls is a big difference even without over the top set bonuses/trinkets/procs. Providing an efficient way to supplement heroic gearing is an even bigger advantage though - running random heroics 50 times hoping for that one drop you actually need is pretty miserable. When returning to the raiding population the rational comparion you're always going to face is 1) green gear 2) pvp gear or 3) run a heroic 50 times with no guarantee you'll ever get the drop for the last 1-2 slots you don't have.

Fair point. People who are burned out on running DS ... what? Maybe 20 times total? Versus the people who aren't in established raids who face running heroics trying to get one drop to try and max out their gear to make themselves appealing to a pug? Yeah, I can see why LFR would be appealing. It's at least something.

Having an additional source for an item slot is a welcome boon even if its only once a week. A greater chance of gearing to the point of getting into a PUG without having to wade through heroics long past the point of needing anything but one or two pieces is a big part of LFR's benefit. Sure you CAN fully gear out in heroic gear and be at a level that might get a PUG invite, but it has always been a large impediment having to fill in every slot from limited (realistic) choices which is why even WITH LFR you see lots of people in PVP gear trying to skate by. Gearing out solely from heroics has always been about like Bart Simpson writing things on the chalboard repeatedly - repetitive busy work to have the chance to get into a PUG. LFR gear doesn't solve that problem but it does help alleviate it.

I think a lot of people forget what it's like if you're in-between guilds or raid groups and trying to establish yourself. The TankSpot community, by-and-large, I think isn't in that position. Most of the TankSpot frequent-fliers I think are in well-established raid guilds and are at least regularly clearing normal, if not kicking around in heroic.

The discussion of "gating" and such.... just seems strange coming from people who probably really don't play in LFR except for giggles.I mean sure, kind of like what Mwawka says above..... those people previously didn't were out content because they never got to see it all. They almost ALWAYS had something "left behind" and then, when new content came out, tried to race and keep up with everyone else in the fleeting hopes that they could get in with those who WOULD see all the content.

Sure.... it leaves the gen-pop content they still have yet to see.... but at the same time, a lot of those people probably just get fed up and say "f*** this".
Think.... last kid picked for a team in gym (or in this case.... not picked at all). They're not having fun, so why stick around? And, they're probably a larger population than the people clearing all of the heroic content... much less DOING heroic content.

I don't know. Personally, I haven't heard a ton of complaints from that crowd. Where I hear most of the angst coming from is the heroic raiding community.... and they're not who LFR was intended for.

[Mwawka]

The people using LFR to gear aren't the people 'running out of content'. The people running out of content/burned out on DS/whatever are those who should never have been in LFR to begin with. For those of us who restarted raiding with LFR gear supplementing/replacing heroic gear (which isn't going to fill in every slot in a reasonable amount of time of course) we still generally have more than enough content left at least for a few months, and if MOP delivers on the promise of not taking forever to be released its likely we won't ever get through heroic madness.

My guild is absolutely full of people who didn't raid anything but LFR and no longer do that either. As a result they rarely log on anymore. So evidence from the small sample of people, I know personally, who played LFR but don't raid with one of our raid groups tells me otherwise. We have one altaholic who runs LFR on everyone of his characters every week, but other than that, hardly anyone in our guild does it anymore, raiders and non-raiders alike. I can't help but think that if they had slower access to all the bosses that they might have got a little more play out of it. Also, let's not forget that there are almost double the bosses at MoP launch as there were in 4.3. They could conceivable release 8 bosses and then slowly allow the other 6 over the following 4-6 weeks. I really see no problem with that.

Looks like we'll just have to disagree on this, however.