The Weekly Marmot - Proving Grounds

[Lore]

[stelthy]

My curiosity for the proving grounds will be about which classes do more damage, healing, and which tanks do more damage on top of how well they can actually tank. I assume going through these grounds will require you to not just stand in front of things and be a meat shield as a tank. I am kind of thinking you may have to kill stuff also as you go through. Sad to say but there has always been a tank that does more damage than other tanks. There are tanks that have more mitigation than others and you see where this is going i'm sure. There are damage classes that do more burst damage than others. There are healers that are better at solo target healing and healers that are better at AOE healing. So i guess my point is this. Unless they split the grounds into specific categories then most likely some classes will be left in the dust when it comes to ranking how good you are. Now this may sound like a ton of work to do but what if they have class and spec specific grounds. You know there is going to be 1 amazing dps out there that most classes will have a very hard time keeping up with. Some do great burst damage and some rely on damage over time. Take resto druids for example. They can run and heal almost non stop so they may have a huge advantage over other healers depending on speed. Needless to say it will be fun i am sure of. It will be interesting to try all of them and i would like to keep this short because i have scenarios for hours that can go on as i am sure most people do also. Some feedback on this would be fantastic and as always great show and thanks for filling us all in on a regular basis

[Theliana]

Anyone using proving grounds can only be the best of those also using proving grounds which does not translate into being the best on the server or anywhere else. If the best raiders choose not to participate then there is no comparison.

Proving grounds leading to the need to buff LFR and LFD? That's very unlikely. I mean, do you really think the slackers who get carried through these encounters are actually going to take the time to try and improve themselves...when they get free loot for doing nothing? Quadrupally so if there is leader boards as they definitely won't want anyone seeing how bad their sorry asses really are.

I imagine leader boards will put a lot of people off and cause them to avoid the grounds. Which is too bad as it could be a good tool as you suggest.

[Tengenstein]

Britain is currently on British summer time so GMT+1. Just because time zones aren't enough of a pain in the arse

[uglie]

There are just too many scenarios that different class excel at and fail at. About the only way to combat this is to have proving grounds divided into different situations within a given "level". Test 1 for dps would have to included at least 4 seperate phases for burst single target, burst aoe, sustained single, and sustained aoe damage. How would gear be handled? I would think they would have to normalized gear like they are in challenge modes.

I really like the theory of proving grounds, but not sure if there is a good solid way to implement them into such a complex game.

[Toypop]

Anyone using proving grounds can only be the best of those also using proving grounds which does not translate into being the best on the server or anywhere else. If the best raiders choose not to participate then there is no comparison.

Proving grounds leading to the need to buff LFR and LFD? That's very unlikely. I mean, do you really think the slackers who get carried through these encounters are actually going to take the time to try and improve themselves...when they get free loot for doing nothing? Quadrupally so if there is leader boards as they definitely won't want anyone seeing how bad their sorry asses really are.

I imagine leader boards will put a lot of people off and cause them to avoid the grounds. Which is too bad as it could be a good tool as you suggest.

A lot of those comments could equally be applied to challenge modes.

I am curious as to why you only apply them to proving grounds.

What if top raiders don't run challenge modes? What if leader boards deter players from using challenge modes?

With regards to RF, surely the idea is that proving grounds will be used as an attunement process where players require a minimum score before being able to join. This would then allow RF to be tuned above its current trivial level as the slackers would be forced to improve if they wanted to gain access?

I think proving grounds are a very interesting concept. I think a lot of people who believe themselves to be top players are feeling threatened by them. With the ability to commit to a guild schedule or be carried by superior friends being removed as a factor in success, it could see some interesting results as a number of non-raiders start mixing it up at the top of the rankings.

The prospect of seeing some ruffled feathers is delicious.

[Theliana]

First, my comments were in regard to the topic in hand and to Lore talking of people saying "I'm the best [insert class here] on the server due to their PG ranking. Which is not true. They would be the best of their class in PGs only.

I'd have to disagree that my comments also apply to challenge modes. For the most part there's different motives and incentives involved.

PG's are entirely personal with no incentives or rewards other than fighting for top spot on the leader board or, possibly, to improve one's skills although I see them being largely overtaken by people fighting for top spot.

CM's are a group thing, not an individual one, so no flaming involved in trade, etc and less concerns about standings. Hence no "I'm/we're the best on the server" nonsense. They also offer the rewards of Valour Points and gold irregardless of how well you do providing you finish...rewards that are higher than doing random LFDs...which are a great incentive to participate in them.

The intent behind LFR is to open raiding up to everyone so I highly doubt you'd ever see a minimum score required from proving grounds.

I agree with your comment about them being a very interesting concept and I do feel they are a great idea but, as I've noted, I'm concerned about the leader board inhibiting their usefulness. Perhaps there should be training PGs, with no leader board, for those wanting to test and improve their skills and battle PGs, with a leader board, for those wanting to compete in the standings..

[Marco]

I remember Gorefiend being frustrating to learn because there was no way to practice the minigame outside of raid time (the flash game was a poor substitute), and every pull a different person would be chosen to get one minute of practice. A proving ground to go with the encounter would have been kind of awesome--though they might have needed to make the minigame harder or tune up other aspects of the fight to keep it challenging.

[peacemaker91]

The idea of Proving Grounds sounds very cool. I can already imagine some ideas for specific PGs.
One could be something were you and one npc are trying to take down a large mob. Your role will depend on how you help the npc. If your a tank you would taunt off the npc and keep threat while trying to survive as long as possible, perhaps with the boss's damage scaling over time, while the npc starts dealing more damage. As a healer you could keep the npc alive and to make the fight not last forever his damage could scale with his current hp. As a dps you would just try to kill the boss before it kills the npc and then you.
In terms of record times for this the tank role would need to keep threat and survive to allow the npc to deal as much damage as possible. Perhaps as the npc fights without threat his damage scales up but resets when he pulls aggro. As a dps you'd switch positions with the npc. As a healer you'd want to keep the npc's hp higher so he can deal damage faster, perhaps having the boss damage scale up over time.

Just an idea.

[tawnos]

I think the more interesting facet of Proving Grounds for the rest of us unwashed masses would be as an advanced training dummy. Contrary to the above I think many people would use it as a means of "improving" although I think its primary benefit would be in the very common situation where someone is starting to take on a new class/spec in dungeons or raids. It is just the nature of WoW that people move in and out of the game such that I very much doubt even half the people playing a tier played in the previous one. Coupled with how important Alts are in the game it makes for a lot of people playing sub-optimally in comparison because of a simple lack of experience with the class/spec.

When I started playing my prot warrior my "training" before going into LFD for the first time consisted of setting up some addons and pretending to be a dps protwarrior on a dummy. I kinda gave up on learning sub rogue because a dummy just doesn't simulate how to actually play the spec to any significant extent. I would have loved to have spent time in some sort of simulator instead but the only thing that was really available was LFR and LFD - exactly what people complain about when people in their groups play poorly.

[eald]

I like not only watching the show but reading comments. This I what I think about all that.

I don't see the need of cavern of times, unless you are worried that the PG will get lost in the time because of a new expansion comes and nobody understand why you are tanking for Cheng. I really see PG as a tool like Dungeons, new expansion, new mechanics, new PG with new Lore, the old ones will become a leveling tool like dungeons.

From one interview from Cory Stockton it is clear that Blizzard knows that you need a reward to do things, at least for the population in this game (I know many of us don't care about gear, but we are talking in the big picture, the majority of players), he said that they feel that they needed to add effects on gear from CM, because is they don't provide stats, so they needed to do something there. SO, if we see PG in the game, there will be incentive to do it, for the player that only want content, something to do, something to get from the things that he do, that isn't really worried about being the best or doing something with all the possible tricks or getting better each attempt; the those that WoW is their hobby and are happy to see new things to do, this people want something in return for their time, there will be something to attract them to all the different content that Blizzard do including PG.

The fear of not showing how bad I'm could be avoided if they only show the top 10 in the public leader board, but when you see it, you can see yourself and those top 10, so you know how far you stand.

This changing the way LFR is done? No way. That goes against the trend of the game, Blizzard want more players, not that players play better, they want that people feel good playing the game (again the majority). Blizzard reduced the item level of the LFR (compared against normal) before increasing the difficulty. Now in beta LFR was harder than DS, we don't know where it will stand in live though. You can't force something into players, there is not only those who are bad, there are those who just don't care and there are a lot of them, they just want to kill the bad guy. Now those who know how to play and just don't try in LFR and make it frustrating during DS will go away fast because gear is worse this time, for the same reason, the best players will go away faster. No gear, no way to help guildies, maybe VP is the only reason to go later but I doubt that is the better way to get them.

I'm not sure that such thing as the best tank and best healer exist in the game (I even doubt that the best DPS exist). For example, peacemaker91 proposed to make healers keep their targets topped, well poor Resto Shaman mastery there. AOE? Stack or spread, targets moving or static? Keeping someone topped means that avoiding getting hit (shields) is better than getting life back to top. I'm not saying that his is a bad idea, is that, there is hardly something that will PROVE that the best resto shaman in the world is worse PLAYER than the best Hpally. Now that matter at all? No, you just want to try harder and harder to not make mistakes and be the best you can, be the top of the chart, and if you see 10 Hpally in the top, we'll have an excuse to ask blizzard to put the poster boy at the level of the rest. I think however that there is a best Hpally, best disc priest and WoL is not enough to prove that because if your other healers don't do their job at you level, your number get bigger, it depends on teammates; PG with leader boards could be a good measure (if done right), something that is gonna be asked in your raid application.

[Orion Quest]

"Best" of whatever role doesn't need to exist. The best function of this mode is to allow for roles who never had a good way to determine how they could function in a real raid/dungeon environment. Getting to advance to a "best of", could honestly be done without. If you truly want to be honored as one of your server's best, you could just get ranked in Challenge Modes, as a cohesive team.

That being said, knowing you are "possibly" one of the best tanks, healers or DPS on your realm, could definitely get you in a very good spot on your realm to participate in a better competitive guild. But, I wouldn't suggest people use it as a crutch. It would do these people well to consider, although they are tested as a "best" at a role, working well as a team might mean they lose the standing they have, or could be considered they sacrifice utility to bring about only damage or whatever role they chose. This doesn't actually mean they're very suited for a team-based raid guild where they could be asked to do more than just tank, or damage, or heal.