The Weekly Marmot - The Grind

[Aggathon]

/shrug, I've had fun doing them normally, and the progression is doing it in a faster time, kind of like the original ZA, imo. I think it's very possible to do them without cheese, though admittedly that's what a lot of people have done. I don't understand why that eliminates the personal goal of doing it without cheese.

[Theotherone]

The opposite happened by the end of Wrath and into Cata where everyone had so there was literally no point. Splitting the difference is definitely best for the game overall.

Agree 100%. Now they have to find the sweet spot between boring grind and "I'm doing this because I can see the reward at the end and know I can get there in a reasonable time." For example, I leveled Nomi (the chef assistant) on my Pally and am now doing it on my hunter; it is a long haul, easy as hell, just buy cheap mats, but the level point is 8400 rep, the daily "quest" gets you to 8100 rep. Seriously, an extra day just for 300 rep? And I don't think the rep carries over as you ding; rather you ding, then get a yellow quest that changes ingredients and you get the 1400 or whatever for that quest. Havent' tried it on a human yet, so maybe it's calculated with the human bonus in minds, whatever.

I loved the Shieldwall daily/quest story interplay; that was fun to see the story. I think Blizz also knows that the daily grind was not alt friendly so you have the account wide token buff for the factions when you hit revered and the double rep from revered to exalted. At some point, I think a more elegant solution will be found - limited tabard/dungeon rep, maybe BC spinoff where certain dungeons give a certain amount of rep per kill/day but capped; but just doubling rep doesn't seem long term. Why not cut the amount needed in half?

One issue I see coming is Elder Charms. I only started regularly raiding on my pally (guild died with MoP, but server transfer gave it new life), but at this point I need no dailies for him, I'd be doing them just to get more exalteds without a real "need" (I'm not big on achievments) so I'm not getting lesser charms unless I "force" myself to do dailies on him. That said, personally I'm fine with it, I have other toons to gear and those take some effort these days, so if I decide to farm lesser charms on my pally, fine if not I can wait on drops in raid; but I can see people complaining they "have to do these dailies they don't want to do or have "finished" or they can't get their extra loot rolls and they're "entitled" to those extra rolls. This is where it can become really grindy for some.

[Bovinity]

Now we have a gear progression route that's not entirely fast. You're not getting more than 1000 VP a week; your loot chance in LFR is 15% and you can give yourself a bonus roll - no more guild running and sharing loot. You have slow route to crafted gear because of Spirits of Harmony. Basically, no matter how hard you push, the days of being epic'd out in a day are gone. And if GC is to believed, they're not coming back anytime soon.

That's all well and good....if you're beginning from the beginning, so to speak.

If you're not, well, too bad because plenty of people are going to be behind the pack pretty much until the next expansion gives you a chance to catch up.

I also don't get this idea that people won't just "log in on tuesday then log out until tuesday". Raiders who are actively raiding are choosing to play that way, most times. They didn't log in on wednesday just to do a 5-man for shits and giggles, or LFR for the hell of it, or TB dailies because they were there. Thinking that this will suddenly, magically change in MoP is silly. The only people that will have to do the crazy grinds are the people that are behind.

Finally, the concept of "not a grind unless you make it" is a stupid, weak stance. Nothing is a grind if you just "don't let it be a grind" or something, it's just a flimsy position. All we can discuss is the reality of what's required for a player that wants to break into the raiding scene, and it is objectively a grind.

[feralminded]

/shrug, I've had fun doing them normally, and the progression is doing it in a faster time, kind of like the original ZA, imo. I think it's very possible to do them without cheese, though admittedly that's what a lot of people have done. I don't understand why that eliminates the personal goal of doing it without cheese.

I'm not saying they are poor/bad content ... but it's certainly not progression PvE content ... at least not for myself and the handful of anecdotes I've seen/heard (indeed only anecdotes) from both the internet and in game. As a vanilla player I certainly long for difficult/time-intensive 5 man content. The majority of my best memories from vanilla and BC come from 5 man content ... and I've been progression raiding just as long which I do find fun ... but different.

Honestly I personally don't see why its so hard.
Step #1. Quit calling 5 man heroics, call them 5 mans.
Step #2. Covert the 5 mans into heroics, upping difficulty and removing them from LFD.
Step #3. Have the 5 mans hand out LFR item level versions of their current drops.
Step #4. Problem is now solved. No new assets, no new headaches. It requires more testing/balancing but given that it's supposed to be difficult its ok if it turns out to be a bit overtuned.

[Bovinity]

Honestly I personally don't see why its so hard.
Step #1. Quit calling 5 man heroics, call them 5 mans.
Step #2. Covert the 5 mans into heroics, upping difficulty and removing them from LFD.
Step #3. Have the 5 mans hand out LFR item level versions of their current drops.
Step #4. Problem is now solved. No new assets, no new headaches. It requires more testing/balancing but given that it's supposed to be difficult its ok if it turns out to be a bit overtuned.

A lot of this is just a shift away from 5-mans and putting development time toward LFR. This way they don't have to keep making 5-mans for people to catch up with, they just create the LFR level with every tier and that's that.

Functionally it changes nothing, it just adds more RNG and extends the gear grind for most people, especially if you throw in the "mandatory" dailies and whatnot.

[feralminded]

That's all well and good....if you're beginning from the beginning, so to speak.

If you're not, well, too bad because plenty of people are going to be behind the pack pretty much until the next expansion gives you a chance to catch up.

I also don't get this idea that people won't just "log in on tuesday then log out until tuesday". Raiders who are actively raiding are choosing to play that way, most times. They didn't log in on wednesday just to do a 5-man for shits and giggles, or LFR for the hell of it, or TB dailies because they were there. Thinking that this will suddenly, magically change in MoP is silly. The only people that will have to do the crazy grinds are the people that are behind.

Finally, the concept of "not a grind unless you make it" is a stupid, weak stance. Nothing is a grind if you just "don't let it be a grind" or something, it's just a flimsy position. All we can discuss is the reality of what's required for a player that wants to break into the raiding scene, and it is objectively a grind.

So really your point is "Its hard to catchup." I believe this is, at least somewhat, separate from how grindy things are or are not. I concur we require catch up mechanisms ... BC taught us that ... but I don't believe they need to be as fast as they once were. At this point my raid is "catching up" a few people by swapping them in for farm content ... just like we used to do back in the day. It works well enough ... no they aren't in on progression ... yet ... but sooner than later they will also be. Truth is we are putting down ~1 heroic boss a week at this point so we have plenty of extra gear to hand around as most everyone is already geared enough. Of course I run the guild so I get to make these calls ... I know not all guilds are run like this.

[Bovinity]

So really your point is "Its hard to catchup." I believe this is, at least somewhat, separate from how grindy things are or are not. I concur we require catch up mechanisms ... BC taught us that ... but I don't believe they need to be as fast as they once were. At this point my raid is "catching up" a few people by swapping them in for farm content ... just like we used to do back in the day. It works well enough ... no they aren't in on progression ... yet ... but sooner than later they will also be. Truth is we are putting down ~1 heroic boss a week at this point so we have plenty of extra gear to hand around as most everyone is already geared enough. Of course I run the guild so I get to make these calls ... I know not all guilds are run like this.

Again, you're looking at it from the standpoint of someone already 90, already in a guild, already geared, already clearing content. Of COURSE it seems simple now. It's the same mistake people in shoutbox were making earlier.

What happens if you're NOT at that point yet. You're not geared, you're not raiding yet, you might not even be 90. What about those players? Yeah, it's going to be a blast for those guys.

[feralminded]

No I see it now. In 5.2 there will ONLY be LFR and dailies with which to gear up. LFR is 1 chance at gear per week and dailies are a grind. The only other option is to find a friendly guild to help gear you up but this is only available to very few. With no 5 mans to repetitively run it's otherwise very difficult to "catch up." I see that and agree with you this may be a problem ... but I'm still waiting on seeing 5.2 before I make that call as there could be more to it we're not yet aware of. That said I do see your point.

I mean if they are that worried about it LFR could just go for 15% to 100%. Suddenly everyone can "catch up" in 2 weeks. It's inelegant ... I'd hate it ... but it'd work. Personally I'd prefer we get more 5 man content ... and as I alluded to above I'd kill for some difficult 5 man content that wasn't in LFD (so that it wouldn't have to suffer LFD's endless torrent of bitching).

[Aggathon]

Isn't it going to require the same, and possibly less, work than those that started at the beginning of the expansion? It's just time shifted and with a new LFR in a new tier you still have ways to catch up. It's not AS FAST as in Cata but, again, I'm pretty OKAY with that.

[Bovinity]

Yeah, until 5.2 actually hits we won't really know exactly how it'll pan out. I'm just being pessimistic because Blizzard rarely fails to disappoint.

Isn't it going to require the same, and possibly less, work than those that started at the beginning of the expansion?

Unsure how that would even be relevant if it were true. (Which it may well not be, starting off the expansion in a raiding guild is pretty much fast-tracking it compared to being a puggie.)

It's just time shifted and with a new LFR in a new tier you still have ways to catch up. It's not AS FAST as in Cata but, again, I'm pretty OKAY with that.

To be fair, neither of us knows how fast It'll be. All I can go by is their stated philosophy, and it sounds really familiar. Last time it was there, hitting max level part way through an expansion meant being stuck in just a mess of pugs and no progression for a lot of people.

[sifuedition]

TL;DR I think the question brought up earlier "How do we slow consumption?" is the real core of this discussion. A solution that could solve that with the least drawbacks would be worth gold.

Isn't it going to require the same, and possibly less, work than those that started at the beginning of the expansion? It's just time shifted and with a new LFR in a new tier you still have ways to catch up. It's not AS FAST as in Cata but, again, I'm pretty OKAY with that.

This seems to be where a lot of disagreement stems from.

require the same, and possibly less, work

If it requires the same work, or marginally less, then anyone behind cannot reasonably catch up in a model where consumption time is relatively similar to content development time.

In a social game, why would you stratify your player base? On a healthy server, like Stormrage where I had to move, this might not be catastrophic. However, it still makes things much harder on everyone in regards to forming raid groups, guilds, etc. This probably filters all the way down to queue times for your catch up mechanisms, such as they are.

On my old server, this is disastrous and I know Jaedenar is not alone in that. There are a lot of ramifications that people don't or won't consider because it doesn't affect them, or they think it doesn't.

I think that a very valid point was brought up. We were probably consuming content too fast. I'm not sure what the "best" solution for that is, I just worry about the drawbacks of what's being proposed. Obviously, we don't really have a say in it, so we will just have to wait and see if the worst case happens or not. I am curious to see if we get any creative new ideas about how to solve the core problem from these conversations; how do we slow down consumption?

[feralminded]

It also seems fair to me that previous content must be sped up. If you walk into an expansion a year after it comes out you cannot be expected to spend a year getting caught up. These are not new points, these are the very same points that came out of BC and blizzard has consistently acknowledged this as a problem. Needless to say the great lesson that Blizzard took from BC was that intra-expansion catchup mechanisms were a necessary thing for the game to continue on. It's also fair to expect them to continue to "know" this ... it was a HUGE lesson. I understand people are naturally afraid of them "forgetting" this but I for one take it on faith that they just won't.

The issue of course came from the nature and pacing of these catchup mechanisms. In WoTLK we had some blizzard-sponsored catchup mechanisms (new 5 mans in two of the tiers), and player-sponsored mechanisms (GDKP runs, puggable 10 man content). This was great if you were on a populated server, terrible if you were not.

By the end of Cataclysm we saw almost the universal death of player-sponsored mechanisms (which was ironically great if you were on a barren server, less great for populated servers) but with LFR were given the most powerful blizzard-sponsored mechanism yet. The issue of course because content burn-out and the lack of diversity. The other issue is LFR was quite literally the only way to gear up.

Now they're seeking to slow down and spread out the catching-up. They don't want people running LFR until they're blind ... and they want people consuming content at a metered clip so you can't possibly run out of content in one 20 hour gaming-binge. It's better for them as a business to get you to pay the rent month after month, and probably better for the player-community as well (my guild had over 50 people online for the release of Cataclysm, we were lucky to have 5 online at any point last summer). I would like to see 5 mans integrated again (and of course offered as an LFR alternative). I'd like to scenarios used effectively. I'd like to see max-level zones with solid questing intended for people who are not only max-level but a bit geared. There's lots of options here and I sincerely hope blizzard starts to explore this space.

I mean really ... imagine if there was a zone out there released with 5.3 that required a 480 iLvL to enter that had iLvl500 rewards? I'd be ecstatic.

[sifuedition]

Now they're seeking to slow down and spread out the catching-up. They don't want people running LFR until they're blind ... and they want people consuming content at a metered clip so you can't possibly run out of content in one 20 hour gaming-binge. It's better for them as a business to get you to pay the rent month after month, and probably better for the player-community as well

I like the direction of this post but the quoted clip brings up a question I raised in the shoutbox...

Once they determine how much time it should take to catch up, how much should they dictate how that is accomplished? For years now, I've been able to play every day. Recently, that has changed and I am forced into being a binge player if I want to invest the time that even I think should be required. I may only be able to log in 3 or 4 days a week, but on 2 of those, I can binge. The current systems feel like I don't get the same reward for the same time investment because I can't log in daily. The old systems (once they changed to weekly 5 man caps, etc instead of daily ones) seemed to have been designed better. They rewarded the time invested rather than the format your available time comes in. Personally, it effects me so, obviously, I may be biased, but this seems fundamental. Why is 20 hours in one sitting not worth 20 hours structured as 4x5 or 3x7ish? Not to imply that 20 hours should be all it takes to catch up, but why should my catch up time have to follow a certain format? Because I can't put in 2 hours 5 days a week, only the first two hours of the days I can play "count" and after that I'm twiddling my thumbs for 10 hours on the days I can play? And now I'm falling further behind because I didn't play on those other days?

I would like to see skill be the largest determining factor in the game. RNG goes against that to a large degree, especially where skill contributions are minimized, like lfr. In your guild group, skill equals more kills and indirectly aides your RNG. In formats where derping does not preclude success, skill becomes nearly worthless in the pursuit of your goals. This leads to time being the biggest factor. The methods they are suggesting for slowing down consumption or catching up only seem to emphasize this same issue.

Obviously, in an MMO, especially a subscription based one, time will always be a critical factor. But that is measured in "still enjoy playing" as much as it does "things to do". If I can't catch up to my friends or the content that everyone is talking about, I'm probably losing interest daily. I doubt many enjoy that feeling of being "second class" because of artificial reasons.

[feralminded]

You are preaching to the choir when it comes to weekly vs daily caps, as I've said elsewhere I'd prefer if instead of a hub with 3-4 "sets" of dailies being fed us one set per day, instead we get all sets unlocked (either serially or in parallel) and can do them all once per week. This, in part, solves the situation you rightfully point out. I too only play 3-4 times a week and 2 of those times I logon to raid and do little else. The other 1-2 I am usually busy doing "Guildmaster homework" so I rarely get in any dailies. That said if I knew I could do them all (or a lot of them) in a 4-5 hour play period I might schedule such a period on a different night or weekend day.

That said I believe they are going in the "right" direction so far with MoP and even if it's not perfect I expect them to continue to refine it so that it's close enough. What people like you and I have to concede is that not everything in the game may actually be built for us and therefore we could be at some disadvantage. I raid 8 hours a week, my guild is barely in the 90th percentile. With hard work and less drama we might have made 95th percentile this tier but there's no way we'd make 99th and I have to accept that. I have also come to accept that dailies are something I can do for fun (only honored with dominance and I enjoy that one) ... but not a serious path for me as currently designed.

[Theotherone]

Why is 20 hours in one sitting not worth 20 hours structured as 4x5 or 3x7ish? Not to imply that 20 hours should be all it takes to catch up, but why should my catch up time have to follow a certain format? Because I can't put in 2 hours 5 days a week, only the first two hours of the days I can play "count" and after that I'm twiddling my thumbs for 10 hours on the days I can play?

I have an idea why 4x5 is more to Blizzard's liking than the 3x7 and that has to do with an empty world. I think when Blizzard looked at why they're subscriptions dropped they found that an empty world was one (but not the only) reason new subscriptions didn't off set the loss of old ones.

When a new player sees an empty world I think Blizzard found they were less likely to stick with the game; hell, might was well be a single player game. So we get CRZs; Blizzard has talked about this empty world issue before. We get more dailies and quest hubs to get people out in the world. So the player who fills the world by logging 4x5 is getting a benefit over players who log on less frequently. In a business sense, Blizzard likes the 4x5 player better than the 3x7.

Blizzard is trying to dictate behavior; to some it seems grindy to others it's lots of stuff to do and a reason to log on every day.

[Bovinity]

To that I wuold say....make the damn world more interesting again. THEY made the choice to turn all the content in the game into a lobby/queue system and remove all the reasons to be out in the world for people that WANTED to be there. Now they're deciding instead to attempt to force people to go out and do dailies.

[feralminded]

RE: theotherone
I think you sir are spot on with this assessment. I try to do dailies when I can ... and I wish for other ways to get people "out in the world" besides dailies ... but right now they are their best means to that end and I applaud them for it. However I think back to BC and the world rarely felt "empty" despite fewer dailies and I really can't articulate why. Either way I think they are moving in the right direction and sincerely hope we see further innovation this way.

[feralminded]

Thinking on that vein part of what gave zones in BC more "legs" was the local zone rep. I recall going back to each zone to work on the various reps doing things IN that zone which I found interesting. Of course it was a very different game back then and you didn't out-gear the levelling content at such a ridiculous rate so even at max level a couple zones back could still present at least a vaguely compelling challenge. I wonder if the iLvl disparity and all the consequences of it has simply invalidated content at too ridiculous of a rate.

[Theotherone]

To that I wuold say....make the damn world more interesting again. THEY made the choice to turn all the content in the game into a lobby/queue system and remove all the reasons to be out in the world for people that WANTED to be there. Now they're deciding instead to attempt to force people to go out and do dailies.

Can't disagree with you; just saying what I'm observing between what Blizzard has said and their actions - they seem to be creating things in a way that "encourages" the player to log in daily. Being "encouraged" to do things you really don't want to do on a daily basis, can lead to a very grindy feeling.

I agree with Feral, I think Blizzard is going in a good direction, but there is a lot of balancing and refining they need to do; they will never get it perfect, nor will they ever please everyone, but I think they are trying and I think they're doing a good job.

[Aggathon]

I think they have made the world a more interesting place with pet collection, dailies/rep quests like DO, various achievements etc. I don't recall going anywhere in TBC to be compelling except for some rep quest hubs like netherwing and maybe the occasional world PvP, but let's face it, servers are so imbalanced now that world PvP barely happens any more. Nor can you really force that other than what they've already tried doing. The only other reason to leave was to actually fly to an instance because there was no queue system. I think between these things and CRZ blizzard is doing the right things to get us out of org and go do stuff that is interesting to do.

Idk, I like MoP a lot, I think there's interesting things to do now, reasons to log on and go out in the world, and I didn't start this expansion with a guild and don't feel I'm "significantly behind" or anything and I haven't even been a consistent player, I went 3-ish weeks without logging in, then would be able to play for a week, then 3 more weeks of not being able to play. And I refuse to believe that in 5.2 it's going to just be "well fuck all ya'll that didn't start you're hosed." Of course, I also didn't feel that was the case in 2.2 either, but everyone seems to think I got lucky in TBC by starting a guild and working my way up with them from Kara to Sunwell.