The Weekly Marmot - The Return of Class Quests?

[Karoht]

Best.
Intro.
Evar!

[Jazzan]

I think that if they make class quests, they should use the same item level scaling like they do in Challenge Modes. Part of the problem with the old class quests is that they just became completely trivial as soon as you out leveled them (not to mention, completely unnecessary as Blizz eventually put other methods for getting those rewards in game). If item level scaling was used, it would make the quests relevant for a lot longer. This would also add to the 'prestige' idea that you were talking about in a weekly marmot awhile back. Like Challenge Modes, the rewards are cosmetic and everyone doesn't NEED to have them to progress. Additionally, if someone were to start playing that class later on, and didn't get a chance to do the quest when it came out, they could still experience it closer to how it was originally meant to be done. Now, I know that with different spells and things in expansions, it might make the encounters play out a bit differently... but I think it would still be worthwhile.

[Nagassh]

Wait a +500 stat gem that you can solo is game breaking? I'm so confused right now.

Even the absurd T12 legendary, most top tier guilds wanted to get them so they could kill more bosses (hence Blood Legion's Legendary Factory). Again it's the whole "get gear to kill bosses, not kill bosses to get gear" thing.

No, but
a) The current "legendary" isn't complete, blizzard have mentioned that they're still undecided if they want to keep the culmination of the chain as open as the current steps are
b) Taking the current half-complete legendary as a representation of what they are is silly.
c) Blood Legion are far from a decent representation of how guilds usually handle legendaries - 10mans in Firelands got 1, maybe 2 at most

I struggle to believe anyone can browse tankspot without knowing how broken legendaries are. They invariably result in one person having an inherent advantage over the rest of the raiders. How is "we make one player in a raid team noticeably stronger than everyone else" good game design? I really don't understand how anyone can argue it being a cosmetic and having every raider on a level field isn't a good change.

Does this gear help you kill more bosses? Sure. But that's neither here nor there - read what I was responding to.

[Thels]

I loved the class quests back in the day, as well as all similar quests. Vanilla has just been full of those where I can hardly remember anything during later expansions. It wasn't just the class quests themselves that were interesting, but there were also quests like the Tier 0.5 set, quests for Quel'serrar (though admittedly, that was only 2 classes), the Priest/Hunter drop from Majordomo, etc... Vanilla seemed full of them, but then they all disappeared.

Bringing class quests back is cool, but it would be nice if they also returned quests like the Tier 0.5 set, that were available to everyone, but quite challenging overall, and did require you to bring some friends as well.

[tawnos]

I liked the rogue quests (though in my rush to get started i did kind of 'cheat' the boss of the first one by tag-teaming it with a horde rogue who was in the vicinity). However, the flaw from Blizzard's perspective is obvious - how many people actually saw the whole thing, or even significant portions of it? I can see how a 'green fire' cosmetic type quest could have more of a lifespan but 5 years from now how much impact will the rogue legendary quest from Cataclysm really have? The choice between 'extremely memorable content for a tiny portion of the playerbase' or 'somewhat memorable content for a large portion of the playerbase' seems pretty obvious. Sure, if we make the assumption of infinite resources for Blizzard its facile to say 'just do both' but every piece of content they create entails a cost.

[Bovinity]

I dunno, that seems really weak, and frankly a philosophy that has - at least in my mind - made the game that much less interesting.

It's like having a restaurant where you hire a world-class chef and then only serve ramen noodles and Spaghetti-o's because you're afraid that not everyone will be able to afford more than that.

[Nagassh]

The choice between 'extremely memorable content for a tiny portion of the playerbase' or 'somewhat memorable content for a large portion of the playerbase' seems pretty obvious.

The problem being, most of the mass produced content isn't really "somewhat memorable", it's completely forgettable. I'd personally rather have a few highly memorable moments that crop up every now and again, than a host of bland, instant gratification moments that are forgotten in a few months.

It doesn't need to be locked behind huge progression chains like the Legendary chain was, nor does it need to reward an overpowered character boost, I still remember miniscule details like the hat that was worn by one of the other warlocks I teamed up with to fight my way through the dreaded Arathi raptors on my way to my succubus quest. The succubus quest was seen by every single warlock playing at the time, because it was required to get one of your core spells in your mid twenties. Considering what blizzard are capable of now in terms of quest design, they're capable of making far more memorable things than that too.

Memorable =/= exclusive, it just often means class specific. People just need to be able to show more restraint than a toddler and, when offered 1 smartie now or a handful of smarties if they wait 60 seconds, manage to wait it out.

[Theotherone]

Personally, the Wrathgate quest line was one of the best and most memorable quest lines that Blizz had made; culminating with attack on Undercity - which Blizz has seen fit to remove and basically gimp one of their best quest lines. The quest to find Brann was another memorable line. I'm sure Vanilla and TBC had their share also. It seems that Blizz is equating memorable game moments to "epic" rewards and not memorable story telling. Don't get me wrong, I really like MoP and the story so far, but while the Chen quest line is fun and maybe the best in the xpac, it's no Wrathgate or Brann.

[Aggathon]

Personally, the Wrathgate quest line was one of the best and most memorable quest lines that Blizz had made; culminating with attack on Undercity - which Blizz has seen fit to remove and basically gimp one of their best quest lines. The quest to find Brann was another memorable line. I'm sure Vanilla and TBC had their share also. It seems that Blizz is equating memorable game moments to "epic" rewards and not memorable story telling. Don't get me wrong, I really like MoP and the story so far, but while the Chen quest line is fun and maybe the best in the xpac, it's no Wrathgate or Brann.

Which is weird to me, because even in my favorite boss fights I can't remember what I or my raid got except for Illidan, and that's BECAUSE things like the warglaives were so surrounded in lore, also having a cardoor as a shield is pretty cool.

But seriously, I don't remember what I got off of Vashj, just the elation of my guilds first major boss kill and how crazy vent went.

I don't remember what I got off of Kael'Thas, just that was crushed the server progression record on him.

I don't remember what even dropped off of Kil'Jaeden, just how awesome it was when we dropped him before WotLK came out

I don't remember what dropped off of H-Mimiron, just how epic our first kill was with only 3 people alive (2 bubbled paladins and me with a soul stone).

I can't even recall what H-Anub25 drops, but it's still one of my favorite fights to this day because of the mechanics and I still wear my <Grand Crusader> title proudly.

H-Rag wasn't about the loot at all, as much of a pain as that fight was, killing it was pretty epic.

I don't remember the loot or the epic rewards, I remember how much fun it was and the people I was with. My friends and I will still sit around and reminisce about TBC to this day, 5 years later.

Less loot, more story telling! lol.

[worgick]

A lot of casual players would be able to get the cosmetic "Greenfire" enhancements, but they would end up either improving their game play or getting the enhancement after a couple of patchs (OR GASP) an expansion allows them to naturally out level the challenge. Which is why I suggested an achievement. Player with the green fire right away are some real awesome (Pro class maybe?)players. Those that get it before the achievement fades (Before the patch) know their class really well, but needed some gear/RNG luck to get the job done. Everyone else gets the goodie according to their ability........ Eventually everyone gets green fire, everything is cool.

All Warlocks with green fire and the achievement are probably going to be good for raiding technically, proven and no gear score or other stuff obscures the issue. That would solve 1 major conundrum that I see all the time, you think the guy may be good, so you audition him........and $ are spent for a transfer that might not work out? With fire and acieves, You know the guy has skill, does he fit the team, now you can test in a "Fun-cross realm zone" before the $ is spent........

[mavfin]

Yep. People tend to get that backwards.

I guess it's understandable, since like 99% of the WoW population judges you solely on gear, so people start thinking, "I need to get more gear!" and see it as the end goal. But it's really not. Killing bosses is the goal. Gear is just a tool.

Pretty easy to tell which set is which, too. The 'get gear to kill bosses' set talks about how to get the boss down, while the 'kill bosses to get gear' crowd talks about how anyone who doesn't play the game their particular way is 'undeserving' of getting any gear.


Quite a few of both here.