I apologize for the lack of posting lately, been busy both with RL and video game stuff.
1.
Patch 5.4 hit and I needed to spend a decent chunk of time collecting
timeless coins for the caster trinket - only to realize that I needed
more haste from other items before it would actually be an upgrade.
Oops.
2. <Despotism> went 13/14 the first week in two nights. 10 bosses the first night and got Garrosh to 40% in phase two on the second.
3. I pushed out an update for my NWN module Siege of the Heavens,
adding some new features and cleaning up some code in preparation for
the second half. Also published some other minor NWN scripts.
Obviously this is pretty irrelevant to you unless you like NWN (which you should, because it is an awesome game).
Anyway, should be some more regular posts now. Next one will probably be on Lesser Charms and Valor in 5.4.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Raid Lockouts and "Free Loot"
I've previously talked a bit about some of the problems with LFR and now Flex - particularly as it relates to normal or heroic raiders being compelled to run these modes for gear upgrades (tier and trinkets being the prime culprits).
It's particularly interesting when you consider the problem Blizzard faces when it comes to lockouts. If someone is doing LFR and wants to try Flex raiding, Blizzard wants to encourage this - it'll keep the player engaged and hopefully develop some social bonds. So LFR cannot share a lockout with Flex. Likewise, if someone is doing Flex and wants to try normal raiding, Blizzard wants to encourage this - it'll keep the player engaged and hopefully develop more social bonds. So Flex cannot share a lockout with normal. And if LFR can't share a lockout with Flex and Flex can't share a lockout with normal, LFR can't share a lockout with normal either.
Quite a pretty pickle. And, of course, the people suffering from this are people going in reverse. What do I mean by that?
No one is worried about LFR players being compelled to do Flex or Flex players to do normal/heroic. People are worried about normal/heroic being compelled to do Flex and/or LFR. In other words, the problem is when we start at the top and go down, not start at the bottom and go up.
So can we find a solution? It seems difficult, but there was a very interesting idea proposed by someone named Thels that I ran across while reading this post (relevant section quoted but the whole article is good):
"The idea I’ve liked the most so far is one proposed by Thels. For lack of a better term, I’d call it the “Cumulative Loot System.” In short, when you kill a normal or heroic boss, you also automatically get your personal loot rolls for LFR and/or Flex. You could imagine various permutations of how this would work; maybe a normal kill gives you your LFR roll, while a heroic kill gives you both LFR and Flex rolls. But the simplest case is just that you get both rolls on any normal or heroic kill.
What I like about this solution is that it directly addresses the problem at the source. The problem is that players clearing normal and heroic feel compelled to run LFR and Flex for additional chances at marginal upgrades. The complaint isn’t that the LFR and Flex loot is “too good,” or “more than LFR deserves,” strictly speaking, though I’m sure we could find a small subset of players who would argue those points. The problem is that the extra LFR and Flex clears require more time on top of an already demanding heroic raiding schedule, and that a player with the skill to do heroic modes doesn’t find these watered-down difficulty levels fun.
Rather than trying to take anything away from LFR or Flex raiders, this solution instead just gives “extra” or “free” loot to heroic raiders to remove the additional time sink. And I think that’s a much wiser move at this point in the game’s life than trying to impose more restrictions on the LFR and Flex raid population, which even now accounts for the vast majority of raiders."
To make this explicit, the following would happen:
If you kill a boss in LFR, you get your LFR loot.
If you kill a boss in Flex, you get your Flex loot. If you have NOT killed the boss in LFR, you also get your LFR loot.
If you kill a boss in normal/heroic, the boss drops his or her items. If you have NOT killed the boss in Flex, you also get your Flex loot. Additionally, if you have NOT killed the boss in LFR, you also get your LFR loot.
This means that as long as you'd kill a given boss on normal or heroic each week, you have no incentive to do Flex or LFR. The more I think about it, the more I like it - and it can be summed up like this:
There is always an incentive to move up and never an incentive to move down.
It is the perfect carrot - if you can kill the boss on a higher difficulty, you get those benefits plus all of the benefits from the lower difficulties.
Now, this solution isn't perfect. If Bob needs tier shoulders but needs to sit on the boss during the week, he would still need to go do Flex for that boss. But even when he does Flex, he'll get the LFR chance too.
Best of all, none of this should effectively change what a player chooses to do each week. People who were going to do Flex and LFR will get that loot as long as they do normal - so it does nothing but save them some time. And since they're already investing time in normal/heroic raiding, those aren't the players who need extra time sinks.
It is an extreme incentive to do higher difficulties without taking anything away from the lower difficulties. And that seems to be Blizzard's desired type of solution right now.
It's particularly interesting when you consider the problem Blizzard faces when it comes to lockouts. If someone is doing LFR and wants to try Flex raiding, Blizzard wants to encourage this - it'll keep the player engaged and hopefully develop some social bonds. So LFR cannot share a lockout with Flex. Likewise, if someone is doing Flex and wants to try normal raiding, Blizzard wants to encourage this - it'll keep the player engaged and hopefully develop more social bonds. So Flex cannot share a lockout with normal. And if LFR can't share a lockout with Flex and Flex can't share a lockout with normal, LFR can't share a lockout with normal either.
Quite a pretty pickle. And, of course, the people suffering from this are people going in reverse. What do I mean by that?
No one is worried about LFR players being compelled to do Flex or Flex players to do normal/heroic. People are worried about normal/heroic being compelled to do Flex and/or LFR. In other words, the problem is when we start at the top and go down, not start at the bottom and go up.
So can we find a solution? It seems difficult, but there was a very interesting idea proposed by someone named Thels that I ran across while reading this post (relevant section quoted but the whole article is good):
"The idea I’ve liked the most so far is one proposed by Thels. For lack of a better term, I’d call it the “Cumulative Loot System.” In short, when you kill a normal or heroic boss, you also automatically get your personal loot rolls for LFR and/or Flex. You could imagine various permutations of how this would work; maybe a normal kill gives you your LFR roll, while a heroic kill gives you both LFR and Flex rolls. But the simplest case is just that you get both rolls on any normal or heroic kill.
What I like about this solution is that it directly addresses the problem at the source. The problem is that players clearing normal and heroic feel compelled to run LFR and Flex for additional chances at marginal upgrades. The complaint isn’t that the LFR and Flex loot is “too good,” or “more than LFR deserves,” strictly speaking, though I’m sure we could find a small subset of players who would argue those points. The problem is that the extra LFR and Flex clears require more time on top of an already demanding heroic raiding schedule, and that a player with the skill to do heroic modes doesn’t find these watered-down difficulty levels fun.
Rather than trying to take anything away from LFR or Flex raiders, this solution instead just gives “extra” or “free” loot to heroic raiders to remove the additional time sink. And I think that’s a much wiser move at this point in the game’s life than trying to impose more restrictions on the LFR and Flex raid population, which even now accounts for the vast majority of raiders."
To make this explicit, the following would happen:
If you kill a boss in LFR, you get your LFR loot.
If you kill a boss in Flex, you get your Flex loot. If you have NOT killed the boss in LFR, you also get your LFR loot.
If you kill a boss in normal/heroic, the boss drops his or her items. If you have NOT killed the boss in Flex, you also get your Flex loot. Additionally, if you have NOT killed the boss in LFR, you also get your LFR loot.
This means that as long as you'd kill a given boss on normal or heroic each week, you have no incentive to do Flex or LFR. The more I think about it, the more I like it - and it can be summed up like this:
There is always an incentive to move up and never an incentive to move down.
It is the perfect carrot - if you can kill the boss on a higher difficulty, you get those benefits plus all of the benefits from the lower difficulties.
Now, this solution isn't perfect. If Bob needs tier shoulders but needs to sit on the boss during the week, he would still need to go do Flex for that boss. But even when he does Flex, he'll get the LFR chance too.
Best of all, none of this should effectively change what a player chooses to do each week. People who were going to do Flex and LFR will get that loot as long as they do normal - so it does nothing but save them some time. And since they're already investing time in normal/heroic raiding, those aren't the players who need extra time sinks.
It is an extreme incentive to do higher difficulties without taking anything away from the lower difficulties. And that seems to be Blizzard's desired type of solution right now.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Return of the "Want a Free Game?"
Neverwinter Nights is on sale again for the next 60 hours! That means it's time to offer more free copies of the game to those who are interested in trying it and getting hooked on it. The following is effectively a repeat of my previous "Want a Free Game?" post from April, so if you already got NWN from me feel free to pass the information on to a friend so you can play with them!
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In addition to WoW I'm quite fond of a game called Neverwinter Nights. It's an RPG that came out a few years before WoW which is completely amazing because it is immensely customizable. You can play solo campaigns, you can play multiplayer campaigns, and you can play online on what are effectively MMOs (abet with playerbases in the dozens to hundreds instead of tens of thousands).
It has a complete toolset that can be used to tweak almost every mechanic and create custom content - the original "official" Bioware campaigns make up like 0.1% of what's available for the game, and a ton of the user made content blows the original campaigns out of the water. Users can also add new content in the form of ".hak" files, which add new creature models, new tilesets, new weapons, new feats (like talents), etc.
And all of this is free except for the original purchase. It's available to buy on a site called Good Old Games for $9.99 normally - which includes the original campaign, both expansions (so two more campaigns), and an additional "premium" module - but it's on sale right now for $5.99.
Except I'll sweeten the pot even further - if you send me an email at balkothwarcraft at gmail dot com before by 11:59 PM on Monday night, I'll buy the game for you and send it to you as a gift. Absolutely free. Because I think the game deserves to be promoted.
I also made a module of my own earlier. There was a "building challenge" where participants had one month to create a module (the game is separated into modules, which can range from being a single testing zone to a MMO-like Persistent World which spans hundreds of areas and offers hundreds of hours of playtime - you just load the module you want to play or join it if it's already being hosted). I created a solo adventure for max level characters called Siege of the Heavens, which is an action adventure focused on scripted boss fights, similar to what you'd find in WoW raids and dungeons (or Brawler's Guild if you've done that). The Heavens are under attack by devils and demons and the celestials enlist the help of mortals heroes like yourself to help lift the siege.
It's not something you should immediately play - you'll want to familiarize yourself with the basic mechanics of the game before trying my module. It's also only technically halfway finished since I only had a month to build it - which is still 3-4 or so hours of playtime, and once it's done you'll be able to pick up where you left off and play the remaining 3-4 hours that are planned.
Speaking of familiarizing yourself with the game, I would be happy to play through the official campaigns (or some custom campaigns, I'd strongly recommend the Aielund Saga at a minimum - among many other custom campaigns - which is much better than the official campaigns but again somewhat expects a familiarity with the game) with anyone interested, provided we can arrange suitable times. The first official campaign probably takes about 40 hours to play through, the second two both take about 20 hours each.
IMPORTANT NOTE
You will need to request a unique multiplayer key once you claim your game or else you will be unable to sign into some multiplayer modules for security reasons. There are instructions on how to do so on the GOG site.
Also, some of the old multiplayer services (like game listings provided by Gamespy) are no longer active - but members of the community have recreated replacements that are just as good (or better in some cases) as the originals. More information can be found here. Feel free to contact me (via email or private message on the boards - this is my profile there) or post on those boards for help if you need it.
Again, email me at balkothwarcraft at gmail dot com if you want a copy of the game, want to find out more about the game, want to try to play the game with me, or whatever.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to WoW I'm quite fond of a game called Neverwinter Nights. It's an RPG that came out a few years before WoW which is completely amazing because it is immensely customizable. You can play solo campaigns, you can play multiplayer campaigns, and you can play online on what are effectively MMOs (abet with playerbases in the dozens to hundreds instead of tens of thousands).
It has a complete toolset that can be used to tweak almost every mechanic and create custom content - the original "official" Bioware campaigns make up like 0.1% of what's available for the game, and a ton of the user made content blows the original campaigns out of the water. Users can also add new content in the form of ".hak" files, which add new creature models, new tilesets, new weapons, new feats (like talents), etc.
And all of this is free except for the original purchase. It's available to buy on a site called Good Old Games for $9.99 normally - which includes the original campaign, both expansions (so two more campaigns), and an additional "premium" module - but it's on sale right now for $5.99.
Except I'll sweeten the pot even further - if you send me an email at balkothwarcraft at gmail dot com before by 11:59 PM on Monday night, I'll buy the game for you and send it to you as a gift. Absolutely free. Because I think the game deserves to be promoted.
I also made a module of my own earlier. There was a "building challenge" where participants had one month to create a module (the game is separated into modules, which can range from being a single testing zone to a MMO-like Persistent World which spans hundreds of areas and offers hundreds of hours of playtime - you just load the module you want to play or join it if it's already being hosted). I created a solo adventure for max level characters called Siege of the Heavens, which is an action adventure focused on scripted boss fights, similar to what you'd find in WoW raids and dungeons (or Brawler's Guild if you've done that). The Heavens are under attack by devils and demons and the celestials enlist the help of mortals heroes like yourself to help lift the siege.
It's not something you should immediately play - you'll want to familiarize yourself with the basic mechanics of the game before trying my module. It's also only technically halfway finished since I only had a month to build it - which is still 3-4 or so hours of playtime, and once it's done you'll be able to pick up where you left off and play the remaining 3-4 hours that are planned.
Speaking of familiarizing yourself with the game, I would be happy to play through the official campaigns (or some custom campaigns, I'd strongly recommend the Aielund Saga at a minimum - among many other custom campaigns - which is much better than the official campaigns but again somewhat expects a familiarity with the game) with anyone interested, provided we can arrange suitable times. The first official campaign probably takes about 40 hours to play through, the second two both take about 20 hours each.
IMPORTANT NOTE
You will need to request a unique multiplayer key once you claim your game or else you will be unable to sign into some multiplayer modules for security reasons. There are instructions on how to do so on the GOG site.
Also, some of the old multiplayer services (like game listings provided by Gamespy) are no longer active - but members of the community have recreated replacements that are just as good (or better in some cases) as the originals. More information can be found here. Feel free to contact me (via email or private message on the boards - this is my profile there) or post on those boards for help if you need it.
Again, email me at balkothwarcraft at gmail dot com if you want a copy of the game, want to find out more about the game, want to try to play the game with me, or whatever.
Monday, August 12, 2013
World of Warcraft is Not Legend of Zelda (On Ammunition)
(Quick note: I only played Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask for Legend of Zelda, so if gameplay has changed significantly since then I apologize in advance).
Legend of Zelda
In Legend of Zelda, you control a character named Link who has access to a bunch of different equipment. Two staples are a sword and shield combo and a bow and arrows.
The bow and arrows are extremely powerful - they deal a lot of damage from distance (more than the sword, I believe), can pierce through tougher foes (spiders that normally have to be hit in their vulnerable belly can just be one shot anywhere with an arrow), and keep Link well away from danger. There's a major drawback, though - you have limited ammunition. The default typically was 30 arrows (and you can fire an arrow every second) which could be upgraded to 40 or 50 arrows with quests.
Ammunition wasn't easy to acquire, either. Sometimes you could buy them from a store, but that meant leaving the dungeon and returning. Sometimes you'd find a cache of them from destroying objects, but it wasn't a guaranteed source by any means. In short, you used arrows sparingly in situations where you really needed them. They were a trump card, an ace in the hole - not something to be casually spent.
The sword and shield, however, were unlimited in use. They were your default form of gameplay. Situations where you DIDN'T use the sword and shield were unusual. Thus, situations where you could go wild with arrows were extremely fun because you got to be brokenly overpowered for a short amount of time if you were smart about it (like if you knew more arrows were available soon or something).
So the paradigm was to use the sword and shield as your default attack and pull out the bow in special situations to unleash the fury.
Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries
First of all, Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries is an awesome game. The Mechwarrior universe revolves around Battlemechs - giant war robots that you pilot around in missions doing anything from assaulting an enemy stronghold to defending factories against aggressors to raiding convoys to ritual combat in a duel-like fashion and more.
My guess that you probably aren't playing this game right now. Which is incredibly stupid, because you should be playing it. Best of all, it was released for free in the last few years, here's a current location where you can download it: Click Me
Note: you'll want to use a joystick to get the most out of the game, though I suppose it might be playable without one. But why would you want to do that?
But I did have a point. In Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, there are three main types of weapons: missile, ballistic, and energy.
Missile weapons typically do very high damage for their weight at the cost of limited ammunition. You can slap a missile pack onto a Battlemech when you only have a few tons to spare and you want some extra firepower fairly easily.
Energy weapons have unlimited uses but produce large amounts of heat. If your Battlemech gets too hot it will overheat and shut down, so you can't use too many energy weapons.
In short, you can use energy weapons on weaker targets, fire up the ballistics as well for more difficult enemies, and launch your missiles on top of those when it gets really hairy. If you launch missiles at every weak enemy you see you're going to run out extremely quickly. There are tradeoffs between the different types of attacks and you use the weapons appropriate to the situation.
World of Warcraft
Now let's look at World of Warcraft - specifically from the viewpoint of a Hunter. Let's try a Legend of Zelda approach first...
An enemy approaches! Do you
A: charge into melee with a weapon to conserve your ammunition
B: shoot it
Hint: the answer is B. In fact, the answer is NEVER A. There is no reason for a Hunter to EVER attempt to melee an enemy instead of shooting it and players who did so were relentlessly mocked.
A: Use just your attacks with unlimited uses because it's a weak enemy
B: Use most of your attacks while conserving the strongest ones with limited uses because it's a medium enemy
C: Use all of the attacks available, spending ammunition like water because that's a tough mother that needs to be dropped fast
...wait a second, that doesn't even make sense for a Hunter. ALL of a hunter's attacks require the exact same ammunition. The analogy in this case would be better suited for cooldown usage.
Hmm.
So we've established two important facts:
1. A hunter ALWAYS shoots his enemies
2. All of a hunter's shots require ammunition
Now let's add in an additional fact - unlike Legend of Zelda or Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries where your ammunition is definitely very limited and needs to be used wisely, Hunters often stock up on thousands of arrows/bullets/etc. In fact, while you're in a raid or dungeon, you don't even notice you are using ammunition unless you run low before you got to restock.
Throw Away Those Rose-Tinted Goggles
So why, then, are some people obsessed over the removal of ammunition in World of Warcraft? It served no useful purpose - you simply brought several thousand to a raid and forgot about it for a few hours. There was no decision making process. Nor was it intended as punishment like durability loss and needing to repair. It wasn't even immersive - people don't carry thousands of arrows in a quiver in stacks of 200.
There's a reason ammunition was removed. It was pointless. Let's get rid of our nostalgia goggles and stop lamenting the loss of ammunition in WoW.
Friday, July 26, 2013
I Just Want to Play With My Friends! (On WoW Leveling)
I want to tell you two stories about people who decide to try WoW.
Story #1
Alex has decided to try out this popular game called World of Warcraft. He installs it, boots the game up, and starts exploring. He has little idea of what he's doing but hey, there's a big world out there to discover. He doesn't realize that doing grey quests is bad experience but he doesn't care either - he's having fun seeing all this new stuff. He then discovers this dungeon finder thing and sees this group stuff with awesome loot - that's BLUE. Whoa. Then he goes back to being 35 and questing in Duskwood (yes, I have seen that exact thing happen). Eventually he starts to pick up things though he's still generally pretty clueless.
Despite the fact that he's learning, leveling is slow in general and it takes him something like 300+ hours to hit maximum level. Assuming he plays, say, 10ish hours a week, that means it takes him seven and a half months to hit maximum level.
He's enjoyed this process - he's made steady progress toward this goal of maximum level and he's explored a bunch of the world while doing so. He never particularly wanted to level faster since he had no particular reason to be maximum level. He's about to discover raids and organized PvP but that was never even on his radar before. He's generally happy.
Story #2
Bob has a friend (call him Chris) who plays this popular game called World of Warcraft. Chris eagerly describes working as part of a big team to defeat huge dragons and giants and such or maybe tells him about pitched battlefields between two warring factions. Bob decides this sounds cool and wants to play the game with Chris so he picks up WoW. However, he now realizes there's a bit of a problem - Chris is maximum level while Bob is level 1 and can't do anything with Chris.
Bob asks Chris if he wants to make a new character to level with Bob. Both of them only have 10ish hours per week to play, however, and Alex has scheduled raids along with weekly chores to deal with. Thus, Chris can only play a few hours per week at most with Bob - meaning that Bob will quickly outlevel him and the whole idea of playing together at the same level will be moot. Alternatively, Bob can simply only play a 2-3 hours per week with Chris and not even play WoW with his remaining spare time - which also means it'll take Bob even LONGER to level and do all the cool stuff with Chris at maximum level.
I think everyone will agree that Bob feeling like he can only play WoW whenever Chris is NOT busy with raids/chores/whatever is a bad idea. And arguing that Bob should make multiple characters to avoid this issue seems a bit silly - but if anyone seriously thinks that is a good idea I can go into more depth on why it is not.
So let's assume Bob simply levels as fast as he can without Chris so he can join Chris at maximum level as soon as possible. Bob has Chris helping him with game information so he manages to level twice as fast as Alex. At 10ish hours a week, this means Bob will hit maximum level in 15 weeks (150 hours needed due to him being faster) - which is still nearly four months.
That's Messed Up
Let's look at that last sentence more closely. Chris convinces Bob to try this new game and when Bob asks Chris when he can do the raids and battlegrounds and such with Chris, he gets told that it will take nearly four months. Four months of playing one character to even get to maximum level (I'm not even including gearing up at max level and learning how to really play the game - let's assume those magically happen instantly). Four months before he can play with his friend.
That's not a very friend friendly game. You can jump right into a strategy game like Starcraft II or Warcraft III - your friend will be terrible but you can still play. You can hop into a game like Halo or Call of Duty - ditto. Or something like DotA or League of Legends - your friend may have less heroes available or may be missing some small bonuses, but they can still play with you.
But not in WoW. In WoW, by default, it will take a person playing 10ish hours a week about four months to even be able to play with a friend who lured them into the game.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
We can see here that we have two very different kinds of new players (probably more, but these two at a minimum). One is here to explore this new world and is fine with slow leveling - he's just seeing what's out there and has no idea what he's "missing" at maximum level. He's in no rush to level and is content subscribing while playing the game.
But the second wants to play with his friends who are all max level. He might enjoy leveling a character and exploring the world and such at one point, but right now he simply wants to be able to do the stuff his friends tell him about. And his friends probably don't want to have to make a new character every time they convince a new friend to try WoW. So this new guy wants to get to maximum level as soon as possible.
When I hear people complain about how leveling is too fast in Wow, this is what I think about. The fact that an incredibly long leveling game works well for some players but is horrible for people trying to get friends into the game. That's why I think Blizzard is trying to err on the side of leveling being too fast - by introducing Recruit-A-Friend and now the 100% experience bonus.
And even Recruit-A-Friend has issues because, again, the two friends have to play together. And if player A is busy raiding and doing weekly LFR/Charm/Valor chores, he might not have the time to play with player B very much (if they were both maximum level they could do it together). Being told "you have to spend a week or two building your character before you can play with your friend" sounds a lot better than "you have to spend four months building your character before you can play with your friend."
So Where Next?
This does seem to lead to an interesting conclusion - perhaps it's better to really minimize the idea of leveling - if we think most new players want to play with friends instead of just picking up the game on their own (which seems to be more and more likely these days). Instead of it taking up to 4+ hours a level, make it take like a maximum of 60 minutes a level and much faster initially. Make lots of questing out in the world something to do at maximum level (and give charms/valor like dailies) rather than something everyone has to do to level. While leveling, give players a taste of what is going on in a zone and make leveling a whirlwind tour of the zones - then a player can go back at maximum level to explore the zone and find its lore.
This obviously raises a number of issues, however. Rewards being one of the main ones - traditionally quests have generally given worse rewards than initial (heroic) dungeons. Blizzard has noted time and time again how players will use the most efficient way to get their loot. So if quests still reward 437 greens, you'd expect players to generally not do them at maximum level because they're getting 463 blues from dungeons. But perhaps they could give 10 valor and 3 charms each or something.
Imagine an MoP where each level only took 30-60 minutes with the main plot of each zone set up and then once you hit 90 you could do all of the quests in the various zones to see the plot. There's your stuff to do out in the world at maximum level.
Right now it feels like WoW is trying to act like SC2/LoL/etc at maximum level but is also trying to act like a traditional RPG storyline with a massive leveling grind. A playthrough of a game like Mass Effect (2/3) probably takes 30-60 hours maximum - and that's considered a full game. WoW leveling takes far longer than that and you have to finish it to do the "main" content of the game. Maybe it's time to vastly de-emphasize the idea of leveling and make questing in the world something you do at maximum level.
I'm sort of rambling now, just trying to sort though this idea and playing out the various scenarios - it would be a large change but it makes me wonder. Instead of the question being "Is leveling too fast?" perhaps we should be asking "Is leveling too slow?"
Story #1
Alex has decided to try out this popular game called World of Warcraft. He installs it, boots the game up, and starts exploring. He has little idea of what he's doing but hey, there's a big world out there to discover. He doesn't realize that doing grey quests is bad experience but he doesn't care either - he's having fun seeing all this new stuff. He then discovers this dungeon finder thing and sees this group stuff with awesome loot - that's BLUE. Whoa. Then he goes back to being 35 and questing in Duskwood (yes, I have seen that exact thing happen). Eventually he starts to pick up things though he's still generally pretty clueless.
Despite the fact that he's learning, leveling is slow in general and it takes him something like 300+ hours to hit maximum level. Assuming he plays, say, 10ish hours a week, that means it takes him seven and a half months to hit maximum level.
He's enjoyed this process - he's made steady progress toward this goal of maximum level and he's explored a bunch of the world while doing so. He never particularly wanted to level faster since he had no particular reason to be maximum level. He's about to discover raids and organized PvP but that was never even on his radar before. He's generally happy.
Story #2
Bob has a friend (call him Chris) who plays this popular game called World of Warcraft. Chris eagerly describes working as part of a big team to defeat huge dragons and giants and such or maybe tells him about pitched battlefields between two warring factions. Bob decides this sounds cool and wants to play the game with Chris so he picks up WoW. However, he now realizes there's a bit of a problem - Chris is maximum level while Bob is level 1 and can't do anything with Chris.
Bob asks Chris if he wants to make a new character to level with Bob. Both of them only have 10ish hours per week to play, however, and Alex has scheduled raids along with weekly chores to deal with. Thus, Chris can only play a few hours per week at most with Bob - meaning that Bob will quickly outlevel him and the whole idea of playing together at the same level will be moot. Alternatively, Bob can simply only play a 2-3 hours per week with Chris and not even play WoW with his remaining spare time - which also means it'll take Bob even LONGER to level and do all the cool stuff with Chris at maximum level.
I think everyone will agree that Bob feeling like he can only play WoW whenever Chris is NOT busy with raids/chores/whatever is a bad idea. And arguing that Bob should make multiple characters to avoid this issue seems a bit silly - but if anyone seriously thinks that is a good idea I can go into more depth on why it is not.
So let's assume Bob simply levels as fast as he can without Chris so he can join Chris at maximum level as soon as possible. Bob has Chris helping him with game information so he manages to level twice as fast as Alex. At 10ish hours a week, this means Bob will hit maximum level in 15 weeks (150 hours needed due to him being faster) - which is still nearly four months.
That's Messed Up
Let's look at that last sentence more closely. Chris convinces Bob to try this new game and when Bob asks Chris when he can do the raids and battlegrounds and such with Chris, he gets told that it will take nearly four months. Four months of playing one character to even get to maximum level (I'm not even including gearing up at max level and learning how to really play the game - let's assume those magically happen instantly). Four months before he can play with his friend.
That's not a very friend friendly game. You can jump right into a strategy game like Starcraft II or Warcraft III - your friend will be terrible but you can still play. You can hop into a game like Halo or Call of Duty - ditto. Or something like DotA or League of Legends - your friend may have less heroes available or may be missing some small bonuses, but they can still play with you.
But not in WoW. In WoW, by default, it will take a person playing 10ish hours a week about four months to even be able to play with a friend who lured them into the game.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
We can see here that we have two very different kinds of new players (probably more, but these two at a minimum). One is here to explore this new world and is fine with slow leveling - he's just seeing what's out there and has no idea what he's "missing" at maximum level. He's in no rush to level and is content subscribing while playing the game.
But the second wants to play with his friends who are all max level. He might enjoy leveling a character and exploring the world and such at one point, but right now he simply wants to be able to do the stuff his friends tell him about. And his friends probably don't want to have to make a new character every time they convince a new friend to try WoW. So this new guy wants to get to maximum level as soon as possible.
When I hear people complain about how leveling is too fast in Wow, this is what I think about. The fact that an incredibly long leveling game works well for some players but is horrible for people trying to get friends into the game. That's why I think Blizzard is trying to err on the side of leveling being too fast - by introducing Recruit-A-Friend and now the 100% experience bonus.
And even Recruit-A-Friend has issues because, again, the two friends have to play together. And if player A is busy raiding and doing weekly LFR/Charm/Valor chores, he might not have the time to play with player B very much (if they were both maximum level they could do it together). Being told "you have to spend a week or two building your character before you can play with your friend" sounds a lot better than "you have to spend four months building your character before you can play with your friend."
So Where Next?
This does seem to lead to an interesting conclusion - perhaps it's better to really minimize the idea of leveling - if we think most new players want to play with friends instead of just picking up the game on their own (which seems to be more and more likely these days). Instead of it taking up to 4+ hours a level, make it take like a maximum of 60 minutes a level and much faster initially. Make lots of questing out in the world something to do at maximum level (and give charms/valor like dailies) rather than something everyone has to do to level. While leveling, give players a taste of what is going on in a zone and make leveling a whirlwind tour of the zones - then a player can go back at maximum level to explore the zone and find its lore.
This obviously raises a number of issues, however. Rewards being one of the main ones - traditionally quests have generally given worse rewards than initial (heroic) dungeons. Blizzard has noted time and time again how players will use the most efficient way to get their loot. So if quests still reward 437 greens, you'd expect players to generally not do them at maximum level because they're getting 463 blues from dungeons. But perhaps they could give 10 valor and 3 charms each or something.
Imagine an MoP where each level only took 30-60 minutes with the main plot of each zone set up and then once you hit 90 you could do all of the quests in the various zones to see the plot. There's your stuff to do out in the world at maximum level.
Right now it feels like WoW is trying to act like SC2/LoL/etc at maximum level but is also trying to act like a traditional RPG storyline with a massive leveling grind. A playthrough of a game like Mass Effect (2/3) probably takes 30-60 hours maximum - and that's considered a full game. WoW leveling takes far longer than that and you have to finish it to do the "main" content of the game. Maybe it's time to vastly de-emphasize the idea of leveling and make questing in the world something you do at maximum level.
I'm sort of rambling now, just trying to sort though this idea and playing out the various scenarios - it would be a large change but it makes me wonder. Instead of the question being "Is leveling too fast?" perhaps we should be asking "Is leveling too slow?"
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Enough With the WoW P2W* Hysteria!
*P(ay) 2 W(in), generally meaning you have to buy things within the game for real money or be at a massive disadvantage.
You've probably heard that Blizzard is planning on adding an in-game shop for real money. Let's go ahead and assume it'll also be introduced in the US and EU just for the sake of argument. You may have also noticed some people pretty much being hysterical about it, calling WoW a sell-out, saying it might make them quit, etc. Based on what we know, they're being absolutely ridiculous (unless I've missed additional announcements) - allow me to explain why.
First of all, I believe there have only been two confirmed items on the real money shop.
1. 100% experience bonus
2. Lesser Charms of Good Fortune
Now, it seems likely that the various mounts and pets will be included but we simply don't know yet - and I doubt anyone will complain about being able to directly buy those in-game.
So let's look at those two things throwing players into fits.
100% Experience Bonus
People complain about how fast they level already (simply doing quests in a zone and a dungeon or two at the appropriate level will make you outlevel the zone in the 1-60 range). Then they complain even more about how getting 50% or more bonus experience from heirlooms makes it even faster. Then they complain about the Recruit-A-Friend program that gives a 200% bonus (I guess, it would logically follow, right?).
In other words, the "leveling game" is already compromised. Very few people experienced in WoW care about leveling (if anyone) - saying you have a level 90 evicts a "Well, duh?" response instead of "Whoa, you actually hit maximum level!" You might find leveling interesting (I actually generally enjoy it on multiple characters) but you don't think it's some kind of achievement.
Furthermore, I'm surprised people have just now complained about being able to skip hours of leveling using real money. After all, that feature has been in the game for quite some time. I am speaking, of course, about server transfers. Without server transfers, you'd have to level a new character from scratch on a server and regear them - which is a lot of time. With server transfers, you can simply instantly transport your character and skip that whole deal - by spending real life money. Anyone remember the days before server transfers? I do.
So allowing people to save hundreds of hours releveling and regearing a character by spending money is fine but allowing them to double their leveling speed is not?
In short, if people want to spend real life money to speed up leveling - who cares? They're still going through the motions, just at a faster pace. I guess it'll help with the achievements for multiple max levels or the "Stay Classy" guild achievements - but again, who cares? At this point, if you don't like leveling, it's nothing more than a time sink.
Unless you're arguing that a top raiding guild will get an alt to 90 a few days later than their competition because they didn't use the boost and thus they had less time to gear the alt and thus they killed the boss later and lost ranking, this will not affect anyone. Leveling used to have a speed limit of 10 MPH. Now it's 50 MPH. Does letting people speed at 100 MPH really matter?
Final note: it might affect Realm First leveling achievements, but it might just be disabled for that (or at the start of an expansion, period). Or for people who really care, they might have to shell out a few dollars to compete in that one time event per expansion. Not exactly the end of the world.
Lesser Charms of Good Fortune
Here is something absolutely critical to keep in mind: Lesser Charms have a spending cap. You cannot use more than 50 per week. Period (unless it bugs out like it did a few weeks ago, but that's not the norm). So even if you could afford to buy 50000 Lesser Charms per week, it wouldn't matter because you can only spend 50. What does this mean in practice?
Speaking for myself, it takes me 30-60 minutes to get the 50 Charms per week. Probably longer for people with worse gear, but ultimately we're talking about an hour or two of dailies per week, tops. Apparently Pet Battles are also really good at generating Charms - a person in my guild has over 2000 Charms or something. But they do him no good because he can't spend them - so it saves him an hour a week, tops, of doing dailies.
So if you buy Lesser Charms, you save one hour a week of dailies (ignoring the rep and valor for the moment). Content that is designed to be easy and repeated hundreds of times. If someone said to you "Yeah, I spent $5 to skip an hour of dailies this week" do you really think "OMG SO UNFAIR THE WORLD IS ENDING?" Many players (who are time-rich) may think he was silly/stupid/moronic but it doesn't impact them in any meaningful way.
In short: Lesser Charms available for real money? Who cares? Anyone who's ever thought "I'd pay money to skip these stupid dailies" is getting their wish. And if you can't stomach the thought of paying to avoid an hour of grind - you're right where you are right now, doing your 25 dailies a week in an hourish.
Conclusion
Now I suppose it's possible Blizzard will announce they're going to sell heroic raid gear or elite conquest gear in the store, but until they do let's not panic, all right? Someone being able to level twice as fast is not the end of the world - they already level insanely fast compared to the "old days." No one cares about you having a level 90, it's expected. Likewise, someone being able to skip an hour of dailies per week is not going to destroy WoW as we know it. It's a minor convenience for people tired of dailies or for those who are short on time, either in general playtime or in a specific situation (ever been short on Charms and frantically trying to finish dailies before raid time?).
So again: who really cares? You're not missing about on something you would otherwise have by not buying them - the game stays exactly the same for you as it is now. And neither of those options has an impact on something competitive which means you can't gain an advantage by spending the money.
The sky is not falling.
You've probably heard that Blizzard is planning on adding an in-game shop for real money. Let's go ahead and assume it'll also be introduced in the US and EU just for the sake of argument. You may have also noticed some people pretty much being hysterical about it, calling WoW a sell-out, saying it might make them quit, etc. Based on what we know, they're being absolutely ridiculous (unless I've missed additional announcements) - allow me to explain why.
First of all, I believe there have only been two confirmed items on the real money shop.
1. 100% experience bonus
2. Lesser Charms of Good Fortune
Now, it seems likely that the various mounts and pets will be included but we simply don't know yet - and I doubt anyone will complain about being able to directly buy those in-game.
So let's look at those two things throwing players into fits.
100% Experience Bonus
People complain about how fast they level already (simply doing quests in a zone and a dungeon or two at the appropriate level will make you outlevel the zone in the 1-60 range). Then they complain even more about how getting 50% or more bonus experience from heirlooms makes it even faster. Then they complain about the Recruit-A-Friend program that gives a 200% bonus (I guess, it would logically follow, right?).
In other words, the "leveling game" is already compromised. Very few people experienced in WoW care about leveling (if anyone) - saying you have a level 90 evicts a "Well, duh?" response instead of "Whoa, you actually hit maximum level!" You might find leveling interesting (I actually generally enjoy it on multiple characters) but you don't think it's some kind of achievement.
Furthermore, I'm surprised people have just now complained about being able to skip hours of leveling using real money. After all, that feature has been in the game for quite some time. I am speaking, of course, about server transfers. Without server transfers, you'd have to level a new character from scratch on a server and regear them - which is a lot of time. With server transfers, you can simply instantly transport your character and skip that whole deal - by spending real life money. Anyone remember the days before server transfers? I do.
So allowing people to save hundreds of hours releveling and regearing a character by spending money is fine but allowing them to double their leveling speed is not?
In short, if people want to spend real life money to speed up leveling - who cares? They're still going through the motions, just at a faster pace. I guess it'll help with the achievements for multiple max levels or the "Stay Classy" guild achievements - but again, who cares? At this point, if you don't like leveling, it's nothing more than a time sink.
Unless you're arguing that a top raiding guild will get an alt to 90 a few days later than their competition because they didn't use the boost and thus they had less time to gear the alt and thus they killed the boss later and lost ranking, this will not affect anyone. Leveling used to have a speed limit of 10 MPH. Now it's 50 MPH. Does letting people speed at 100 MPH really matter?
Final note: it might affect Realm First leveling achievements, but it might just be disabled for that (or at the start of an expansion, period). Or for people who really care, they might have to shell out a few dollars to compete in that one time event per expansion. Not exactly the end of the world.
Lesser Charms of Good Fortune
Here is something absolutely critical to keep in mind: Lesser Charms have a spending cap. You cannot use more than 50 per week. Period (unless it bugs out like it did a few weeks ago, but that's not the norm). So even if you could afford to buy 50000 Lesser Charms per week, it wouldn't matter because you can only spend 50. What does this mean in practice?
Speaking for myself, it takes me 30-60 minutes to get the 50 Charms per week. Probably longer for people with worse gear, but ultimately we're talking about an hour or two of dailies per week, tops. Apparently Pet Battles are also really good at generating Charms - a person in my guild has over 2000 Charms or something. But they do him no good because he can't spend them - so it saves him an hour a week, tops, of doing dailies.
So if you buy Lesser Charms, you save one hour a week of dailies (ignoring the rep and valor for the moment). Content that is designed to be easy and repeated hundreds of times. If someone said to you "Yeah, I spent $5 to skip an hour of dailies this week" do you really think "OMG SO UNFAIR THE WORLD IS ENDING?" Many players (who are time-rich) may think he was silly/stupid/moronic but it doesn't impact them in any meaningful way.
In short: Lesser Charms available for real money? Who cares? Anyone who's ever thought "I'd pay money to skip these stupid dailies" is getting their wish. And if you can't stomach the thought of paying to avoid an hour of grind - you're right where you are right now, doing your 25 dailies a week in an hourish.
Conclusion
Now I suppose it's possible Blizzard will announce they're going to sell heroic raid gear or elite conquest gear in the store, but until they do let's not panic, all right? Someone being able to level twice as fast is not the end of the world - they already level insanely fast compared to the "old days." No one cares about you having a level 90, it's expected. Likewise, someone being able to skip an hour of dailies per week is not going to destroy WoW as we know it. It's a minor convenience for people tired of dailies or for those who are short on time, either in general playtime or in a specific situation (ever been short on Charms and frantically trying to finish dailies before raid time?).
So again: who really cares? You're not missing about on something you would otherwise have by not buying them - the game stays exactly the same for you as it is now. And neither of those options has an impact on something competitive which means you can't gain an advantage by spending the money.
The sky is not falling.
Friday, June 21, 2013
The Flexible Raid Item Level Conundrum (Or Why Valor Gear is Bad)
Update regarding me: in the middle of a move, barely had time to raid lately let alone work on the blog. Sorry. Guild is currently 10/13H and working on Heroic Dark Animus. Think I've managed to work out a way to get in about 30 minutes of writing each day at work during some downtime, but we'll see.
I'm sure everyone has heard about the new flexible raid feature coming in 5.4 - a raid that scales between 10 and 25 people, is harder than LFR but easier than normal, uses the LFR loot system, and is designed to help create social bonds. There's been a lot of discussion about many parts of this feature, but today I wanted to focus on one particular aspect: the item level it offers.
Ghostcrawler has suggested some tentative item levels for 5.4 in this tweet. If we put everything together, we get the following:
502 ToT LFR
522 ToT Normal
528 SoO LFR
535 ToT Heroic
536 SoO Flex
553 SoO Normal
566 SoO Heroic
Now, I do want to mention one thing right off the bat: I am generally happy with how LFR was handled in Throne of Thunder. Except for legendary items, I had very little reason to run LFR. The staggered release coupled with heroic gear from the previous tier meant I didn't need items from there. For those unaware, heroic raiders were compelled to run LFR for the gear in both Dragon Soul and tier 14 in order to remain competitive - see this post about something being "optional" if you disagree.
It wasn't an accident that the nightmare system from Trial of the Crusader was changed and the 10 and 25 lockouts were combined - Blizzard realized that people feeling compelled to run the same raid twice as week was not a good idea. There's a reason the weekly raid lockout exists in the first place.
But now many heroic raiders are worried about the SoO Flexible raid item level because it's actually an item level ABOVE heroic raid gear from the previous tier. And while this might not matter much for a ring or necklace, it absolutely matters for things like tier pieces (which CANNOT be Thunderforged), trinkets, and possibly weapons (remember the proc weapons from Dragon Soul?). Heroic raiders are likely going to be compelled to run Flex raid each week for these.
Don't get me wrong - I'm interested in Flex raid and I like the idea of being able to help out friends who aren't as skilled in a difficulty mode that's perfect for them. However, I do not want to feel obligated to run every section every week for a decent chunk of time (possibly 2+ months). There are three main ways to avoid this - removing tier, powerful trinkets, and proc weapons, putting Flex on a loot lockout with Normal/Heroic, or simply lowering the item level.
Blizzard's already stated they don't want to remove tier at a minimum and instead are planning to add new things to normal/heroic that aren't available in LFR/Flex. We'll see how this works out since we don't really have any other details, but I suspect I'll be obliged to run Flex for tier gear at a minimum (which, again, is actually higher ilvl than ToT Heroic tier gear - and if you're about to bring up item upgrades, keep reading).
It also seems unlikely that Blizzard will combine lockouts right now for fear of lessening the people playing Flex. If they lock it with LFR then that doesn't solve the problem for heroic raiders (though it does help). If they lock it with normal/heroic then people might not move up from Flex to Normal which is probably what Blizzard would like to see. One could argue that the people could simply do normal modes first and thus they'll just get gear from the bosses they DON'T kill on normal - and I think I might agree - but for the moment that solution probably won't happen (and is beyond the scope of this post).
Our final option is lowering the item level on LFR and Flex - but here's the rub: that's not possible. Why not?
Valor gear.
Imagine a world with no valor gear for a moment. People in full LFR gear have full 502s that are upgraded to 510s. Overall item level is probably in the 508-510 range (they might be missing a slot or two).
People doing normals would have 522s upgraded to 530s, so probably 528-530 item level. Heroic raiders would have 535s upgraded to 543s, so 541-543 item level. These two groups may also have some Thunderforged items (especially if they raid 25 mans) which may boost these numbers slightly.
So, in summary:
LFR player: 509ish
Normal raider: 529ish
Heroic raider: 542ish
This means, for example, you could do something like the following for Siege:
LFR: 522
Flex: 528
Normal: 553
Heroic: 566
Now Flex raid item level is seven below heroic items instead of one above. But valor gear throws a wrench in the works since those are 522 items available to LFR players. You can get the following from valor:
Neck
Shoulders (not technically valor but vendor bought at exalted Shado-Pan Assault - badly itemized but still 522)
Cloak
Chest
Bracers
Gloves
Belt
Legs
Ring
Trinket
That means you can get 10 items that are 522 without stepping foot into normals (and without doing Oondasta). Suddenly getting 522 from SoO LFR does not look appealing because more than half of your gear slots have that same item level already.
This is the problem with valor gear in a world where you obtain it without doing normals - it means LFR item levels have to always be higher than the previous tier's normals or else people won't get much from a new tier of LFR. Something like the Sunwell token system could get around this but Blizzard might have a simpler solution in mind - removing valor gear entirely and only using valor for item upgrades. This means you only get item levels appropriate to your difficulty.
Another point of note: Blizzard has been moving toward larger ilvl gaps between tiers to act as a progressive nerf. We're used to 19 in WotLK/Cata. We saw 26 for ToT. Now we see 31 for SoO. Let's go with a value of a 30 item level gap below to act as an organic progressive nerf.
Here's a summary of the expansion's item levels as it actually happened:
476 MSV LFR
483 HoF/ToES LFR
489 MSV Normal
496 HoF/ToES Normal
502 MSV Heroic and ToT LFR
509 HoF/ToES Heroic
522 ToT Normal
528 SoO LFR
535 ToT Heroic
536 SoO Flex
553 SoO Normal
566 SoO Heroic
Now let's remove valor gear (but keep valor upgrades for epic items) and see if we can get something better (using our 30 ilvls between tiers number from above):
463 (Heroic) Dungeons
469 MSV LFR
475 MSV Flex
476 HoE/ToES LFR
482 HoF/ToES Flex
493 MSV Normal
499 ToT LFR
500 HoF/ToES Normal
505 ToT Flex
506 MSV Heroic
513 HoF/ToES Heroic
529 SoO LFR
530 ToT Normal
535 SoO Flex
543 ToT Heroic
560 SoO Normal
573 SoO Heroic
That includes a possible flex ilvl for the whole expansion. Some things we notice:
1, normal from the previous tier is equal to (technically 1 ilvl higher) than the current tier's LFR - meaning it is valuable in gearing up a new character and provides an alternative to LFR (aside things like set bonuses)
2, flex from the current tier is always 8 ilvl behind heroic items from the previous tier - while set bonuses and insane trinkets/weapons can still cause problems, heroic raiders aren't generally compelled to farm flex mode for gear.
3, everyone has a constant gear progression and never goes through weird situations like people doing ToT LFR and getting 522 gear. As long as you're doing your desired difficulty, you're golden.
4, instead of LFR being forced into Flex and Flex into normal if they want to do more, these players can try the previous tier's (nerfed) normal and heroic modes respectively if desired since those offer alternative or even better gear than they'd get otherwise.
Obviously it's too late to do anything this expansion - I expect we'll simply need to suffer through whatever we get during SoO. Hopefully it's not too bad.
But I do find it interesting that Blizzard has backed itself into a corner with LFR item levels due to valor gear and made it so LFR *must* surpass the previous tier's normal. Perhaps a solution would be to make valor gear equal to the current tier's LFR gear. So valor would have bought 476 initially, 499 in ToT, and 529 in SoO in our "new" ilvl ladder. Would have acted as a catch-up mechanism or a way to get slots that refuse to drop for a person in LFR.
Food for thought.
I'm sure everyone has heard about the new flexible raid feature coming in 5.4 - a raid that scales between 10 and 25 people, is harder than LFR but easier than normal, uses the LFR loot system, and is designed to help create social bonds. There's been a lot of discussion about many parts of this feature, but today I wanted to focus on one particular aspect: the item level it offers.
Ghostcrawler has suggested some tentative item levels for 5.4 in this tweet. If we put everything together, we get the following:
502 ToT LFR
522 ToT Normal
528 SoO LFR
535 ToT Heroic
536 SoO Flex
553 SoO Normal
566 SoO Heroic
Now, I do want to mention one thing right off the bat: I am generally happy with how LFR was handled in Throne of Thunder. Except for legendary items, I had very little reason to run LFR. The staggered release coupled with heroic gear from the previous tier meant I didn't need items from there. For those unaware, heroic raiders were compelled to run LFR for the gear in both Dragon Soul and tier 14 in order to remain competitive - see this post about something being "optional" if you disagree.
It wasn't an accident that the nightmare system from Trial of the Crusader was changed and the 10 and 25 lockouts were combined - Blizzard realized that people feeling compelled to run the same raid twice as week was not a good idea. There's a reason the weekly raid lockout exists in the first place.
But now many heroic raiders are worried about the SoO Flexible raid item level because it's actually an item level ABOVE heroic raid gear from the previous tier. And while this might not matter much for a ring or necklace, it absolutely matters for things like tier pieces (which CANNOT be Thunderforged), trinkets, and possibly weapons (remember the proc weapons from Dragon Soul?). Heroic raiders are likely going to be compelled to run Flex raid each week for these.
Don't get me wrong - I'm interested in Flex raid and I like the idea of being able to help out friends who aren't as skilled in a difficulty mode that's perfect for them. However, I do not want to feel obligated to run every section every week for a decent chunk of time (possibly 2+ months). There are three main ways to avoid this - removing tier, powerful trinkets, and proc weapons, putting Flex on a loot lockout with Normal/Heroic, or simply lowering the item level.
Blizzard's already stated they don't want to remove tier at a minimum and instead are planning to add new things to normal/heroic that aren't available in LFR/Flex. We'll see how this works out since we don't really have any other details, but I suspect I'll be obliged to run Flex for tier gear at a minimum (which, again, is actually higher ilvl than ToT Heroic tier gear - and if you're about to bring up item upgrades, keep reading).
It also seems unlikely that Blizzard will combine lockouts right now for fear of lessening the people playing Flex. If they lock it with LFR then that doesn't solve the problem for heroic raiders (though it does help). If they lock it with normal/heroic then people might not move up from Flex to Normal which is probably what Blizzard would like to see. One could argue that the people could simply do normal modes first and thus they'll just get gear from the bosses they DON'T kill on normal - and I think I might agree - but for the moment that solution probably won't happen (and is beyond the scope of this post).
Our final option is lowering the item level on LFR and Flex - but here's the rub: that's not possible. Why not?
Valor gear.
Imagine a world with no valor gear for a moment. People in full LFR gear have full 502s that are upgraded to 510s. Overall item level is probably in the 508-510 range (they might be missing a slot or two).
People doing normals would have 522s upgraded to 530s, so probably 528-530 item level. Heroic raiders would have 535s upgraded to 543s, so 541-543 item level. These two groups may also have some Thunderforged items (especially if they raid 25 mans) which may boost these numbers slightly.
So, in summary:
LFR player: 509ish
Normal raider: 529ish
Heroic raider: 542ish
This means, for example, you could do something like the following for Siege:
LFR: 522
Flex: 528
Normal: 553
Heroic: 566
Now Flex raid item level is seven below heroic items instead of one above. But valor gear throws a wrench in the works since those are 522 items available to LFR players. You can get the following from valor:
Neck
Shoulders (not technically valor but vendor bought at exalted Shado-Pan Assault - badly itemized but still 522)
Cloak
Chest
Bracers
Gloves
Belt
Legs
Ring
Trinket
That means you can get 10 items that are 522 without stepping foot into normals (and without doing Oondasta). Suddenly getting 522 from SoO LFR does not look appealing because more than half of your gear slots have that same item level already.
This is the problem with valor gear in a world where you obtain it without doing normals - it means LFR item levels have to always be higher than the previous tier's normals or else people won't get much from a new tier of LFR. Something like the Sunwell token system could get around this but Blizzard might have a simpler solution in mind - removing valor gear entirely and only using valor for item upgrades. This means you only get item levels appropriate to your difficulty.
Another point of note: Blizzard has been moving toward larger ilvl gaps between tiers to act as a progressive nerf. We're used to 19 in WotLK/Cata. We saw 26 for ToT. Now we see 31 for SoO. Let's go with a value of a 30 item level gap below to act as an organic progressive nerf.
Here's a summary of the expansion's item levels as it actually happened:
476 MSV LFR
483 HoF/ToES LFR
489 MSV Normal
496 HoF/ToES Normal
502 MSV Heroic and ToT LFR
509 HoF/ToES Heroic
522 ToT Normal
528 SoO LFR
535 ToT Heroic
536 SoO Flex
553 SoO Normal
566 SoO Heroic
Now let's remove valor gear (but keep valor upgrades for epic items) and see if we can get something better (using our 30 ilvls between tiers number from above):
463 (Heroic) Dungeons
469 MSV LFR
475 MSV Flex
476 HoE/ToES LFR
482 HoF/ToES Flex
493 MSV Normal
499 ToT LFR
500 HoF/ToES Normal
505 ToT Flex
506 MSV Heroic
513 HoF/ToES Heroic
529 SoO LFR
530 ToT Normal
535 SoO Flex
543 ToT Heroic
560 SoO Normal
573 SoO Heroic
That includes a possible flex ilvl for the whole expansion. Some things we notice:
1, normal from the previous tier is equal to (technically 1 ilvl higher) than the current tier's LFR - meaning it is valuable in gearing up a new character and provides an alternative to LFR (aside things like set bonuses)
2, flex from the current tier is always 8 ilvl behind heroic items from the previous tier - while set bonuses and insane trinkets/weapons can still cause problems, heroic raiders aren't generally compelled to farm flex mode for gear.
3, everyone has a constant gear progression and never goes through weird situations like people doing ToT LFR and getting 522 gear. As long as you're doing your desired difficulty, you're golden.
4, instead of LFR being forced into Flex and Flex into normal if they want to do more, these players can try the previous tier's (nerfed) normal and heroic modes respectively if desired since those offer alternative or even better gear than they'd get otherwise.
Obviously it's too late to do anything this expansion - I expect we'll simply need to suffer through whatever we get during SoO. Hopefully it's not too bad.
But I do find it interesting that Blizzard has backed itself into a corner with LFR item levels due to valor gear and made it so LFR *must* surpass the previous tier's normal. Perhaps a solution would be to make valor gear equal to the current tier's LFR gear. So valor would have bought 476 initially, 499 in ToT, and 529 in SoO in our "new" ilvl ladder. Would have acted as a catch-up mechanism or a way to get slots that refuse to drop for a person in LFR.
Food for thought.
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