I'm going to start this post off with a story:
The same summer that I got my driver's license, the most important bridge in my hometown needed to be rebuilt. It was the kind of construction project that had everyone talking. Literally a half million people would be required to drastically alter their daily routines. A friend of mine even quit his job in lieu of tripling his commute time. This major transport artery was so close to my father's business, we had even more serious concerns at home about how traffic would be affected. Anyone who knows much about public construction projects, especially in areas that get ice and snow, will tell you to double the time they are supposed to take for a conservative estimate. I was 16 when the project started, and my father half-jokingly told me we would be lucky to use the new bridge to take me off to college. We did use it to take me to college. And to visit the college my senior year. We were using that bridge six months after construction began. Six months ahead of schedule. When the announcement was made that the project was completed, everyone in the community was surprised. Except my father. He told me about how this project had a contract that was unique at the time. For every month that the project was late, the contractor had to take $1 million off of the price. And for every month that the project was done early, they got to charge an additional $1 mil. The government agreed to this deal in a heartbeat because no one thought the project was even possible in a year. I'm sure someone literally laughed out loud when they heard about the clause for finishing early. And yet, we all got our bridge back early, and under budget even with those bonuses. Your econ teacher was right: people respond to incentives in a market economy.
You probably already figured out what this has to do with World of Warcraft. I'm honestly surprised that we are in yet another huge content drought, and I shouldn't be at this point. But, our community has been told a number of times that expansions will be roughly annual. They have publicly lamented content deserts (we're beyond drought at this point). Even worse, the last two expansions were horribly front-loaded. We got more content than most could handle in the first 6 months, and then, not much. And then nothing. And here we are.
So it is time for Blizzard to put their money where their mouth has been for years. While I would like to propose WoW going free to play any time a year goes by between expansions, that isn't likely. What may be more feasible is any time a year goes by without new content of some kind, we all stop paying a subscription until the content goes live. It still probably won't happen, but I think it should. Keeping players playing during these content deserts is very much in Blizzard's interest. As it has gone, tons of players unsub during these times. Then a new xpac is released and some of them come back. But not all of them. I don't know how many of my friends have left promising to return and are never heard from again. At least not in WoW. They are still gaming, many in Battle Net. But they don't come back to WoW or it's subscription. And at this point it's hard to blame them. If there were no subscription, I bet at least half of them would still be showing up to raid, if not playing the entire game more.
At the very least, this kind of arrangement would compel Blizzard to space the content they do have for us more judiciously. WoD would still be rather thin, but imagine if MoP or Cata had been under this arrangement. We could have gotten new raid tiers, or new troll dungeons, spaced out evenly over the course of the expansions. We wouldn't have had year-long periods with nothing other than Dragon Soul or Siege.
Ok, that last paragraph is what my history professor would call "counterfactualism." That aside, if you are Mike Morheim and Hazzikostas tells you, "We could make some new dungeons for them or give up $45 million in revenue each month for a while, what would your decision be?
Showing posts with label Warlords of Draenor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Warlords of Draenor. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Monday, February 22, 2016
At a Crossroads
About 8 months ago I committed to writing a series of positive blog posts in an attempt to counteract what I saw as a pervasive negativity in the WoW community. It lasted for one installment. I gave Blizzard the benefit of the doubt regarding their development cycle, and I assumed I would have a lot more nice things to write. I was wrong. And with the information we currently have about Legion and hunters, I have never been so unsure about my future blogging about WoW, playing a hunter in Legion, or even continuing to play the game at all. This will NOT be a particularly positive post.
I never started this to become a WoW "personality." I started this site because I found myself chiming in regularly while listening to The Hunting Party podcast. I can TALK about hunters all day. Ask my friends. Writing about them, without echoing other writers, proved much more difficult. But it was a different era when I started this blog. Today, it's all about the stream, or at the very least, videos on YouTube. The blog format itself is pretty dated, and not an ideal medium for covering a video game, when you weigh it against the other available options. So there is that.
I also wanted to be a voice for the survival spec itself, which I had loved since Vanilla and was virtually ignored by the hunter community until Cataclysm. Well, even I don't play survival anymore. I switched to my SV spec over the weekend. First, the only reason I did was to make it Marksman. Second, I still had the Lucky Coin on my bars. That's how long it had been since I even went into my SV spec! I just don't play it anymore. And that isn't likely to change.
If you're into hunters enough to read this neglected blog, you already know that SV will become a melee spec in Legion. I think that is fine. I agree with Blizzard that three ranged hunter specs are redundant. Between hunter changes, and the Demon Hunter, I suspect that if they could design WoW again Blizzard wouldn't feel the need for every class to have at least three specs. So while I have no problem with the SV change, I won't be playing it. I've never really enjoyed melee, but if I chose to play it, I'll be playing an established melee class. While it's early, even if I wanted to play melee, the Legion info coming out isn't very exciting. I'm not dealing with pet pathing issues ever again. Been there and done that. To an old fart like me, hunters are ranged. With a pet.
If I play a hunter in Legion, it will be as Beast Mastery, as I have for virtually all of WoD. Bendak accurately called BM, "the last bastion of the classic WoW hunter." I totally agree. The whole dark ranger thing they have cooking for Marksman sounds interesting and fun, and I will probably check it out if the artifact system doesn't make dual specs prohibitive (we desperately need more info on this system). But I need a pet. So BM it is..if I play a hunter.
I have a Priest. Both shadow and discipline sound fun in Legion (the hybrid aspect of disc is especially intriguing). I have a monk. And a rogue. And a warlock. I have not used my 90 boost yet. If I buy Legion that will give me another boost. All these options means there is a LOT riding on Beast Mastery being fun and competitive for me to stick with my favorite class. If it isn't, with the little information about artifacts that I have currently (basically none regarding off specs) I keep thinking I may just have to go with one of my other classes or boost a new one. If I play Legion.
The ONLY reason I'm playing WoD at all is I found a super fun raid team with the perfect schedule for me. I was an inch away from unsubbing when I found them. But I have ridden my 2009 iMac as far as it will go for gaming. There is no way I can run Legion on it. As I was contemplating the purchase of a new system, I remembered almost doing the same for WoD. If I had, I would have been PISSED about it. Let's be honest: Warlords of Draenor sucked. It was the least amount of content for the most amount of money that World of Warcraft has ever sold us. There absolutely were good things about it. But I have never in my life been so disappointed with a video game purchase. So, while I am happy to keep paying my sub while I have this amazing team, buying new hardware just to run what could be another WoD is less than appealing. I am anxious to hear details about Legion's number of raid tiers, dungeons after launch, and again how artifacts will allow/prohibit alts and off specs. Someone recently described WoD by saying Blizzard basically gave up on it. I totally agree. There are plenty of hints that this is what happened. Remember the island inhabited by ogre pirates? WTF happened to that? I was dying to see that! Two raids, no new dungeons, and an ugly Timeless Isle rehash doesn't make for much of an expansion. At least we got a new, interesting final boss. Oh wait, nope. Killed him already. In two other games. And it was more expensive than all the previous (good) expansions. I understand inflation and a price hike was of course inevitable, but pairing it with the thinnest expansion ever was a public relations disaster. Warlord would have been really disappoing at $40. The extra $10 added at least $25 worth of insult to injury.
So I'm at a crossroads. I have a neglected blog named for a spec I may never play again, in a subscription game that does nothing for me outside of three hours every Thursday. To be fair, $15 a month is still a value for 12 hours of quality entertainment. But this game, and the hunter class, used to mean a hell of a lot more to me.
I never started this to become a WoW "personality." I started this site because I found myself chiming in regularly while listening to The Hunting Party podcast. I can TALK about hunters all day. Ask my friends. Writing about them, without echoing other writers, proved much more difficult. But it was a different era when I started this blog. Today, it's all about the stream, or at the very least, videos on YouTube. The blog format itself is pretty dated, and not an ideal medium for covering a video game, when you weigh it against the other available options. So there is that.
I also wanted to be a voice for the survival spec itself, which I had loved since Vanilla and was virtually ignored by the hunter community until Cataclysm. Well, even I don't play survival anymore. I switched to my SV spec over the weekend. First, the only reason I did was to make it Marksman. Second, I still had the Lucky Coin on my bars. That's how long it had been since I even went into my SV spec! I just don't play it anymore. And that isn't likely to change.
If you're into hunters enough to read this neglected blog, you already know that SV will become a melee spec in Legion. I think that is fine. I agree with Blizzard that three ranged hunter specs are redundant. Between hunter changes, and the Demon Hunter, I suspect that if they could design WoW again Blizzard wouldn't feel the need for every class to have at least three specs. So while I have no problem with the SV change, I won't be playing it. I've never really enjoyed melee, but if I chose to play it, I'll be playing an established melee class. While it's early, even if I wanted to play melee, the Legion info coming out isn't very exciting. I'm not dealing with pet pathing issues ever again. Been there and done that. To an old fart like me, hunters are ranged. With a pet.
If I play a hunter in Legion, it will be as Beast Mastery, as I have for virtually all of WoD. Bendak accurately called BM, "the last bastion of the classic WoW hunter." I totally agree. The whole dark ranger thing they have cooking for Marksman sounds interesting and fun, and I will probably check it out if the artifact system doesn't make dual specs prohibitive (we desperately need more info on this system). But I need a pet. So BM it is..if I play a hunter.
I have a Priest. Both shadow and discipline sound fun in Legion (the hybrid aspect of disc is especially intriguing). I have a monk. And a rogue. And a warlock. I have not used my 90 boost yet. If I buy Legion that will give me another boost. All these options means there is a LOT riding on Beast Mastery being fun and competitive for me to stick with my favorite class. If it isn't, with the little information about artifacts that I have currently (basically none regarding off specs) I keep thinking I may just have to go with one of my other classes or boost a new one. If I play Legion.
The ONLY reason I'm playing WoD at all is I found a super fun raid team with the perfect schedule for me. I was an inch away from unsubbing when I found them. But I have ridden my 2009 iMac as far as it will go for gaming. There is no way I can run Legion on it. As I was contemplating the purchase of a new system, I remembered almost doing the same for WoD. If I had, I would have been PISSED about it. Let's be honest: Warlords of Draenor sucked. It was the least amount of content for the most amount of money that World of Warcraft has ever sold us. There absolutely were good things about it. But I have never in my life been so disappointed with a video game purchase. So, while I am happy to keep paying my sub while I have this amazing team, buying new hardware just to run what could be another WoD is less than appealing. I am anxious to hear details about Legion's number of raid tiers, dungeons after launch, and again how artifacts will allow/prohibit alts and off specs. Someone recently described WoD by saying Blizzard basically gave up on it. I totally agree. There are plenty of hints that this is what happened. Remember the island inhabited by ogre pirates? WTF happened to that? I was dying to see that! Two raids, no new dungeons, and an ugly Timeless Isle rehash doesn't make for much of an expansion. At least we got a new, interesting final boss. Oh wait, nope. Killed him already. In two other games. And it was more expensive than all the previous (good) expansions. I understand inflation and a price hike was of course inevitable, but pairing it with the thinnest expansion ever was a public relations disaster. Warlord would have been really disappoing at $40. The extra $10 added at least $25 worth of insult to injury.
So I'm at a crossroads. I have a neglected blog named for a spec I may never play again, in a subscription game that does nothing for me outside of three hours every Thursday. To be fair, $15 a month is still a value for 12 hours of quality entertainment. But this game, and the hunter class, used to mean a hell of a lot more to me.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Pleasant Surprises
This is the first in what will (hopefully) be a series of positive posts. While it's understandable all things considered, I don't think I've ever seen the WoW community so negative. About a bunch of different stuff. Anyway, I think a few posts with a positive vibe are in order.
Today I'm writing about a few parts of the game that have become pleasant surprises for me. Things I like, or do, more than I thought I would.
Beast Mastery: For a guy who has "survival" in his blog's title, I play a shit ton of beast mastery these days. I like the pets (finally tamed Gara this week) and the play style. I used to dismiss BM as just a spec with one overpowered dot. The current iteration of BM is incredibly fun for me. It is an excellent balance of easy and skill. As long as I manage my pet appropriately, my dps will be ok. But BM adds just enough RNG and buff stacking to be really interesting. I love how Focus Fire works these days so much that I'm glad they adjusted the set bonus so it won't just always be up. Way more fun in it's current version. I'm so all in on BM that I recently changed all my enchants to mastery. My pet does a lot of damage. And Beast Cleave on Kromog? Super fun.
Pet Battles: When pet battles were announced I said, "Neat. I'll never do that. Ever." Then I did a few just to get some easy achievement points. Then I did a PvP battle to see what that was like. Then I wanted a rematch. Then I was close to some more achievements. Now I'm installing add-ons just to manage pet breeds. So yeah. I love pet battles. PvP pet battles are ridiculously fun. I don't care so much about collecting a million pets, but I really enjoy putting some oddball teams together and seeing how they do in PvP. I do have a few gripes about pet battles, but this is a positive post. The point is, no one is more surprised than I am about how often I pet battle.
Fishing: Fishing in Warlords is pretty fun. More fun, and useful, than it's ever been before. Not a lot else to say about it, I mean, it's fishing guys.
I never thought I would enjoy any of these things. Just goes to show you shouldn't prejudge stuff!
Today I'm writing about a few parts of the game that have become pleasant surprises for me. Things I like, or do, more than I thought I would.
Beast Mastery: For a guy who has "survival" in his blog's title, I play a shit ton of beast mastery these days. I like the pets (finally tamed Gara this week) and the play style. I used to dismiss BM as just a spec with one overpowered dot. The current iteration of BM is incredibly fun for me. It is an excellent balance of easy and skill. As long as I manage my pet appropriately, my dps will be ok. But BM adds just enough RNG and buff stacking to be really interesting. I love how Focus Fire works these days so much that I'm glad they adjusted the set bonus so it won't just always be up. Way more fun in it's current version. I'm so all in on BM that I recently changed all my enchants to mastery. My pet does a lot of damage. And Beast Cleave on Kromog? Super fun.
Pet Battles: When pet battles were announced I said, "Neat. I'll never do that. Ever." Then I did a few just to get some easy achievement points. Then I did a PvP battle to see what that was like. Then I wanted a rematch. Then I was close to some more achievements. Now I'm installing add-ons just to manage pet breeds. So yeah. I love pet battles. PvP pet battles are ridiculously fun. I don't care so much about collecting a million pets, but I really enjoy putting some oddball teams together and seeing how they do in PvP. I do have a few gripes about pet battles, but this is a positive post. The point is, no one is more surprised than I am about how often I pet battle.
Fishing: Fishing in Warlords is pretty fun. More fun, and useful, than it's ever been before. Not a lot else to say about it, I mean, it's fishing guys.
I never thought I would enjoy any of these things. Just goes to show you shouldn't prejudge stuff!
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Public Relations 101
Ask any politician or public relations professional, and they will tell you damage control is done on Fridays. If circumstances are forcing you to drop bad or embarrassing news on your audience, you do it on a Friday. Always on a Friday. The Friday of a holiday weekend is even more preferable. See, people don't usually watch the news on Fridays, or the weekends for that matter, so the hope is that by the time people come back from their weekends things will have moved on. Maybe other news will eclipse the bad news, or people will be more interested in talking about the new movie they saw, etc.
Blizzard announced the death of flying on, wait for it, a Friday. A Friday that began a holiday weekend in the US. Personally, I'm not that upset about the flying decision. I feel like it is a decision that has been settled at Blizz HQ for a while, and they have been putting off making the announcement because they feared the blowback. The way they used common damage control tactics such as the timing reinforces this point.
I don't bring this up to criticize Blizzard in any way. They pay PR people to do exactly this kind of thing, and there is nothing wrong with it. I bring it up to show that Blizzard knew a long time ago how this decision would be received by their customers. They knew that when they eventually had to tell us that flying was gone, it would be a shit show. Because, contrary to what you have read over the weekend, they do in fact listen to us. The merits of flying or no flying aside, I keep reading that Blizzard is out of touch, doesn't listen to the players, and has no idea how to make a good game anymore. They do listen. They knew how much Twitter rage, I quit manifestos, and personal attacks they were about to endure by announcing the removal of flying because they are aware of the WoW player base. Just because they didn't do what you asked does not mean they didn't listen to you. They listened to you enough to know to announce bad news on a Friday like the pros that they are.
Blizzard announced the death of flying on, wait for it, a Friday. A Friday that began a holiday weekend in the US. Personally, I'm not that upset about the flying decision. I feel like it is a decision that has been settled at Blizz HQ for a while, and they have been putting off making the announcement because they feared the blowback. The way they used common damage control tactics such as the timing reinforces this point.
I don't bring this up to criticize Blizzard in any way. They pay PR people to do exactly this kind of thing, and there is nothing wrong with it. I bring it up to show that Blizzard knew a long time ago how this decision would be received by their customers. They knew that when they eventually had to tell us that flying was gone, it would be a shit show. Because, contrary to what you have read over the weekend, they do in fact listen to us. The merits of flying or no flying aside, I keep reading that Blizzard is out of touch, doesn't listen to the players, and has no idea how to make a good game anymore. They do listen. They knew how much Twitter rage, I quit manifestos, and personal attacks they were about to endure by announcing the removal of flying because they are aware of the WoW player base. Just because they didn't do what you asked does not mean they didn't listen to you. They listened to you enough to know to announce bad news on a Friday like the pros that they are.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Burnout Is Like Aggro
If you get it, it's your fault. Not your raid leader's fault. Not your garrison's fault. And it's not Blizzard's fault either. Take some responsibility for your actions. If you are burnt and not enjoying the game then it's time to change your behavior instead of bitch about game design or content release cycles.
Ok, this is the post I'm sure every Community Manager at Blizzard has written at least once and then deleted so they could keep their job. But I don't work at Blizzard so can write it for them.
Stop it. Stop. Now. Whatever part of WoW you're still doing even though you don't enjoy it anymore-stop. It's really that simple. I was burning out on raiding during MoP. So I took a very long break from it. Now I'm having more fun raiding (with a much smaller time commitment) than I ever have before.
You should know better. If you're old enough to read you should already realize that doing the same thing over and over again (with a few exceptions) GETS BORING! I am so fucking sick of seeing on Twitter, blogs, and in chat some version of "OMG I just got my 9th lvl 3 garrison and can't take it. Garrisons are broken. They are a prison!" Garrisons aren't broken. You are. What the hell did you think was going to happen? Are you really, truly, surprised that doing 9 sets of missions and work orders and daily quests is kind of repetitive and boring? If you honestly didn't see that coming you're a moron. Sorry, but sometimes the truth hurts. And the whole "prison" metaphor has to be really insulting to the millions of nonviolent Americans currently in real prisons. There's no fucking Pepe in prisons, kids.
Same with the legendary quest. While there are some very legitimate complaints about the quest itself, if you're on your second, third, or fourth character doing it, you have no right to complain and I don't want to hear you do so. You knew exactly what you were getting yourself into. My alts will never have the legendary. It would be nice, but I know I would detest doing it. So guess what? I'm not doing it. And when I log into my alts I enjoy doing so. I got bored with playing the auction house, so I scaled back my auctions considerably. Now, when I do auctions on the weekends I have fun. Notice a pattern here?
Many players, including myself, have spent a lot of energy criticizing this expansion. And we have had some very good reasons. But burnout isn't one of them. And it isn't new or tied to garrisons (remember daily quests in MoP or reputations in Classic?) If you are burned out it's your fault. The good news it it is also easy to fix. Think about what parts of the game you still actually enjoy. Keep doing them. Stop with all the other stuff at least for a while. Harness some personal responsibility for your actions. At the very least if you can't show some restraint at an all-you-can-eat fish fry, don't blame someone else for your stomach ache.
Ok, this is the post I'm sure every Community Manager at Blizzard has written at least once and then deleted so they could keep their job. But I don't work at Blizzard so can write it for them.
Stop it. Stop. Now. Whatever part of WoW you're still doing even though you don't enjoy it anymore-stop. It's really that simple. I was burning out on raiding during MoP. So I took a very long break from it. Now I'm having more fun raiding (with a much smaller time commitment) than I ever have before.
You should know better. If you're old enough to read you should already realize that doing the same thing over and over again (with a few exceptions) GETS BORING! I am so fucking sick of seeing on Twitter, blogs, and in chat some version of "OMG I just got my 9th lvl 3 garrison and can't take it. Garrisons are broken. They are a prison!" Garrisons aren't broken. You are. What the hell did you think was going to happen? Are you really, truly, surprised that doing 9 sets of missions and work orders and daily quests is kind of repetitive and boring? If you honestly didn't see that coming you're a moron. Sorry, but sometimes the truth hurts. And the whole "prison" metaphor has to be really insulting to the millions of nonviolent Americans currently in real prisons. There's no fucking Pepe in prisons, kids.
Same with the legendary quest. While there are some very legitimate complaints about the quest itself, if you're on your second, third, or fourth character doing it, you have no right to complain and I don't want to hear you do so. You knew exactly what you were getting yourself into. My alts will never have the legendary. It would be nice, but I know I would detest doing it. So guess what? I'm not doing it. And when I log into my alts I enjoy doing so. I got bored with playing the auction house, so I scaled back my auctions considerably. Now, when I do auctions on the weekends I have fun. Notice a pattern here?
Many players, including myself, have spent a lot of energy criticizing this expansion. And we have had some very good reasons. But burnout isn't one of them. And it isn't new or tied to garrisons (remember daily quests in MoP or reputations in Classic?) If you are burned out it's your fault. The good news it it is also easy to fix. Think about what parts of the game you still actually enjoy. Keep doing them. Stop with all the other stuff at least for a while. Harness some personal responsibility for your actions. At the very least if you can't show some restraint at an all-you-can-eat fish fry, don't blame someone else for your stomach ache.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
I want the old gear system back. Mostly.
When Warlords was announced approximately 7 years ago, I was pretty excited about the new gear system. It sounded interesting, and certainly different from all previous expansions. Now that I have had a few months to try it out I have to say I'm not really a fan. I don't enjoy the parts I thought I would and it hasn't really solved any of the problems it was supposed to.
Of all the major changes to gear this expansion, the only part I wouldn't change at all is how primary stats change when a player changes specs. That is undeniably awesome. When it was announced I immediately thought, "Killer! Now my priest only needs one set of gear!" But it really hasn't worked out that way. Secondary stats are so strong that very few pieces of gear are good for both specs. Or I'll get pieces with sockets or Spirit. All of a sudden I have two full sets of gear for my two specs. Just like before. It's fine, and maybe the system saves other classes some more inventory space, but I still have two sets of gear. And my hunter now has 4. Four. The SV set. The BM set. PvP set. I can't get rid of anything decent with leech or avoidance on it for soloing..Tertiaries and gems have made my inventory woes worse on my pure DPS character.
The most frustrating aspect of gear in WoD is figuring out what is really an upgrade. Sockets, Warforged, Tertiary stats. It's kind of driving me crazy. Last night I got a 685 neck from a mission. I was wearing a 670 neck with a socket. Due to the two combinations of secondary stats, these two pieces were incredibly close in value. I ended up having to use Simcraft to figure out what to do. I have to do that a lot these days. More than I ever have before, and I'm a pretty informed player. One of the reasons for getting rid of hit and expertise was that it seemed crappy players just went to an outside web site to find out what to do. Some of that is always going to be unavoidable, but it feels like I have to sim gear upgrades/sidegrades a lot more than I should. I know what my best secondaries are. I listen to the hunter podcast. I should just know what is an upgrade and what isn't, especially when I'm gaining 15-20 ilvls. It seems unreasonable to expect a less informed player to understand upgrading correctly under the current system. I think it's time to dial back some of the RNG attached to gear. It's confusing, and many times doesn't feel good. Unless you get the super lucky "trifecta," it always feels like something is missing. Maybe I'm greedy but I get a nice upgrade and instead of looking at the stats it has I see the socket that isn't there or wonder how much more agility is on the warforged version. Tier pieces are even worse because you don't really know what piece of gear it is until it's been won by a group member. I'm sure there are teams out there dealing with "I would have rolled on it if I knew about the socket!" drama. Gear has essentially turned into a slot machine experience where we're trying to score all three cherries for the jackpot. It's a bit much.
I think gem slots should stop being random. I don't mind them being rarer than they were before WoD, but let's just know which gear has them and which doesn't. Tertiary stats can come or go. I honestly don't have strong feelings about them. Except they shouldn't be random either. Maybe make them into enchants or something, but not random. If we have to have some slot machine aspect to gear I would prefer just going back to the MoP system where gear has a chance of being warforged. That is plenty of RNG.
Of all the major changes to gear this expansion, the only part I wouldn't change at all is how primary stats change when a player changes specs. That is undeniably awesome. When it was announced I immediately thought, "Killer! Now my priest only needs one set of gear!" But it really hasn't worked out that way. Secondary stats are so strong that very few pieces of gear are good for both specs. Or I'll get pieces with sockets or Spirit. All of a sudden I have two full sets of gear for my two specs. Just like before. It's fine, and maybe the system saves other classes some more inventory space, but I still have two sets of gear. And my hunter now has 4. Four. The SV set. The BM set. PvP set. I can't get rid of anything decent with leech or avoidance on it for soloing..Tertiaries and gems have made my inventory woes worse on my pure DPS character.
The most frustrating aspect of gear in WoD is figuring out what is really an upgrade. Sockets, Warforged, Tertiary stats. It's kind of driving me crazy. Last night I got a 685 neck from a mission. I was wearing a 670 neck with a socket. Due to the two combinations of secondary stats, these two pieces were incredibly close in value. I ended up having to use Simcraft to figure out what to do. I have to do that a lot these days. More than I ever have before, and I'm a pretty informed player. One of the reasons for getting rid of hit and expertise was that it seemed crappy players just went to an outside web site to find out what to do. Some of that is always going to be unavoidable, but it feels like I have to sim gear upgrades/sidegrades a lot more than I should. I know what my best secondaries are. I listen to the hunter podcast. I should just know what is an upgrade and what isn't, especially when I'm gaining 15-20 ilvls. It seems unreasonable to expect a less informed player to understand upgrading correctly under the current system. I think it's time to dial back some of the RNG attached to gear. It's confusing, and many times doesn't feel good. Unless you get the super lucky "trifecta," it always feels like something is missing. Maybe I'm greedy but I get a nice upgrade and instead of looking at the stats it has I see the socket that isn't there or wonder how much more agility is on the warforged version. Tier pieces are even worse because you don't really know what piece of gear it is until it's been won by a group member. I'm sure there are teams out there dealing with "I would have rolled on it if I knew about the socket!" drama. Gear has essentially turned into a slot machine experience where we're trying to score all three cherries for the jackpot. It's a bit much.
I think gem slots should stop being random. I don't mind them being rarer than they were before WoD, but let's just know which gear has them and which doesn't. Tertiary stats can come or go. I honestly don't have strong feelings about them. Except they shouldn't be random either. Maybe make them into enchants or something, but not random. If we have to have some slot machine aspect to gear I would prefer just going back to the MoP system where gear has a chance of being warforged. That is plenty of RNG.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
A Server Transfer Cost Me $285
I've earned a million gold in World of Warcraft. Twice. That doesn't mean I got up to two million. It means I got to a million, had to walk away from half of it, and earn that 500k again. A couple of years ago Blizzard had a "sale" on character severs. Faction, race, and server changes were all 50% for one week. This was amazingly timed with the end of my long time guild disbanding, and many of us were already in conversations about moving to a bigger server. All of sudden we had a week to decide on a destination, organize our bags, and transfer for a more reasonable price. As a player of two characters, it was essentially a two for one deal. Not bad. So I spent a day or two liquidating assets I didn't want to transfer and getting all my various heirlooms to the characters I was going to move. There was probably another day or so spent researching destination realms and comparing notes with my comrades. So with decisions made and things in order I logged into battle net to move my characters to their new realm. And then I got this error message. The gold cap for transferring servers is 50k per character. I was stunned. 50k? But I have 900k that I worked damn hard to accrue! I'm sure 50k seemed reasonable when server transfers were first implemented. But we are now in an era with mounts between 40 and 100k. I spent 70k on a single Darkmoon trinket at the beginning of MoP. 50k?! Seriously? I was in disbelief. And running out of time.
So I frantically raided the auction house. I was looking for anything of higher value that would stack in my bags for the transfer. Primal Diamonds were good. I bought a few choppers (I know they don't stack, but still a decent way to convert some gold). It was working. I had fairly quickly turned more than 300k into things in my bags that I knew I could sell on the new server. Even if some of it sold at a loss, that was better than leaving gold on the table. But my old server was small. The same factors that let me corner the jewelcrafting market and earn a million gold were limiting my supply of available goods to "smuggle" across servers. I had to laugh when someone in trade asked why the price of Living Steel had quadrupled overnight. Because I bought literally all of it. And would have bought more if it had been there. I quickly realized that my little server's economy wasn't going to allow me to get all that gold converted. At least not while the sale on transfers was still happening. A friend and I looked into splitting a guild transfer, but details I can't remember now (guild level?) made that a non-option. And guild transfers weren't half-off anyway. I was starting to get pretty upset with the transfer gold cap. Having a degree in economics, I understood why one exists. I just couldn't/can't fathom why it is still so damn low. 50k was a lot in TBC. It really was. But today? Epic flying is 10% of that! I wasn't happy about it, but I couldn't see any solution. I kept telling myself Earth money is more valuable than Azeroth money. Over and over. Then I dropped 400k into my guild's bank and transferred immediately. My way of just ripping off the Band Aid. Eventually I got over it. I sold all that stuff in my bags, got my production system in TSM going again, and got back to making gold. I eventually peaked at 1.3 million before I started spending. While I was never ok with the transfer cap, I just kept telling myself it wasn't real money.
But now it IS real money. Now I could be using that gold to pay my subscription. And I'm kind of pissed about it. Beside the fact that I had to forfeit a major component of my personal character progression, the reason I had to do it is no longer valid, if it ever was. The only reason to have a cap at all is so somebody like me can't move to a server like my old one and disrupt the whole economy with their deep pockets. I understood that at the time even if I thought 50k was way low. But the WoW token is being sold region-wide. Large amounts of gold are now moving between server economies in 20-30k chunks. In a sense, there is only one economy for the entire region now. The AH is no longer faction specific, and we have been able to move battle pets across servers for years now. The old definition of a server economy has broken down. It's time for the transfer cap to disappear as well. Or at the VERY least be raised into the millions. Because of the 50k cap, I essentially paid $285 for a server change. And at the time I thought $25 was bad! My gold is gone, but maybe we can get the cap raised or removed now that gold is literally worth real money.
Update: The transfer cap is now 150k. That probably would have been enough before garrisons..
So I frantically raided the auction house. I was looking for anything of higher value that would stack in my bags for the transfer. Primal Diamonds were good. I bought a few choppers (I know they don't stack, but still a decent way to convert some gold). It was working. I had fairly quickly turned more than 300k into things in my bags that I knew I could sell on the new server. Even if some of it sold at a loss, that was better than leaving gold on the table. But my old server was small. The same factors that let me corner the jewelcrafting market and earn a million gold were limiting my supply of available goods to "smuggle" across servers. I had to laugh when someone in trade asked why the price of Living Steel had quadrupled overnight. Because I bought literally all of it. And would have bought more if it had been there. I quickly realized that my little server's economy wasn't going to allow me to get all that gold converted. At least not while the sale on transfers was still happening. A friend and I looked into splitting a guild transfer, but details I can't remember now (guild level?) made that a non-option. And guild transfers weren't half-off anyway. I was starting to get pretty upset with the transfer gold cap. Having a degree in economics, I understood why one exists. I just couldn't/can't fathom why it is still so damn low. 50k was a lot in TBC. It really was. But today? Epic flying is 10% of that! I wasn't happy about it, but I couldn't see any solution. I kept telling myself Earth money is more valuable than Azeroth money. Over and over. Then I dropped 400k into my guild's bank and transferred immediately. My way of just ripping off the Band Aid. Eventually I got over it. I sold all that stuff in my bags, got my production system in TSM going again, and got back to making gold. I eventually peaked at 1.3 million before I started spending. While I was never ok with the transfer cap, I just kept telling myself it wasn't real money.
But now it IS real money. Now I could be using that gold to pay my subscription. And I'm kind of pissed about it. Beside the fact that I had to forfeit a major component of my personal character progression, the reason I had to do it is no longer valid, if it ever was. The only reason to have a cap at all is so somebody like me can't move to a server like my old one and disrupt the whole economy with their deep pockets. I understood that at the time even if I thought 50k was way low. But the WoW token is being sold region-wide. Large amounts of gold are now moving between server economies in 20-30k chunks. In a sense, there is only one economy for the entire region now. The AH is no longer faction specific, and we have been able to move battle pets across servers for years now. The old definition of a server economy has broken down. It's time for the transfer cap to disappear as well. Or at the VERY least be raised into the millions. Because of the 50k cap, I essentially paid $285 for a server change. And at the time I thought $25 was bad! My gold is gone, but maybe we can get the cap raised or removed now that gold is literally worth real money.
Update: The transfer cap is now 150k. That probably would have been enough before garrisons..
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Communication Breakdown?
It's been quite a patch week. I wasn't really going to write about the patch because I hate just repeating things I agree with from other community members. But I've been wondering about the state of the WoW dev team's communication ability for quite a while. After this week I am really concerned. I can confidently say in my 9 years of playing this game I've never seen worse communication between the developers and the players than I have this week. And it didn't even start this week.
For a while I have thought Blizzard's timing for patch 6.1 was a misstep. Why on earth did they feel the need to drop it so close to the opening of Blackrock Foundry? The timing has created all kinds of confusion for players. Is BRF a new tier or not? Where are my BRF follower missions? Do we need the new +125 food to stand a chance in Blackrock? I've seen all these questions and tons more over and over again since the date for 6.1 was announced. I really believe a ton of confusion could have been alleviated if they had waited to release 6.1 until all the LFR wings of BRF were open. The division between the raid tier and that patch would have been obvious. And why the rush for a "features patch" (that's a new one to me)? Did we really have to get 1-click work orders (should have been in at launch) and a selfie camera (who cares) asap?
To make a bad situation worse Blizzard communicated patch details horribly. I don't know why they used such a convoluted system for spawning the new crafting vendors in the first place, but it became clear by Wednesday that the players did not get it, including myself. I'm rarely the smartest guy in the room, but I do my homework. I didn't fully understand the "system" until today, and that required a great explanation from Blizzardwatch. Not Blizzard. It goes on and on. Players didn't understand the changes to follower missions and equipment levels. Or professions. Or the Twitter-Real ID issue. Now, why someone would be comfortable with completely open Twitter but not Real ID is baffling to me, but that's a different topic. So much confusion! Like no other week I've ever seen, including the launch of five expansions. Thank god I play a hunter. I can't imagine how hard it might have been for support classes to get good information on their class changes. Something has deteriorated in Blizzard's ability to communicate with its customers. I'm not going to pretend to know what it is. Ghostcrawler was awesome, and we don't have him anymore. Maybe it's the scatter shot approach (see what I did there hunters?) to where info goes. What I mean is sometimes it's a blog, sometimes it's a blue forum post, occasionally it's twitter (and about 500 different accounts to track), rarely it's redditt or twitch or a podcast interview.You get the idea. I don't know what it is, but after the last three days I'm convinced of the existence of a big communication problem. There was a clear pattern of players feeling like things they were promised were not delivered. Even if that is perception and not reality, it's an incredibly dangerous situation for a company relying on happy subscribers to sustain their cash cow of an MMO. Especially at a time when a big chunk of them already feel screwed about the lack of flying in Warlords. I don't think anything sums up the communication problems related to 6.1 better than this twitter thread. Somebody down in Irvine needs to take charge of the message and how it is disseminated. And probably soon if they want to keep subscription numbers up.
For a while I have thought Blizzard's timing for patch 6.1 was a misstep. Why on earth did they feel the need to drop it so close to the opening of Blackrock Foundry? The timing has created all kinds of confusion for players. Is BRF a new tier or not? Where are my BRF follower missions? Do we need the new +125 food to stand a chance in Blackrock? I've seen all these questions and tons more over and over again since the date for 6.1 was announced. I really believe a ton of confusion could have been alleviated if they had waited to release 6.1 until all the LFR wings of BRF were open. The division between the raid tier and that patch would have been obvious. And why the rush for a "features patch" (that's a new one to me)? Did we really have to get 1-click work orders (should have been in at launch) and a selfie camera (who cares) asap?
To make a bad situation worse Blizzard communicated patch details horribly. I don't know why they used such a convoluted system for spawning the new crafting vendors in the first place, but it became clear by Wednesday that the players did not get it, including myself. I'm rarely the smartest guy in the room, but I do my homework. I didn't fully understand the "system" until today, and that required a great explanation from Blizzardwatch. Not Blizzard. It goes on and on. Players didn't understand the changes to follower missions and equipment levels. Or professions. Or the Twitter-Real ID issue. Now, why someone would be comfortable with completely open Twitter but not Real ID is baffling to me, but that's a different topic. So much confusion! Like no other week I've ever seen, including the launch of five expansions. Thank god I play a hunter. I can't imagine how hard it might have been for support classes to get good information on their class changes. Something has deteriorated in Blizzard's ability to communicate with its customers. I'm not going to pretend to know what it is. Ghostcrawler was awesome, and we don't have him anymore. Maybe it's the scatter shot approach (see what I did there hunters?) to where info goes. What I mean is sometimes it's a blog, sometimes it's a blue forum post, occasionally it's twitter (and about 500 different accounts to track), rarely it's redditt or twitch or a podcast interview.You get the idea. I don't know what it is, but after the last three days I'm convinced of the existence of a big communication problem. There was a clear pattern of players feeling like things they were promised were not delivered. Even if that is perception and not reality, it's an incredibly dangerous situation for a company relying on happy subscribers to sustain their cash cow of an MMO. Especially at a time when a big chunk of them already feel screwed about the lack of flying in Warlords. I don't think anything sums up the communication problems related to 6.1 better than this twitter thread. Somebody down in Irvine needs to take charge of the message and how it is disseminated. And probably soon if they want to keep subscription numbers up.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
My Favorite Raiding Glyph
Let's talk about glyphs. Frankly, let's talk about anything other than how the three specs sim and which talents we should take. For good reasons, that's about all the hunter community has been discussing since the launch of WoD. Now that we can play any spec we want, and have more talent options than any time I can remember, I feel ready to talk about something else.
I really like Glyph of Endless Wrath. I love Glyph of Deterrence. But hands down my favorite glyph for raiding is Glyph of Animal Bond. I've talked to many hunters who don't use it. The reasoning is always along the lines of, "It doesn't do anything for my abilities, so why bother?" And yes, it is more fun to enhance one's personal game play. But it's also pretty damn fun to down bosses, and Glyph of Animal Bond is amazing for downing bosses. A 10% increase to all your healing received is going to really add up over the course of a boss fight. At least for me it does. When I'm learning a new fight (or new role in it) I will end up in the bad stuff at some point. I don't think I've survived Tectus yet without a battle res. And even if you're way better at avoiding damage than I am, so many fights have unavoidable, raid-wide damage. At those times, when your healers are doing everything they can to just get the group through a high damage phase, the extra 10% healing could mean the difference between life or death. It will at least give your healers a little extra breathing room. And that's never a bad thing.
To me, this is the real cost of going with Lone Wolf for your level 100 talent. Now, my inherent bias toward the talent is well documented, but that's not what I'm talking about today. I have actually backed off a bit and have used LW in raids a few times. It turns out I'd rather not have a pet then have a long cast time Focusing Shot. I'm trying to like FS, but that's a topic for another time. But when a hunter chooses Lone Wolf they are not going to get the benefit from Glyph of Animal Bond. I really, really hate giving that up in a raid. Any time I consider going Lone Wolf for a fight I ask myself if I should give up that extra healing. If my group needs to squeeze out every drop of damage we can to beat a timer, it's probably worth it. On the other hand, if your healers are struggling to keep up and your group's damage is in a good spot, Lone Wolf might not be your best choice. It will depend on your specific situation, but for me, more often than not the healing benefits of Glyph of Animal Bond are more useful than the 1k dps increase I get from using Lone Wolf.
I really like Glyph of Endless Wrath. I love Glyph of Deterrence. But hands down my favorite glyph for raiding is Glyph of Animal Bond. I've talked to many hunters who don't use it. The reasoning is always along the lines of, "It doesn't do anything for my abilities, so why bother?" And yes, it is more fun to enhance one's personal game play. But it's also pretty damn fun to down bosses, and Glyph of Animal Bond is amazing for downing bosses. A 10% increase to all your healing received is going to really add up over the course of a boss fight. At least for me it does. When I'm learning a new fight (or new role in it) I will end up in the bad stuff at some point. I don't think I've survived Tectus yet without a battle res. And even if you're way better at avoiding damage than I am, so many fights have unavoidable, raid-wide damage. At those times, when your healers are doing everything they can to just get the group through a high damage phase, the extra 10% healing could mean the difference between life or death. It will at least give your healers a little extra breathing room. And that's never a bad thing.
To me, this is the real cost of going with Lone Wolf for your level 100 talent. Now, my inherent bias toward the talent is well documented, but that's not what I'm talking about today. I have actually backed off a bit and have used LW in raids a few times. It turns out I'd rather not have a pet then have a long cast time Focusing Shot. I'm trying to like FS, but that's a topic for another time. But when a hunter chooses Lone Wolf they are not going to get the benefit from Glyph of Animal Bond. I really, really hate giving that up in a raid. Any time I consider going Lone Wolf for a fight I ask myself if I should give up that extra healing. If my group needs to squeeze out every drop of damage we can to beat a timer, it's probably worth it. On the other hand, if your healers are struggling to keep up and your group's damage is in a good spot, Lone Wolf might not be your best choice. It will depend on your specific situation, but for me, more often than not the healing benefits of Glyph of Animal Bond are more useful than the 1k dps increase I get from using Lone Wolf.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Christmas Comes Early
This week's buffs to Survival and Beast Mastery mean all three specs are close enough in DPS to allow player choice. Obviously, certain specs will still shine on certain fights, which has and always will be the case. The important thing here is play the spec you want (and hopefully excel at). If people give you crap for playing with a pet (or without one depending on their level of hunter ignorance) they are wrong-not you. Get good at your two favorite specs, grab some pets, and go be a hunter again.
And there was much rejoicing from the hunters.
For about 5 minutes.
I have already seen a TON of comments and tweets about Survival needing more. Some mention the rotation's feel, the lack of on demand burst damage, and no execute ability. These are all valid points. I've said myself (before the buffs) that there is plenty of room for Kill Shot in Survival's toolbox. So I share the feelings of these other hunters. But now that we have decent spec parity, CAN WE JUST NOT FUCK WITH IT FOR A WHILE PLEASE? Clearly balancing hunter specs is pretty hard. Blizzard couldn't get it done before releasing WoD, even with months of beta evidence to guide them. Now that we're in a decent place, adding Kill Shot back into SV is just going to lead to more months of adjustments.
Ok, that said SV does need something. As much as love the spec's flavor and utility ability pruning has left it feeling just a little empty, especially compared to BM. I would propose giving SV better interrupt options than the other two hunter specs. SV seems to be the utility/PvP flavor of hunters these days. On top of that, Counter Shot's cooldown feels long a lot of the time. I mean looooong. I would love to trade Enhanced Entrapment for a perk that gives us a 12 or 15 second Counter Shot. Even an SV only glyph that reduces the CD would work. Or hell, give SV Scatter Shot back and remove the damage part of it.. When you have those fights where you can be the interrupt person, throw on the glyph and go. Managing your dots and procs AND interrupting every 12 seconds or so would certainly add some complexity to SV that so many hunters are asking for. I dare say it would be much more interesting than just adding Kill Shot back into the last 20% of the fight. And it wouldn't effect DPS balance at all.
Final thoughts: Personally, after the last month I'm happier about hunters than I have been in a while. I'm willing to just sit tight until we have to do this all over again due to set bonuses and gear scaling. But if you really want to muck around more with Survival, maybe damage dealing isn't the place to do it. Obviously Blizzard isn't as good at balance as they used to be.
I want to acknowledge the work that Bendak and Delirium are doing these days. Bendak has been really vocal on his blog and the Hunting Party Podcast about this ridiculous spec situation. And Delirium supports the community with amazing theorycrafting I could never hope to accomplish. I owe both of these guys a beer or five.
My last thing: A lot of hunters will be picking up Beast Mastery this week. There is a ton of conflicting information out there about secondary stats and when to use Focus Fire. This post by Delirium convinced me of when to use it, but my point is be a critical consumer of information. Know WHY you believe one side or the other. Also know that we as a community have a lot more testing to do, especially with all these adjustments over that last few months.
Hey Blizzard, I predicted this bullshit months ago.
And there was much rejoicing from the hunters.
For about 5 minutes.
I have already seen a TON of comments and tweets about Survival needing more. Some mention the rotation's feel, the lack of on demand burst damage, and no execute ability. These are all valid points. I've said myself (before the buffs) that there is plenty of room for Kill Shot in Survival's toolbox. So I share the feelings of these other hunters. But now that we have decent spec parity, CAN WE JUST NOT FUCK WITH IT FOR A WHILE PLEASE? Clearly balancing hunter specs is pretty hard. Blizzard couldn't get it done before releasing WoD, even with months of beta evidence to guide them. Now that we're in a decent place, adding Kill Shot back into SV is just going to lead to more months of adjustments.
Ok, that said SV does need something. As much as love the spec's flavor and utility ability pruning has left it feeling just a little empty, especially compared to BM. I would propose giving SV better interrupt options than the other two hunter specs. SV seems to be the utility/PvP flavor of hunters these days. On top of that, Counter Shot's cooldown feels long a lot of the time. I mean looooong. I would love to trade Enhanced Entrapment for a perk that gives us a 12 or 15 second Counter Shot. Even an SV only glyph that reduces the CD would work. Or hell, give SV Scatter Shot back and remove the damage part of it.. When you have those fights where you can be the interrupt person, throw on the glyph and go. Managing your dots and procs AND interrupting every 12 seconds or so would certainly add some complexity to SV that so many hunters are asking for. I dare say it would be much more interesting than just adding Kill Shot back into the last 20% of the fight. And it wouldn't effect DPS balance at all.
Final thoughts: Personally, after the last month I'm happier about hunters than I have been in a while. I'm willing to just sit tight until we have to do this all over again due to set bonuses and gear scaling. But if you really want to muck around more with Survival, maybe damage dealing isn't the place to do it. Obviously Blizzard isn't as good at balance as they used to be.
I want to acknowledge the work that Bendak and Delirium are doing these days. Bendak has been really vocal on his blog and the Hunting Party Podcast about this ridiculous spec situation. And Delirium supports the community with amazing theorycrafting I could never hope to accomplish. I owe both of these guys a beer or five.
My last thing: A lot of hunters will be picking up Beast Mastery this week. There is a ton of conflicting information out there about secondary stats and when to use Focus Fire. This post by Delirium convinced me of when to use it, but my point is be a critical consumer of information. Know WHY you believe one side or the other. Also know that we as a community have a lot more testing to do, especially with all these adjustments over that last few months.
Hey Blizzard, I predicted this bullshit months ago.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Impressions of WoD While Leveling
Well, I've been doing pretty much what everyone has been doing for the last week-leveling. I've never been a speedy leveler as I don't really see the point. I'm currently 98 and into Nagrand. I did not complete any of the previous zones, so there may be some back tracking after 100. Here is just a bit of a ramble about my WoD experience so far.
For all the deservedly bad press the Survival spec gets, I've loved it for leveling. The heal you get from every kill is really nice, and combined with better traps and multi dots, you can take on quite a few mobs at the same time. I'm still trying to hit Kill Shot pretty often, but I'll be going to BM here shortly anyway. If you have a hunter yet to level I stongly recommend trying SV. It may be the last time you get to use for a while. Also, the new version of A Murder of Crows is BRILLIANT for leveling. Regular mobs always die before it's done, keeping the CD available constantly. And, you get to really enjoy the graphic on a single mob up close. It really gives me a "Death From Above!" feeling when I use it. Using a flock of birds to kill bird men? Even more win. Use AMoC for leveling! Trust me.
Took me about a minute to get used to the number squish. Wish it had happened sooner. Loved no flying the first time around. Not sure how I'll feel about it after two more characters get to 100. But if we never get flying in Draenor it won't be a big deal. They have designed for it pretty well. Still don't have enough bank or stable space. I probably never will.
Loved every zone except Spires of Araak. Partly didn't like it because the previous two were so damn beautiful. But mostly it was the crazy dark part. Maybe people with high end graphics or better monitors had a different experience, but that shit was way too dark for my tastes. I can tolerate Duskwood, but I'm probably skipping whatever I can the next time I level there. Which is too bad because..
The random quest reward upgrades happen a lot more than I expected. Even before I put a Dwarven Bunker up it felt like I was getting upgrades quite a bit. I went into Draenor with a 573 item level and started getting sidegrades as early as Talador when rewards were upgraded. Dwarven Bunker for the win.
The garrison rocks harder than I expected. It's fun to be there, and a 20 minute Hearthstone is perfect for keeping it from feeling like a chore to get there and back. Love the follower system so much. Great to feel like when I need a break to sleep, work, or watch a football game, I'm still progressing in these early weeks of the content. And I'm not usually a "take it to mobile and consoles!" person, but the follower missions system has mobile written all over it. That needs to happen yesterday. Needs to.
This is probably the most fun I've ever had leveling. That may explain whay I'm not quite ready to be done doing it on my favorite character.
For all the deservedly bad press the Survival spec gets, I've loved it for leveling. The heal you get from every kill is really nice, and combined with better traps and multi dots, you can take on quite a few mobs at the same time. I'm still trying to hit Kill Shot pretty often, but I'll be going to BM here shortly anyway. If you have a hunter yet to level I stongly recommend trying SV. It may be the last time you get to use for a while. Also, the new version of A Murder of Crows is BRILLIANT for leveling. Regular mobs always die before it's done, keeping the CD available constantly. And, you get to really enjoy the graphic on a single mob up close. It really gives me a "Death From Above!" feeling when I use it. Using a flock of birds to kill bird men? Even more win. Use AMoC for leveling! Trust me.
Took me about a minute to get used to the number squish. Wish it had happened sooner. Loved no flying the first time around. Not sure how I'll feel about it after two more characters get to 100. But if we never get flying in Draenor it won't be a big deal. They have designed for it pretty well. Still don't have enough bank or stable space. I probably never will.
Loved every zone except Spires of Araak. Partly didn't like it because the previous two were so damn beautiful. But mostly it was the crazy dark part. Maybe people with high end graphics or better monitors had a different experience, but that shit was way too dark for my tastes. I can tolerate Duskwood, but I'm probably skipping whatever I can the next time I level there. Which is too bad because..
The random quest reward upgrades happen a lot more than I expected. Even before I put a Dwarven Bunker up it felt like I was getting upgrades quite a bit. I went into Draenor with a 573 item level and started getting sidegrades as early as Talador when rewards were upgraded. Dwarven Bunker for the win.
The garrison rocks harder than I expected. It's fun to be there, and a 20 minute Hearthstone is perfect for keeping it from feeling like a chore to get there and back. Love the follower system so much. Great to feel like when I need a break to sleep, work, or watch a football game, I'm still progressing in these early weeks of the content. And I'm not usually a "take it to mobile and consoles!" person, but the follower missions system has mobile written all over it. That needs to happen yesterday. Needs to.
This is probably the most fun I've ever had leveling. That may explain whay I'm not quite ready to be done doing it on my favorite character.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Survival Beta Analysis
I can't give you any first hand analysis of the beta, but others can! Delirium at Thrill of the Wild has several great posts about SV. One on PvE and another on PvP. You should really check them both out. He also has some analysis on Lock and Load in WoD.
Speaking of Survival PvP, Bendak at Eyes of the Beast has an opinion on how the WoD changes will impact SV PvP. It's incredibly well thought out and worth a read.
One of these days I'll get in there..
Speaking of Survival PvP, Bendak at Eyes of the Beast has an opinion on how the WoD changes will impact SV PvP. It's incredibly well thought out and worth a read.
One of these days I'll get in there..
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
You Can't Measure Much With a Target Dummy
I'm not in the beta. It's fine. I'm getting my fix as best I can through the amazing hunter community's blogs and podcasts. With all of the ability pruning and whatnot, I'm paying most of my attention to how hunters are experiencing the new versions of our specs, with my obvious bias toward Survival. While there are a lot of different interpretations of how the individual specs feel in their new incarnations, there does seem to be an overall theme that things are "missing" or a certain spec feels "simple and hollow." This may be true. The hunters I'm paying attention to generally have a much better understanding of the class than I do, and again I can't get any firsthand experience myself, but I have to say these opinions seem like they were formed prematurely.
I have to assume a lot of people are judging the specs as they level. Most of us level as fast as we can for obvious reasons, but is leveling a good way to experience the depth of a class and spec? I usually use very few of the tools available to me when leveling. Maybe some testers are running 5-mans, which is a much better gauge of the state of a class, but they are still just regular 5-mans. Even at the beginning of Cataclysm I don't remember needing Deterrence or Gift of the Naaru in regular dungeons. Maybe once I got to max level and into heroics. Maybe. And everything I have read analyzing the new state of hunters was written before ANY raid testing had begun. I don't know about you, but a raid environment is what I care about. That is where you will learn if your newly-pruned spec really is boring. Many beta testers are deciding how the specs feel by going to the worst place on Azeroth to gauge such a thing : A target dummy.
Target dummies are great. I love them. They are an amazing way to practice and compare rotations. But a target dummy can never tell you how fun a spec or class is. There is no strategic use of AoE on a dummy. You don't use traps on a dummy. You don't use utility abilities like Distracting Shot, Misdirection, or Deterrence on a dummy. I think it's safe to assume most testers are not working a regular Camouflage into their target dummy practice, but you can be damn sure you'll be doing it in a raid environment as Survival just for the heal. One of the most fun encounters for me was Spiderling duty on Bethilac, and I wasn't doing anything close to my target dummy rotation until the last 20% of her health. Running around the lair flinging traps and then burning down spiders with Multi Shot was a ton of fun, but it was absolutely nothing like hitting a dummy for 5 minutes. When you factor encounter mechanics and the new healing model, a hunter's single-target rotation may be a much lower priority than positioning and damage avoidance/mitigation.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe ability pruning has gone too far and hunters need to get something more to feel fun again. But until I get to play WoD myself I'm going to keep the faith. And I'm going to be skeptical of anyone who went to a target dummy to determine if a spec or class is fun to play.
I have to assume a lot of people are judging the specs as they level. Most of us level as fast as we can for obvious reasons, but is leveling a good way to experience the depth of a class and spec? I usually use very few of the tools available to me when leveling. Maybe some testers are running 5-mans, which is a much better gauge of the state of a class, but they are still just regular 5-mans. Even at the beginning of Cataclysm I don't remember needing Deterrence or Gift of the Naaru in regular dungeons. Maybe once I got to max level and into heroics. Maybe. And everything I have read analyzing the new state of hunters was written before ANY raid testing had begun. I don't know about you, but a raid environment is what I care about. That is where you will learn if your newly-pruned spec really is boring. Many beta testers are deciding how the specs feel by going to the worst place on Azeroth to gauge such a thing : A target dummy.
Target dummies are great. I love them. They are an amazing way to practice and compare rotations. But a target dummy can never tell you how fun a spec or class is. There is no strategic use of AoE on a dummy. You don't use traps on a dummy. You don't use utility abilities like Distracting Shot, Misdirection, or Deterrence on a dummy. I think it's safe to assume most testers are not working a regular Camouflage into their target dummy practice, but you can be damn sure you'll be doing it in a raid environment as Survival just for the heal. One of the most fun encounters for me was Spiderling duty on Bethilac, and I wasn't doing anything close to my target dummy rotation until the last 20% of her health. Running around the lair flinging traps and then burning down spiders with Multi Shot was a ton of fun, but it was absolutely nothing like hitting a dummy for 5 minutes. When you factor encounter mechanics and the new healing model, a hunter's single-target rotation may be a much lower priority than positioning and damage avoidance/mitigation.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe ability pruning has gone too far and hunters need to get something more to feel fun again. But until I get to play WoD myself I'm going to keep the faith. And I'm going to be skeptical of anyone who went to a target dummy to determine if a spec or class is fun to play.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Quivers and Ammo (sort of)!
I havn't been posting enough lately because, well, there isn't a lot to say. I recently hit my goal of having a million gold in the bank, and with that out of the way I'm barely even logging into WoW. I log on every Tuesday to kill Ordos on my priest, and then I clear a few old raids looking for mount and transmog drops. All that takes about 30 minutes. Then I play Diablo (I'm terrible) or just go do something outside. I havn't cleared Siege yet, and I don't care if I do or not. I'm just over this expansion for two reasons. For one it's been out a looooooooong time. Too long. Nothing else really to say about that. Second, we keep hearing about the awesomeness of WoD. It's hard for me to get excited about old content while I'm reading all about the new shinies, like....
Quivers! We are getting cosmetic-only quivers and ammo pouches. That is just fun. Pure fun. We don't yet know how we get them, but as transmog has gotten me really into my character's look for the first time, the idea of a quiver sounds awesome. I was already leaning toward making my hunter a Night Elf (his original race in Classic and BC) and quivers sealed the deal.
We're also getting ammo types. Not literally, don't worry about bag space, but the new level 100 talent that replaces Flaming Shots gives us a choice of one of three ways to augment our Auto Shots. One does AoE fire damage, one does a nature damage DoT, and one does a movement reduction. A comment on Eyes of the Beast specualted that we will use the first for AoE fights, the second for single target, and the third for PvP. While pure speculation, if the tuning is done right I think that makes a lot of sense. I'm excited about this talent for a few reasons. For starters, it's kind of like 3 talents in one. Quite a bit of versatility, although I'm not sure how many different DoTs survival really needs at this point. I know and love that that's our "thing" but if you take the nature damage one for single target, we will have Serpent Sting, Black Arrow, Explosive Shot, Explosive Trap, Bear Trap, and the new one all potentially on a target at the same time! Kind of nuts. It might take a little bit, but that target is gonna die. Taking the fire damage one will make survival even more amazing for AoE. I love doing awesome AoE, it's just fun. I don't PvP much, but the third ammo type seems over powered. Giving us a ranged slow that doesn't require a key press, much less a global cooldown will bring the complaints from non hunters. It's going to be interesting to watch the development of all this. The big question regarding this new talent is can ammo types be swapped during a fight? I hope not. That seems like aspect twisting all over again, which I personally did not enjoy. But no big deal either way. How many fights are going to really require a lot of swapping? On my old team, I was either doing AoE duty or single target duty. And if you are forced to have the AoE ammo during an execute phase, it's not going to be a huge deal. I'm also happy to just see a 100 talent I would actually choose. I've made no secret about disliking Lone Wolf. I hope to avoid Focusing Shot as well. I've gotten way to used to casting it all while moving and I don't really want to go back. If it were just a way to let more skilled hunters do higher damage I would be excited about it, but also being the focus generating shot seems problematic to me, at least for high movement fights. So this early, Exotic Ammo has me the most excited. The only issue I have with it at this point is the damage types seem redundant for Survival. We already have a single target nature damage ability (Serpent Sting) and a fire damage AoE (Explosive Trap). Damage type doesn't usually matter these days, but I'd like them to switch it up a bit just in case. Call one of them Blessed Bullets and make it holy damage or something. Variety is always good.
Things are shaping up for WoD. I'm really excited about it, which is why I'm barely playing World of Warcraft at all. I may even cancel my subscription for the summer and go fishing.
Quivers! We are getting cosmetic-only quivers and ammo pouches. That is just fun. Pure fun. We don't yet know how we get them, but as transmog has gotten me really into my character's look for the first time, the idea of a quiver sounds awesome. I was already leaning toward making my hunter a Night Elf (his original race in Classic and BC) and quivers sealed the deal.
We're also getting ammo types. Not literally, don't worry about bag space, but the new level 100 talent that replaces Flaming Shots gives us a choice of one of three ways to augment our Auto Shots. One does AoE fire damage, one does a nature damage DoT, and one does a movement reduction. A comment on Eyes of the Beast specualted that we will use the first for AoE fights, the second for single target, and the third for PvP. While pure speculation, if the tuning is done right I think that makes a lot of sense. I'm excited about this talent for a few reasons. For starters, it's kind of like 3 talents in one. Quite a bit of versatility, although I'm not sure how many different DoTs survival really needs at this point. I know and love that that's our "thing" but if you take the nature damage one for single target, we will have Serpent Sting, Black Arrow, Explosive Shot, Explosive Trap, Bear Trap, and the new one all potentially on a target at the same time! Kind of nuts. It might take a little bit, but that target is gonna die. Taking the fire damage one will make survival even more amazing for AoE. I love doing awesome AoE, it's just fun. I don't PvP much, but the third ammo type seems over powered. Giving us a ranged slow that doesn't require a key press, much less a global cooldown will bring the complaints from non hunters. It's going to be interesting to watch the development of all this. The big question regarding this new talent is can ammo types be swapped during a fight? I hope not. That seems like aspect twisting all over again, which I personally did not enjoy. But no big deal either way. How many fights are going to really require a lot of swapping? On my old team, I was either doing AoE duty or single target duty. And if you are forced to have the AoE ammo during an execute phase, it's not going to be a huge deal. I'm also happy to just see a 100 talent I would actually choose. I've made no secret about disliking Lone Wolf. I hope to avoid Focusing Shot as well. I've gotten way to used to casting it all while moving and I don't really want to go back. If it were just a way to let more skilled hunters do higher damage I would be excited about it, but also being the focus generating shot seems problematic to me, at least for high movement fights. So this early, Exotic Ammo has me the most excited. The only issue I have with it at this point is the damage types seem redundant for Survival. We already have a single target nature damage ability (Serpent Sting) and a fire damage AoE (Explosive Trap). Damage type doesn't usually matter these days, but I'd like them to switch it up a bit just in case. Call one of them Blessed Bullets and make it holy damage or something. Variety is always good.
Things are shaping up for WoD. I'm really excited about it, which is why I'm barely playing World of Warcraft at all. I may even cancel my subscription for the summer and go fishing.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
So Many Questions
As opposed to providing you readers with any sort of helpful information, I thought I would share the growing list of questions I have right now about hunters and WoW. Between blog posts, Twitter, and developer interviews we're getting a decent amount of information. But each bit seems to generate more uncertainty in my head. So here is an improvised, no particular order list of questions. If you know the answer to any, help me out.
- What will Bear Trap do? It better not be a root+bleed, because we can basically do that now.
- What is replacing Flaming Shots?
- Why are the kids wearing headphones on their head but not putting the speakers on their ears?
- Any timetable for the beta? I'll settle for a season at this point.
- Why am I the only one who isn't gonna miss Distracting Shot?
- If one of the hunter specs is being redesigned for PvP, which one is it?
- What's the difference between a cupcake and a muffin? Cuz I just ate a "muffin" that had frosting on it.
- What are talking about with this mobility tax? I think I could live with 5 or 8%. Any more than that and my shadow priest starts to look really good.
- How in the world are tertiary stats balanced? Maybe we need a beta..
- How well is my 2009 computer going to run WoD?
- What race am I going to change my hunter to? It's between Dwarf and Night Elf right now.
- Are we getting some new taming challenges?
- Isn't Marksman's 120 focus combined with Rapid Fire a bit much?
- How did I not know about Delirium's blog until this week? Great stuff there.
- Will people really be able to take Stampede and Lone Wolf at the same time? That seems dumb. If hunters want the big cooldown they should have to manage a pet.
- How can people say not having the Hunter's Mark visual will be weird, but not having a pet will be awesome? I'm fine having one less visual effect on the boss, personally.
- Why didn't Blizzard cut Aspect of the Pack?
- Have the devs actually confirmed yet that we're not flying in WoD? We all know that's happening so someone might as well say it straight up.
- Is there another long-term legendary in the works? Let me guess:A legendary toolshed for my garrison.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Pets, Pets, Pets!
The biggest pet news we have gotten recently is that Heroism and Battle Res will no longer be exclusive to Beast Mastery in WoD. If you never play BM or just want to cover all your bases, get yourself a Nether Ray for Hero and either a Crane or Moth for B Res. As sombody who likes to play Survival whenever possible I couldn't be happier about this change. No longer will I be pressured to go BM just for Heroism!
While it's been well documented already, a pet post would be incomplete without running down which pets will bring which buffs and debuffs in WoD. If you run in a smaller sized raid, or like me just want to have the whole hunter arsenal in your stable, you'll want to have one pet from each group. The groups right now aren't distributed very well, and this is the development process so I anticipate some changes. Note that I am including BM only exotic pets here. I'll do my best to keep the list updated.
The Pet List as of September 9, 2014 (Beta):
Buffs: Any group size bigger than 10 will almost certainly have these covered already, but weird things can happen with group composition. You'll definately be able to use them in the new 5-mans and scenarios. And if you go petless, the current thinking is you can bring one of these as an aura.
- Stats
- Gorilla (One of my all-time favorites. Happy he is going to be useful!)
- Dogs
- Shale Spider
- Worm
- Stamina
- Bear
- Goat
- Hook Wasp
- Silithid
- Rylak
- Spell Power
- Serpent
- Silithid
- Water Strider
- Haste
- Sporebat (Nice to see we have some choice here. Lots of sporebats lately.)
- Wasp
- Hyena
- Hook Wasp
- Rylak
- Crit
- Wolf
- Raptor
- Devilsaur
- Quilen
- Shale Spider
- Water Strider
- Mastery
- Cat
- Tallstrider
- Hydra (You'll want to wait for WoD and get this one because Hydra!)
- Spirit Beast
- Multistrike
- Basilisk
- Chimaera
- Clefthoof (Formerly called Rhinos)
- Core Hound
- Dragonhawk
Fox- Wind Serpent
- Versatility
- Bird of Prey
- Boar
- Porcupine
- Ravager
- Stag
- Clefthoof
- Worm
- Mortal Wounds
- Devilsaur
- Scorpion
- Carrion Bird
- Riverbeast (WoD pet)
- Slow Movement
- Spider
- Warp Stalker
- Silithid
- Crocolisk
- Chimaera
As always Petopia is your best resource for "shopping" for cool and rare pets. I also want to mention that Raid Checklist is my favorite add-on for figuring out which buff or debuff I should bring to the group. If you raid lead or don't know every class inside and out, I highly recommend it. What pets are you collecting right now? What's your favorite pet? Mine is Karkin.
Monday, April 14, 2014
I'm Back...and Now with Stuff to Talk About!
Wow, I hate going this long between posts. The break began when there was just nothing to write about. End of expansion, no news, less people playing. I'll admit that I'm pretty burned on MoP right now, and maybe WoW in general. Been playing this game for nine years at this point. I even got back into Diablo recently because of how I feel about WoW at the moment. And then my vacation lined-up with the Alpha release. Just my luck. Considering the Alpha patch notes are a few weeks old at this point, I'm not going to summarize them here. But I am going to assume my readers have seen them. If you want great rundowns of the hunter changes go to The Brew Hall or Eyes of the Beast. Now that we have seen the very, very first iteration of the new hunter I'd say things look pretty good.
Button bloat: No real surprises regarding what abilities we lost. I am thrilled that traps are not only staying, but getting more powerful. Especially for survival hunters, proper trap usage is going to be really important. The change to Explosive Trap is so cool. Reminds me of the days of old. Also, survival is losing Kill Shot. While I actually advocated for all the specs to have it removed, I'm going to count that prediction as a win. I totally called that:) More importantly, I think it will really help SV. With Lock 'n Load and all the other cooldowns, our rotation is just chaotic enough to make a new shot that pops up at the end of a fight seem weird. I'll totally take being the sustained, dot based spec.
Differentiation: Blizz did a better job with this that I could have hoped. Only SV has Serpent Sting? Love it. Traps are better, and SV traps are better still? Hell yeah. A solid self heal once per minute? Now we actually live up to our spec's name! I do have to say I wish they had not changed how Serpent Sting is applied. There was some skill involved in keeping it up (especially on multiple targets) or remembering to reapply it after transition phases. But if the choice was between the new system and scrapping the ability altogether, I think Blizzard made the right choice. SV really sounds like THE dot and magic damage spec.
Draenor Perks: Such a cool idea. Some kind of power increase every level, in a random order. By max level everyone is the same, but how they got there will be a little different for everyone. As someone who really doesn't enjoy leveling, I think these could create some replayability for WoD. In any case, they sound totally fun.
Camouflage: Camo, in the alpha notes, is amazing. For a survival hunter camo becomes a nice self heal that one can use every minute without stopping the deeps. Sweet! Awesome! Killer! But here's the thing: we've been burned by camouflage before. In the Cataclysm development process, camo started out really cool and was slowly eroded into an almost worthless ability. I really hope we don't repeat that whole experience. I know it's the nature of game development and class balance, but I'm not sure I can go through that again with camouflage, considering how awesome it looks right now for survival.
I have heard people describe the changes as making Survival into the PvP spec. I can see why they feel that way. Our CC will be better, and the buffs to Camo will certainly help as well. On the other hand, it looks like we will have the lowest burst damage (although we can use some talent choices to mitigate that somewhat) and we won't have an execute button. It looks to me like SV will be a good choice for PvP, but I really hope Blizzard can get the balancing close enough that it is good for more than that. I feel like they did an amazing job balancing the hunter specs in MoP, so why not do it again?
Button bloat: No real surprises regarding what abilities we lost. I am thrilled that traps are not only staying, but getting more powerful. Especially for survival hunters, proper trap usage is going to be really important. The change to Explosive Trap is so cool. Reminds me of the days of old. Also, survival is losing Kill Shot. While I actually advocated for all the specs to have it removed, I'm going to count that prediction as a win. I totally called that:) More importantly, I think it will really help SV. With Lock 'n Load and all the other cooldowns, our rotation is just chaotic enough to make a new shot that pops up at the end of a fight seem weird. I'll totally take being the sustained, dot based spec.
Differentiation: Blizz did a better job with this that I could have hoped. Only SV has Serpent Sting? Love it. Traps are better, and SV traps are better still? Hell yeah. A solid self heal once per minute? Now we actually live up to our spec's name! I do have to say I wish they had not changed how Serpent Sting is applied. There was some skill involved in keeping it up (especially on multiple targets) or remembering to reapply it after transition phases. But if the choice was between the new system and scrapping the ability altogether, I think Blizzard made the right choice. SV really sounds like THE dot and magic damage spec.
Draenor Perks: Such a cool idea. Some kind of power increase every level, in a random order. By max level everyone is the same, but how they got there will be a little different for everyone. As someone who really doesn't enjoy leveling, I think these could create some replayability for WoD. In any case, they sound totally fun.
Camouflage: Camo, in the alpha notes, is amazing. For a survival hunter camo becomes a nice self heal that one can use every minute without stopping the deeps. Sweet! Awesome! Killer! But here's the thing: we've been burned by camouflage before. In the Cataclysm development process, camo started out really cool and was slowly eroded into an almost worthless ability. I really hope we don't repeat that whole experience. I know it's the nature of game development and class balance, but I'm not sure I can go through that again with camouflage, considering how awesome it looks right now for survival.
I have heard people describe the changes as making Survival into the PvP spec. I can see why they feel that way. Our CC will be better, and the buffs to Camo will certainly help as well. On the other hand, it looks like we will have the lowest burst damage (although we can use some talent choices to mitigate that somewhat) and we won't have an execute button. It looks to me like SV will be a good choice for PvP, but I really hope Blizzard can get the balancing close enough that it is good for more than that. I feel like they did an amazing job balancing the hunter specs in MoP, so why not do it again?
Monday, March 17, 2014
The Veteran's Bonus is Fine as it Is
There have been a lot of complaints about the Veteran's Bonus in the last week since character boosts went live. For those unaware, the Veteran's Bonus raises your professions to 600 (max level) if you use a boost on a character levels 60-89. When this feature was announced I was cautiously excited about it, from the perspective of someone who plays the auction house. I'm really happy with the current state of it, but quite a few are not.
The big question I had when we first heard about the Veteran's Bonus was in regard to recipes. What would these new crafters know how to make? Everything? Some things? Nothing? Turns out, nothing. You have 600 skill level, but no recipes. And that is where the complaints are coming from. People on Twitter and forums have been raging about this, and they are flat-out wrong. Just about every angry post I found, the person expected to get EVERY recipe up through 600. Many pointed out that the cost of EVERY recipe vastly exceeds the 150g your boosted character receives. Are you fucking kidding me? Do you even know what I had to do to learn all those patterns? While I'm as surprised as anyone that the VB doesn't give you any recipes at all, I am relieved that people aren't getting stuff that requires discovery or rep grinding. Stuff we just buy from a trainer? I'm ok with that. But I would be just as pissed as the guys that want it all for free if people had so easily gotten the patterns I had to work hard for. Some of my stuff required raiding. Some stuff (enchants) cost me hours of my life doing daily quests. Many of my good and profitable JC cuts were borne from an agonizing combination of random discovery and world drops. Meta cuts in particular took me a long time to get, and I'm frankly happy that my new competitors don't just have them because they are cool giving Blizzard $60. And why do these people want every recipe anyway?
If you're a completionist and you HAVE to have every purchasable pattern for your new professions, it's only going to cost you a few thousand gold. Really not much considering you're buying the potential to make hundreds of thousands back with a little discipline. The complainers posit that they are starting out on a new realm and only have the 150g the boost brings to work with. I suspect a lot of these complaints are false rationalizations for wanting patterns for nothing (you leveled to 60 and didn't make any gold?) but let's take them at their word. To start out, you only need to learn one or two current recipes for each of your professions to get going on your new realm. I'm going to give you a few examples from the professions I do.
Boosted an alchemist? Well, the stuff you want to learn is discovered. You can't buy it even if you have the gold. You can buy Master Healing Potion for only 20g, and each one you make gives you a chance to learn profitable transmutes. The mats for the potions are cheap. I think I discovered all the good stuff in about an hour. Let's talk leatherworking. You can get started for 5g. That will allow you to make Magnificent Hide, which sell consistently. You'll want to use them to make armor kits, but to do that you'll need to grind out some Golden Lotus rep like the rest of us had to. But you can start making profit for only 5g. Hard to complain about that. Jewelcrafters can get started even cheaper than that! The MoP cuts that sell are all discovered or dropped. You can learn the recipe to start discovering cuts for only 4.5g. It's going to take you a while to learn all the patterns that way, but the rest of us did it and we survived. You're on your own for the meta cuts. It took me months to get the ones that sell. But really guys, a 4.5g and reasonable time investment for a profession that makes quite a few WoW millionaires? Stop your bitching. Just to hammer my point home, you can get started in enchanting for 2.28g. Buy the pattern for Glorious Stats. They sell all day every day, and mats on quite a few servers are stupid cheap. I mean 80s for dust cheap. You can start cranking out enchants for the cost of a potion.
I don't know why people want a bunch of old recipes that don't really sell, but they do. OK fine, well you are going to have to go out and get them like the rest of us did. Farm some mobs and grind some rep. Solo super-old content for weeks while you wait for patterns to drop. Do totally repetitive daily quests. You're my competition now, so don't expect any sympathy. And I have clearly proven that you can get started making gold with your new professions for well under the 150g the boost gives you. So stop complaining. Asking for every recipe to be included with the Veteran's Bonus is lunacy.
The big question I had when we first heard about the Veteran's Bonus was in regard to recipes. What would these new crafters know how to make? Everything? Some things? Nothing? Turns out, nothing. You have 600 skill level, but no recipes. And that is where the complaints are coming from. People on Twitter and forums have been raging about this, and they are flat-out wrong. Just about every angry post I found, the person expected to get EVERY recipe up through 600. Many pointed out that the cost of EVERY recipe vastly exceeds the 150g your boosted character receives. Are you fucking kidding me? Do you even know what I had to do to learn all those patterns? While I'm as surprised as anyone that the VB doesn't give you any recipes at all, I am relieved that people aren't getting stuff that requires discovery or rep grinding. Stuff we just buy from a trainer? I'm ok with that. But I would be just as pissed as the guys that want it all for free if people had so easily gotten the patterns I had to work hard for. Some of my stuff required raiding. Some stuff (enchants) cost me hours of my life doing daily quests. Many of my good and profitable JC cuts were borne from an agonizing combination of random discovery and world drops. Meta cuts in particular took me a long time to get, and I'm frankly happy that my new competitors don't just have them because they are cool giving Blizzard $60. And why do these people want every recipe anyway?
If you're a completionist and you HAVE to have every purchasable pattern for your new professions, it's only going to cost you a few thousand gold. Really not much considering you're buying the potential to make hundreds of thousands back with a little discipline. The complainers posit that they are starting out on a new realm and only have the 150g the boost brings to work with. I suspect a lot of these complaints are false rationalizations for wanting patterns for nothing (you leveled to 60 and didn't make any gold?) but let's take them at their word. To start out, you only need to learn one or two current recipes for each of your professions to get going on your new realm. I'm going to give you a few examples from the professions I do.
Boosted an alchemist? Well, the stuff you want to learn is discovered. You can't buy it even if you have the gold. You can buy Master Healing Potion for only 20g, and each one you make gives you a chance to learn profitable transmutes. The mats for the potions are cheap. I think I discovered all the good stuff in about an hour. Let's talk leatherworking. You can get started for 5g. That will allow you to make Magnificent Hide, which sell consistently. You'll want to use them to make armor kits, but to do that you'll need to grind out some Golden Lotus rep like the rest of us had to. But you can start making profit for only 5g. Hard to complain about that. Jewelcrafters can get started even cheaper than that! The MoP cuts that sell are all discovered or dropped. You can learn the recipe to start discovering cuts for only 4.5g. It's going to take you a while to learn all the patterns that way, but the rest of us did it and we survived. You're on your own for the meta cuts. It took me months to get the ones that sell. But really guys, a 4.5g and reasonable time investment for a profession that makes quite a few WoW millionaires? Stop your bitching. Just to hammer my point home, you can get started in enchanting for 2.28g. Buy the pattern for Glorious Stats. They sell all day every day, and mats on quite a few servers are stupid cheap. I mean 80s for dust cheap. You can start cranking out enchants for the cost of a potion.
I don't know why people want a bunch of old recipes that don't really sell, but they do. OK fine, well you are going to have to go out and get them like the rest of us did. Farm some mobs and grind some rep. Solo super-old content for weeks while you wait for patterns to drop. Do totally repetitive daily quests. You're my competition now, so don't expect any sympathy. And I have clearly proven that you can get started making gold with your new professions for well under the 150g the boost gives you. So stop complaining. Asking for every recipe to be included with the Veteran's Bonus is lunacy.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Lone Wolf is a Terrible Idea
I'm getting old. There is grey in my
beard. Depending on where you live and which data you trust I've already hit
middle age. And I'm catching myself thinking and saying the things older people
do when they are struggling to understand changes in the world. Lately I’ve
been saying crazy shit like, “There hasn’t been a really good Hip Hop album
since 2000” and “Yeah, we sagged our pants. But not like the kids do today.”
Yep, I’m getting to be a close-minded old fart. And I wonder if that is why I
feel the way I do about the Lone Wolf talent.
I’ve been playing a hunter since
Vanilla. I’ve actually been playing the same hunter since then (with quite a
few race changes mixed-in). I’ve seen a lot of changes: mana to focus, ammo,
the dead zone, pet happiness. While I can’t say I’ve embraced every major
change to our class, I’ve never had a reaction as strong as how I feel about
the idea of Lone Wolf. I hate it. I’m just praying it was a placeholder. I
think it’s contrary to what it means to be a hunter, and it has serious
potential to be a balance nightmare.
Hunters are the pet class. Pets are one
of the most important aspects of our class’ identity. Some of us collect them.
Some of us use them to tank current raid content. Some of us (me) forget to
dismiss them, jump off a ledge, and pull all of UBRS to our group. A big part of
being a decent hunter is having the right pet for your situation and properly
controlling it. The fact that Blizzard is considering allowing hunters to
bypass that part of the hunter experience is just baffling to me. I don’t get
it. We’re not the only ranged DPS class in the game. If someone wants to play
ranged but can’t handle a pet they have at least three other options. But there
is more going on here than me being an old curmudgeon.
There are two prevalent arguments in
favor of Lone Wolf. The first is simply, “A lot of hunters want to play without
their pets.” I don’t think it’s really that many. I don’t think someone would
roll a hunter if they don’t like pets. I don’t like melee, so I know better
than to roll a DK. Furthermore, a lot of hunters want quite a few different things. They
haven’t given us pistols or a dedicated tanking spec yet. The second argument for it is more
interesting, but it still falls short. There are a number of situations where our
pets struggle. Some fights just don’t play well with pet pathing, etc. My pet
despawns all the time during Immersius, for example. Don't get me started on the Hagara encounter. There is one of these
fights pretty much every tier. Some say Lone Wolf is an option for fights where
pets don’t function as they should. The problem with that argument is our pets
not working is simply unacceptable. Frankly, we hunters have been too
forgiving when it comes to these situations. I mean really, can you imagine
Blizzard releasing a fight where pally tanks’ shields didn’t work? Or telling
rogues that stealth doesn’t work as intended in the new BG? That just wouldn’t
happen. It should be just as unacceptable for hunter pets to be borked. Lone
Wolf could create a fairly dangerous situation where Blizzard can justify even
more of these fights and we are required to get rid of our pets for them. All
of a sudden for some fights we are essentially required to ditch a defining
aspect of our class. That would be a fucking debacle.
I also worry about balance. Spec
balance for hunters has been relatively good as of late. Such a fundamental change, especially one
intended to be optional, could really screw things up. If Blizzard goes ahead
with this experiment, they are going to have to be spot on with the balancing.
I’d actually go a step further. Choosing Lone Wolf should cost a hunter a little
dps. We should be rewarded for the added complexity of managing a pet. If I
feel compelled to get rid of my pet, even for one fight each tier, I’ll be
pissed. Beware the wrath of the angry old man.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Improving Professions
WoW Insider's blog topic this week asks how we would improve professions. Perhaps because I have been pretty successful on the AH lately (profiting 3k per day for the last month), or because I'm only in four professions, I'm not sure they need that much improvement. That said, there are some things I would like to see improved. Some of these are the tools used around professions as opposed to the skills themselves. Also, most of these ideas are not original. I get a lot of my ideas from gold podcasts such as Late Night with Stede and the now retired Call to Auction. On to how professions could be improved.
- Either get rid of all the combat bonuses or truly balance them. It's lame that raiders feel forced to take the same specific professions for the sake of an extra gem, etc. Professions should be totally optional regardless of what you do in the game, and players should feel free to chose whichever ones, if any, they want to do. I have to think if they could be balanced exactly, they would have been by now. They should probably just go away. Utility stuff like drums and rocket boots should stay. Edit: Apparently getting rid of combat bonuses has already been announced for Warlords. I totally missed that, but glad to hear about the change.
- Every profession should be able to make a mount, and they should all require that trade skill. The current situation is inconsistent and convoluted.
- New armor and weapons should have unique models. There should be exactly ONE way to get some awesome looking models, wether it's for transmog or not, and that is a craftsperson.
- Multiple recipes on a shared daily cooldown. Right now, my alchemist makes Living Steel every day regardless. That isn't exactly interesting.
- Maybe make those cooldowns weekly so we don't feel compelled to log in every day. Want to make 7 Living Steel on Tuesday and be done with it for the week? No problem.
- The ability to repair things you can craft at a nice discount. Maybe put it on a 2-5 hour cooldown.
- Extra storage if you have two professions at max. Perhaps an extra bank slot gets unlocked.
- Improve the AH. Make the default interface more like the mobile version or just like Auctionator. More importantly, implement buy orders. Buy orders would allow crafters to see real demand and margins for products before they have committed to making them. They would also make it easier to purchase hard to find materials. If I see that I can instantly sell Clefthoof leather at a great price, I might just go farm some up.
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