Though I've been trying to keep myself spoiler free when it comes to the story of Cataclysm, one thing I have not denied myself is news on the mechanics of the game and how those will be changing. New spells, changes to the professions, changes to the stats, etc--I have been keeping up with all of these changes, mostly because I want to be prepared when Cataclysm drops to make the best decisions and not spend my time undoing or regretting a bad decision I made due to lack of information. It was only through the reflection brought on by this news hunt that I decided that my inevitable Worgen alt would be a rogue (Before that choice, I had considered a mage, warrior, and hunter, but it was upon reviewing the talents and ability distributions, as well as the abilities themselves, and some personal reflection on why I enjoy playing my druid, that I decided on the rogue.)
But there is a darker side to that news hunt, and that darker side is that we see classes in the middle of the great balancing act that is game design. We grow attached to abilities or talents that never make it to the live servers, or we languish in worry as we see that our class just isn't doing well in the design process. That latter point is affecting us resto druids on the beta right now. The comments I've seen from druids on the beta trying out resto healing consistently say that it needs work, and now the math has shown that our mastery bonus is the worst thing since pre-nerf Oculus. It's fair to say that this isn't a good time for resto druids, and that has lead to a lot of worrying on the part of the druid community. Will it be fun to heal in Cataclysm? Will mastery, this new and exciting stat, be of any use to us? Will we all just roll/switch to shamans/priests/paladins when we find out that we can't really heal anymore?
I used to worry about these kinds of things, but I now realize that it's better to think of resto druids on the beta as a work in progress, rather than a broken class that Blizzard needs to fix. After all, we're going to go through quite a shift in game design when Cataclysm comes out, and with Blizzard actually trying to keep all of the classes balanced, it can't be easy designing us druids to fit that philosophy, so I'm happy to not cry foul until a week or two before the game ships.
Let me elaborate on that point about game balance. Back in the day (I'm a player who grew up during vanilla WoW but came of age in Burning Crusade), the game was much less balanced than it is now. Once upon a time, warriors were the class that could tank, and any class that could heal was expected to do so (they couldn't do much of anything else; the game just wasn't designed to support them doing so). To put it simply, Blizzard didn't really care all that much about the classes being on par with one another. This mentality allowed the classes to evolve in their own special way, since they Blizzard wasn't all that worried about balancing them, and each class gained a unique feel to it. However, as the expansions went on, Blizzard started to care more about class balance, to the point where Wrath of the Lich King has been the most successful class balance in WoW history.
Of course, by the time Wrath rolled around, the classes had all developed their own unique feel to how they play. We druids, for example, specialize in healing with HoTs (heal-over-time spells) and tanking by absorbing damage, rather than avoiding it (this was especially true in Burning Crusade). This worked fine in Wrath of the Lich King, where the rapid damage spikes of raid bosses and our HoTs somehow worked well to make us good healers without us being overpowered (to my knowledge). However, come Cataclysm, that damage model will change. When Cataclysm rolls around, damage will be much more consistent, and healing won't be a race to top off every player's health bar. Healing will be more about using the right spell at the right time than using your most powerful spell as quickly as possible. Because of this, players will spend more time with their health below the maximum.
In an environment like this, HoTs would have dominated. The biggest weakness of our HoTs right now is that players are likely to snipe our healing by healing a target to full health before our HoT has run its duration, leading to wasted mana (though that was never really an issue). In a world where players won't be healed to full health immediately after they take damage, this would not have been the case. Our HoTs would have been able to do much more healing than they can now simply because players will be at less-than-full health more often, giving our HoTs ridiculous mana efficiency. After all, their current mana costs are balanced around the idea of them not healing for the full amount because of other healers bringing our targets to full health almost immediately. If those mana costs stayed the same while HoTs were able to heal for much more, they would have been ridiculously mana-efficient.
Of course, in a world where mana is supposed to matter and where Blizzard wants us using most of our spells, this just couldn't be. They would need to balance us around the ridiculous efficiency of our HoT's, making our direct heals much less appealing and effectively gimping us when we needed to use them to add extra healing to our style, like when we are the only healers in a five-man or when we are tank healing and our HoTs aren't doing enough. We would have been stuck in a style reminiscent of Tree of Life healing circa early Burning Crusade, when Tree of Life limited us to casting heal over time spells, meaning we could never use our only pure direct heal at the time, Healing Touch. It was this limitation that lead to the creation of the Dreamstate build, which forewent Tree of Life in favor of buffing Healing Touch. This was a viable build in heroics, where our HoTs might not have been enough to heal everyone there, but it petered out in raiding once the efficiency of Tree of Life HoT healing was revealed.
But I digress. We have been a HoT-centric class ever since Burning Crusade, and that needs to change in Cataclysm for us to remain balanced with the four other healers. In order to do that, Blizzard needs to effectively rebuild the druid class from scratch, taking our old abilities and reworking them to fill new niches, allowing us to retain some of what makes us unique (our HoTs) while still allowing us to fit into their new philosophy of healing design without being overpowered. Blizzard really had to overhaul our class to make us fit into this new game design, so it doesn't surprise me that they haven't perfected us yet. And considering everything else they have to do on the beta, I'm going to be patient as I wait to see what they do to make us good again.
In other words, the druid's resto tree and resto playstyle as they stand in beta aren't a failure, or a disappointment, or a sign that Blizzard isn't giving the same level of attention to us as they are to the other classes; they're just an indication of just how much work Blizzard has to put into designing it. While all of the other trees started mature and didn't need to change too much, Blizzard had less to work with when it came to designing the resto tree, so our tree is, if you will, younger than the rest. It isn't broken; it's just a baby.
Showing posts with label Burning Crusade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Burning Crusade. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
I fear for the fate of Outland
I am worried about our humble floating rock. As excited as I am for Cataclysm and all of the great changes it will bring to old-world Azeroth, I am worried what the lack of changes in Outland will mean for the continent. I won't assume that everyone feels the same way I do, so I'll just explain my person reasons for worrying. While leveling a character, I look forward to getting to Outland, for it is a big improvement over the old world. I can move from quest hub to quest hub in a linear order, rather than needing to run back and forth between them because they don't have any quests for my level. The quests award gear I'll actually use, rather than gear with a hodgepodge of stats that have no business being together. Still, Outland seems to somehow lack something when compared to Northrend. I can't quite put my finger on what it is that makes the two so different, but the fact that Borean Tundra is prettier to look at than Hellfire Peninsula might have something to do with it. Either way, while approaching level 68, I look forward to going to Northrend in the same way I looked forward to going to Outland. Thus, in my mind, Northrend > Outland > Kalimdor/Easter Kingdoms.
Cataclysm could change all of that, since Cataclysm will be bringing the old world up to speed with all of the improvements that have been made to the leveling process since WoW was released. Old world questing won't require us to run back and forth from quest hub to quest hub and back again, and those quests will reward gear that we will actually want to use. However, Outland and Northrend will only be receiving a negligible amount of attention in this overhaul, and won't be changing that much. Thus, the first round of content (Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms) will now be the newest, most innovative content, while Outland and Northrend, both revolutionary in tier time, will be relics of older design.
Where does that leave the humble floating rock? It means that Outland will be the oldest content in WoW, and potentially the least enjoyable. In other words, rather than a progression of solo content where each continent gets better as you go on (which we have now), I fear that players will think that they have gone backwards when they enter Outland, that they have downgraded their experience. In other words, I fear that Outland will no longer be the improvement to leveling that it is now, but instead, like the old world now, it will be an unfortunate necessity we must begrudgingly level through in order to get to the newer, more interesting content (Northrend, and eventually the 80-85 content).
How to avoid this future? One option is to improve the old world in such a way that it is better than it currently is, but still not as enjoyable as Outland, thus keeping the current flow of how enjoyable the leveling content is intact. Considering the ceiling that would put on the enjoyability of the content, though, this would probably result in players feeling cheated out of what could have been a more enjoyable experience. The other option, and the one that must thus be taken, is to redesign Outland to be more enjoyable. But how to do that when Blizzard already has their plates full, needing to redesign two continents and add another expansion's worth of content to them? Whatever the solution is, it must be simple if it is to be implemented with Cataclysm.
Still, there is always the chance that there may be no such simple solution for Outland. After all, old-world Azeroth needed a total redo to come up to speed with the current game design. Of course, Outland was a greater evolution from the design of Azeroth than Northrend was an evolution from the design of Outland, so the key lies in figuring out the differences between the two, and trying to compensate for those differences.
To me, the biggest difference between Outland and Northrend was the absence and presence, respectively, of feelings of immersion in a war. In Outland, though there is a massive battle raging before you when you enter the Dark Portal, you are never able to fight that battle, to help the soldiers you see in front of you. Instead, you fly over that battle and head to Honor Hold, where, much like in old-world Azeroth, ironically, the quest givers sit safely in their fortresses while you go out and do the dirty work alone. Not only do you not feel like part of a massive effort to take down the big bad (Illidan), but the fact that the enemies are just minding their own business makes the whole thing feel very... sterile. Most of Outland follows that same design: you allies are here, you enemies are there, go run back and forth between them. Quite simply, it feels like you are the only one doing anything.
When you get to Northrend, however, you are sent to kill enemies that are attacking the very town you dock in when you arrive. (this is the case, at least, if you are Alliance) Not only that, but there are soldiers out there fighting the enemies you are sent to kill, soldiers on your side. It would have been impractical and impossible for Blizzard to design all of Northrend this way, so obvious the whole continent doesn't look like that, but the fact is that there are still many battles raging when you enter this frozen land. Your allies are actually fighting your enemies, and you feel like part of a living, breathing battlefield. Quite simply, your allies and your enemies are not segregated, and that makes the experience more believable and more immersive.
Of course, there are likely many factors that lead to Northrend feeling more advanced in its design than Outland, but if this factor is a significant one, then it means Outland can't be improved with a simple solution. I image it would be naive of me to assume that it would be easy to just add some battles to Outland, but it's something to think about for the next expansion pack, when Blizzard will have more time for a moderately demanding project like making Outland feel less stale. Until then, I'll just have to grumble as my priest continues trudging through the remains of Draenor, while smiling as my shaman fights his way through Northrend.
Cataclysm could change all of that, since Cataclysm will be bringing the old world up to speed with all of the improvements that have been made to the leveling process since WoW was released. Old world questing won't require us to run back and forth from quest hub to quest hub and back again, and those quests will reward gear that we will actually want to use. However, Outland and Northrend will only be receiving a negligible amount of attention in this overhaul, and won't be changing that much. Thus, the first round of content (Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms) will now be the newest, most innovative content, while Outland and Northrend, both revolutionary in tier time, will be relics of older design.
Where does that leave the humble floating rock? It means that Outland will be the oldest content in WoW, and potentially the least enjoyable. In other words, rather than a progression of solo content where each continent gets better as you go on (which we have now), I fear that players will think that they have gone backwards when they enter Outland, that they have downgraded their experience. In other words, I fear that Outland will no longer be the improvement to leveling that it is now, but instead, like the old world now, it will be an unfortunate necessity we must begrudgingly level through in order to get to the newer, more interesting content (Northrend, and eventually the 80-85 content).
How to avoid this future? One option is to improve the old world in such a way that it is better than it currently is, but still not as enjoyable as Outland, thus keeping the current flow of how enjoyable the leveling content is intact. Considering the ceiling that would put on the enjoyability of the content, though, this would probably result in players feeling cheated out of what could have been a more enjoyable experience. The other option, and the one that must thus be taken, is to redesign Outland to be more enjoyable. But how to do that when Blizzard already has their plates full, needing to redesign two continents and add another expansion's worth of content to them? Whatever the solution is, it must be simple if it is to be implemented with Cataclysm.
Still, there is always the chance that there may be no such simple solution for Outland. After all, old-world Azeroth needed a total redo to come up to speed with the current game design. Of course, Outland was a greater evolution from the design of Azeroth than Northrend was an evolution from the design of Outland, so the key lies in figuring out the differences between the two, and trying to compensate for those differences.
To me, the biggest difference between Outland and Northrend was the absence and presence, respectively, of feelings of immersion in a war. In Outland, though there is a massive battle raging before you when you enter the Dark Portal, you are never able to fight that battle, to help the soldiers you see in front of you. Instead, you fly over that battle and head to Honor Hold, where, much like in old-world Azeroth, ironically, the quest givers sit safely in their fortresses while you go out and do the dirty work alone. Not only do you not feel like part of a massive effort to take down the big bad (Illidan), but the fact that the enemies are just minding their own business makes the whole thing feel very... sterile. Most of Outland follows that same design: you allies are here, you enemies are there, go run back and forth between them. Quite simply, it feels like you are the only one doing anything.
When you get to Northrend, however, you are sent to kill enemies that are attacking the very town you dock in when you arrive. (this is the case, at least, if you are Alliance) Not only that, but there are soldiers out there fighting the enemies you are sent to kill, soldiers on your side. It would have been impractical and impossible for Blizzard to design all of Northrend this way, so obvious the whole continent doesn't look like that, but the fact is that there are still many battles raging when you enter this frozen land. Your allies are actually fighting your enemies, and you feel like part of a living, breathing battlefield. Quite simply, your allies and your enemies are not segregated, and that makes the experience more believable and more immersive.
Of course, there are likely many factors that lead to Northrend feeling more advanced in its design than Outland, but if this factor is a significant one, then it means Outland can't be improved with a simple solution. I image it would be naive of me to assume that it would be easy to just add some battles to Outland, but it's something to think about for the next expansion pack, when Blizzard will have more time for a moderately demanding project like making Outland feel less stale. Until then, I'll just have to grumble as my priest continues trudging through the remains of Draenor, while smiling as my shaman fights his way through Northrend.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Is WoW a Caillois-complete game?
If that name looks unfamiliar to you, don't worry; I didn't know who the man was myself until a week or two ago. Roger Caillois was a French philosopher who wrote a book called Les Jeux et Les Hommes, which traslates to English as Men, Play and Games. In this book, Caillois discussed games and what truly constitutes a game, and he came up with six points about what makes a game a game. For a game to be a "Caillois-complete" game, it must fit all six of these points, or else it is just not a game. It might be an interesting tool or an entertaining diversion, nonetheless, but it is not a game. For a game to be Caillois-complete, it must be:
-Free: “in which playing is not obligatory; if it were, it would at once lose its attractive and joyous quality as diversion.”
-Separate: “circumscribed within limits of space and time, defined and fixed in advance.”
-Uncertain: “the course of which cannot be determined, nor the result attained beforehand; and some latitude for innovations being left to the player’s initiative.”
-Unproductive: “creating neither goods, nor wealth, nor new elements of any kind; and, except for the exchange of property among the players, ending in a situation identical to that prevailing at the beginning of the game.”
-Governed by Rules: “under conventions that suspend ordinary laws and for the moment establish new legislation, which alone counts.”
-Make-Believe: “accompanied by a special awareness of a second reality, or of a free unreality, as against real life.”
(transcribed from a post on the blog "Cope")
What I would like to look at today is whether World of Warcraft is a Caillois-complete game, i.e. whether WoW counts as a game. Now, astute readers will remember my post, Is WoW "just a game"?, in which I concluded that, in some instances, WoW was more than a game. However, I did end the post by saying, "WoW is not just a game, but it is still a game," so I can still examine whether it is a Caillois-complete game. Besides, even if I had concluded that WoW was not "just a game", it would not prevent me from examining whether WoW is a Caillois-complete game, for one could not conclude that WoW not being a game means it isn't a Caillois-complete game. That would be a "converse error", a logical fallacy in which you assume that if one fact implies another, and that if the second fact is true, then the first one must also be true. In this case, the implication is that if WoW is not a Caillois-complete game, then it isn't a game. If I had concluded that WoW isn't a game, it would be a converse error to assume that that means it isn't a Caillois-complete game.
Right, so now that your lesson in logic is over, let's get to the examination.
Free: “in which playing is not obligatory; if it were, it would at once lose its attractive and joyous quality as diversion.”
Interestingly, WoW is one of the few games that actually has a mechanism in place to encourage players to play less and rewards players who do not play as if they are required to play; that mechanism is rested state, which you gain when you log out and which doubles the experience you gain from killing enemies. Of course, once you hit the level cap, rested state is no longer useful to you, so this point no longer necessarily applies. Thus we must ask; at level-cap content, it playing obligatory? Are players at a disadvantage if they take a break from playing?
I would say that in the days of Burning Crusade, that answer to this question was a definite "yes". I tried to get into raiding back then, but I was behind in gearing up, and the guild I was in didn't have the time to run me through older content to help me catch up. Now, granted, this lack of gear was a result of trying to start raiding too late, rather than a result of me taking a break, but the end product would have been the same either way. Fortunately, in today's WoW, we have the emblem system, which allows people to get gear in heroics that is good enough for them to go right into the current tier of raiding. Thus players are able to take a break from raiding, and if their gear falls behind, it's easier for them to catch up without their guild needing to drag them through old content. This was a big step for making WoW a more Caillois-complete game, in addition to a more casual-friendly game.
For progression guilds filled with hard-core players, however, the situation is likely not the same. After all, if you are doing cutting-edge content, you need to get as much gear as you can get your hands on so you can gain that much of an edge, and if you take a break and fall behind your guild, even if the difference is small, it could be enough of a disadvantage that your guild will leave you out in favor of someone who is more geared than you. And all that practice you missed? Not to mention needing to make it to raids on time or else being replaced and being less likely to be picked for a future raid. Of course, that content isn't going anywhere, so if you do take a break, you can always find a group of people who are at your current skill and gear level and run with them, instead. Suffice it to say that the design of WoW is Caillois-complete in the sense of being "free", but the social structures and obligations created by the players sometimes make it otherwise.
Separate: “circumscribed within limits of space and time, defined and fixed in advance.”
Well, it's certainly safe to say that WoW and the real world are separate entities... objectively, at least. But as I said above, when you look at the ways hard-core players approach WoW, the line between WoW and the real world gets blurry quite fast. When I was in a raiding guild, it wasn't uncommon for one guild member to call another guild member when we were trying to form a raid and were short one person. If that isn't WoW bleeding into the real world, I don't know what is. So, again, WoW is only as separate as its players want it to be.
Uncertain: “the course of which cannot be determined, nor the result attained beforehand; and some latitude for innovations being left to the player’s initiative.”
On the surface, this one seems much harder to defend than the others. After all, think of all of the raiders who do dailies for the money to enchant and gem their new gear, as well as pay the repair bills that endless wipes will lead to. Why do they run these dailies? Because they know exactly how much money they will get from those dailies, and they know it's enough to pay the bills. Think, also, of the raiders who run a heroic each day for the extra Emblems of Frost to get their tier gear that much faster. They know exactly what is going to happens in those heroics, and because of their gear, they know that failure just isn't a possibility. In other words, the outcome of dailies and heroics is certain, and thus they are not a Caillois-complete part of the game.
Of course, players only do these chores (let's call them what they really are) because they feel they have to, but the game doesn't require them to enchant and gem all their gear, and the money from the raid enemies themselves is usually enough to pay the repair bills if you don't wipe. And there are even ways to earn the money for gems and enchantments that are uncertain, and thus are a Caillois-complete part of the game. After all, one of my favorite parts of the game is fishing, and fishing is a great way to make money. The out-come is still uncertain, though; you don't know how much of the profitable fish you are going to get, and you don't know whether people will actually buy your fish. Still, it is a great way to make money, and the same facts apply to all gathering professions (except perhaps skinning). Thus, once again, dailies and heroics are only a Caillois-incomplete part of the game because players chose to continue to do them when they become chores.
Unproductive: “creating neither goods, nor wealth, nor new elements of any kind; and, except for the exchange of property among the players, ending in a situation identical to that prevailing at the beginning of the game.”
Two words come to mind when I see this rule: gold sellers. Where it not for the trade of in-game currency for real-world currency and the hacking that takes place as a result, this point would apply to WoW without exception. But gold sellers exist, and their presence means that WoW can be a productive activity, and thus not a game. Of course, their presence is only made possible by players who buy the gold those gold sellerssell steal, so yet again, the only reason this point doesn't apply to WoW is because the players don't let it.
Governed by Rules: “under conventions that suspend ordinary laws and for the moment establish new legislation, which alone counts.”
WoW certainly suspends ordinary laws and establishes new legislation. The fact that a human being can drop down in Goldshire and throw fire at a wolf, or the fact that the Undead Forsaken exist is enough proof that the game makes its own rules of what is possible. The game also makes new rules that are less fantastic and are still feasible by real world sensibilities, like the fact that we are literally unable to directly kill anyone on our side. The key to this point, however, is that the game establishes new rules to replace the old rules, and only those new rules matter. This means that none of our real-world rules bleed into the game unless we want to them to. Well, as a social game, it's likely that the rules we have for social interactions in the real world are going to become a part of WoW, but its safe to say that we want that to happen. WoW is just more fun when people act civilly around one another.
But what about when a player doesn't want that to happen? I'm talking about trolls, griefers, and people who generally make other players' experiences miserable. Where do we get the idea that their activities are to be frowned upon? Why, from the real world of course. If WoW somehow punished griefing and trolling in some way other than players reporting trolls and griefers to GMs, this wouldn't be the case. However, there currently exist no in-game mechanics (and thus no "new legislation") to discourage this kind of behavior, so because the players bring with them their sensibilities of what is and isn't allowed in social interaction, WoW doesn't fit this point.
Make-Believe: “accompanied by a special awareness of a second reality, or of a free unreality, as against real life.”
I think you can see the pattern developing. While WoW certainly can invoke a second reality for us players, that reality is tainted by all of the exceptions brought up in the previous points. It's difficult to acknowledge WoW as a second reality when there are consequences for not entering that reality regularly, when players contact each other outside the game to ask each other to enter that new reality, when we know how exactly how some of our interactions with that reality will end, when financial transactions take place in which currency within that reality is exchanged for currency in real life, and when our rules for social interaction in our reality bleed into our second reality. Suffice it to say that because of the players themselves, WoW doesn't create a second reality, or an unreality against real life.
So it seems that the general trend is that WoW is an objectively Caillois-complete game, but not a subjectively complete one. In other words, once players actually start playing, the Caillois-completeness of the game breaks down. I wouldn't say that this is WoW's fault, though. Perhaps with a smaller, more intimate playerbase, these issues wouldn't arise the way they do now. Because there would be fewer raiders to pick from, the raiding guilds would be happy to help guildies who took a break gear up again. With fewer potential customers, the gold-selling business wouldn't be as lucrative. With a more intimate playerbase, it's less likely that trolls would necessitate the infusion of real-world social rules into the game. Maybe WoW isn't a Caillois-complete game because it's playerbase is just too big.
Or perhaps we don't want WoW to be just a game, so we try to make it more than just a game, subconsciously or otherwise, and thus is loses some of what makes it a game in the process. That's an issue too big for me to consider in this post, though. Maybe next time.
-Free: “in which playing is not obligatory; if it were, it would at once lose its attractive and joyous quality as diversion.”
-Separate: “circumscribed within limits of space and time, defined and fixed in advance.”
-Uncertain: “the course of which cannot be determined, nor the result attained beforehand; and some latitude for innovations being left to the player’s initiative.”
-Unproductive: “creating neither goods, nor wealth, nor new elements of any kind; and, except for the exchange of property among the players, ending in a situation identical to that prevailing at the beginning of the game.”
-Governed by Rules: “under conventions that suspend ordinary laws and for the moment establish new legislation, which alone counts.”
-Make-Believe: “accompanied by a special awareness of a second reality, or of a free unreality, as against real life.”
(transcribed from a post on the blog "Cope")
What I would like to look at today is whether World of Warcraft is a Caillois-complete game, i.e. whether WoW counts as a game. Now, astute readers will remember my post, Is WoW "just a game"?, in which I concluded that, in some instances, WoW was more than a game. However, I did end the post by saying, "WoW is not just a game, but it is still a game," so I can still examine whether it is a Caillois-complete game. Besides, even if I had concluded that WoW was not "just a game", it would not prevent me from examining whether WoW is a Caillois-complete game, for one could not conclude that WoW not being a game means it isn't a Caillois-complete game. That would be a "converse error", a logical fallacy in which you assume that if one fact implies another, and that if the second fact is true, then the first one must also be true. In this case, the implication is that if WoW is not a Caillois-complete game, then it isn't a game. If I had concluded that WoW isn't a game, it would be a converse error to assume that that means it isn't a Caillois-complete game.
Right, so now that your lesson in logic is over, let's get to the examination.
Free: “in which playing is not obligatory; if it were, it would at once lose its attractive and joyous quality as diversion.”
Interestingly, WoW is one of the few games that actually has a mechanism in place to encourage players to play less and rewards players who do not play as if they are required to play; that mechanism is rested state, which you gain when you log out and which doubles the experience you gain from killing enemies. Of course, once you hit the level cap, rested state is no longer useful to you, so this point no longer necessarily applies. Thus we must ask; at level-cap content, it playing obligatory? Are players at a disadvantage if they take a break from playing?
I would say that in the days of Burning Crusade, that answer to this question was a definite "yes". I tried to get into raiding back then, but I was behind in gearing up, and the guild I was in didn't have the time to run me through older content to help me catch up. Now, granted, this lack of gear was a result of trying to start raiding too late, rather than a result of me taking a break, but the end product would have been the same either way. Fortunately, in today's WoW, we have the emblem system, which allows people to get gear in heroics that is good enough for them to go right into the current tier of raiding. Thus players are able to take a break from raiding, and if their gear falls behind, it's easier for them to catch up without their guild needing to drag them through old content. This was a big step for making WoW a more Caillois-complete game, in addition to a more casual-friendly game.
For progression guilds filled with hard-core players, however, the situation is likely not the same. After all, if you are doing cutting-edge content, you need to get as much gear as you can get your hands on so you can gain that much of an edge, and if you take a break and fall behind your guild, even if the difference is small, it could be enough of a disadvantage that your guild will leave you out in favor of someone who is more geared than you. And all that practice you missed? Not to mention needing to make it to raids on time or else being replaced and being less likely to be picked for a future raid. Of course, that content isn't going anywhere, so if you do take a break, you can always find a group of people who are at your current skill and gear level and run with them, instead. Suffice it to say that the design of WoW is Caillois-complete in the sense of being "free", but the social structures and obligations created by the players sometimes make it otherwise.
Separate: “circumscribed within limits of space and time, defined and fixed in advance.”
Well, it's certainly safe to say that WoW and the real world are separate entities... objectively, at least. But as I said above, when you look at the ways hard-core players approach WoW, the line between WoW and the real world gets blurry quite fast. When I was in a raiding guild, it wasn't uncommon for one guild member to call another guild member when we were trying to form a raid and were short one person. If that isn't WoW bleeding into the real world, I don't know what is. So, again, WoW is only as separate as its players want it to be.
Uncertain: “the course of which cannot be determined, nor the result attained beforehand; and some latitude for innovations being left to the player’s initiative.”
On the surface, this one seems much harder to defend than the others. After all, think of all of the raiders who do dailies for the money to enchant and gem their new gear, as well as pay the repair bills that endless wipes will lead to. Why do they run these dailies? Because they know exactly how much money they will get from those dailies, and they know it's enough to pay the bills. Think, also, of the raiders who run a heroic each day for the extra Emblems of Frost to get their tier gear that much faster. They know exactly what is going to happens in those heroics, and because of their gear, they know that failure just isn't a possibility. In other words, the outcome of dailies and heroics is certain, and thus they are not a Caillois-complete part of the game.
Of course, players only do these chores (let's call them what they really are) because they feel they have to, but the game doesn't require them to enchant and gem all their gear, and the money from the raid enemies themselves is usually enough to pay the repair bills if you don't wipe. And there are even ways to earn the money for gems and enchantments that are uncertain, and thus are a Caillois-complete part of the game. After all, one of my favorite parts of the game is fishing, and fishing is a great way to make money. The out-come is still uncertain, though; you don't know how much of the profitable fish you are going to get, and you don't know whether people will actually buy your fish. Still, it is a great way to make money, and the same facts apply to all gathering professions (except perhaps skinning). Thus, once again, dailies and heroics are only a Caillois-incomplete part of the game because players chose to continue to do them when they become chores.
Unproductive: “creating neither goods, nor wealth, nor new elements of any kind; and, except for the exchange of property among the players, ending in a situation identical to that prevailing at the beginning of the game.”
Two words come to mind when I see this rule: gold sellers. Where it not for the trade of in-game currency for real-world currency and the hacking that takes place as a result, this point would apply to WoW without exception. But gold sellers exist, and their presence means that WoW can be a productive activity, and thus not a game. Of course, their presence is only made possible by players who buy the gold those gold sellers
Governed by Rules: “under conventions that suspend ordinary laws and for the moment establish new legislation, which alone counts.”
WoW certainly suspends ordinary laws and establishes new legislation. The fact that a human being can drop down in Goldshire and throw fire at a wolf, or the fact that the Undead Forsaken exist is enough proof that the game makes its own rules of what is possible. The game also makes new rules that are less fantastic and are still feasible by real world sensibilities, like the fact that we are literally unable to directly kill anyone on our side. The key to this point, however, is that the game establishes new rules to replace the old rules, and only those new rules matter. This means that none of our real-world rules bleed into the game unless we want to them to. Well, as a social game, it's likely that the rules we have for social interactions in the real world are going to become a part of WoW, but its safe to say that we want that to happen. WoW is just more fun when people act civilly around one another.
But what about when a player doesn't want that to happen? I'm talking about trolls, griefers, and people who generally make other players' experiences miserable. Where do we get the idea that their activities are to be frowned upon? Why, from the real world of course. If WoW somehow punished griefing and trolling in some way other than players reporting trolls and griefers to GMs, this wouldn't be the case. However, there currently exist no in-game mechanics (and thus no "new legislation") to discourage this kind of behavior, so because the players bring with them their sensibilities of what is and isn't allowed in social interaction, WoW doesn't fit this point.
Make-Believe: “accompanied by a special awareness of a second reality, or of a free unreality, as against real life.”
I think you can see the pattern developing. While WoW certainly can invoke a second reality for us players, that reality is tainted by all of the exceptions brought up in the previous points. It's difficult to acknowledge WoW as a second reality when there are consequences for not entering that reality regularly, when players contact each other outside the game to ask each other to enter that new reality, when we know how exactly how some of our interactions with that reality will end, when financial transactions take place in which currency within that reality is exchanged for currency in real life, and when our rules for social interaction in our reality bleed into our second reality. Suffice it to say that because of the players themselves, WoW doesn't create a second reality, or an unreality against real life.
So it seems that the general trend is that WoW is an objectively Caillois-complete game, but not a subjectively complete one. In other words, once players actually start playing, the Caillois-completeness of the game breaks down. I wouldn't say that this is WoW's fault, though. Perhaps with a smaller, more intimate playerbase, these issues wouldn't arise the way they do now. Because there would be fewer raiders to pick from, the raiding guilds would be happy to help guildies who took a break gear up again. With fewer potential customers, the gold-selling business wouldn't be as lucrative. With a more intimate playerbase, it's less likely that trolls would necessitate the infusion of real-world social rules into the game. Maybe WoW isn't a Caillois-complete game because it's playerbase is just too big.
Or perhaps we don't want WoW to be just a game, so we try to make it more than just a game, subconsciously or otherwise, and thus is loses some of what makes it a game in the process. That's an issue too big for me to consider in this post, though. Maybe next time.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Why once difficult achievements sometimes need to be demoted
A WoW.com breakfast topic get me thinking about mounts recently. The topic discussed how getting a mount used to be a major achievement, whereas now we get our first mount at level 20 and our epic land mounts at level 40, neither of which requires an exorbitantly large investment. The writer of that topic asked whether we should go back to the days when getting a mount (especially an epic mount) was a real achievement, rather than being treated as a necessity. While I did comment on that post, I want to give the topic some more attention here.
As much as we may miss the days when having and epic mount meant something special, times change. Sixty is no longer the level cap, and there are no longer two levels of riding skill. New challenges have been added (like buying artisan riding skill, a.k.a. epic flying), and new challenges will continue to be added (like being able to buy an upgrade for all of your epic flying mounts that makes them fly at 310% speed, one of the features coming with Cataclysm). Achieving these new achievements is often contingent on achieving those old achievements first; for example, you need to buy journeyman riding (epic riding) before you can buy expert riding (regular flying) and eventually artisan riding (epic flying). This is where things can get problematic.
If you have been playing since before Burning Crusade, and you were one of those who worked hard to save up money for your epic mount (regardless of whether or not you got it), then think about all of the effort you had to put forward to get it. Think of all the time spent saving up money, all those days watching your gold slowly grow, until it finally reached that magic number: 1,000. Remember how good it felt? It's memories like those that make us nostalgic for those days and that make you wish getting an epic mount were the achievement it used to be. Now think back again. Remember all of that effort that you put in to getting your mount? Let's imagine that nothing had changed, that epic land mounts were still as difficult to get as they used to be. However, epic land mounts aren't the final goal of riding skill any more. There are now two more levels of riding skill that can be purchased after getting epic riding, and they themselves are also difficult to acquire. Anyone who wished to have a flying mount, let alone an epic flier, would need to put forth the effort to get the epic land mount first, then put forth the effort to get their regular flier--which, unless you were a druid, was no joke in the olden days of Burning Crusade, when dailies were only available to those with flying mounts--then put forth the effort to get the epic flying mount (which really wasn't a joke). Had nothing changed, the sum of all the effort would border on the effort needed to obtain Insane in the Membrane, and the number of people with epic fliers would probably be in the double digits.
This would have been problematic, for Blizzard designs the game under the assumption that most dedicated players have epic flying, and that most high-level players have flying in some form (epic or not). That's why the mounts rewarded by the harder meta achievements and the rare-drop mounts are epic flying mounts; if epic riding were as difficult to get today as it was before, those achievement mounts would probably need to be land mounts. Having epic riding be as difficult to obtain as it used to be would also create the problem of Blizzard being hesitant to design content with flying in mind. After all, only those who have epic riding can purchase flying mounts, so that would be a fairly small portion of the WoW population. And considering how rare players with epic flying would be, think of what would have happened to Netherwing: either it wouldn't have rewarded awesome drakes, it would have been highly under-experienced by the player-base, or it just wouldn't have existed. (For the record, my Onyx Netherwing Drake is one of my favorite flying mounts, so Netherwing never existing would have made me a very sad panda.)
In short, WoW is not a static game; new content is released, as are new challenges, and when those new challenges require the completion of previous challenges before they can be tackled, those old challenges need to be demoted to allow more players to take a crack at the new challenges. That's why things that were once points of pride sometimes need to be demoted, so that players can experience the new content even if they don't have the same head start as those who got there first.
As much as we may miss the days when having and epic mount meant something special, times change. Sixty is no longer the level cap, and there are no longer two levels of riding skill. New challenges have been added (like buying artisan riding skill, a.k.a. epic flying), and new challenges will continue to be added (like being able to buy an upgrade for all of your epic flying mounts that makes them fly at 310% speed, one of the features coming with Cataclysm). Achieving these new achievements is often contingent on achieving those old achievements first; for example, you need to buy journeyman riding (epic riding) before you can buy expert riding (regular flying) and eventually artisan riding (epic flying). This is where things can get problematic.
If you have been playing since before Burning Crusade, and you were one of those who worked hard to save up money for your epic mount (regardless of whether or not you got it), then think about all of the effort you had to put forward to get it. Think of all the time spent saving up money, all those days watching your gold slowly grow, until it finally reached that magic number: 1,000. Remember how good it felt? It's memories like those that make us nostalgic for those days and that make you wish getting an epic mount were the achievement it used to be. Now think back again. Remember all of that effort that you put in to getting your mount? Let's imagine that nothing had changed, that epic land mounts were still as difficult to get as they used to be. However, epic land mounts aren't the final goal of riding skill any more. There are now two more levels of riding skill that can be purchased after getting epic riding, and they themselves are also difficult to acquire. Anyone who wished to have a flying mount, let alone an epic flier, would need to put forth the effort to get the epic land mount first, then put forth the effort to get their regular flier--which, unless you were a druid, was no joke in the olden days of Burning Crusade, when dailies were only available to those with flying mounts--then put forth the effort to get the epic flying mount (which really wasn't a joke). Had nothing changed, the sum of all the effort would border on the effort needed to obtain Insane in the Membrane, and the number of people with epic fliers would probably be in the double digits.
This would have been problematic, for Blizzard designs the game under the assumption that most dedicated players have epic flying, and that most high-level players have flying in some form (epic or not). That's why the mounts rewarded by the harder meta achievements and the rare-drop mounts are epic flying mounts; if epic riding were as difficult to get today as it was before, those achievement mounts would probably need to be land mounts. Having epic riding be as difficult to obtain as it used to be would also create the problem of Blizzard being hesitant to design content with flying in mind. After all, only those who have epic riding can purchase flying mounts, so that would be a fairly small portion of the WoW population. And considering how rare players with epic flying would be, think of what would have happened to Netherwing: either it wouldn't have rewarded awesome drakes, it would have been highly under-experienced by the player-base, or it just wouldn't have existed. (For the record, my Onyx Netherwing Drake is one of my favorite flying mounts, so Netherwing never existing would have made me a very sad panda.)
In short, WoW is not a static game; new content is released, as are new challenges, and when those new challenges require the completion of previous challenges before they can be tackled, those old challenges need to be demoted to allow more players to take a crack at the new challenges. That's why things that were once points of pride sometimes need to be demoted, so that players can experience the new content even if they don't have the same head start as those who got there first.
Friday, April 9, 2010
What improvements might Blizzard make to the badge/emblem system?
Edit: Blizzard recently announced exactly what changes they will be making to the badge system, so we no longer need to wonder what they will do. Though I didn't anticipate them changing it to a point-based system, they will be implementing a system where there are two types of gear currency, and when a new tier of gear is released, the better type is converted to the lesser type. All I can say is, called it!
The addition of the Emblematic feat of strength in the last patch, sent people into a flurry of speculation about the fate of the emblem system in Cataclysm, but there's one thing we know: it's not likely that Blizzard will simply do away with the emblem system. Instead, they are probably going to change it; after all, we know they didn't like certain aspects of the Badge of Justice system, and we know they don't like certain aspects of the emblem system, so the question is, how can they change gear currency in the next expansion to address the issues that badges and emblems had?
One of the things Blizzard didn't like about the Badge of Justice system was that people could stock-pile badges and buy gear the day it was released. This was not their intention, so they put in emblems with the tiered system we know today. That way, people couldn't run heroics before a patch to stock up on emblems and buy gear the next day; they would have to run heroics after the patch, which was much closer to Blizzard's intentions. Problem is, with five tiers of emblems, things get confusing. Needing to trade down your emblems three or four times to buy heirloom gear is tedious, and it can be annoying to need to talk to multiple vendors just to see what gear you can buy with your emblems. Whatever changes Blizzards makes to the emblems system will need to address these issues.
I have seen suggestions before as to ways to improve the emblem system, but many of these have issues of their own. Some have suggested automatically upgrading emblems to the next tier when a patch hits, but this creates the same issue that Badges of Justice had in that you can stockpile emblems for the next patch. Some have also suggested making old gear be exchanged for the new emblems when a patch drops, but this would prevent your from using the emblems you had stockpiled to buy it. One simple solution is to allow higher-tier emblems to automatically downgrade when you buy something, but this would create issues of its own. People would probably accidentally spend emblems they didn't mean to spend, and imagine the horror of trying to refund them automatically.
Whatever new system is put in place, it would need to motivate people to run heroics all the way through Cataclysm's duration (like Wrath's system), rather than encouraging people to run heroics in bulk to save up emblems to buy gear immediately after the patch drops. One option is to use a system similar to Badges of Justice, but to inflate the cost of gear much more dramatically as the expansion goes on while also increasing the amount of emblems that drop from bosses. This would discourage people from running heroics in advance while still keeping things simple, but the cost of gear would probably reach absurd levels, and people would still farm heroics to get gear the minute it is released. It would also mean emblem achievements be worth less as the expansion wears on.
Perhaps emblems could be demoted as patches went on and be given better gear they can buy. Let me explain what I mean. Suppose that emblems are replaced with a currency we'll call seals. When Cataclysm launches, there would be two kinds of seals: Gleaming Seals of Justice, and Seals of Justice. Heroics (and ten-mans, if Blizzard wants 25-man raids to drop better gear currency) would drop Seals of Justice, while 25-mans and your first daily heroic would drop Gleaming Seals of Justice. GSoJs would be used to buy gear equivalent to 25-man drops, while SoJs would be used to buy gear equivalent to 10-man drops. Now, when a new patch with a new round of gear is released, all of your GSoJs would be demoted to regular SoJs (the idea being that time has made them lose their sheen), but all of the gear that had previously been bought with GSoJs will instead be bought with regular SoJs. Only the latest round of gear would be bought with GSoJs. And, of course, GSoJs could be traded down for regular SoJs.
This kind of system is not without its flaws. One could easily chain-run heroics early in the expansion to save up regular SoJs, then use those SoJs to buy the second best gear later in the expansion. However, the best gear would still only be available to those who continue to run heroics, and someone who is the kind of person to run heroics to save up seals for new gear is probably the kind of person who would want the best gear and would keep running heroics to get it. Players may also feel indignant about their "good" seals being transformed into "bad" seals, even though the "bad" seals would be capable of everything the "good" seals had been capable of before the patch was released. Players may also feel that it isn't worth it to spend their regular seals now when they can get better gear with them later, but if today's system didn't evoke feelings of, "Why run heroics now when running them later will give me better badges?" then I doubt seals will evoke a similar feeling.
Sadly, I cannot come up with some magic system that can solve all of the issues emblems have (if I could, I'd be writing up my resumé to submit to Blizzard, not writing up this blog post.). Considering that the Cataclysm press beta-invites have already gone out, perhaps we'll soon have some idea of just what Cataclysm has in store for us and our emblems. I am quite eager to see what Blizzard decides to do.
The addition of the Emblematic feat of strength in the last patch, sent people into a flurry of speculation about the fate of the emblem system in Cataclysm, but there's one thing we know: it's not likely that Blizzard will simply do away with the emblem system. Instead, they are probably going to change it; after all, we know they didn't like certain aspects of the Badge of Justice system, and we know they don't like certain aspects of the emblem system, so the question is, how can they change gear currency in the next expansion to address the issues that badges and emblems had?
One of the things Blizzard didn't like about the Badge of Justice system was that people could stock-pile badges and buy gear the day it was released. This was not their intention, so they put in emblems with the tiered system we know today. That way, people couldn't run heroics before a patch to stock up on emblems and buy gear the next day; they would have to run heroics after the patch, which was much closer to Blizzard's intentions. Problem is, with five tiers of emblems, things get confusing. Needing to trade down your emblems three or four times to buy heirloom gear is tedious, and it can be annoying to need to talk to multiple vendors just to see what gear you can buy with your emblems. Whatever changes Blizzards makes to the emblems system will need to address these issues.
I have seen suggestions before as to ways to improve the emblem system, but many of these have issues of their own. Some have suggested automatically upgrading emblems to the next tier when a patch hits, but this creates the same issue that Badges of Justice had in that you can stockpile emblems for the next patch. Some have also suggested making old gear be exchanged for the new emblems when a patch drops, but this would prevent your from using the emblems you had stockpiled to buy it. One simple solution is to allow higher-tier emblems to automatically downgrade when you buy something, but this would create issues of its own. People would probably accidentally spend emblems they didn't mean to spend, and imagine the horror of trying to refund them automatically.
Whatever new system is put in place, it would need to motivate people to run heroics all the way through Cataclysm's duration (like Wrath's system), rather than encouraging people to run heroics in bulk to save up emblems to buy gear immediately after the patch drops. One option is to use a system similar to Badges of Justice, but to inflate the cost of gear much more dramatically as the expansion goes on while also increasing the amount of emblems that drop from bosses. This would discourage people from running heroics in advance while still keeping things simple, but the cost of gear would probably reach absurd levels, and people would still farm heroics to get gear the minute it is released. It would also mean emblem achievements be worth less as the expansion wears on.
Perhaps emblems could be demoted as patches went on and be given better gear they can buy. Let me explain what I mean. Suppose that emblems are replaced with a currency we'll call seals. When Cataclysm launches, there would be two kinds of seals: Gleaming Seals of Justice, and Seals of Justice. Heroics (and ten-mans, if Blizzard wants 25-man raids to drop better gear currency) would drop Seals of Justice, while 25-mans and your first daily heroic would drop Gleaming Seals of Justice. GSoJs would be used to buy gear equivalent to 25-man drops, while SoJs would be used to buy gear equivalent to 10-man drops. Now, when a new patch with a new round of gear is released, all of your GSoJs would be demoted to regular SoJs (the idea being that time has made them lose their sheen), but all of the gear that had previously been bought with GSoJs will instead be bought with regular SoJs. Only the latest round of gear would be bought with GSoJs. And, of course, GSoJs could be traded down for regular SoJs.
This kind of system is not without its flaws. One could easily chain-run heroics early in the expansion to save up regular SoJs, then use those SoJs to buy the second best gear later in the expansion. However, the best gear would still only be available to those who continue to run heroics, and someone who is the kind of person to run heroics to save up seals for new gear is probably the kind of person who would want the best gear and would keep running heroics to get it. Players may also feel indignant about their "good" seals being transformed into "bad" seals, even though the "bad" seals would be capable of everything the "good" seals had been capable of before the patch was released. Players may also feel that it isn't worth it to spend their regular seals now when they can get better gear with them later, but if today's system didn't evoke feelings of, "Why run heroics now when running them later will give me better badges?" then I doubt seals will evoke a similar feeling.
Sadly, I cannot come up with some magic system that can solve all of the issues emblems have (if I could, I'd be writing up my resumé to submit to Blizzard, not writing up this blog post.). Considering that the Cataclysm press beta-invites have already gone out, perhaps we'll soon have some idea of just what Cataclysm has in store for us and our emblems. I am quite eager to see what Blizzard decides to do.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Why have solo content in a Massively Multiplayer Online Game?
Whenever I talk about solo content in WoW, if I ever lament the sad state of it these days (whether it be on this blog, in the comments section of WoW.com, or anywhere else), I frequently get reactions that sound something like this: "WoW is a massively multiplayer online RPG. Why worry about the solo content?" I think we can all agree that WoW needs some solo content. The question is, how extensive should that solo content be? Should we expect Blizzard to deliver engaging solo content to us players on a regular basis, or should we greet extensive solo content with a surprised, "Solo content? In my MMO?"
Picture is unrelated.
It's pretty obvious why an MMO needs any solo content at all: when players are just starting out, it's a pretty big challenge for them to try to get a hold of all the new game mechanics that WoW throws at them; needing to learn group mechanics would make it even more difficult. Solo content allows people to become familiar with the game and get a feeling for the way their class plays. It allows them to push their class to its limits without the risk of letting other people down if the fail. Solo content is, if nothing else, a training ground for new players to get them comfortable with the game before they enter group play. There is a risk in that set-up, though. Blizzard could, if they so desired, make sub-par solo content to try to motivate people to move into group play, but if they did that, no one would stick around to see the group content, no matter how awesome it may be. Blizzard needs to make WoW's solo content fun and engaging to draw players in, so they do. This is where the trouble starts.
Though WoW may be a MMO, it is really the solo content that gets people hooked. However, people respond differently to the solo content: some say, "If playing alone is this fun, I bet playing with other people must be even more fun!" These people end up being raiders. Some say, "If the game is this fun fighting computer-controlled enemies, fighting other players must be even more fun!" These people end up fighting in battlegrounds or competing in the arena. Then you have the players like me. Players like me go into raids and say, "Ack, this is too much of a time commitment/too much pressure/etc." Players like me go into battlegrounds and say, "Ack, this is too much of a variable experience, and I play this game to relax. " Or maybe we just don't PvP as a matter of principle. Either way, we don't enjoy the group content that WoW seems to be geared towards getting us to play, so we are quite content with playing the part of the game we enjoy, the part that drew us in in the first place: the solo content.
This leaves Blizzard in a tight spot. They designed WoW to be, at its core, a group game. Ghostcrawler has even said explicitly that their goal is to get PvE'ers into raids. The solo content was meant to draw us in so we could move on to bigger and supposedly better things; to paraphrase one of my commenters, "If I want to play a solo-RPG, I'll play Dragon Age or Mass Effect." However, if the poll on the side of my blog is anything to go on, a fair amount of us prefer to stick with the solo content, in spite of the greater challenges to be had by grouping up.
It seems Blizzard doesn't mind that fact, though, or if they do, they have at least resigned themselves to designing solo content in spite of their larger goals for WoW players. Why else would they release solo content with each expansions pack and with many of the patches? In spite of Ghostcrawler's statement, it seems Blizzard has made it their goal to satisfy all WoW player, including those of us who are quite happy to chuckle at Ghostcrawler's sentiment and keep on solo-ing.
Why is he smiling? That can't be a good sign.
That could, however, all be an illusion. As I said in my post on the homogenization of Wrath of the Lich King solo content, solo content in Wrath of the Lich King has been streamlined to make it more straightforward and make the road from solo-ing to heroics to raiding a smoother one, and the road is only going to become smoother. One of the major promises of Cataclysm is that the old world will be made over to make leveling from 1 to 60 more fun and more like leveling through Outland or Northrend, i.e., smoother. After all, one of the biggest obstacles to getting to level 80 is vanilla Azeroth, which wasn't designed for fast leveling, but that's going to change. Come Cataclysm, the road to the level cap will have even fewer roadblocks than it does now, and the road to raiding will be similarly affected, assuming Blizzard sticks with their current design for solo content. What am I trying to get at here? It seems to me that Blizzard is designing their solo content to make it easier for people to get into heroics and raids, rather than as its own stand-alone content. Solo content in WoW is merely a stepping stone to bigger things, and they are making those steps even smaller.
I know that's a tough contention to prove. After all, why would Blizzard add two extra zones (Icecrown and Storm Peaks) of quests to do after hitting level 80 if they wanted to get us into raids as soon as possible? Well, those quests certainly provided a large chunk of cash, cash we needed to get some basic gear upgrades before starting heroics. (Hell, if you put in enough gold and effort, you could get your gear to the point where it was good enough for starting Naxx-10 without ever entering a heroic; I did. It wasn't advisable, but it was possible.) They also provided the back-story and starting points to the plots of the various heroics and raids those zones contained or would eventually contain, plots we could only see the conclusions of by running those heroics and raids. I think you get what I'm trying to say.
Now, I'm not saying that this design is a bad thing. There are plenty of people who just want to get into the group play, but without solo content, those heroics and raids would have no back story, and there would be no motivation to run them. Solo content also allows those who didn't get good gear in the last expansion to get on even ground with those who did, which prevents people from being locked out of raiding because they arrived at the party late (metaphorically speaking). Solo content is a good thing, even for people who prefer group content. The question is, how far should this smoothing of the path from solo-ing to heroics and raids go? When solo content is designed for the people who hope to surpass it, those who are quite content to stay within it are left behind.
I think Blizzard owes it to us soloists to not leave us out in the dust with their solo content. They drew us in with the solo content, and though they might want us to move on to bigger and supposedly better things, we would rather not. We like where we are, and that isn't going to change any time soon without a big change to the way raiding or PvP works. Now, granted, solo content shouldn't hinder people who want to go right into raiding or PvP, so where can a happy medium be found? Long-term goals. Burning Crusade had reputations like the Consortium and Sporeggar that gave solo-ists something they could work for that couldn't be steam-roled by grouping. The closest thing we have to them in Wrath of the Lich King is the Kalu'ak, and I hit exalted with them a week after hitting 80. What we need is more solo content that takes a large commitment of time to complete and provides appropriate rewards for that commitment. Supposedly, the Path of the Titans will be along the lines of what I am thinking of; let's hope Blizzard does it well.
Picture is unrelated.It's pretty obvious why an MMO needs any solo content at all: when players are just starting out, it's a pretty big challenge for them to try to get a hold of all the new game mechanics that WoW throws at them; needing to learn group mechanics would make it even more difficult. Solo content allows people to become familiar with the game and get a feeling for the way their class plays. It allows them to push their class to its limits without the risk of letting other people down if the fail. Solo content is, if nothing else, a training ground for new players to get them comfortable with the game before they enter group play. There is a risk in that set-up, though. Blizzard could, if they so desired, make sub-par solo content to try to motivate people to move into group play, but if they did that, no one would stick around to see the group content, no matter how awesome it may be. Blizzard needs to make WoW's solo content fun and engaging to draw players in, so they do. This is where the trouble starts.
Though WoW may be a MMO, it is really the solo content that gets people hooked. However, people respond differently to the solo content: some say, "If playing alone is this fun, I bet playing with other people must be even more fun!" These people end up being raiders. Some say, "If the game is this fun fighting computer-controlled enemies, fighting other players must be even more fun!" These people end up fighting in battlegrounds or competing in the arena. Then you have the players like me. Players like me go into raids and say, "Ack, this is too much of a time commitment/too much pressure/etc." Players like me go into battlegrounds and say, "Ack, this is too much of a variable experience, and I play this game to relax. " Or maybe we just don't PvP as a matter of principle. Either way, we don't enjoy the group content that WoW seems to be geared towards getting us to play, so we are quite content with playing the part of the game we enjoy, the part that drew us in in the first place: the solo content.
This leaves Blizzard in a tight spot. They designed WoW to be, at its core, a group game. Ghostcrawler has even said explicitly that their goal is to get PvE'ers into raids. The solo content was meant to draw us in so we could move on to bigger and supposedly better things; to paraphrase one of my commenters, "If I want to play a solo-RPG, I'll play Dragon Age or Mass Effect." However, if the poll on the side of my blog is anything to go on, a fair amount of us prefer to stick with the solo content, in spite of the greater challenges to be had by grouping up.
It seems Blizzard doesn't mind that fact, though, or if they do, they have at least resigned themselves to designing solo content in spite of their larger goals for WoW players. Why else would they release solo content with each expansions pack and with many of the patches? In spite of Ghostcrawler's statement, it seems Blizzard has made it their goal to satisfy all WoW player, including those of us who are quite happy to chuckle at Ghostcrawler's sentiment and keep on solo-ing.
Why is he smiling? That can't be a good sign.That could, however, all be an illusion. As I said in my post on the homogenization of Wrath of the Lich King solo content, solo content in Wrath of the Lich King has been streamlined to make it more straightforward and make the road from solo-ing to heroics to raiding a smoother one, and the road is only going to become smoother. One of the major promises of Cataclysm is that the old world will be made over to make leveling from 1 to 60 more fun and more like leveling through Outland or Northrend, i.e., smoother. After all, one of the biggest obstacles to getting to level 80 is vanilla Azeroth, which wasn't designed for fast leveling, but that's going to change. Come Cataclysm, the road to the level cap will have even fewer roadblocks than it does now, and the road to raiding will be similarly affected, assuming Blizzard sticks with their current design for solo content. What am I trying to get at here? It seems to me that Blizzard is designing their solo content to make it easier for people to get into heroics and raids, rather than as its own stand-alone content. Solo content in WoW is merely a stepping stone to bigger things, and they are making those steps even smaller.
I know that's a tough contention to prove. After all, why would Blizzard add two extra zones (Icecrown and Storm Peaks) of quests to do after hitting level 80 if they wanted to get us into raids as soon as possible? Well, those quests certainly provided a large chunk of cash, cash we needed to get some basic gear upgrades before starting heroics. (Hell, if you put in enough gold and effort, you could get your gear to the point where it was good enough for starting Naxx-10 without ever entering a heroic; I did. It wasn't advisable, but it was possible.) They also provided the back-story and starting points to the plots of the various heroics and raids those zones contained or would eventually contain, plots we could only see the conclusions of by running those heroics and raids. I think you get what I'm trying to say.
Now, I'm not saying that this design is a bad thing. There are plenty of people who just want to get into the group play, but without solo content, those heroics and raids would have no back story, and there would be no motivation to run them. Solo content also allows those who didn't get good gear in the last expansion to get on even ground with those who did, which prevents people from being locked out of raiding because they arrived at the party late (metaphorically speaking). Solo content is a good thing, even for people who prefer group content. The question is, how far should this smoothing of the path from solo-ing to heroics and raids go? When solo content is designed for the people who hope to surpass it, those who are quite content to stay within it are left behind.
I think Blizzard owes it to us soloists to not leave us out in the dust with their solo content. They drew us in with the solo content, and though they might want us to move on to bigger and supposedly better things, we would rather not. We like where we are, and that isn't going to change any time soon without a big change to the way raiding or PvP works. Now, granted, solo content shouldn't hinder people who want to go right into raiding or PvP, so where can a happy medium be found? Long-term goals. Burning Crusade had reputations like the Consortium and Sporeggar that gave solo-ists something they could work for that couldn't be steam-roled by grouping. The closest thing we have to them in Wrath of the Lich King is the Kalu'ak, and I hit exalted with them a week after hitting 80. What we need is more solo content that takes a large commitment of time to complete and provides appropriate rewards for that commitment. Supposedly, the Path of the Titans will be along the lines of what I am thinking of; let's hope Blizzard does it well.
Friday, March 12, 2010
The inherent risk of replenishment
Replenishment is an interesting little buff. It has been added to a variety of talent trees over the course of Wrath of the Lich King, from the most overpowered to the ones in greatest need of a buff. The first three trees it was added to (Survival (Hunter), Shadow (Priest), and Retribution (Paladin)) were all less than popular during the Burning Crusade, and I suppose part of Replenishment's raison detre was to increase interest in these trees. Replenishment was later added to the Destruction tree and the Frost tree (Warlocks and Mages, respectively), and though I can't speak about the state of Warlock balance when Replenishment was added to Destruction without risking saying something horribly incorrect, I know that Frost has been falling behind the other Mage trees in terms of DPS and is only now coming to the forefront on the PTR. It seems to me that Replenishment was just a band-aid to make Frost seem more raid-viable while Blizzard worked on an actual fix to Frost's DPS, just like how Replenishment was likely added to it's original three sources in case Blizzard wasn't able to make them viable by the time Wrath of the Lich King came out.There is a risk in using Replenishment in such a way, though. That risk is that replenishment may let Blizzard off the hook when it comes to fixing specs. We saw that risk manifested in Frost Mages, who are still falling behind on the PTR, though not as much as previously. Though I can't say for certain that Survival wasn't as attractive as Marksmanship when Wrath began, I do know there were few talents in the tree that actually boosted ranged damage, and I know that Black Arrow was originally slated to be included in Burning Crusade, but was scrapped because it was too powerful. The fact that Blizzard added a spell to the Survival tree that they once considered too powerful says a lot about how Survival was matching up against the other specs.
Far be it from me to criticize Blizzard's balancing efforts, for they have a lot of things to consider when tweaking the numbers behind class balance. That said, Replenishment seems to me to act as no more than a consolation until Blizzard can come around to fixing a spec. After all, most raids already had a source of Replenishment in the form of a Retribution Paladin, considering their massive popularity during most of Wrath, and considering the prevalence of Replenishment when it was added to Improved Water Elemental (now Enduring Winter), most 25-man raids (the only place where Replenishment was considered a necessity, rather than a bonus) had some source of it already. Point is, giving Replenishment to Frost Mages didn't really mean much in the grand scheme of things; it was little more than a symbolic affirmation that Blizzard recognized that Frost Mages were falling behind and wanted to improve them.
Blizzard could have accomplished the same thing with an actual buff, however; something like adding Glyph of Eternal Water earlier. Now, I don't know the logistics of how Blizzard goes about buffing and nerfing classes, but it seems to me like giving a minor buff to a class would be a better option than adding Replenishment. It would allow Blizzard to dip their feet, so to speak, in the buffing pool and get an idea of how much buffing the class needs to be even with everyone else, it would actually improve the class in a tangible way, and it would give the same affirmation that adding Replenishment to a class gives.
Of course, Blizzard probably would have buffed Frost Mages if they thought they really needed to be buffed. Perhaps Frost Mages weren't falling behind at that point in time, or perhaps Blizzard didn't see keeping them competitive as a necessity, considering their survivability and thus viability as a solo-ing and PvP spec. (Perhaps one of the commenters could enlighten me on the state of Frost Mages around the time when patch 3.1 was released.)
Regardless, the fact that Frost Mages fell so far behind shows that adding Replenishment or a similar effect to a spec isn't enough to make that spec worthwhile. Many people think Rogues should get an effect similar to Bloodlust/Heroism in order to make them more popular, but considering how many shamans there are in the world, how much would that really help? After all, like Replenishment, the Rogue version of Bloodlust would need to be subject to the same cooldown as the Shaman's Bloodlust, meaning if there were already a shaman in the raid, the Rogue's Bloodlust would be a pointless addition. The key to making classes and specs attractive is not adding homogeneous buffs, but to either bring the class up to speed with everyone else or add something that makes the class unique (or both). Adding a carbon-copy of another class's buff to an underpowered class is nothing more than pointless consolation, an easy way out for Blizzard.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Tips on leveling any class
Having written two posts with tips for leveling specific classes, I feel like it's time I write a post with tips for leveling any class, considering that leveling alts is what I spend most of my time doing these days, so it's a part of the game I know quite well. This guide will assume you know the basics already and are simply considering leveling an alt on the side. After all, if you have gotten into the WoW blog scene, you are probably already fairly familiar with the game, so I don't imagine anyone reading this will be unfamiliar with the basics. (Though if you are, I apologize for my assumption and applaud you for involving yourself in the greater WoW community.)
1. Stick with it.
This seems like a pretty basic tip, but it's only recently that I started heeding it myself, so I figure it's worth mentioning. Classes are supposed to be simple when you first roll them. This is to make it easier for a newbie to acquaint themselves with the game; if they had to juggle five or six abilities in addition to learning all of the things we take knowing for granted, it would be a very confusing experience. As such, expect one-button spamming at first, and don't expect it to get much more interesting quickly. Classes evolve slowly as you level up, and you really can't get a feel for a class until you have a few dozen levels under your belt. As such, don't give up on a class just because you find the first few levels boring. My shadow priest didn't become as fun as it is until I got Vampiric Embrace and Shadowform at level 30 and 40, respectively, so stick with it.
2. If you use mana, carry water with you during the middle levels.
During earlier levels, you mana regeneration is greatly increased, so you won't need to use water. During later levels, many classes gain abilities that allow them to regenerate more mana, so you won't need to use water as much. During those middle levels, you'll likely find yourself running out of mana, and many classes can't fight without mana. As such, you should always have some of whatever is the best water you can drink so you can reduce your downtime. You can buy water from most Innkeepers and general suppliers, as well as bartenders. Of course, it helps to practice smart combat practices and try to conserve mana as you fight, but water will likely be helpful anyways, no matter how little mana you use. I remember questing on my shadow priest, using only three spells at the beginning of the fight and doing the rest of the damage with my wand, and still running out of mana. Point is, keep water on you until you stop using all together.
3. Keep any and all healing potions you get from quests or that drop from enemies.
Some quests award healing potions, and most humanoid enemies drop healing potions from time to time. You may want to sell them for a bit of extra gold, but you should keep them when you get them. No matter how careful you are, you will run into situations that spiral out of your control, and that little bit of health can really help. Think about it this way: the money you get from selling a potion will be less than how much a repair bill costs; which is the better deal? I keep my healing potions in a bag I dedicate to holding things like my hearthstone, crafting tools and supplies, and bandages, so they don't take up space in my regular bags. You should drag your healing potion(s) down to your action bars on the bottom of your screen so you can have them handy when you need them in a pinch.
4. Take First Aid
Even if you are a class that can heal yourself, it helps to be able to save that mana for fighting. Bandages allow you to heal yourself without expending mana, which makes them good for healing classes and great for classes that can't heal themselves. You may end up abandoning the profession in later levels if you can heal yourself and you won't run out of mana doing so (that happened to my shaman once he hit Outland), but until then, you won't regret keeping bandages in your bags to heal yourself.
5. Switch around between zones so you are always questing.
Outland and Northrend were designed so you could move from one zone to another in a linear fashion: Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms were not designed that way. If you want to keep your leveling interesting and fast, you'll need to move around between zones so you are always questing. If you finish all the quests you can reasonably do in one zone, move to another zone in your level range. You can look on the Wowhead zones page to see which zones are in your level range, though make sure you look at the quests page of each zone to see if it will actually offer you any quests.
6. Keep quests that take you out of the zone you are in so you can do them when you eventually go to that zone.
Because Azeroth was not designed for fast leveling, there are many quests that start in one zone and end in another. If you get one of these quests, take it and keep it in your quest log. You will likely go to that zone at some point in the future. Doing that extra quest will give you more experience and give you more to do once you enter the zone. The one exception to this rule is if the quest takes you to a zone you have already out-leveled or a zone that doesn't offer any quests for you because it favors one faction; in that case, don't let that quest take up space in your quest log.
7. Turn on quest tracking and take advantage of quest tooltips.
Go to the map screen (m button) and check the "Show Quest Objectives" box. This will make your leveling much easier as the locations of the objectives of most of your quests will be shown on your map. You can then click the diagonal arrow to make the map smaller so you can look at it and locate your objectives without blocking your view of your character. As for the quest tooltips, if you move your mouse over an enemy or object that you need to kill or collect for a quest, a little blurb should appear under it telling you which quest it is for and your progress on that quest. It helps to scroll your mouse over enemies as you pass them in case you can kill them for a quest but didn't know it. That way, you can kill them on the way to wherever you were going and be a more efficient quester.
8. A macro for selling all of your gray-quality items
/script for bag = 0, 4 do for slot = 1, GetContainerNumSlots(bag) do local name = GetContainerItemLink(bag,slot) if name and string.find(name,"ff9d9d9d") then DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Selling "..name) UseContainerItem(bag,slot) end end end
If you use this macro while talking to a vendor, you'll automatically sell all gray-quality items in your bags. This is very useful when you are out questing since you probably won't want to keep any gray items for any reason; they're called "vendor trash" for a reason. I also take advantage of this macro by putting my vendor trash in my extra bags and keeping white-quality or better things that I plan to sell in my main bag. That way, I don't have to go searching through my bags for the things I plan to sell, since I can use the macro to sell all of the vendor trash strewn throughout my different bags, and all of the other things I plan on selling will be right in my main bag.
1. Stick with it.
This seems like a pretty basic tip, but it's only recently that I started heeding it myself, so I figure it's worth mentioning. Classes are supposed to be simple when you first roll them. This is to make it easier for a newbie to acquaint themselves with the game; if they had to juggle five or six abilities in addition to learning all of the things we take knowing for granted, it would be a very confusing experience. As such, expect one-button spamming at first, and don't expect it to get much more interesting quickly. Classes evolve slowly as you level up, and you really can't get a feel for a class until you have a few dozen levels under your belt. As such, don't give up on a class just because you find the first few levels boring. My shadow priest didn't become as fun as it is until I got Vampiric Embrace and Shadowform at level 30 and 40, respectively, so stick with it.
2. If you use mana, carry water with you during the middle levels.
During earlier levels, you mana regeneration is greatly increased, so you won't need to use water. During later levels, many classes gain abilities that allow them to regenerate more mana, so you won't need to use water as much. During those middle levels, you'll likely find yourself running out of mana, and many classes can't fight without mana. As such, you should always have some of whatever is the best water you can drink so you can reduce your downtime. You can buy water from most Innkeepers and general suppliers, as well as bartenders. Of course, it helps to practice smart combat practices and try to conserve mana as you fight, but water will likely be helpful anyways, no matter how little mana you use. I remember questing on my shadow priest, using only three spells at the beginning of the fight and doing the rest of the damage with my wand, and still running out of mana. Point is, keep water on you until you stop using all together.
3. Keep any and all healing potions you get from quests or that drop from enemies.
Some quests award healing potions, and most humanoid enemies drop healing potions from time to time. You may want to sell them for a bit of extra gold, but you should keep them when you get them. No matter how careful you are, you will run into situations that spiral out of your control, and that little bit of health can really help. Think about it this way: the money you get from selling a potion will be less than how much a repair bill costs; which is the better deal? I keep my healing potions in a bag I dedicate to holding things like my hearthstone, crafting tools and supplies, and bandages, so they don't take up space in my regular bags. You should drag your healing potion(s) down to your action bars on the bottom of your screen so you can have them handy when you need them in a pinch.
4. Take First Aid
Even if you are a class that can heal yourself, it helps to be able to save that mana for fighting. Bandages allow you to heal yourself without expending mana, which makes them good for healing classes and great for classes that can't heal themselves. You may end up abandoning the profession in later levels if you can heal yourself and you won't run out of mana doing so (that happened to my shaman once he hit Outland), but until then, you won't regret keeping bandages in your bags to heal yourself.
5. Switch around between zones so you are always questing.
Outland and Northrend were designed so you could move from one zone to another in a linear fashion: Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms were not designed that way. If you want to keep your leveling interesting and fast, you'll need to move around between zones so you are always questing. If you finish all the quests you can reasonably do in one zone, move to another zone in your level range. You can look on the Wowhead zones page to see which zones are in your level range, though make sure you look at the quests page of each zone to see if it will actually offer you any quests.
6. Keep quests that take you out of the zone you are in so you can do them when you eventually go to that zone.
Because Azeroth was not designed for fast leveling, there are many quests that start in one zone and end in another. If you get one of these quests, take it and keep it in your quest log. You will likely go to that zone at some point in the future. Doing that extra quest will give you more experience and give you more to do once you enter the zone. The one exception to this rule is if the quest takes you to a zone you have already out-leveled or a zone that doesn't offer any quests for you because it favors one faction; in that case, don't let that quest take up space in your quest log.
7. Turn on quest tracking and take advantage of quest tooltips.
Go to the map screen (m button) and check the "Show Quest Objectives" box. This will make your leveling much easier as the locations of the objectives of most of your quests will be shown on your map. You can then click the diagonal arrow to make the map smaller so you can look at it and locate your objectives without blocking your view of your character. As for the quest tooltips, if you move your mouse over an enemy or object that you need to kill or collect for a quest, a little blurb should appear under it telling you which quest it is for and your progress on that quest. It helps to scroll your mouse over enemies as you pass them in case you can kill them for a quest but didn't know it. That way, you can kill them on the way to wherever you were going and be a more efficient quester.
8. A macro for selling all of your gray-quality items
/script for bag = 0, 4 do for slot = 1, GetContainerNumSlots(bag) do local name = GetContainerItemLink(bag,slot) if name and string.find(name,"ff9d9d9d") then DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Selling "..name) UseContainerItem(bag,slot) end end end
If you use this macro while talking to a vendor, you'll automatically sell all gray-quality items in your bags. This is very useful when you are out questing since you probably won't want to keep any gray items for any reason; they're called "vendor trash" for a reason. I also take advantage of this macro by putting my vendor trash in my extra bags and keeping white-quality or better things that I plan to sell in my main bag. That way, I don't have to go searching through my bags for the things I plan to sell, since I can use the macro to sell all of the vendor trash strewn throughout my different bags, and all of the other things I plan on selling will be right in my main bag.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Does the difficulty of What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been justify the reward?
Oh Violet Proto-Drake. The debates I have seen you inspire in the WoW.com comments section have been nothing short of remarkable. And yet to think, had Blizzard simply made you just another 280%-speed mount, we would not have these disagreements. As I come to the end of my long, strange trip, I can't help but wonder, have I really deserved that 310%-speed mount? Of course, being philosophical by nature, I have no choice to but to ponder this question, so here we go.
Let's establish the basics: there are many rewards for your various exploits and adventures in World of Warcraft, but they all fall into two categories: practical and aesthetic. Aethetic rewards include mounts, pets, titles, and other such things that don't actually make gameplay easier or more enjoyable (other than by looking at them.) Practical rewards somehow enhance your gaming experience. Practical rewards are things like gear, which allows you access new content, and certain mounts, like the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth, the usefulness of which I can definitely vouch for. I bring this up because, in the end, practical rewards are the only ones worth getting worked up over. Yes, aesthetic rewards can represent certain achievements (like the title of "the Insane" representing your uncommon dedication to the game), but in the end, assuming the criteria for their acquisition doesn't change significantly, they aren't worth getting worked up over.
So, which category do 310%-speed mounts fall into? Though the difference of speed may seem negligible, the fact is that it is a difference, making them a practical reward for anyone who already has a regular epic flying mount. In fact, that difference of speed isn't as negligible as it seems. Let's say there is a trip that takes you five minutes to make on a 280% speed mount. That same trip will take you a bit over four and a half minutes on a 310% speed mount. What that means is that using a 310%-speed mount instead of a 280%-speed mount makes you around 10% faster, i.e. a significant amount. What all that math means is that 310%-speed mounts are very practical rewards, and definitely worth considering seriously.
So, now that we know it's worth it to consider whether completing What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been justifies owning a 310% speed mount, it's time to ask that question. Let's get one thing straight before we start: What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been is not as difficult to get as it used to be. I won't go over all of the changes that have been made to the holiday achievements in the interest of saving time, but I'll sum it up by saying that a lot less is based on chance these days, with most of the achievements being based on whether you have enough time to do them, and they don't really take that long to do, either. If other holidays go the way of Love Is in the Air, we won't be able to use the difficulty of the holiday achievements to justify What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been rewarding a 310%-speed mount.
But then again, it never was about the difficulty, was is? Considering that the only other way to get a 310%-speed mount is to be really good at raiding, really good at arena, or really lucky with raid drops, the Violet Proto-Drake was meant to be a way for people who can't raid really well or fight in the arena really well to get a 310% speed mount. So how did Blizzard justify giving such a reward for something that isn't that hard compared to all of the other sources? Dedication. What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been is possibly the only thing in WoW that is guaranteed to take about year to earn; there's just no way to get around that. That's why such a great reward can be rewarded for such simple actions.
But is dedication enough? After all, considering how little time the holidays take to complete these days, the only real dedication required is simply participating in the holidays when they come around. One can't deny that School of Hard Knocks is pretty difficult, and Sinister Calling takes quite a bit of luck, but Blizzard could up and change those on us the next time those holidays come around. I suppose the only objective way to determine whether the Violet Proto-Drake is a fair reward is to look at the other ways 310%-speed mounts can be obtained. The raiding mounts require you to fight boss battles in ways that make the battles exceedingly difficult, meaning you need to be really good at raiding and be part of a raid with good coordination. The arena drakes require you to be part of a really good arena team, meaning you need to be good at PvP and your teammates need to be good team players. The Onyxia drake requires you to get really really lucky with your loot and your roll and have the basic skills needed to down Onyxia (.2% drop chance divided by 25 players equal you'll never get it, i.e. .008% chance of getting the drake on any given kill). So, to get a 310%-speed mount, you need to be either really good at the game or really lucky. I suppose the solo-equivalent would be being really dedicated to WoW, so does working on holidays on and off for a year qualify as really dedicated?
Here's the thing about 310%-speed mounts: some people may not see them as a necessity, but they are without a doubt the next step up in mounts. They are as much of a non-necessity as epic flying mounts are a non-necessity: sure, you could get by without them, but your playing experience wouldn't be as enjoyable if you had to. That said, as the fastest mounts in the game, they should without a doubt be difficult to get, just as epic flying used to be difficult to get when 5,000 gold was big money. Still, you could grind a bit each day and get that 5,000 gold without spending too much time each day in game. It would take you a long time, but you'd get it eventually. The Violet Proto-Drake is the same way, except the real-world time you need to spend grinding for it is forcibly stretched out to almost a year. The only difference between how a casual player would go through the holidays and how a dedicated player would go through the holidays is that the dedicated player would get all of the achievements really quickly, while a casual player may need the whole duration of the holiday to earn them. Hell, the only reason I got Fool For Love in only two days was because my schedule was such that I really had nothing else to do, so I spent almost all of my waking hours working on the meta, and I found a really good spot for grinding Lovely Charms. I bring that up because the reason this is even an issue is that dedicated players go through the holidays really quickly and end up feeling cheated, as if Blizzard has made What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been easier just to cater to the casuals.
But here's the thing: What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been is supposed to cater to the casuals. As I have said, 310% speed mounts are the logical stepping-point after regular epic mounts, and the purpose of What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been is to allow casual players to get those mounts. The people who complain that the holidays are too easy are the ones that the raid and arena mounts are intended for. The Violet Proto-Drake is the 310%-speed mount for people who can't spend a lot of time in-game each day, which is why many of the changes that made dedicated players angry were made to the holiday achievements. Making someone spend a whole year on holidays, only to make them wait longer once they have done everything they need to do is decidedly non-casual friendly. Forcing people to run a boss every day in hopes of getting a mount to drop when they could very well be screwed over by RNG is decidedly non-casual friendly. Forcing players to log in every hour because the RNG keeps giving them the same candies is decidedly non-casual friendly.
Point is, the Violet Proto-Drake is supposed to be easy to acquire, which is why it takes so long to do so in real-world time. The various holidays should only take a dedicated player a few days to complete, because that means they would take a casual player longer. If you think about the amount of dedication someone who can only play for an hour a day or so would need to complete these holidays, it's probably similar to the amount of dedication needed to get the raiding drakes. Holidays are just a different game, one that is designed for the casual player; players who blast through the achievements and then complain the holiday is too easy are, to borrow terms from Halo, heroic or legendary players playing on normal mode.
Let's establish the basics: there are many rewards for your various exploits and adventures in World of Warcraft, but they all fall into two categories: practical and aesthetic. Aethetic rewards include mounts, pets, titles, and other such things that don't actually make gameplay easier or more enjoyable (other than by looking at them.) Practical rewards somehow enhance your gaming experience. Practical rewards are things like gear, which allows you access new content, and certain mounts, like the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth, the usefulness of which I can definitely vouch for. I bring this up because, in the end, practical rewards are the only ones worth getting worked up over. Yes, aesthetic rewards can represent certain achievements (like the title of "the Insane" representing your uncommon dedication to the game), but in the end, assuming the criteria for their acquisition doesn't change significantly, they aren't worth getting worked up over.
So, which category do 310%-speed mounts fall into? Though the difference of speed may seem negligible, the fact is that it is a difference, making them a practical reward for anyone who already has a regular epic flying mount. In fact, that difference of speed isn't as negligible as it seems. Let's say there is a trip that takes you five minutes to make on a 280% speed mount. That same trip will take you a bit over four and a half minutes on a 310% speed mount. What that means is that using a 310%-speed mount instead of a 280%-speed mount makes you around 10% faster, i.e. a significant amount. What all that math means is that 310%-speed mounts are very practical rewards, and definitely worth considering seriously.
So, now that we know it's worth it to consider whether completing What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been justifies owning a 310% speed mount, it's time to ask that question. Let's get one thing straight before we start: What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been is not as difficult to get as it used to be. I won't go over all of the changes that have been made to the holiday achievements in the interest of saving time, but I'll sum it up by saying that a lot less is based on chance these days, with most of the achievements being based on whether you have enough time to do them, and they don't really take that long to do, either. If other holidays go the way of Love Is in the Air, we won't be able to use the difficulty of the holiday achievements to justify What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been rewarding a 310%-speed mount.
But then again, it never was about the difficulty, was is? Considering that the only other way to get a 310%-speed mount is to be really good at raiding, really good at arena, or really lucky with raid drops, the Violet Proto-Drake was meant to be a way for people who can't raid really well or fight in the arena really well to get a 310% speed mount. So how did Blizzard justify giving such a reward for something that isn't that hard compared to all of the other sources? Dedication. What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been is possibly the only thing in WoW that is guaranteed to take about year to earn; there's just no way to get around that. That's why such a great reward can be rewarded for such simple actions.
But is dedication enough? After all, considering how little time the holidays take to complete these days, the only real dedication required is simply participating in the holidays when they come around. One can't deny that School of Hard Knocks is pretty difficult, and Sinister Calling takes quite a bit of luck, but Blizzard could up and change those on us the next time those holidays come around. I suppose the only objective way to determine whether the Violet Proto-Drake is a fair reward is to look at the other ways 310%-speed mounts can be obtained. The raiding mounts require you to fight boss battles in ways that make the battles exceedingly difficult, meaning you need to be really good at raiding and be part of a raid with good coordination. The arena drakes require you to be part of a really good arena team, meaning you need to be good at PvP and your teammates need to be good team players. The Onyxia drake requires you to get really really lucky with your loot and your roll and have the basic skills needed to down Onyxia (.2% drop chance divided by 25 players equal you'll never get it, i.e. .008% chance of getting the drake on any given kill). So, to get a 310%-speed mount, you need to be either really good at the game or really lucky. I suppose the solo-equivalent would be being really dedicated to WoW, so does working on holidays on and off for a year qualify as really dedicated?
Here's the thing about 310%-speed mounts: some people may not see them as a necessity, but they are without a doubt the next step up in mounts. They are as much of a non-necessity as epic flying mounts are a non-necessity: sure, you could get by without them, but your playing experience wouldn't be as enjoyable if you had to. That said, as the fastest mounts in the game, they should without a doubt be difficult to get, just as epic flying used to be difficult to get when 5,000 gold was big money. Still, you could grind a bit each day and get that 5,000 gold without spending too much time each day in game. It would take you a long time, but you'd get it eventually. The Violet Proto-Drake is the same way, except the real-world time you need to spend grinding for it is forcibly stretched out to almost a year. The only difference between how a casual player would go through the holidays and how a dedicated player would go through the holidays is that the dedicated player would get all of the achievements really quickly, while a casual player may need the whole duration of the holiday to earn them. Hell, the only reason I got Fool For Love in only two days was because my schedule was such that I really had nothing else to do, so I spent almost all of my waking hours working on the meta, and I found a really good spot for grinding Lovely Charms. I bring that up because the reason this is even an issue is that dedicated players go through the holidays really quickly and end up feeling cheated, as if Blizzard has made What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been easier just to cater to the casuals.
But here's the thing: What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been is supposed to cater to the casuals. As I have said, 310% speed mounts are the logical stepping-point after regular epic mounts, and the purpose of What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been is to allow casual players to get those mounts. The people who complain that the holidays are too easy are the ones that the raid and arena mounts are intended for. The Violet Proto-Drake is the 310%-speed mount for people who can't spend a lot of time in-game each day, which is why many of the changes that made dedicated players angry were made to the holiday achievements. Making someone spend a whole year on holidays, only to make them wait longer once they have done everything they need to do is decidedly non-casual friendly. Forcing people to run a boss every day in hopes of getting a mount to drop when they could very well be screwed over by RNG is decidedly non-casual friendly. Forcing players to log in every hour because the RNG keeps giving them the same candies is decidedly non-casual friendly.
Point is, the Violet Proto-Drake is supposed to be easy to acquire, which is why it takes so long to do so in real-world time. The various holidays should only take a dedicated player a few days to complete, because that means they would take a casual player longer. If you think about the amount of dedication someone who can only play for an hour a day or so would need to complete these holidays, it's probably similar to the amount of dedication needed to get the raiding drakes. Holidays are just a different game, one that is designed for the casual player; players who blast through the achievements and then complain the holiday is too easy are, to borrow terms from Halo, heroic or legendary players playing on normal mode.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Druids, remember when...?
This mostly applies to feral druids, since that is what I leveled as during the days of vanilla WoW. Anyways, players like to complain about how their class is falling behind on the damage meters or some other class is getting ahead of them, but we often forget just how far we've come. Druids, remember when...
-Bear Form's armor bonus was 65%, and Dire Bear Form's armor bonus was 120%?
-Our feral 31-point talent reduced the cost of our shapeshifting spells by 25%? Incidentally, remember when our talent trees were around half of their current size?
-Innervate was a restoration talent? We ferals couldn't use it to restore mana on the fly.
-Our shapeshifting forms didn't have dances? Where would we be right now were it not for the Bear Form dance?
-We couldn't talk to quest givers or vendors while in Cat or Bear Form? Maybe it wasn't that big of a deal, but it was very annoying.
-We couldn't use items in our shapeshifting forms, and we had to make macros to use healing potions?
-We had separate itemization from rogues? Though we certainly used rogue leather for DPS, our leather was much better for tanking, the only role we could do late in endgame.
-Swipe (Bear) could only hit three targets at a time? This was back in the day when crowd control was actually used and kill orders were actually followed. If you tank wasn't a paladin, you didn't have any other choice.
-Swipe (Cat) didn't exist? Cats had no AoE options other than Hurricane, and that was on a one-minute cooldown.
-Innervate was spirit based and would only restore about 30% of a feral druid's mana? (20% after the spirit nerf)
-All cats and bears looked the same? I needn't remind you that they were also all butt-ugly (except the Night Elf cat form).
We have certainly come a long way, haven't we?
Last edited 2/6/2010, 7:38 PM
-Bear Form's armor bonus was 65%, and Dire Bear Form's armor bonus was 120%?
-Our feral 31-point talent reduced the cost of our shapeshifting spells by 25%? Incidentally, remember when our talent trees were around half of their current size?
-Innervate was a restoration talent? We ferals couldn't use it to restore mana on the fly.
-Our shapeshifting forms didn't have dances? Where would we be right now were it not for the Bear Form dance?
-We couldn't talk to quest givers or vendors while in Cat or Bear Form? Maybe it wasn't that big of a deal, but it was very annoying.
-We couldn't use items in our shapeshifting forms, and we had to make macros to use healing potions?
-We had separate itemization from rogues? Though we certainly used rogue leather for DPS, our leather was much better for tanking, the only role we could do late in endgame.
-Swipe (Bear) could only hit three targets at a time? This was back in the day when crowd control was actually used and kill orders were actually followed. If you tank wasn't a paladin, you didn't have any other choice.
-Swipe (Cat) didn't exist? Cats had no AoE options other than Hurricane, and that was on a one-minute cooldown.
-Innervate was spirit based and would only restore about 30% of a feral druid's mana? (20% after the spirit nerf)
-All cats and bears looked the same? I needn't remind you that they were also all butt-ugly (except the Night Elf cat form).
We have certainly come a long way, haven't we?
Last edited 2/6/2010, 7:38 PM
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
What can you do at 80 without a group? Part II: tangible rewards in Azeroth and Outland
Last week, I wrote a post about what one can do at 80 that doesn't involve grouping, the Argent Tournament, or doing dailies just to make money. Turns out there wasn't a whole lot to do at 80 that didn't fall under those categories, so now I'll be going over things one can do at 80 in Outland or Azeroth to pass the time. I'll be ignoring achievements and reputations grinds without any real rewards, so that leaves out running old 5-mans and raids and getting exalted with superfluous factions. I'll try to stick to things that only have tangible rewards. Sadly, this means the ideas below will mostly concern aesthetic things like mounts and pets, which have timeless value, since pre-Wrath gear isn't very useful now.
Get exalted with Netherwing and get a Netherdrake mount.
If you didn't get epic flying before Wrath hit, you probably never got exalted with Netherwing, which is a shame. Netherwing not only offers some of the coolest mounts in the game, but some of the funnest dailies, too. (Booterang, anyone?) If you have never had the joy of getting exalted with Netherwing, you should start by getting epic flying. Then head to Shadowmoon Valley in Outland and start with the quest Kindness. After finishing that quest chain (and assuming you have epic flying), you'll be able to do the Netherwing dailies. They don't start out that fun, but they get much better as your reputation gets higher.
Farm Baron Rivendare for his mount.
This is one of the classic WoW time-killers. Having never done it myself (I like pets more than mounts), I can't give you much advice, but I'm sure the wowhead comments section will help you there. This will have you heading to Stratholm to farm the final boss over and over and over and over again. One comment seemed particularly important, so I'll reprint it here: "You have to kill the bosses outside those necropolis things and beat-up the acolytes inside to actually open the gate the Baron."
Farm some classic pets.
Here is a small selection to get you started. The four classic whelplings will certainly take you a long time if you wish to farm them yourself, rather than buying them. Their drop rates range from 0.1% to 0.4%. Looking for a more hard core grind? You can also try going for the Disgusting Oozeling, which seems to have a .15% chance of dropping for each ooze you kill. If you are really crazy, you can go for the Hyacinth Macaw, which appear to have a .01% chance of dropping. That's 1 in 10,000. Good effin' luck.
Level your professions and secondary skills.
As I mentioned in my last post, if your professions and secondary skills aren't at 350 or higher, you'll need to head to Azeroth or Outland to do what you need to do to level them (with the exception of fishing). If your cooking is languishing in the double digits, why not bring it up to speed? Believe me, being able to make your own buff food is an amazing thing.
To avoid redundancy, I didn't include things in this post that I already went over in my post on how to pick a side hobby, so look there for more suggestions.
Get exalted with Netherwing and get a Netherdrake mount.
If you didn't get epic flying before Wrath hit, you probably never got exalted with Netherwing, which is a shame. Netherwing not only offers some of the coolest mounts in the game, but some of the funnest dailies, too. (Booterang, anyone?) If you have never had the joy of getting exalted with Netherwing, you should start by getting epic flying. Then head to Shadowmoon Valley in Outland and start with the quest Kindness. After finishing that quest chain (and assuming you have epic flying), you'll be able to do the Netherwing dailies. They don't start out that fun, but they get much better as your reputation gets higher.
Farm Baron Rivendare for his mount.
This is one of the classic WoW time-killers. Having never done it myself (I like pets more than mounts), I can't give you much advice, but I'm sure the wowhead comments section will help you there. This will have you heading to Stratholm to farm the final boss over and over and over and over again. One comment seemed particularly important, so I'll reprint it here: "You have to kill the bosses outside those necropolis things and beat-up the acolytes inside to actually open the gate the Baron."
Farm some classic pets.
Here is a small selection to get you started. The four classic whelplings will certainly take you a long time if you wish to farm them yourself, rather than buying them. Their drop rates range from 0.1% to 0.4%. Looking for a more hard core grind? You can also try going for the Disgusting Oozeling, which seems to have a .15% chance of dropping for each ooze you kill. If you are really crazy, you can go for the Hyacinth Macaw, which appear to have a .01% chance of dropping. That's 1 in 10,000. Good effin' luck.
Level your professions and secondary skills.
As I mentioned in my last post, if your professions and secondary skills aren't at 350 or higher, you'll need to head to Azeroth or Outland to do what you need to do to level them (with the exception of fishing). If your cooking is languishing in the double digits, why not bring it up to speed? Believe me, being able to make your own buff food is an amazing thing.
To avoid redundancy, I didn't include things in this post that I already went over in my post on how to pick a side hobby, so look there for more suggestions.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Leveling a druid (what moves to use): Levels 61-80
And now we hit the home stretch of druid leveling. You should start investing points in restoration now. I'll advise you on which talents to pick up as we go along; for a healing tree, resto has some very good feral talents. Unlike before, the moves you get in the next 20 levels will change your strategy quite significantly, so they will warrant more discussion than previous moves.
Level 61
Start investing points in Furor. It's the best way for a leveling feral to start investing in the resto talents tree, and once you start using it, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it. Furor gives you ten rage when you shift into Bear Form and allows you to gain energy when you shift into Cat Form. It used to always give you 40 energy, but people abused that fact to get extra energy, so now it simply allows your energy regeneration to continue out of cat form and gives you that energy when you shift back in. At least, that's how I understand it. So, if you shift into Cat Form the first time after you log in, you'll have the maximum amount of energy that the talent lets you have. However, if you have zero when you shift out and then immediately shift back in, you'll only have about 10 or 15 energy. Regardless, it's useful since you'll be able to shift out to heal yourself and then jump right back into the fray when you shift back.
Level 62
You now get Maim, which is a great ability when used right. It's a finishing move that stuns your enemy for a certain amount of time. The more combo points you have, the longer the stun. Though it is useful to interrupt spell casting or stop enemies, it's best application is in using it as another chance to use Shred. After you stun your enemy, if you have enough time and energy, you can run behind them and use Shred for more damage. As such, when you get five combo points, this is what you should do, based on your enemy's health:
>75%: Use Rip
75-40%: Wait until you have at least forty energy, then use Maim, then Shred
<40%: Ferocious Bite
Level 64
You now get Lifebloom. This spell is a hollow shell of what it used to be, and when you have no spell power, it is your least mana efficient healing spell. Still, if you only need to heal the amount that Lifebloom will heal you for or less, there's no sense in using a spell that costs more mana when you won't be doing any more healing.
Level 66
You now get Lacerate, an ability that will make your Bear Form combat more interesting. It applies a damage over time effect to the target that can be stacked for more damage. It's not worth using when you are fighting large crowds in Bear Form, but when you are fighting one very powerful enemy, you should keep five applications of Lacerate on them at all times. Still, you need to use Mangle (Bear) whenever you can, so what you should do when fighting a very powerful foe is start with Mangle, then use Lacerate until you get to five stacks, using Mangle whenever it is off of its cooldown, and then use Swipe when Mangle is on its cooldown. Make sure you use Lacerate before it runs out so that you don't need to reapply it; I'd say do it within five seconds of when Lacerate will run out.
You should also start investing your talent points in Naturalist, which will increase all physical damage you do by 10% at max. It's a very powerful boost.
Level 70
You get Cyclone at this level. It makes the enemy immune to all attacks and unable to do anything for six seconds. I didn't use it much while leveling, so use it if you find situational applications of it. I suppose you could use it with the instant-cast aspect of Predatory Strikes to allow yourself six seconds of uninterrupted healing without needing to use Barkskin.
Level 71
You finally get an AoE ability for Cat Form at this level: Swipe (Cat). If you are fighting two enemies, using this will be faster than fighting each one individually if you have invested in King of the Jungle and you use Tiger's Fury once you run out of energy. If you start out at full energy, that should give you enough Swipes to kill one and seriously injure the other. If you need to kill three or more and want to do it more quickly than Swiping them in Bear Form will allow, then use Swipe (Cat) in conjunction with Berserk; you will not be disappointed. However, if you really want to get the most out of Berserk, then don't use it until you have no energy left and have already used Tiger's Fury.
You can also train Swift Flight Form at this level if you have Artisan Riding. It's like Flight Form but with the speed of an epic mount. If that idea doesn't make you excited, then you clearly need to try more things with Flight Form.
You should invest your talent point in Omen of Clarity at this level. It will occasionally make your next ability free to use, and it is quite useful for that reason. It affects Thorns, so while you are buffing yourself, you should use Mark of the Wild first, since Omen of Clarity doesn't affect Mark of the Wild, though it can be triggered by Mark of the Wild, and it does affect Thorns. You can also use Lifebloom when Omen of Clarity is active to get some free mana, but the mana you get back is less than the cost of any other ability that is affected by Omen of Clarity, so that is only worth doing if the last spell you plan on casting for the next few moments triggers Omen of Clarity.
Level 75
You get a new finishing move for Cat Form for raids now: Savage Roar. It buffs your damage for a certain amount of time, lasting longer when you have more combo points. As awesome as this ability is, it shines most when you can attack for the majority of its duration, so save it for raids or when you take down an elite enemy in groups (in which case you will probably be tanking, anyways.)
Level 80
You did it! And your reward is... a healing spell! Nourish is actually a great ability for healing as a druid. It's a fast heal that heals for more when your target has a HoT on them. Truth be told, it's only really worth using when your target has a HoT on them, or else it loses a lot of it punch. Without any spellpower, it is less mana efficient then Regrowth, as mana efficient as Healing Touch (if you already have a HoT on yourself), and more mana efficient than Rejuvenation and Lifebloom. If you need to heal yourself out of combat and thus need to think about what is most mana efficient, I suggest starting with Regrowth, then calculating how much health you still need to heal after the initial heal. Subtract 2,000 from that, and use Nourish or Healing Touch to make up the difference.
So there you go; you've reached level 80! What you do now is your own choice, but whatever you do, you are now doing it with the best class in the game, hands down. You may wish to read my post on how to avoid those "What do I do now?" moments.
Level 61
Start investing points in Furor. It's the best way for a leveling feral to start investing in the resto talents tree, and once you start using it, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it. Furor gives you ten rage when you shift into Bear Form and allows you to gain energy when you shift into Cat Form. It used to always give you 40 energy, but people abused that fact to get extra energy, so now it simply allows your energy regeneration to continue out of cat form and gives you that energy when you shift back in. At least, that's how I understand it. So, if you shift into Cat Form the first time after you log in, you'll have the maximum amount of energy that the talent lets you have. However, if you have zero when you shift out and then immediately shift back in, you'll only have about 10 or 15 energy. Regardless, it's useful since you'll be able to shift out to heal yourself and then jump right back into the fray when you shift back.
Level 62
You now get Maim, which is a great ability when used right. It's a finishing move that stuns your enemy for a certain amount of time. The more combo points you have, the longer the stun. Though it is useful to interrupt spell casting or stop enemies, it's best application is in using it as another chance to use Shred. After you stun your enemy, if you have enough time and energy, you can run behind them and use Shred for more damage. As such, when you get five combo points, this is what you should do, based on your enemy's health:
>75%: Use Rip
75-40%: Wait until you have at least forty energy, then use Maim, then Shred
<40%: Ferocious Bite
Level 64
You now get Lifebloom. This spell is a hollow shell of what it used to be, and when you have no spell power, it is your least mana efficient healing spell. Still, if you only need to heal the amount that Lifebloom will heal you for or less, there's no sense in using a spell that costs more mana when you won't be doing any more healing.
Level 66
You now get Lacerate, an ability that will make your Bear Form combat more interesting. It applies a damage over time effect to the target that can be stacked for more damage. It's not worth using when you are fighting large crowds in Bear Form, but when you are fighting one very powerful enemy, you should keep five applications of Lacerate on them at all times. Still, you need to use Mangle (Bear) whenever you can, so what you should do when fighting a very powerful foe is start with Mangle, then use Lacerate until you get to five stacks, using Mangle whenever it is off of its cooldown, and then use Swipe when Mangle is on its cooldown. Make sure you use Lacerate before it runs out so that you don't need to reapply it; I'd say do it within five seconds of when Lacerate will run out.
You should also start investing your talent points in Naturalist, which will increase all physical damage you do by 10% at max. It's a very powerful boost.
Level 70
You get Cyclone at this level. It makes the enemy immune to all attacks and unable to do anything for six seconds. I didn't use it much while leveling, so use it if you find situational applications of it. I suppose you could use it with the instant-cast aspect of Predatory Strikes to allow yourself six seconds of uninterrupted healing without needing to use Barkskin.
Level 71
You finally get an AoE ability for Cat Form at this level: Swipe (Cat). If you are fighting two enemies, using this will be faster than fighting each one individually if you have invested in King of the Jungle and you use Tiger's Fury once you run out of energy. If you start out at full energy, that should give you enough Swipes to kill one and seriously injure the other. If you need to kill three or more and want to do it more quickly than Swiping them in Bear Form will allow, then use Swipe (Cat) in conjunction with Berserk; you will not be disappointed. However, if you really want to get the most out of Berserk, then don't use it until you have no energy left and have already used Tiger's Fury.
You can also train Swift Flight Form at this level if you have Artisan Riding. It's like Flight Form but with the speed of an epic mount. If that idea doesn't make you excited, then you clearly need to try more things with Flight Form.
You should invest your talent point in Omen of Clarity at this level. It will occasionally make your next ability free to use, and it is quite useful for that reason. It affects Thorns, so while you are buffing yourself, you should use Mark of the Wild first, since Omen of Clarity doesn't affect Mark of the Wild, though it can be triggered by Mark of the Wild, and it does affect Thorns. You can also use Lifebloom when Omen of Clarity is active to get some free mana, but the mana you get back is less than the cost of any other ability that is affected by Omen of Clarity, so that is only worth doing if the last spell you plan on casting for the next few moments triggers Omen of Clarity.
Level 75
You get a new finishing move for Cat Form for raids now: Savage Roar. It buffs your damage for a certain amount of time, lasting longer when you have more combo points. As awesome as this ability is, it shines most when you can attack for the majority of its duration, so save it for raids or when you take down an elite enemy in groups (in which case you will probably be tanking, anyways.)
Level 80
You did it! And your reward is... a healing spell! Nourish is actually a great ability for healing as a druid. It's a fast heal that heals for more when your target has a HoT on them. Truth be told, it's only really worth using when your target has a HoT on them, or else it loses a lot of it punch. Without any spellpower, it is less mana efficient then Regrowth, as mana efficient as Healing Touch (if you already have a HoT on yourself), and more mana efficient than Rejuvenation and Lifebloom. If you need to heal yourself out of combat and thus need to think about what is most mana efficient, I suggest starting with Regrowth, then calculating how much health you still need to heal after the initial heal. Subtract 2,000 from that, and use Nourish or Healing Touch to make up the difference.
So there you go; you've reached level 80! What you do now is your own choice, but whatever you do, you are now doing it with the best class in the game, hands down. You may wish to read my post on how to avoid those "What do I do now?" moments.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Leveling a druid (what moves to use): Levels 41-60
Here is the next installment of my druid leveling guide, which will hopefully not become completely irrelevant when Cataclysm rolls out and everything we know about WoW changes forever. Here's the first installment, and here's the second one, dealing with level 1-20 and 21-40 respectively.
Level 41
You'll want to start investing in the talent Improved Leader of the Pack. The passive self-healing provided by this talent is extraordinarily useful and one of the best reasons to play a druid and level it feral. Between the healing you gain from this talent and the ability to heal yourself, you'll never need food again. The mana it provides is pretty useful as well.
Level 44
You now get Barkskin, which reduces the damage you take for twelve seconds and makes you immune to spell delay effects, meaning that if you are being attacked by enemies, you can use Barkskin to heal yourself easily. I suggest you save it for when are out fighting and you need to shift out to heal yourself, since you'll be able to do so without attacks against you slowing you down. When you do this, I recommend starting with Regrowth, because of its short cast time, then Healing Touch, for a more substantial heal. You can use Healing Touch again if you need more healing, but make sure to get all of your healing done before its duration runs out. In an instance, you can use Barkskin while tanking to take less damage when fighting enemies; it's short cooldown means you can use it frequently for that purpose.
Level 50
You get two abilities at this level. The less amazing one is Gift of the Wild, a full-party/raid version of Mark of the Wild that requires a reagent. I don't suggest you actually buy those reagents and use this ability unless you run a lot of instances, which will probably be at level 80. You can just use manual buffing until then.
The real exciting ability you get at this level is one you get through talents: Mangle. You should pick up this ability the minute you hit level 50; it will change your life. It causes a high amount of damage and makes the target take more damage from bleed effects, and considering that a lot of your damage comes from bleed effects, that is a big bonus. It also increases the damage of your Shred and Maul abilities, which makes it even better. Take Mangle (Cat) and use it to replace Claw on your action bars; you have no use for Claw anymore. Mangle (Bear) doesn't replace anything, but it is still one of your best abilities for Bear Form, and unless you are fighting more than four enemies, you should use it whenever it is off of its cooldown.
Since Mangle is so life changing, you might be wondering how you should incorporate it into your strategy when out solo-ing. Here you go:
Cat Form: Start in Prowl, use Pounce, Mangle (to maximize Pounce's damage), Shred (if you have enough time and energy to use it), Rake. From here, use Mangle until you have five combo points, then use Rip if your target is above 75% health, Ferocious Bite if otherwise. Use Rake if its duration runs out, unless your target is about to die. When your target reaches 20% health, use Ferocious Bite to use up your remaining combo points.
Bear Form: Use Mangle at every given opportunity, Swipe when Mangle is on its cooldown, and Maul when you have extra rage. Much simpler, yes? If you are fighting more than four enemies, stick with Swipe and Maul
Level 51
Although you can start by investing your talent points in Improved Mangle (which is pretty awesome), you should know about a little talent called King of the Jungle. When you max out this talent, Tiger's Fury will give you 60 energy when used. Whether you want to save energy with Improved Mangle or get more with King of the Jungle is up to you, but you should invest in King of the Jungle at some point while leveling. It makes Tiger's Fury an awesome ability to use when you need a bit of a boost of damage in Cat Form.
Level 60
You get two fantastic abilities at this level. One is the talent Berserk, which pretty much makes you awesome, no matter what form you use it in. While in Bear Form, Berserk removes Mangle's cooldown and allows it to hit up to three targets. While used in Cat Form, it reduces the cost of all of your abilities by 50%, but prevents you from using Tiger's Fury (so you don't use it with King of the Jungle to get some cheap extra energy). If you are fighting three powerful enemies, then using Berserk in Bear Form in conjunction with Mangle is quite useful. You can also use it in Cat Form when you need a sizable boost to your single-target damage.
The other new ability you get is Flight From, which is better than a flying mount for several reasons. For one thing, learning it teaches you expert riding, or at least it did back in my day (can someone confirms that it still does?). You still need journeyman riding to learn it, but you should have that by now, anyways. Flight Form mimics a flying mount in several ways, but it is much better. Why? For one thing, it is an instant cast, so you can use it while moving, something no other class can do. It is also much cheaper than a mount. You can loot corpses, as well as skin corpses and collect herbs without leaving flight form, meaning if you are attacked in while doing those things, you can just fly up and leave combat. (An act colloquially knows as the "roflcopter") Finally, and I feel this is the most important part, YOU CAN USE IT WHILE FALLING! That means that you can jump off of a cliff and use it before you hit the ground, and you'll survive. This also means that if you are ever "dismounted", you can immediately "remount."
Here is a list of all of fun things you can do with Flight From, courtesy of WoWWiki.
Next week, we'll finish the leveling trek and go from 60 to 80. See you then!
Level 41
You'll want to start investing in the talent Improved Leader of the Pack. The passive self-healing provided by this talent is extraordinarily useful and one of the best reasons to play a druid and level it feral. Between the healing you gain from this talent and the ability to heal yourself, you'll never need food again. The mana it provides is pretty useful as well.
Level 44
You now get Barkskin, which reduces the damage you take for twelve seconds and makes you immune to spell delay effects, meaning that if you are being attacked by enemies, you can use Barkskin to heal yourself easily. I suggest you save it for when are out fighting and you need to shift out to heal yourself, since you'll be able to do so without attacks against you slowing you down. When you do this, I recommend starting with Regrowth, because of its short cast time, then Healing Touch, for a more substantial heal. You can use Healing Touch again if you need more healing, but make sure to get all of your healing done before its duration runs out. In an instance, you can use Barkskin while tanking to take less damage when fighting enemies; it's short cooldown means you can use it frequently for that purpose.
Level 50
You get two abilities at this level. The less amazing one is Gift of the Wild, a full-party/raid version of Mark of the Wild that requires a reagent. I don't suggest you actually buy those reagents and use this ability unless you run a lot of instances, which will probably be at level 80. You can just use manual buffing until then.
The real exciting ability you get at this level is one you get through talents: Mangle. You should pick up this ability the minute you hit level 50; it will change your life. It causes a high amount of damage and makes the target take more damage from bleed effects, and considering that a lot of your damage comes from bleed effects, that is a big bonus. It also increases the damage of your Shred and Maul abilities, which makes it even better. Take Mangle (Cat) and use it to replace Claw on your action bars; you have no use for Claw anymore. Mangle (Bear) doesn't replace anything, but it is still one of your best abilities for Bear Form, and unless you are fighting more than four enemies, you should use it whenever it is off of its cooldown.
Since Mangle is so life changing, you might be wondering how you should incorporate it into your strategy when out solo-ing. Here you go:
Cat Form: Start in Prowl, use Pounce, Mangle (to maximize Pounce's damage), Shred (if you have enough time and energy to use it), Rake. From here, use Mangle until you have five combo points, then use Rip if your target is above 75% health, Ferocious Bite if otherwise. Use Rake if its duration runs out, unless your target is about to die. When your target reaches 20% health, use Ferocious Bite to use up your remaining combo points.
Bear Form: Use Mangle at every given opportunity, Swipe when Mangle is on its cooldown, and Maul when you have extra rage. Much simpler, yes? If you are fighting more than four enemies, stick with Swipe and Maul
Level 51
Although you can start by investing your talent points in Improved Mangle (which is pretty awesome), you should know about a little talent called King of the Jungle. When you max out this talent, Tiger's Fury will give you 60 energy when used. Whether you want to save energy with Improved Mangle or get more with King of the Jungle is up to you, but you should invest in King of the Jungle at some point while leveling. It makes Tiger's Fury an awesome ability to use when you need a bit of a boost of damage in Cat Form.
Level 60
You get two fantastic abilities at this level. One is the talent Berserk, which pretty much makes you awesome, no matter what form you use it in. While in Bear Form, Berserk removes Mangle's cooldown and allows it to hit up to three targets. While used in Cat Form, it reduces the cost of all of your abilities by 50%, but prevents you from using Tiger's Fury (so you don't use it with King of the Jungle to get some cheap extra energy). If you are fighting three powerful enemies, then using Berserk in Bear Form in conjunction with Mangle is quite useful. You can also use it in Cat Form when you need a sizable boost to your single-target damage.
The other new ability you get is Flight From, which is better than a flying mount for several reasons. For one thing, learning it teaches you expert riding, or at least it did back in my day (can someone confirms that it still does?). You still need journeyman riding to learn it, but you should have that by now, anyways. Flight Form mimics a flying mount in several ways, but it is much better. Why? For one thing, it is an instant cast, so you can use it while moving, something no other class can do. It is also much cheaper than a mount. You can loot corpses, as well as skin corpses and collect herbs without leaving flight form, meaning if you are attacked in while doing those things, you can just fly up and leave combat. (An act colloquially knows as the "roflcopter") Finally, and I feel this is the most important part, YOU CAN USE IT WHILE FALLING! That means that you can jump off of a cliff and use it before you hit the ground, and you'll survive. This also means that if you are ever "dismounted", you can immediately "remount."
Here is a list of all of fun things you can do with Flight From, courtesy of WoWWiki.
- This form is instant cast, so it can be used to beat a strategic retreat if a fight is going badly. As soon as you are out of combat, it is possible to attempt an instant upwards escape.
- Skydiving! With practice and if you are high enough in the air when you start, you can dismount or unshift, cast an instant spell, and then shift back before hitting the ground and dying. In a case where you are being chased aerially, this allows you to heal and re-buff without making yourself vulnerable by landing. Be very careful of crashing when you do this!
- 'Gravity Chicken': two Druids fly up as high as possible, shift out, and the first to shift back loses. Extra points for talking non-Druids into playing.
- Flight Form can of course be used to avoid taking falling damage.
- Flight Form can be used to scout or bypass small obstacles quickly without the inconvenience of taking the time to mount up.
- This form can be used to quickly bypass content in a manner similar to that of stealth, but with differing limitations. It is also very useful for browsing for herbs, minerals, or rare-spawn mobs.
- In order to do a loop, enter the command /mountspecial. This only works while not moving. There are two actions, Pitch Up and Pitch Down, that can be key-mapped to permit gradual loops in motion.
- Moonbomb: In a heavily farmed area you can gain an advantage by scouting for mobs and Moonfiring immediately after reverting to caster form and before landing.
- RAWRbomb! Shift out of Flight Form while airborne, shift to Bear Form, and Feral Charge your target before you land. Practice until you can accurately land on top of your victims. Important note: You must have the resto skill Furor to get enough rage while falling to be able to Feral Charge; if not, you perform a RAWRsplat (unless you time Enrage perfectly).
- Sneaky Sneaky Sir: You can even shift out of Flight Form, pop into Cat Form, then Prowl all before hitting the ground. Perfect for surprise attacks! This also allows you to shift out from a higher altitude, with the Cat Form's inherent lowering of fall damage.
- You cannot be dismounted while in Flight Form or Swift Flight Form by a mob's Daze effect. This makes mobs like the Monstrous Kaliri in the Skettis area not nearly as annoying to Druids as they are to normal mount users.
- Flight Kite: In your Flying Form, at zero altitude, you are able to aggro ground beasties. You can instantly break combat by gaining altitude. And, since you move at the speed of a ground mount, you can easily kite by getting close, getting aggro, and fly away; when you've gotten it far enough, lift off and back they go. Let them hit you once in a while for the damage from Thorns to keep them interested.
- While the Flight Form doesn't run along the ground, it does seem to act as a ground mount at zero altitude. If you fly down and touch the ground, you bounce up to standard flying beastie height, and follow the terrain. This seems to allow movement-affecting effects to apply. It's also possible to fall off of things in Flight Form while doing this. You do take falling damage after sliding down steep slopes, unless you have a moment of free-fall, prompting your flight form to fly again.
- Water to Flight Form: rapidly and in this order - jump straight up from the surface of the water, move forward (or backward), then shift into Flight Form.
- Cliff escape: if you're caught in a tight spot near one of the endless Outland cliffs and don't have the time, health, or space to run far enough to drop combat, just jump off the cliff. You may have enough distance falling to break combat with the mob, and by spamming flight form you will stop yourself before you die. Note that this is far from guaranteed; vertical distance does not break combat like ground-level distance does.
- Farming/grinding quests: when doing quests where you have to pick up 10 items of some kind from the ground, you can fly over the item and loot it without changing out of Flight Form. If all mobs in the area only can do melee damage, you will be able to do this quest with no fighting in less than a minute.
- Entering the command /sit while hovering over a flat surface will cause you to perch upon it. Entering the command /sleep while hovering causes you to freeze in place.
- Escape Combat: Night Elf druids can use Shadowmeld to leave combat and then shift to Flight Form, allowing them to get out of the area. Flight Form of course breaks shadowmeld.
- If you are an herbalist, you can collect herbs without leaving Flight Form, allowing you to fly away if you are attacked and try again. This also applies to skinning mobs and looting corpses.
Next week, we'll finish the leveling trek and go from 60 to 80. See you then!
Friday, November 6, 2009
New professions as the embodiments of each expansion pack
One thing I have noticed about both Jewelcrafting and Inscription is that they both embodied significant aspects of their respective expansion pack. I will go over each one in time, but this got me thinking: if this is true of the previous professions, then what can we gleam about Cataclysm from the new profession that is slated to be included, Archaeology? Let's find out.
Burning Crusade was a partial deviation from many of the ways Blizzard did things. Factions were emphasized much more, and Jewelcrafting reflected this by having many of its patterns for gem cuts (of which there were many) come from reputations. Burning Crusade also brought the advent of heroics, many of which dropped Jewelcrafting plans, encouraging jewelcrafters to run them. BC also had something for both new players and players at the level cap (with the inclusion of two new races and the new continent, respectively), but it was mostly focused on the level cap. This was reflected in jewelcrafting, which finally allowed for the creation of useful BoE jewelry for people who were still leveling up, but mostly found its niche in the the creation of gems to put in high-level players' gear. Because of all of these facets (pun not intended) of Jewelcrafting, Jewelcrafting reflected the spirit of BC: varied and with something for everyone.
Inscription, of the other hand, really reflected Blizzard's push for homogenization in Wrath of the Lich King (see my post on the homogenization of Wrath of the Lich King solo content if you haven't already). Blizzard pushed for a more straight forward way of players acquiring their recipes for professions, which Inscription definitely reflects, for all of Inscription's recipes are gained from either trainers or discovery, with the one exception of Technique: Rituals of the New Moon (seriously, that is the only exception). Wrath also made it much easier to level up professions, as anyone who leveled a profession to Grand Master level can attest. Inscription followed this pattern, with all herbs the scribe found being turned into ink, meaning that it didn't matter what herbs you found; as long as they were the right level, you would get the ink you needed to level the profession. Inscription also focused mostly on high-end content, since that is when the profession is at its most useful (with the third major glyph slot being unlocked at 80) and glyphs were really expensive when the profession was first implemented, so they couldn't be accessed by low level players. Thus the products in inscription were only available to those close to the level cap, like all of the new content in Wrath. Of course, glyphs have since come down to a reasonable price now that everyone has glyphs and the demand has shrunk.
So, what can we infer about Cataclysm by looking at Archeology? Let's take a look, going point by point on all of the information WoWWiki has on the new secondary skill.
-It will be a secondary profession.
This means it will be available to everyone. Considering that Cataclysm will change Azeroth to make leveling easier and also include new end-game content, it really will be an expansion for everyone, so this fits.
-Focused on locating artifacts unearthed by the cataclysm.
So the cataclysm itself will be an important part of the expansion pack. No surprises there. Perhaps Cataclysm will also result in us finding out something about Warcraft's past that we had no idea of before.
-Artifacts will go into a new artifact journal instead of your inventory.
Blizzard has put more emphasis on clearing bag space by making more things not take up space in bags (pets, mounts, emblems, non-monetary currency, etc.), so this is no surprise either. Perhaps Cataclysm will result in even more things going somewhere aside from our bags. Tabards, please?
-Placing an artifact in your journal will allow you to "study" it and progressively unlock new rewards.
Perhaps this points to a larger theme of going back to the same place multiple times. Obviously we will be doing that by going back to Azeroth, but perhaps Blizzard will also have us running dungeons multiple times in order to advance the dungeon's story, getting better rewards each time.
-Unlocks unique rewards such as vanity pets.
If Archaeology will not be just about the epic loot and the "useful" rewards, perhaps Cataclysm will be the same way. As a pet collector and a casual player, this pleases me.
-Unlocks paths in the Paths of the Titans system. This will give players a tool to change their characters even more than regular talents.
Path of the Titans, as far as I know, is slated to be a way for player to improve their character at the level cap without raiding or PvP'ing. It's basically end-game for solo-ers. We know that Azeroth's make-over will certainly be something for the solo-ers, but perhaps Cataclysm's end-game will also be more geared towards solo-ers.
If these predictions are accurate, they certainly make me excited for Cataclysm. Let's hope they are.
Burning Crusade was a partial deviation from many of the ways Blizzard did things. Factions were emphasized much more, and Jewelcrafting reflected this by having many of its patterns for gem cuts (of which there were many) come from reputations. Burning Crusade also brought the advent of heroics, many of which dropped Jewelcrafting plans, encouraging jewelcrafters to run them. BC also had something for both new players and players at the level cap (with the inclusion of two new races and the new continent, respectively), but it was mostly focused on the level cap. This was reflected in jewelcrafting, which finally allowed for the creation of useful BoE jewelry for people who were still leveling up, but mostly found its niche in the the creation of gems to put in high-level players' gear. Because of all of these facets (pun not intended) of Jewelcrafting, Jewelcrafting reflected the spirit of BC: varied and with something for everyone.
Inscription, of the other hand, really reflected Blizzard's push for homogenization in Wrath of the Lich King (see my post on the homogenization of Wrath of the Lich King solo content if you haven't already). Blizzard pushed for a more straight forward way of players acquiring their recipes for professions, which Inscription definitely reflects, for all of Inscription's recipes are gained from either trainers or discovery, with the one exception of Technique: Rituals of the New Moon (seriously, that is the only exception). Wrath also made it much easier to level up professions, as anyone who leveled a profession to Grand Master level can attest. Inscription followed this pattern, with all herbs the scribe found being turned into ink, meaning that it didn't matter what herbs you found; as long as they were the right level, you would get the ink you needed to level the profession. Inscription also focused mostly on high-end content, since that is when the profession is at its most useful (with the third major glyph slot being unlocked at 80) and glyphs were really expensive when the profession was first implemented, so they couldn't be accessed by low level players. Thus the products in inscription were only available to those close to the level cap, like all of the new content in Wrath. Of course, glyphs have since come down to a reasonable price now that everyone has glyphs and the demand has shrunk.
So, what can we infer about Cataclysm by looking at Archeology? Let's take a look, going point by point on all of the information WoWWiki has on the new secondary skill.
-It will be a secondary profession.
This means it will be available to everyone. Considering that Cataclysm will change Azeroth to make leveling easier and also include new end-game content, it really will be an expansion for everyone, so this fits.
-Focused on locating artifacts unearthed by the cataclysm.
So the cataclysm itself will be an important part of the expansion pack. No surprises there. Perhaps Cataclysm will also result in us finding out something about Warcraft's past that we had no idea of before.
-Artifacts will go into a new artifact journal instead of your inventory.
Blizzard has put more emphasis on clearing bag space by making more things not take up space in bags (pets, mounts, emblems, non-monetary currency, etc.), so this is no surprise either. Perhaps Cataclysm will result in even more things going somewhere aside from our bags. Tabards, please?
-Placing an artifact in your journal will allow you to "study" it and progressively unlock new rewards.
Perhaps this points to a larger theme of going back to the same place multiple times. Obviously we will be doing that by going back to Azeroth, but perhaps Blizzard will also have us running dungeons multiple times in order to advance the dungeon's story, getting better rewards each time.
-Unlocks unique rewards such as vanity pets.
If Archaeology will not be just about the epic loot and the "useful" rewards, perhaps Cataclysm will be the same way. As a pet collector and a casual player, this pleases me.
-Unlocks paths in the Paths of the Titans system. This will give players a tool to change their characters even more than regular talents.
Path of the Titans, as far as I know, is slated to be a way for player to improve their character at the level cap without raiding or PvP'ing. It's basically end-game for solo-ers. We know that Azeroth's make-over will certainly be something for the solo-ers, but perhaps Cataclysm's end-game will also be more geared towards solo-ers.
If these predictions are accurate, they certainly make me excited for Cataclysm. Let's hope they are.
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