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Why do we still have separate PvP and PvE gear?
While seeking out questions to a Queue I wrote, I was asked by a Twitter follower why we had separate PvE and PvP gear in the first place. A question I love, and that I wouldn't be able to respond to briefly enough for The Queue. I'm not going to go into a complete, exhaustive history of PvP gear. For starters, I didn't play in Classic, so I can't really comment on the gear then, but I gather that there was a lot more overlap between the two. Then, with Burning Crusade, back in 2006, the combat rating system and Resilience were both introduced, along with arenas. PvP gear was born. It's been through many different iterations since then -- too easy to get, too hard to get, too bad for PvE, too good for PvE, different effects, stat budgets, you name it. But history, while it merits repetition, shouldn't have too much bearing on this question in today's game.
The Daily Grind: Are single-server MMOs uncomfortably big?
If I had my way and technology were easy, every MMO would be a single-server experience akin to EVE Online's or Champions Online's. You might never come in contact with the majority of players or ever encounter a scenario when hundreds of players gathered together, but the unified economy would be a trader's paradise, and it'd be a boon for developers, too, being easier to balance and avoiding the late-game server-merge nightmares that most MMOs eventually suffer. Best of all, you'd never have to find out your new co-worker plays your favorite game too... on another server. But there is a considerable contingent of MMO players who still balk at the idea of an MMO melting pot and tools intended to bridge servers like LFG systems or World of Warcraft's connected realms and battlegroups. Sharded server structures create tight communities, the argument goes. People don't want to deal with folks from around the world who don't speak their language, and they don't want to fade into the background of a massive server with what they perceive as no personality and no community ties or loyalty. Do you agree with that sentiment -- are single-server MMOs just uncomfortably big? Do you prefer a classic, sharded experience? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Soapbox: The Raid Finder ruined raiding
I don't typically limit myself to ranting about only one game at a time, but I decided to make an exception this week and speak out against World of Warcraft's Raid Finder mechanic. I was running a small and modestly successful raiding guild when this system was introduced, and my team definitely felt the onslaught of this guild-destroying game mechanic first hand. Raid Finder, commonly dubbed LFR by the cool kids in Orgrimmar, is a system that demolishes the competency barrier that stands in the way of freshly level-capped characters and normal raiding content. The system allows players to join a random raiding group in order to tackle a nerfed version of a normal raid and exists mainly to maximise inclusion in the game's best PvE endgame content. LFR was quite popular among casual players that were usually passed up when it came to raiding group formation, but it didn't offer much progress to seasoned raiders. The gear gained had lower stats than its corresponding normal raid counterpart, but the LFR tier simply didn't need the co-ordination required of a group tackling regular raids. A void was created somewhere in between the casual masses who could benefit from the LFR mechanic and the hardcore raiders that simply did not need help with progression. My casual raiding guild was caught in the middle and ultimately met its demise at the hands of LFR, which simultaneously depleted the PUG pool and gave our members another way to see the endgame content they wanted without putting in virtual blood, sweat, and tears.
My Warlords of Draenor Wish List
It should be noted that these are not features that have been announced, nor even speculated about or teased to my knowledge - if they have, I missed them somehow. It's possible. I'm human, I miss things. But I was thinking about the features announced for Warlords of Draenor (including recent announcements that blood elves and draenei will be among the races who get new models) and I realized that there's all sorts of things I'd like to see that haven't even been mentioned yet, and while I don't expect they'll happen, I might as well share them with you in the hopes that they may end up arriving at some point down the road. After all, transmog and LFR happened in the middle of an expansion, and they both worked out pretty well. So here we go. Level scaling This is one I've wanted for a while. With flexible raiding now a reality, I'm drawn back to the idea of being able to scale your level down to run older content with friends, something the late, lamented City of Heroes had (called mentoring/sidekicking in that game). We've been teased with this potentially existing as recently as October of 2013 and whether or not it was a hoax then (I personally have no idea) it's something I've wanted for years. Sure, it's fun to bring your level 90 to an old dungeon and blow it up sometimes, but I want the option to step myself down and run it at an appropriate level in appropriate gear if I so choose. I'd also like to be able to boost a friend up to my level so that we can run stuff together, although I suspect the free level 90 boost is aimed at handling this same problem. Basically, anything that lets friends do more stuff together, I'm down for. And speaking of that...
Why Warlords of Draenor needs a legendary chain
Mists of Pandaria was unique in a variety of different ways, but none quite so unique as its approach to legendary items. While prior expansions offered legendaries in the form of random drops from bosses or craftable items that required -- you guessed it -- random drops from bosses, Mists paved the way for a new type of legendary. It was a legendary that anyone could get, provided they put in the time and effort required to obtain it. Coming from a long line of raiding going all the way back to vanilla, I have to say that Mists' approach was the best I've ever seen. No more arguing over which class deserved the legendary more, no more officer headaches as they tried to decide who got the legendary first. No more accusations of favoritism, no more guild explosions. Just you, the character you play, and a decision to make: do you go for the legendary chain, or do you ignore it? You choose. We need this in Warlords.
Warlords of Draenor: Flex, Group Finder and Raid Finder's roles
Blizzard Community Manager Lore has been posting about the future roles of Flex, the new Group Finder, and Raid Finder in Warlords of Draenor. You can, as usual, see Lore's full post after the break, but what he's talking about is how, thanks to the success of Flex as a raid system and the resultant awkward position of LFR, a reshuffle needs to happen. LFR has been wearing too many hats. It's been end-game progression for some, a gear grind for others, and a way to see the sights of a raid for even more, as well as everything in between. That's a hard act for one difficulty, that is simultaneously too hard and too easy. But thanks to the runaway success of Flex, due in no small part to group-finding systems like OpenRaid or oQueue, the devs think they can make some changes to the tuning of LFR. The idea, it seems, is that the new Group Finder will make it just as easy to find a Flex group as it currently is to find an LFR one. Then, LFR tuning can be altered, allowing Blizz to "better provide for both the "busy raider" and "sightseer" styles of gameplay as a result." So it seems likely that, if this remains the case (we're not even in beta after all) LFR will become the tourist difficulty. Flex via the Group Finder, and with friends, will become the new way to get meaningful progression encounters. And that makes sense, given how it'll be renamed to "Normal" come WoD. Hit the break for Lore's full post.
Would you bring back "boss must die!" quests?
Once upon a time it was common for there to exist daily (for dungeons) or weekly (for raids) boss-kill quests in WoW; think Archmage Lan'dalock during Wrath of the Lich King. User Frozenclaw, over on the EU forums, is wondering just what happened to those types of quests? Why don't we see any in Mists of Pandaria? It would be a great way to drive players to some of the lower-tier raids (such as Heart of Fear or Terrace of Endless Spring) these days, as well as a way to gain some reward for being willing to step into old content. I think this would be a great idea! I still regularly hit up some of the initial MoP raids for valor and the like, but sometimes the queue times are, uh, depressing. The addition of an extra reward for killing certain bosses might help drive people into these older raids--great if you're trying to gear an alt in LFR, for example--and give them something nice for doing so. Would you like to see the return of these types of quests? Would you run them if they did come back? What kind of rewards would you like to see out of them?
Patch 5.4.2: This is just the beginning for Blizzard's Raid Finder
We posted earlier about Blizzard's first steps towards building their own answer to oQueue, leveling various criticisms at what they had done so far for patch 5.4.2. Basically, you can head back and read the previous post, but the changes so far have all been to the existing Raid Finder tool. The one that nobody knows exists. And the one that nobody can find. Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street was quick to add, though, that this is only the beginning for Blizzard's group finder. @Bashiok @oliviadgrace Takes our crappy old raid browser and enables some cross realm functionality. Still doing a new Group Finder for 6.0. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) November 21, 2013 So we can allow ourselves to hope for better with 6.0. What would you like to see? Personally, I think oQueue, for all its bugs and quirks, does a pretty great job of finding cross-realm groups for people. I'd like to see something that mirrors oQueue, but with fewer issues like spam, memory use, and more. Of course, with Blizzard designing this themselves, it's very likely to be the case that it doesn't suffer any of these ills. I'd love to see it have all the ilvl restrictions, completion restrictions and other group restrictions applicable, and to have the option to appear offline, or hide. One big thing, too, is visibility. It needs to either be integrated into the LFG panel, or have its own micro-menu entry. The single thing that such a system needs, as I mentioned in the earlier article, is people. It needs to be right in players' faces, more convenient than the competition. I believe Blizzard can do it, but to replace such a popular addon that's done so much good to the game, they'll have to do it well.
Looking for Raid must not be destroyed
Every so often, a new forum thread comes up saying that LFR is awful and should be removed from the game. This is one, but it's hardly new or unique (as the post closing the thread makes clear, there are already several forum posts on the topic) - the argument has existed in one form or another since LFR debuted at the end of Cataclysm. It's no secret that I neither like LFR nor run it at all anymore. I am not the audience for LFR. And yet, I not only do not believe it should be removed, I believe it must not be removed. Why do I believe this? Well, multiple reasons. LFR is the friendliest raiding option available to people with limited schedules or who are unable/unwilling to commit to overly structured play time. LFR allows for access to content that would otherwise be unavailable for the majority of the player base. LFR fills a niche - it is neither necessary nor forced upon players who have the time or ability to progress in flex, normal or heroic raiding. One of the things I argued at the beginning of Mists of Pandaria was that content that wasn't necessarily content I personally cared about (pet battles, the Tillers, scenarios) was still good for the game. Options are good - it's better to have more of them, even if they don't suit everyone's playstyles. In many cases, I've only grown to believe this more strongly as LFR has moved from 'content I occasionally run' to 'content I never run' - my ability to completely disregard LFR as unimportant to my game only means that it proves that the developers have successfully balanced raiding. I'm not blind to some of the problems that have hit LFR in the process, however. I've watched my wife (an excellent player hampered by the fact that her day job doesn't allow the kind of time we used to spend raiding together) struggle with bad LFR groups, and I do think there have been some changes to LFR that need to be addressed. Gutting the entire feature, however, is absolutely not the way to go.
Last wing of Siege of Orgrimmar now open in LFR
According to the official schedule, the fourth and final wing of the Siege of Orgrimmar, "Downfall," should be available as of today, October 22nd, to players via LFR. The fourth wing features three bosses: Siegecrafter Blackfuse, Paragons of the Klaxxi, and the big bad Garrosh Hellscream himself. As has always been the case, you much have the achievement of completion for the previous raid wings in order to access the new one, in addition to a minimum gear ilevel of 496. With this last stage of the raid unlocked, LFR groups should now be able to complete the entire Siege of Orgrimmar. If you've somehow managed to avoid all the spoilers as to the identity of the new Warchief, now's your chance to find out the old-fashioned way!
Should Proving Grounds be an entry requirement for LFG content?
There's been an interesting discussion taking place lately regarding Proving Grounds, and their use as a barrier to entry for LFG content. Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street tweeted to clarify Blizzard's potential intent, in response to the forum thread. @Meerkatx It would probably be more like LFR requires ilevel 500 OR a Proving Ground Silver Medal, or maybe Silver + ilevel 450 or whatever. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) October 1, 2013 I thought this was an interesting idea, and clearly something Blizzard has taken into consideration, so let's explore the good and bad sides of it. In each section, I'm going to try my best to steadfastly ignore the opposite position. Think of it as a debate I'm having. With myself. Good Sides Proving grounds are at least a way to show skill. The current system bases itself purely off item level, so if you have the gear on your character, or the gear in your bags, you can get into a LFR raid. This is really really easy to manipulate, particularly for classes who can equip anything, and this in itself is an issue. It's far, far harder to manipulate Proving Ground achievements, particularly given how item level is scaled to 463 in Proving Grounds.
Breakfast Topic: Does LFR impact raid design?
A few days ago, the player Camaranth started a thread on the tank forums examining the number of tank swap mechanics in raids. While the discussion is a good one, there's a reply written by Snuzzle not far down the thread with an interesting observation. "I think the reason we are seeing so many encounters designed with tank swaps in Mists," he/she writes, "is that fights are being designed with Raid Finder in mind ... They need both tanks to have a job to do. Tank swaps are the way to do that (because) most everyone can instantly understand (them)." LFR might not be the only reason for that, but I think Snuzzle has a point. Encounters have to be programmed with the knowledge that Raid Finder groups will always have two tanks, 6 healers, and 17 DPS, no guarantees on class composition, and the knowledge that coordination will realistically be minimal. I don't think it necessarily reflects on the skill of the players concerned so much as the inherent disorganization. Under the circumstances, it would be extremely difficult to program an encounter like, say, Kael'thas or Teron Gorefiend or High King Maulgar, and have it remain somewhat close to the normal and heroic versions. I don't know whether LFR actually does have a serious impact on raid design, but it's certainly an interesting question. In related news, the LFR version of Siege of Orgrimmar was nerfed recently for reasons I think all of us can guess.
Are we getting less tolerant of wipes?
Blizzard Community Manager Nethaera and MVP Crepe have both weighed in on the official forums on the notion of wipe aversion. The jist of Crepe's original post is that they feel the community has become less and less tolerant of wipes. WoW players don't like doing things where their characters die. Crepe gives the specific example of LFR, saying that after a wipe players will just drop group, and that three wipes was the death knell for almost any LFR group. And there's definitely truth to that, why after all did Blizzard introduce the Determination buff if not to try to coax groups to stick together? Alas, it can sometimes work against the group, I've seen players zone in, see three stacks of determination, and immediately drop group again. They weren't even there for the wipes, they have no idea what went wrong or how it happened, and yet they can't take the idea of being in a wiping group. Yet, while players continue to drop group on wipes, the complaints continue that LFR is too easy, that it's sucking the life out of the game, trivializing it at every turn. Blizzard can't win, with LFR at least, it's both too hard and too easy. Every time a new tier comes out, as just happened yesterday, the Community team is besieged with players railing against the difficulty of the new tier. So what's causing us to be less and less tolerant of failure?
Siege of Orgrimmar LFR Wing Two opens
Get ready for the LFR chaos to ramp still higher as wing two opens. This section includes Galakras, Iron Juggernaut, Kor'kron Dark Shaman and General Nazgrim, and we're really getting into the fun stuff now, after the relatively gentle introduction that was wing one. We'll be putting together a guide that details the bosses in five seconds strategy before too long, but in the meantime you can check out our full guides from our PTR testing of the bosses. Which are you most excited about? Which has got you worried? Personally I'm looking forward to Iron Juggernaut. Not because I think it's a particularly excellent fight or anything, but because it's a huge robot scorpion that shoots fire. Frankly I think that's reason enough to be excited about a fight, don't you? And the good news is that, despite the additional difficulty of this wing, we've got two weeks to deal with it and learn the strategies before the next wing of LFR opens on the 8th of October. That one is where it really starts to get crazy, with Malkorok, Spoils of Pandaria and Thok the Bloodthirsty, so get yourself ready for some LFR fun! And be good to each other. We're all new to this.
Queue for all the LFRs at once in patch 5.4
Mists of Pandaria added the option to queue for every different type of content at once, but new with patch 5.4 is the ability to queue for every LFR at once. Yes, literally every single one. This means you can queue for all the LFRs at once, and from my experience today at least, it seems that once you're done with your first LFR of the day, your second queue has popped. It apparently maintains your place in the queue while you're inside the instance, so you will lose absolutely nothing by doing one LFR while you wait. There is a limit on the number of instances you can queue for, which seems, at the moment at least, to be around ten instances. At that point, it just started telling me that I couldn't add any more to my list. But, as you can see to the right-hand side, it is very possible to queue for a large number of LFRs all at once, and add more to your queue list as you complete them. What it doesn't seem to do is particularly prioritize the ones you added first, but that is a very small price to pay for finally being able to queue for all the LFRs at once!
Random Acts of Uberness: The voice of reason
"Reading this column always makes me want to go out and be randomly awesome for someone," mused JenniferKinnison in the comments of last week's Random Acts of Uberness. "Which, of course, is part of the point. Plus, it's just the right thing to do to help another person out. It's so unexpected these days that it's to be treasured all the more when it happens." Caught being uber: Avelianah, Draenor (US-Alliance) I and a friend were in one of those LFR groups that give people chills (not the good kind), full of newer folks trying to gear and perhaps not knowing the fights as well as they could have. There were a couple of uber nasty trolls doing their best to rip apart anyone they thought "deserved" it, and trying to kick multiple people. I would like to send out a hug of appreciation to the repeated voice of kindness and sanity that was Avelianah from Draenor. From giving out pointers, explanations, kind words and discouraging the L33T kicks to the 'thanks for the group' at the end of the instance, she was real class. -- Anonymous
Siege of Orgrimmar Tier vendors
Patch 5.4's new raid, the Siege of Orgrimmar, has been available on normal and flexible difficulties all week this week, but today's maintenance update heralds the release of the first wing of LFR difficulty. That said ... where the heck does one go to get cash in their tier pieces from Siege? If you've been wondering that very question, the answer is much closer than you'd think -- and a lot easier to handle, this time around. Four new tier vendors have been placed in both the Alliance and Horde shrines in patch 5.4. Each vendor handles a particular difficulty of gear -- LFR, flexible, normal, and heroic. These vendors are all in the same area as the challenge mode gear vendor, making them ridiculously easy to get to. If you have tier tokens from any difficulty, simply visit the appropriate difficulty level vendor and turn them in. I have to say, after an entire expansion of flying back and forth to the far reaches of Pandaria just for some tier gear, it's nice to see these guys are in someplace well and truly immediately accessible. After a day's worth of raiding, the last thing I want to do is travel around hunting for the rewards I'd already obtained. That said, it would be nice if they'd add a vendor that carries all the old tier from this expansion as well -- might as well move everyone in close, now that we're nearing the end of the expansion. Good luck to those intrepid souls stepping into LFR today, and remember -- this time around, your gear is closer than you think.
Random Acts of Uberness: The lovely pandaren lady with the fabulous robes
It's the times another player lights up your night with precise play, a wicked sense of humor, or unexpected generosity that your login on World of Warcraft becomes something to remember. That's why we're bringing back the feature that lets you send a shout-out or kudos to a fellow player who's made your day in WoW: Random Acts of Uberness. Caught being uber: Hiyorin of Argent Dawn (EU-Alliance) So there I was! Fighting a rare by the western edge of The Valley of Four Winds on my level 87(?) rogue. And I am losing of course, nearly dead. But suddenly out of the blue comes a friendly pandaren in a set of fabulous robes! Within seconds, she has frozen the rare and started sending of all sorts of shiny magics after him! I keep my distance as the enemy is slowed, frozen and whittled down to nothing! Saving my life and getting me loot, for no reason, other than being kind! (Or so I like to believe.) Thank you, Hiyorin, Argent Dawn EU, the lovely Pandaren lady with the fabulous robes. -- Anonymous
Blizzard reveals Siege of Orgrimmar raid schedule
Next week, we hit Orgrimmar as the Siege begins. And Blizzard has just revealed the release schedule for the raid as a whole. Next week, on September 10th, we get normal mode opening and Flex Raiding opens wing 1, the Vale of Eternal Sorrows. Heroic opens on the 17th (requiring a Garrosh kill on normal to unlock it), along with Flex wing 2, the Gates of Retribution, and LFR opening wing 1. This keeps the previous intention of unlocking Flex faster than LFR and staggers the normal and heroic releases as we saw in previous raids this expansion. For the complete release schedule, we've reproduced the Blizzard post behind the jump. I for one am very much looking forward to the Siege.
Random Acts of Uberness: The Sha of Uberness
In the age of LFR, it's the times another player lights up your night with precise play, a wicked sense of humor, or unexpected generosity that your login on World of Warcraft becomes something to remember. That's why we're bringing back the feature that lets you send a shout-out or kudos to a fellow player who's made your day in WoW: Random Acts of Uberness. This week on Rare Sightings of Azeroth: the Sha of Uberness. It might not seem like much, but I just dinged 90 for the fourth time, this time a discipline/shadow priest. Being barely geared for heroics (and having a difficult time healing some of those), I sort of shrugged when I saw somebody advertising for people for a Sha of Anger group. I decided "What the heck" and whispered the person. He surprised me by not only telling me he didn't care about my gear but offering to let me heal if I wanted! Sha of Anger is something I've wanted to kill since the first time our eyes met. This was a shining moment for me, not only to say "I killed Sha!" but to say "I healed Sha!" to my friends, who thought I hated all things having to do with raids. I just want to say thank you to that random hunter whose name I cannot remember. I hope you read this and know that you made a healer's entire week with that run. Thank you! -- Vilandros, Muradins Resurrection, Muradin (US-Alliance)
