Matticus

My blog is 4 years old today!

Thanks to all of you turkeys, clowns, gnomes and gators that have subscribed and put up with my insanity. Work must be that boring, eh? Hat tip to all the guest posters, the team and the supporters that have continued to give me the fortitude to continue writing.

So a quick informal survey. What’re you interested in seeing more of topics wise (or anything in general)? There are some days where I come up with a blog post idea and then realize I wrote about that back in 2009. Not that there’s anything wrong with revisiting old topics for discussion as long as I add a fresh perspective to it, of course.

Monocle smile.

EDIT: By the way guys? Your GMs called. They asked me to ask you to stop putting Amani Hex Sticks in the bank!

Hot out of Gamescom is the announcement of things we’ll see in patch 4.3

• Deathwing’s raid and a set of 5-man dungeons
• Transmogrification: Ability to customize look of armor
• Armor closet
• Raid finder

Sources: Kotaku, WoW Insider, Battle.Net

This means the thrilling conclusion to Cataclysm is approaching. What an incredibly short expansion cycle. I’m quite curious as to what type of bosses we’ll be seeing in Deathwing’s raid. Perhaps some elementals? Other black dragons? Select minions that we stomped out in Deepholm?

On Transmogrification

Who knows how many typos are going to be made? Transmogrify, not transmorgify. I’ll need to remember this. On the feature itself, I am really pissed. Why? Because it means I have to go on the tier 2 hunt all over again! For me, it’s either going to be tier 2, tier 5 or tier 6. I disenchanted all of my old gear as we went from expansion to expansion because I simply ran out of room. I believe both tier 2 and tier 6 had the entire outfit (all 8 main pieces). Thankfully, I kept all my weapons (Val’anyr and Benediction).

This means I’ll need to set up raiding expeditions into:

• Serpentshrine Cavern
• Tempest Keep
• Blackwing Lair
• Black Temple
• Sunwell
• Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal

Damnit.

On Raid Finder

Finally, Chilton explained a new feature coming with the patch called “Raid Finder”. The Raid Finder essentially operates like a dungeon finder, automating the search for fellow players on the hunt for a good raiding party. It will be built into the game’s updated user interface when the patch hits, they said.

The current iteration of the LF raid tool isn’t the greatest. I daresay a majority of the community doesn’t know it exists and relies on trade chat to fill up their players. For me, when I’m on an alt randomly doing stuff in the city, I’m not actively scouting for a raid group to join. But when I see someone that advertises LFM 25 man BoT, need DPS/healers, I’ll whisper that guy and try to get in on the group. Now with the addition of the raid finder though, that’s going to automate the process entirely. I’m really anxious to see what it looks like. The possibility exists where the system can be “gamed” like the current dungeon finder where it’ll organize and invite players according to gear levels. As a raid leader, I can foresee using these for older raids (or at least, raids that are a tier behind us or so). I don’t know how desperate I would be to use it for current raid or progression content.

It’s not explicitly stated that the raid finder is going to be cross realm so we don’t know yet. If I were to hazard a guess, that’s a probable yes. It might give us the capability to raid with people we know from other servers.

Bonus: If it does go the route of cross realm raiding, that means the ability to raid with Real ID friends won’t be far behind. Pretty soon raid leaders can offer tryouts to players without the risk of server or faction transfer costs.

Would love it if this feature would be enabled for all previously discovered raids. Sometimes it can be hard to fill up older raids.

Just a quick update on the podcast. Originally, we were planning a two week hiatus because of summer and all the different events that we individually had to deal with and such.

But then an update was released which affected some of the behind the scenes technological wizardry we had going on. As such, we’re going to be out of action for a brief while until that fix gets resolved. We have explored alternative options but nothing has really been appealing. I promise we’ll be back as soon as we can. Besides, it’s a great time for us to regenerate, recharge and revitalize our creative energies.

Penny Arcade Expo

Anyone hitting PAX next week? I’ll be at the convention myself and I’d love to meet and greet any fellow gamers/blog readers in the area. Games I’m looking forward to playing the most:

• League of Legends: Dominion
• Counterstrike: Global Offensive
• Guild Wars 2

There’s probably more that I’m missing. I’m not much into the table top stuff so I’ll be hanging near the PCs and console stuff. Any suggestions for other titles to check out? I’m primarily into shooters and RTS games.

Managed to take down Shannox, Beth’tilac, Lord Rhyolith and Baleroc in one night. The kills are a little rough around the edges at times, but every week shows a marked improvement. Learning Alysrazor once was a pain. Relearning it again is a trial by fire to be sure!

Also for all you budding young hunters out there. Never have growl turned on in a raid setting under any circumstances. The rest of the raid will be eternally grateful (and not want to injure you).

For recruiters, looking for players often cause anxiety because you never know if you’re going to find the right players to help you. There is a whole plethora of players still looking for the right guild. I’m not sure what the ratio of 10 man guilds to 25 man guilds are but no doubt there are way more 10s than 25s. There are players looking for PvP guilds, progression, casual, hard mode, RP and others!

We’re going to focus more on raiding guilds. When I’m out shopping for players, I generally shoot for overall experience as the biggest indicator. Gear is a secondary concern. If a player has taken down the first six bosses in Firelands, that tells me a lot more than his 370 item level. Players looking for guilds typically state what number of bosses they’ve killed in the current tier.

Example

6/7 Priest LF progression guild weekdays
2/7 Mage LF raiding guild weekends
7/7 Rogue LF hard mode guild only

With so many players looking for guilds, you could take the shotgun approach and reply to every single “LFG” forum thread. But that’s too tedious especially with the one post per minute limitation. Your time is precious and you can’t possibly visit every thread, track down every player in game, or add every individual on real ID. You need to manage your time better and maximize your returns! Naturally you’re not going to shoot for classes that you’re already stacked to the brim of. Nor are you going to go after people who can’t make your raid times or days.

There is one more indicator you can use.

Try bracketing

Experience matters a lot. You don’t want to pick up a player who is too far behind you. On the other hand, you don’t want to shoot for a player who is beyond your progression unless they explicitly state what they’re looking for in their ad. The first step is to determine how low you’re willing to go.

• A guild that is 6/7 Firelands might be willing to go for a player who is 3/7 or they could aim for a player who is 1 hard mode boss in.
• A guild that is 2/7+ Firelands (+ meaning hard mode kills) might go for a player with a low end of 6/7 normal modes and a top end of 4/7+.
• A guild that is 3/7 Firelands is okay with taking chances on new players who haven’t stepped foot into Firelands or players working on 5/7 or 6/7.

For your own sanity, do not waste the other player’s time. Don’t waste your own either. Don’t aim too high and don’t aim too low.

So what should the experience spread be?

Personally, I like to use a 4 boss spread. That is, I will actively pursue players who are either 2 bosses ahead of where I’m at or 2 bosses behind. If they don’t have kills, that’s okay. As long as they can demonstrate that they were working on some of those bosses and wiping to them, I’ll count that as experience. Obviously that spread is going to vary wildly depending on where you are on the progression path. It also depends on your guild’s current state of raiding. I think 2 is a nice number because if they’re 2 bosses behind, we can accelerate their learning a bit. Chances are they’re familiar with the unkilled bosses anyway and they ran out of time for it. If they’re 2 bosses ahead, they can offer some insight or little tricks to help your raid group get there.

If you’re having trouble with attendance and filling up raids, you might need to expand.

If your roster is stacked as is, you can tighten up the restrictions to a 1 boss spread (or even stating that you’re not going to pursue players with experience below what you’re working on).

One more thing

Make sure you scan LFG posts. Look for keywords such as their availability, preferred loot system and progression. Note raid sizes. In some cases, they’ll indicate rankings. Some players will even indicate specifically what guilds they’re looking for.

Here’s a few examples:

• US Top 100 only
• Must be active in PvP and raiding
• No less than 5/7 Firelands
• 25 man only
• Immediate core position for <class>
• Must be able to accept all 3 of us
• Professional environment
• No female officers*

* Not making this one up. Actually saw it in an LFG post on the official WoW forums. 

Not sure what any of that means? Don’t worry! In an upcoming post, I’ll help you interpret the subtle needs that players say they’re looking for but what they really mean.