The seemingly universal response from bloggers across the board regarding the new daily quests?
“Dailies suck.”
I get that its not mandatory. For most of us that want to push into raiding, it sort of is.
The first raid instance has a set amount of gear and doesn’t contain drops for every slot (which is understandable since there’s two other zones coming out). It feels like that if we want to be at our best (and I guarantee you, most of us that raid want to be at their best), we have to spend time doing it.
How many hours do you think you spend per day capping out your dailies?
It takes me around 3 hours as a Shadow Priest. I’ve managed to drop that some since I hit exalted with the Order of the Cloud Serpent and Tillers. My efforts are focused on the Golden Lotus, August Celestials, and the Shado-Pan.
There’s another thing I don’t understand. Why did we have to hit a reputation milestone with one faction before we could open up the rest? Don’t give me a lore reason. I’m trying to understand the logic behind it. Is it a form of content gating that’s believed to be necessary?
I don’t get it.
On Valor Rewards
Now the issue about capping Valor, I can understand. It’s a crappy fact of our virtual life that we have to spend time outside of the raid to hit our valor for the week. But we’re undergoing a short term level of pain here. In another week and a half, we’ll gain access to Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring – Another two raids where we can get our Valor supply from. Hang in there!
I’m with you guys on this. I like having all these new sources of valor. It’s great I can get it from dungeons, scenarios, raids, and dailies. I’m delighted that Blizzard gave us multiple avenues to secure valour which we can use to purchase gear. But, I’d really like to be able to cap out doing exclusively activities I like doing. As a raider, I’d like to get my points from killing big bosses. If my schedule’s all over and I’m not able to consistently meet a raiding group’s requirements, I’m okay with doing scenarios and dungeons for a week. That seems to make the most sense to me.
What I don’t quite agree with is tying reputation requirements to valor rewards.
There was a comment made by a blue awhile ago stating that they didn’t want to tie reputation gains to tabards. They felt that players would be “double dipping” rewards from dungeons for gear and reputation.
Actually, if they gave us tabard reputations, it would give people additional incentive to run it. After hitting level 90 in 16 hours, I spent the rest of week 1 grinding out heroics as much as possible. 3 weeks later, all my item slots are filled with heroic dungeon or higher. I don’t even queue for it anymore unless a guildie needs a quick healer queue for a specific instance. But give us a tabard, and I’ll gladly brave heroics and carry a group if need be. I’d even be okay if they decided to cap reputation gains (meaning you can get an X total amount of reputation which is the sum of doing all the dailies for a faction on one day or running a few heroics until you max out that gain).
One more thing about the mandatory-ness. I don’t know about you, but I’m one of the dedicated Enchanters in the guild. Now doubt your guild has a few go-to people for professions. You know, the guy that gets the first set of recipe drops from raid. For Enchanting, bracer enchants and weapon enchants open up at Revered for the Celestials and Shado-Pan. It’s a big time requirement.
True, I could’ve passed the buck and gotten someone else to power enchanting.
But, you know, job security.
This may sound bitter, and in fact it is because to a certain degree I am bitter, but here we go.
The shoe really pinches when its on the other foot, eh?
What I mean is for years, we non raiders have not been able to get certain items (shoulders I am looking square at you) at all. Now that raiders really have to do dailies and non raid content, it sure must hurt. And yes I fully relate to the “But, I’d really like to be able to cap out doing exclusively activities I like doing.” remark, because I have experienced that for years.
And maybe now you will understand the idea that if I play X hours doing what I want to do, I should get the same bloody rewards of you doing X hours of what you want to do, whether what you want to do is dungeoning, raiding, or hell just archy.
amkosh I’m not concerned. More options will open in a few weeks. on the one hand, I understand where people are coming from. On the other hand for me, this is stuff I would’ve done anyway and I think it’s a touch out of proportion.
mattuzzi amkosh I definitely agree that it can be made better. I’ve always thought that if there weren’t so much hubris and arrogance (on all sides) it would be relatively easy to make nearly everyone happy.
Face it, these problems have been in video games since the first game, and there are known good solutions to them. Consider difficulty, which is at the root of much. That’s solved by having multiple difficulty levels for the same exact content. Consider a game like Civilization (and its sequels) in that there are a bunch of levels. You play the level you want to, that brings you the most fun. I know, I know, Civ isn’t an MMO, but it does have multiplayer components. And that is where hubris comes in. At its root, a MMO game is just that, a game, and game design patterns do apply. That’s just one example, I can’t think of one problem in WoW that wouldn’t be solved by application of game design that we learned in the 80s and 90s…
amkosh mattuzzi Oh yes, I think multiple difficulties were a wonderful solution. I liked it when LFR came out. I like the 10 man accessibility. I like having options. Single player games have your story mode, and then your Nightmare mode. But I don’t know how one can really “translate” that into an online, virtual world where there’s so much intertwining. You don’t really want to segregate too much of the game because then it divides up the communtiy even further.
mattuzzi amkosh In my mind, LFR, heroic and normal modes are really intended to be different content. Difficulties would be the same exact content and reward, with just a different difficulty level.
I see the point about segregating, but you’re going to divide up the community anyways. Its either going to be in the various difficulties, or in the “I did it”/”I didn’t do it” bins. And the I didn’t do it are usually the ones that exit first.
amkosh Um… HELL NO!
If I spend 10 hours a week raiding, I promise you I’m spending at least 30 hours a week researching the fights, crafting items, disenchanting, enchanting, running dungeons, etc… All to get a pair of shoulders.
If you think, for one second, that you, logging in for an hour here or there and running a dungeon entitles you to the same rewards as raiders, you’re a freaking idiot.
I can only assume you don’t raid, which means you’re doing pet battles, or other such things. How about this: In order for you to do pet battles, you have raid for 3 hours EVERY DAY… or fall behind. Your “choice”. Because that’s what every raider has felt like. We don’t want to do dailies. We, generally, HATE dailies. As Matt said – WE KILL THINGS. Anything other than killing things (and the bigger they are, the better the kill) is time not well-spent.
Darthkeller amkosh You kill things because you want to. You do what you want because you want to. You play the game, and pay 15$ a month to blizzard because you want to. That is obvious and I hope we can agree the previous statements are correct.
However, what I do not understand is why your wants should have any bearing on my wants? Isn’t that a bit arrogant? And that is what bugs the hell out of me.
You bitch that your being forced to do something you hate. Well previously in WoW I was forced to do stuff I want, hell even now I’m forced to do so. So why is that OK?
No. Its not OK. We both pay equal or relatively equal money to Blizzard to play this game. If raiders paid more, I’d be fine with them getting more. But they don’t so I am not. And guess what Blizzard has learned that it must keep all of its players happy, or it will face an exodus. And in the end, based on stats there’s a whole lot of a hell more players like me than players like you.
amkosh Darthkeller I’m sorry, but if you want to pay $15 a month and do nothing and then claim you’re entitled to stuff, you’re wrong. PERIOD.
I don’t pvp, should I complain that I don’t have PVP gear? I don’t pet battle. Should I complain that I don’t have 650 pets?
There are not a “lot” more players like you than me, because most people want to feel as though they EARNED something, not GIVEN something because they pay $15 a month.
Darthkeller amkosh I think we have a difference of opinion. You seem to think WoW is a vocation, or job. I think WoW’s entertainment. Also, the fact that you seem to think what I do is “nothing” is frankly insulting.
And I hope like hell for Blizzard that they don’t keep players like you in mind, b/c they will be bleeding more and more subs and end up unemployed in fairly short order.
This will be my last thought on this matter.
amkosh Darthkeller We certainly pay differently. 15 bucks a month grants us access to the game, but as far as I can see, that’s about where the similarities end. I spend 9 hours a week to raid. Other raiders (progression ones) invest over 20 and they have the rights to get their Hardmode gear and drakes first. They can spend their time how they want. I know that when I’m ready for those titles and rewards, I’ll make the time investments.
But yeah, we’re paying a global cost of 15 and then an individual cost of time/effort/skill, whatever you want to call it.
amkosh I think your take would be better suited if we were discussing gear that was similar but had different designs or different applications, such as two pairs of shoulders with equal ilvl, one available from raid bosses and another available from rep content and then it was up to the player to decide which they were going after.
Unfortunately, in some cases we’re looking at gear that was clearly intended to be either stop-gap or completely complimentary to gear that drops from raid bosses, and thus funnels the raiders over to the other style of play.
I actually would have been fine with rep requirements to buy loot, but not having to earn valor from dailies. That way, I’d only have to do dailies for factions that I was either interested in or going to benefit from later on.
Matt. Call your buddy GC and make the madness stop! I’m really disappointed that there’s even more dailies coming in 5.1. STOP THE INSANITY
Since you can only earn 1000 valor/week, it would take take 1.25 weeks to get enough valor to buy a single Honored item. Another 1.75 weeks to get your first Revered item and 2.25 weeks for your second. So 3 weeks to get enough valor for two rep items. How much raid gear can you earn in 3 weeks? In 5 weeks?
The biggest problem I see with surviving solely on dungeon gear (other than a dungeon grind instead of a rep grind) and not being able to buy rep items is that you can’t buy the new items that upgrade your existing gear, since that won’t be available until 5.1.
Roldarin Assuming you’re not raiding, then yeah, that’s definitely a snails pace. Something like what, 14+ weeks just to outfit your character with items?
But that’s assuming one only goes the valor route. There’s always craftables as another “stream”.
mattuzzi Roldarin That pace is for everyone. You can’t get Valor faster than that. So if it takes 5 weeks to get all the rep rewards for a single rep, why rush it? For a Blacksmith/Enchanter, sure, it sucks. You are stuck doing Klaxxi to Honored and Golden Lotus to Revered, and then August Celestials to Revered. But that opens way more gear than you will have Valor for.
Raid gear will mostly be supplied by raids. The slow place of rep gear is for fixing unlucky streaks or people who jump late into raiding who aren’t super rich.
Gone are the days of people dinging max level and then 3 days later being dressed in gear you just spent the past 4 months busting your ass for.
“It’s a crappy fact of our virtual life that we have to spend time outside of the raid to hit our valor for the week. But we’re undergoing a short term level of pain here. In another week and a half, we’ll gain access to Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring – Another two raids where we can get our Valor supply from. Hang in there!”
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Aren’t we only getting 25 valor per raid boss kill? Even when we’re killing 16 raid bosses (16!), that’ll still only be 400 VP. 40% of the cap. That’s crazy.
I think Blizzard did a lot of things right with MoP, but the VP grind and the changes to cooking are baffling to me.
Shanthi I was factoring Raid Finder into the mix.
Doesn’t that give like 90 at the end of it?
mattuzzi Shanthi Oh, okay, good point. So I suppose that would be another 270.
The gating is a good thing, Matt. Otherwise we all would have been farming 5 reps at launch instead of 2-3. 🙂
Tabards defeat the purpose of rep. Tabards just essentially let you skip content – it would be like having all the blues you need to gear up from raiding drop from raid trash. You would never have to run 5 mans to gear up because you could just get that gear from raids. No more tabard rep.
There is too much emphasis atm on dailies however, I can agree there. Here’s what I’d do to fix it:
– weekly rep cap. The big issue I have with dailies is that if you don’t do them *every day* you are severely punished. If you capped the amount of rep you could get (and then balanced the pace around it) you could eliminate this by allowing folks to skip 2 or even 3 days per week of dailies.
– remove the Golden Lotus lock. People should be able to choose which rep to grind first, and not have to grind one that’s worthless for them to get to the rep they want.
– keep the valor point rewards. I would not do dailies and just sit in Stormwind queuing like in Cata if there weren’t valor rewards on the reputation vendors, period, the end. If you want players out in the world at the level cap, you need to give them amazing raiding rewards. That’s just the long and the short of it. The issue is just *how much* extra time you expect players to spend.