I've been following the blue posts a little and the hottest 2 items currently being discussed are the dailies, and the loot in LFR. Let me start by weighing in on the whole daily discussion.
Dailies
Complainer's POV:
Everything is locked behind dailies.
If we want to progress in the game we are forced to do dailies.
Dailies ruined my game, I quit.
Blizz's POV:
But you don't have to do dailies, go do dungeons and scenarios
You do not need your dailies or your reps to progress in the game.
Go enjoy other content.
My POV:
I have not maxed out my valor again this week. The reset is today and I have managed a wooping 720 valor or so. I play a lot, but I absolutely hate the daily system. They feel like chores to me, and so my whole head rebels and most of the time I really just don't want to do them.
I forced myself (no Blizz did not force me) to revered with the Klaxxi because I had
nowhere!!! to spend my valor points. I hated every quest I did.
Now I am at the point where I don't feel like getting a lot more valor is currently worth much to me since I would have to force myself to do another rep to revered, and then another to get to something that I can use for my character. This means that I do not feel a drive to get valor points, and I feel even less drive to get the reps, since one is locked behind another rep.
So in all sense I do not feel a drive to do a massive part of the game. I do a dungeon to make sure I have maxed out my valor by the time the upgrade item system comes in, but that's about it.
What do I do in the game?
Well, last weekend I spent 3 hours with some guildies to get the dungeon achievements. A nice challenge and a lot of fun. Also got the guild some money.
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| Chores |
I've also made a list of what I need to level all the cooking ways. There is a quest you get once you max it out and I'm curious for that. Plus I can skin with my hunter so I've been shooting crocs for their raw crocolisk belly.
I raid with my raid group and we're enjoying ourselves with that.
And I try to do LFR, but only on reset day since it sucks to try and get a proper group on other days. (unless my guild goes with a group).
Is this as rewarding as what I would prefer to do in the game? No. This is not the game I would prefere to play. I would prefer to actually run dungeons, because I like them, but I don't feel like that's very useful, plus since nobody has a drive to run them, it's not a lot of fun to actually do them at the moment.
I would prefer to work on my character's progression during the week and feel like I'm getting better for my raid. But since the only way I can do that in the game is in a way I really dislike, I just don't do it. I dislike that I am less good than I could be if only I could like the dailies. But I just don't like that part of the game, and it is the ONLY part of progression.
And here we come to the heart of the problem. The only SOLO path of progression is doing dailies. You can run dungeons till you drop, but it doesn't matter. Without doing the dailies you have nowhere to spend your valor.
You can level all your professions, do scenarios, do PVP, LFR, whatever you want to do. But the only way to progress your character and spend those valor points is through daily chores.
On top of that the daily chores reward you with valor better than all the other stuff does. So clearly the best way to progress solo through the game is to do chores. Which is very very discouraging to people.
And this is not going to improve much with the 5.1 patch either, since it's not worth upgrading your gear much if you didn't manage to get it in the first place.
Now, I'm lucky to have some raid gear, but people who do not raid...well, again, what do you upgrade? Your dungeon gear? Make me laugh, yeah?
And I agree with the poster from
this post:
If blizzard is not going to fix this fast, they will lose a lot more people all over. Not because it is to hard this time around, no this time they will lose the casuals. Because those casuals feel like they cannot get anywhere with their game without spending some hardcore amount of time in the stupid dailies.
To sum up:
- There should be some other way to spend those valor points (and justice points)
- There should be a way to have people who cannot log in every day feel equally rewarded for their play time as the people who do log in every day
- My time in game without doing dailies should feel as appreciated by Blizzard as someone else's time in game who does do dailies
- If I love scenarios I should not feel discouraged to do them because the reward is useless without doing something else in the game that I do not love so much
- If I need something from such and such faction number 2, I should not have to go through faction number 1 as well to get to number 2.
- We need more not wiggly snakes in the game (oh wait, that is a personal peeve that almost every mount you can get in the game is a silly wiggling snake mount now)
LFR Loot System
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| This is apparently also Loot |
Now this is a different discussion all together. It weighs in on the valor and daily points since it is one of the few ways that you could progress solo...if not for the ways the new loot system has decreased your chances of getting loot.
But statistically your chance is much higher to get loot! Blizzard says....
Ok, lets compare.
Raid:
2 cloth healer, 2 leather healers, 1 mail healer, 1 plate healer
1 plate tank, 1 leather tank
5 cloth dps - 2 mages, 2 warlock, 1 priest
6 leather dps - 1 boomkin, 1 monk, 2 druids, 2 rogues
3 mail dps - 1 hunter, 1 enhance shammie, 1 ele shammie
3 plate dps - 2 DKs, 1 pallies
Old System:
Boss dies. The system pops up with 3 items from a random loot table.
Mail Int Chest Piece
Plate Str Boots (no tank stats)
Spirit 1handed mace
Mail Int Chest Piece - 2 people who would want it the ele and the resto shammie. Chance you get it? 50%
Plate Str Boots - 3 people who would want it, and possibly an asshole tank who needs on it. Chance you get it? 25%
Spirit 1H Mace - 7 people who would want it (shadowpriest). Chance you get it? 14.3%
ew System:
(as explained by Blizzard)
Boss dies.
- Each player has a chance to win loot, independent of the other players.
- For each player who wins loot, the game randomly assigns them a spec-appropriate item from that boss's loot table. This subset contains only items that the game (meaning the designers in this case) thinks are appropriate for your class and current spec.
- Notice that you aren't rolling Need or Greed. You don't have an option to Pass. The game just says "Take this."
- You can't trade this item, or that would defeat the purpose of removing the social pressure on groups of strangers. If you don't want the item, you are free to vendor, delete, or disenchant it.
In a blue post:
First, other players will not affect your loot in any way. Another player winning will not cause you to lose. Another player winning a mace will not mean that she took your mace. If there are many rogues in the raid, your chance of winning a rogue item is not diminished. We may decide that each player has an X% chance to get loot, or we may decide that X number of players get loot, and then randomly determine who those lucky players are.
Second, the item you win will be "useful" in the sense that it's potentially usable by your current spec. This does not mean that warriors will get leather because warriors can equip leather (at a huge stat loss). It also does not mean that the game will always give you an item you want or an upgrade for the items you have. It just looks and says "You are a Holy priest, so here is a random item chosen from the Holy priest-appropriate items that this boss can drop."
What in the end is my chance to get loot? I have not been able to find out what my chances are, but it certainly feels lower than the 14% I had before.
Problem 1.
I think the first big problem here is that other players will not affect your loot in any ways.
Lets say in the old situation my guild group did what we did last weekend. We jumped in with a couple of people who are outgearing most of the LFR gear already.
We had 2 leather healers, 2 plate tanks, 1 mage, 1 shadowpriest.
For the loot situation I described above this means that for example the mace could have 3 less rollers on it. Lets say that from the people who were not in our group there is another healer that already has a weapon. All of a sudden your chance is not 14% for the mace, but your chance has just gone up to 33%.
And your chances will get higher as more people are getting geared.
With the new system your chance is static and will not change, because it is unaffected by other players.
Problem 2.
The loot system decides what I need. I personally have won 5 items in LFR/Sha so far. Woohoo!
1 pair of pvp gloves (which I am using since it's better than I had, and hey the bonus on the roll is nice)
1 neck (I had better, so it got sold)
1 cloaks (I had betetr so it was sold)
1 offhand (which I would've gotten apparently if I had not done that boss already)
1 chest piece (which I am using, since it was an upgrade).
It really, really feels as if those items that I didn't need went wasted, and it would've been so nice if they could have gone to someone who did need them.
Also, I cannot see how many items are handed out, and how many loot bags. There should be some sort of window that shows me who won items.
I am not getting any offspec gear this way. I would love to actually get some gear for my windwalker, but instead Blizzard assigns int cloaks without spirit to me. (I refuse items without spirit as a healer, but that is a different discussion). The mage in the group could've used that item sooo much better.
When you get useless gear like that it feels like a carrot is being dangled in front of you. Frustrating.
Problem 3.
Elder Charms. I worked my butt off to get these elder charms. I did your stupid dailies, I went through the motions of doing what I should be doing. And what do I get? Another bag of gold.
It really feels as if the work I did for the charms should be rewarded. Maybe not directly with loot, but then at least with a bigger bag of gold.
Hey, you know Blizz, maybe that gold you get when you change the small charms to the big charms could be handed out to make the gold bags from elder charms extra big!
I want something to show for my effort.
Problem 4.
I think this is already on the fix list (or at least I would hope so).
If you do LFR again, to help out guildies with a faster queue time for example. Or to see that specific effect from such and such boss again. You get taunted with the loot you would've gotten if only you hadn't been so dumb to already be locked.
This is just plain cruel and is really demotivating to do LFR more than once.
To sum up:
- It feels like loot is wasted
- The precious few times you do win, you often get something you do not want because the choice is taken out of your hands.
- Your chances do not increase as people gear up
- The effort that was put in acquiring Elder charms should feel more appreciated and rewarded higher.
- Show people what loot did drop from a boss. Seeing that loot has dropped (even if not for them) might make the feeling of accomplishment higher
- Do not show what you would've gotten if you had not been locked
PS: You get some really odd pictures if you google for loot o_O
