Glyphs, Talents, and Reforge

Please stop being so restrictive about the Glyph/Talent UI. It's driving people nuts, I loathe the moment I have to change!
Philosophically, we don't want automating talent or glyph swaps. Once it's easy to reglyph every pull, players feel like they must. (Source)

The above is about addons on the talent/glyph ui.

In Vanilla there was one spec, no glyphs, and if you wanted to change your talents you had to go to your trainer. He would then give all your talent points back and you could redecide how you wanted to spend those points.

Back then it was actually possible to spend your points halfway over 3 different trees if you so desired. The only requirement was that you had filled up the previous talent tier with enough points to open up the next.

There was no gemming your gear, no reforging, no glyphing. No nothing. You picked a spec, figured out what your role was, and went with the best spec for that.

During raid, you had no option then to just deal with it. And sometimes classes would be switched out, and the high-end raids would sometimes send people out halfway through to have them respec quickly and summon them back.

This was comparatively a lot more costly, but much easier, because at some point you would know your specs so well that you could just fill them in blindly almost. As long as you made sure to enchant all your gear you were good to go once the summon came.

Now when you get an upgrade you often cannot even wear it directly. Because without reforging, gemming and enchanting it it would quite often be a downgrade to your perfectly tuned set.

In fact, what happened to me the other day is that I got a neckpiece of ilvl 496 which replaced my 463 neck. 30 item levels up, but I could not use it because I would be so far under the hit cap by swapping it out that it would be a problem.

This makes me wonder if Blizzard has gone overboard in the options to finetune your character. Each time you win a piece all other items have to be reforged to be in tune with the items you already have. Gems have to be replaced, enchants have to sometimes be redone, etc

Hit and expertise are the worst for this as the blues have already admitted, but also haste forms an issue since for quite a few classes there is a haste cap. Mistweaver monks included, in between the different haste plateaus the stat simply doesn't do a lot and you're better off with crit or even mastery.

And then there is the retalenting and glyphing. I have to admit, I was excited when I learned that we would be able to reglyph and talent on the move. I'm not so sure anymore.

It feels like I'm at a disadvantage if I don't reglyph/retalent for every fight. So pre-fight check is no longer a matter of having all your buffs (flask, food, and casted buffs), it now includes do you have the correct talents and glyphs.

It feels as if more time is spent in between fights just to finetune it so you have the edge, more time spent in between and less time on the actualy fight. More time spent on preparation and less on actually having the fun. Or is the preparation supposed to be the fun?

Another problem on top of this is that when you do change a talent or glyph it changes the way you fight, or heal so drastically at times that it takes a couple of attempts to adjust. So while it may be the better glyph choice for the fight, it may change the way you do things so much that you'll do worse at first. Glyph of Uplift is a good example for this.

With glyph uplift costs mana, without it costs chi. Sounds simple, but it affects so much more. Because you're using mana for uplift you need to use a different spell to spend your generated chi, to generate mana tea. This changes your rotation. However, if you do not change your rotation and make sure to spend the chi to get mana tea you're running out of mana real fast, because not only does uplift no longer spend chi, and hence generate mana through mana tea, it also costs mana.

Or glyph of mana tea, allowing you to have instant mana tea, but only 2 charges at a time. But it still costs a global cooldown, so if you do not have those to spare you cannot just use more mana tea at a handy moment. To know if you have to use the glyph or not requires you to know before the fight whether you'll have downtime to drink your mana tea.

So one glyph can change your healing style so much that you can easily screw it up, yet it is expected that you know how to work with all this.

I'm liking this new method less and less. Yes, I have choices, but all those choices are diminishing my time spent on the actual fun, namely the fight and learning the fight.

And since the fights are built around having the option to reglyph and retalent I cannot just ignore this part of the game. I have to play the game as it is designed even though I would much rather just focus on the gorgeous raid fights themselves.

Not to mention the costs involved with changing everything every time, meaning that you have to go farm for those costs. An upgrade will generally cost about 400 gold - 8x reforging + new enchants, + new gem. And then it's not even a weapon which upsets stuff even more.

I find myself longing more and more for the days where the difficulty was in figuring out how the fight worked, not how my character, gear, talents and glyphs work for each and every fight separately.

(and please Blizz don't go with reforging on the run, because then I have to add that to my pre-fight check as well).

All I want for Christmas is...

Except for a nasty cough that is keeping me from sleeping through the night, my cold is mostly gone. Time to focus on the time of the year.

Christmas time! And time to make my wishlist for the upcoming year for World of Warcraft. I have done this before in the past and mused about what I wanted in the game. 

What we've been seeing in Mist of Pandaria has so far been pretty spectacular. And hey, as I see the dailies of Operation Shieldwall develop further I may even feel how Blizzard is learning from mistakes with the dailies of release (holy golden lotus way too many dailies batman!). 

Lets review my list from 2009:

1. Can there please be some cloth gear with crit/mp5 in Icecrown?

I think there was, but it now seems of so little importance, Icecrown was one of the best raid tiers that World of Warcraft has seen in my opinion. Even though it did last quite long. 

2. Can I have 1 gearset that is usable (and effective) in all my specs?

With spirit being hit for a priest they did come fairly close to this. If you're a healer priest as I was back then you can actually fairly easily switch to being shadow and use the same gear for starters. 

3. If number 2 won't work, then can I haz a soulbound items bag?

Yeah...still dreaming about that bag. Void Storage is interesting, but fairly unusable. Stuff ends up in there and never gets pulled back out. 

4. The little wishes count too: if I learn an account bound item, remove it from my bag

This is pretty much how most items are handled now, though I think there are still quite a few improvements that could be made here. 

5. Can we haz real mohawks for nelfs as well, please?

Of course they gave them to gnomes and to male nightelves (well sorta), but there are mohawks, still nothing like the funky troll hairdresses for nightelf females though. Being a panda now I still think most of the female Alliance hair dresses are rather tame. 

6. I would like haste to work on Weakened Soul

They implemented something like this with the disc priest being able to shorten the duration on weakened soul, wish granted I guess?

7. Gimme a challenge!

They did hand out a challenge. It was 'have your raid survive Cataclysm'. I guess we made it out alive, but not unscathed. I see challenges now in Pandaria though. 

8. An auctioning system like Auctioneer offers

Nope, the in game AH has gotten worse instead of better if anything. With the addition of battle.net account bound items I cannot even filter on pets that I already have anymore. This is rather disappointing Blizz. 

Half of them sort of implemented, not a bad score I would say. Time for a new wish list!

1. Mount Battles

I am thoroughly enjoying pet battles, but it leads me to thinking about something I enjoy collecting even more. Mounts. 

Now, I would not very much like mount battles to be the same as pet battles, but I would love to be able to catch mounts in the wild. 

Capture them with a Lasso, battle them into submission, and then go into a period of having to teach them under the saddle. This process could be somewhat harder than catching a pet of course, and I think that you would need a certain taming skill to even start capturing wild mounts, but I'm sure Blizzard could come up with something great here. 

Much like a hunter can tame their pets I want to go out and find my favourite mount skin. And yes, there should be some rare catches as well. 

I think Aotona would make a great mount model for example!

Aotona

2. Less Transmog Restrictions

I have some favourite looks for armor in World of Warcraft. Unfortunately none of those are leather. And of the leather looks I do really like seeing, most of them actually have class restrictions. 

I would love to see my monk in some items, and while I can still understand the armor restrictions for transmog (it would look somewhat silly to see a warrior tanking in black mageweave), I hope that at some point they will remove the class restrictions so that as far as transmog is concerned, leather is leather is leather. 

And if my monks wants to wear tier 8 for rogues, or tier 4 for druids...she can. 

I love the colors of this set, Conqueror's Terrorblade. (Rogue)

Flying Saucer

3. Monk Tier without a Flying Saucer

Don't get me wrong, I do think that the flying saucer hats look good with monks, but I hope that the designers will not give every monk tier set a shado-pan hat in the future. 

Surely there is something cool to do with the crane, the tiger, the ox, or the wind serpent, no?

4. Choice of Rolling in LFR

Currently LFR seems to have waaaay too few healers. Logical as well, because most of the healers who heal fulltime have a raid of their own in which they get gear that is better than the LFR gear. So for LFR they queue as dps to work on their offset. 

But this does leave LFR without healers, and tanks and dps with a much longer queue. If I could join as a healer, but roll as a dps I would be rather happy. 

Also, I think that LFR gear should always drop. No matter the how maniest time you're in that LFR that week. When I currently queue up as a healer to help out guildies with a faster queue all I get for it is a meager sum of valor points, which I could get faster through dungeons or scenarios. I queue anyways to help them get into LFR, and I do my best to heal the raid, but this could be rewarded a bit better than it is currently. 

5. Item Storage like in Guild Wars

In Guild Wars you can click on a button on your bags and it send the item to your crafting storage. Once there it has a full overview of every craft item in the game, and has the items you do not have faded out. I love, love, absolutely adore this system. 

It would go such a long way in saving space in your bags, organizing your inventory, and actually having enough slots for those type of items. It would definitely have consequences for how items are handled. Stacks would no longer have to go to 20 or 100, no in the bank it could simply be a picture with a number. 

I'm sure that this is not something that is easily implemented, since World of Warcraft is of course dealing with bagage from 8 years of WoW, and a database design which would need quite a bit of changing. Not to mention all the consequences it can have for the economy. 

But I would love to have something like this implemented in World of Warcraft. 

6. Have Group Will Travel

I want it back, please? Or something like it at least. 

I don't even mind not having it for raid as much since you can just use the summoning stone and you're normally in the same place for quite a bit of time after. 

But where I really miss it is when I go out together with Thror to do Molten Core, or something like it. You cannot use the stone with just one, and it would be so nice to just summon the friend you're playing with at that moment. 

For older content it is nice anyways. My monk doesn't have all the nifty travel shortcuts that my priest had (working on it!), but it means that I generally make the other person wait while I take the long road. 

7. An ingame Cavalier Pet

Lady, our tri-color cavalier. 

I have two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, a ruby and a tri-colour, and I think they would make for adorable pets. They could even have a pet special and go barking when they see other dogs (mine do at least). It would make my day if I would see the Cavalier in the game. 

What would be even better is if they're available in 4 colors, as they are for real. Ruby, tri-colour, blennheim, and black and tan. 

But hey, probably every pet owner thinks that their pet is the most adorable and should have an in game model, so this may be a tiny bit unrealistic :)

tri-colour, blennheim, black and tan, ruby

No words...

This guy is visiting:

And because this guy is visiting I feel like this:

And this:

If I were to write posts now they would likely come out like this:

So I'll be back with a post once I feel like this:

End of message.

Who says it's about facts

Today I'll poke a phrase I keep seeing around in blue posts here and there, and that is giving me the serious heebiejeebies.

It normally comes by phrased into something like this:

"Is this something you just 'feel' like is reality or do you have facts?"

As if it matters?

Is it less important if it is about feelings? Are player feelings less important than statistics? If a large part of the player population feels that something is not enjoyable, then I would say that this is a rather important signal that something needs changing.

I get that as a blue poster you get tired of the raging community sometimes. Tired of explaining over and over that you cannot go change stuff just because the people who speak up demand it so. Because for every person who opens their mouth and complains, there might be 10 silently enjoying.

I get it, I really do.

But this just feels like sending players off with nothing...

Not to mention, Blizz keeps coming with statements like:

'We wanted the players to feel as if the world is more populated.'
'We want players to experience how big the world is.'
' Mana pools can still be large (we are thinking 100,000 mana at level 85) so that it doesn’t feel too bizarre to existing casters and doesn’t feel too much like rage or energy. '

Of course it is about feelings, of course it isn't all about facts! The whole game is built around how people experience the game.

What is part of the issue here is the difference between how people actually feel, and how people think they feel.

Say what now, Shy? There is a difference?

Yeah, there sure is, and I'll try to explain as best as I can, though I am not a psychologist.

I assume you must have felt super angry at some point in your life. So angry that you wanted to (or maybe even did) smash something?

If you look back, was the true emotion anger? Or was it maybe disappointment? Was it maybe the feeling of being let down? Maybe you felt deceived?

Often anger is not the true emotion, often anger is only the resulting emotion, the underlying one is something else.

I believe that this is what is quite often happening at the forums as well. Players are all pissed off, shouting that they will leave the game, boo bah, etc

But what they truly feel is disappointment. Disappointed that their class is not performing as well as they had hoped. Let down by Blizzard because that item that they had hoped for so long did once again not drop (fault of the loot system and the designers of course), disappointment that their mount flaps in a wrong way, disappointed because their expectations were not met by the reality.

Expectations not met by reality...

Makes me wonder if it really is good of Blizzard to do as much previewing as they are, since the bigger picture can rarely be seen by the one player.

But, even when the anger is not the true emotion, it does feel like Blizzard needs to stop discarding the feelings of the posters. Channeling that energy into other activity would maybe be better, not sure, as said beofre, I am not a psychologist. I don't have the facts.

I do feel that I am getting quite tired of Blizzard asking facts from disappointed players though...

Have A Nice Day Mr Troll!

A while ago I read this story at WoW Insider. If you don't want to go through the entire story, it is about a Blizzard CM, Tseric, who way back when picked a fight with forum trolls. He spoke his mind, but in the end, he lost the fight from the trolls, and lost his job over it.

Today I read another post on WoWInsider, about how a blue poster explains what you can do against harassment. And also repeating Blizzard's promise to deal with these people if they are found guilty as accused.

This all made me think on where we are going with this. It feels like I see it more and more that people are rude and mean to other people. Intent on bringing other people down, on hurting other people as much as they possible can, with no other purpose than their own enjoyment it seems.

Are we forgetting that there are real people behind the characters? Or worse...are we not forgetting, but is this simply how society is nowadays? Are these in-game bullies simply this messed up that they automatically do this?

It feels like more and more people are so self-absorbed, so self-centered, that they cannot seem to take one step in the shoes of the people they are harassing, and imagine what it would be like to be on the receiving end.

On the other hand, maybe these sort of in-game bullies are constantly on the receiving end in their real lifes, and they need to let of steam in their online lifes. Reaction instead of action in that case.

I do like this last stream of though. The big bad bully suddenly takes on the image of a grown-up crybaby in diapers, waving a world of warcraft game around instead of a rattle. Makes them seem a little less impressive, huh? ;)

Have A Nice Day

I while ago I posted the DailyBink Poster you can see on the left, this poster is not recent, and what happened to Tseric is also old news, so this sort of stuff is nothing new. But, it does feel like I see and hear more and more about it.

Maybe people are fed up with it by now, maybe the people who remained silent against the bullies are speaking up now. I don't know.

I do know that it doesn't make the game more fun. It doesn't make me want to play more. So I had an idea.

Because I too can be short of patience against fellow gamers, and maybe leave a group hanging without a healer, or just ride along on other player's shoulders in an LFR. I would never openly be rude, but I too find myself cussing newbs we come accross every now and then, and I complain to Thror about how some people have no idea.

Because I feel like we're not getting anywhere if I don't start with changing myself I am going to change this. Starting with my own behaviour. Even though I am nowhere near the level of what would ever be reported, I too can improve my nice-factor in game.

So from now on I will introduce for myself  H.A.N.D. - 'Have A Nice Day' one day per week. On this day I will be nice to everybody in the game, I will offer help to people who seem to need it or ask for it. I will take time for the people who need to learn, and I will be patient to every newbie out there.

I will say hello, and chat in my pug groups, and even greet people in LFRs. On this one day per week I will try to explain to rude people that they should be nice, that the world (or at least the warcraft world) can become a better place, if only you start by being better yourself.

And ya know, I will even do this on a day I normally play a lot, I'll take Saturday for this.

So the rules are:
- Say hello cheerily in every pug group
- Greet fellow players
- Be patient to players who need to learn
- Be helpful to those who ask, and even to those who don't ask, but look to need it
- Do not argue over loot
- Basically be a nice person

What do you say? Will you join and make your own gaming world a little better?