Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Are Some Concepts Dated? Repairs, Tagging and More.

All games need to develop and adapt.  Even different games take from them things that existed in games of the same type earlier and update them to the times. 

Take, for example, rift with how it handles quest items.  If you get something you are supposed to use for a quest it does not take up bag space, it goes in your quest log, if you have to collect items for a quest it does not go in your bag, it goes in your quest log. 

Simple things handled simple ways shows progress in making a game better and while something like that is so small and would go unnoticed by many it is a huge advance in how this type of game is played from a quality of life standpoint.  The question is, what concepts are dated and what should be updated.  Lets start with those quest items as I give my opinions.

Quest Items: (The Items)

As in the example above it shows that quest items can be handled a different way.  How many of us were questing years ago and noticed that our bags seemed to be full with quest items all the time? 

Lets face it, when you are leveling your bag space is limited.  When one quest giver sends you to pick up four flowers, each taking a bag space and another gives you an item to use on 12 mobs and collect items, taking up 2 additional spaces, all when you are level 12 and most likely only have your starter bag and maybe a 6 slot bag if you got lucky, having 6 bag spaces clogged up like that is a real hassle.

If it were not for rift showing us how it could be done so well we might not know how it should be done but being we see how it can be done it should be done like that. 

My Verdict: Without a doubt, how quest items are handled is a dated concept that needs to be changed.

Quest Items: (The Drops)

Gone are the days of spending six hours hunting down nightsabers for a few pelts.  Any of us that ever did the quest I am talking about will know what I mean.  Going up and down the coast killing nightsabers like a mad man for hours on end two or three days in a row just to complete that one quest.  You would out level the quest by the time you turned it in because you spent so much time killing them and this is well before heirloom gear giving you extra experience, it was just the shear amount you needed to kill that got you that experience.

Either way, enough of the nightmarish trip down memory lane, blizzard has updated it.  Some.  There are still a few quests that seem to have low drop rates and some of them just happen to be our new dailies.  Bad enough funneling everyone into the same area on the same quest but asking them to collect 5 of something from a slow respawn mob with a horrible drop rate and many people doing it at the same time is just not fun for anyone.

The low drop rate quests time has come and gone.  In a game that has changed in an effort to funnel you to the end game as soon as possible it means there is no longer a need for low drop rates.  There is no longer a need to have you gain your experience killing as many mobs as possible.  There is no longer a reason to keep you busy with mundane tasks.   There is much more to do in the game now.  So much so that keeping people busy with low drop rates, while level or doing quests at max level, is not good design any more.

My Verdict:  It is time for 100% drop rates on quest items.  If the game wants us to collect 5 and it have a 25% drop rate, just change it to 100% drop rate and ask us to collect 20 instead.  It would be better design.

Mob Tagging:

Some call this a great idea and others call it a horrible one.  I can see both sides of the argument because both sides have a valid point.  But is the tagging design a thing of the past, is it dated?

Blizzard seems to think so, to some extent.  The end boss of a quest line is now what we call a shared kill.  Anyone that even gets one shot in gets credit for the kill or can loot the item from it.  This was a big change and it fits the design that blizzard seems to be heading toward.  Moving people to max level faster with less waiting time and more playing time.  It also works for dailies, you can do more if you are not waiting forever for your turn to attack an end quest line mob.

But is it time for it to move further and go to all mobs?  I am not exactly sure the game should ever move that way unless they completely change how looting is designed.   For example, say I am on my hunter and I am farming for motes or what have you and I have 20 mobs on my pet and I am AoEing them down and just as they are about to die some melee class comes running in, tags them all with one AoE move and then bends and loots before I can because they are right there and I am at range when I was the one that did all the work gathering them and all the work killing them and they only came in for their one shot and took all the loot that I worked for.  So no, I do not see this working on a greater scale, as is at least.

Perhaps a combination of the two needs to be added to the game.  Shared kills like end quest mobs and mob tagging.  Whoever tags the mob gets the loot but whoever helps gets credit for the kill, if they are on the quest, or the ability to look a quest item, if they are on the quest.  Whomever attacked the mob first should always be the person that gets the loot.  That could even be adjusted now for those end quest ones.

This would actually inspire people to help each other because it helps themselves as well.  If that someone sees me killing those 20 mobs and they are on a quest to kill some I just made their life easier as they are now one AoE away from finishing their quest, and they made my life easier as I get a hand downing the mobs I am grinding for whatever my reasons might be.  I get my loot, because that is what I was after, they get their kill credit, because that is what they were after, and we are both happy with how it turned out.  It moves toward creating a community that works together instead of one that fights itself like it seems to do now.

My Verdict:  Mob tagging is a thing of the past and needs to be updated.

Repairs:

I hear people all the time saying things like, 141 gold repair bill, when repairing after a few wipes.  I personally can't tell you what my repair bills cost because I never look.  I click repair and move on because the amount of money you make in game now means the repair bill is nothing.  I could raid and wipe 24/7 for the next three years and probably still not burn through the gold I have.  But that is just me, I often hear people in raid complain they do not have enough gold to repair their gear, so I give them a few hundred which will more than cover the nights raiding even if we do amazingly horrible that night.

So with the two extremes, me and the millions like me that never even notice what the cost is, and the ones that have little or no gold that complain about it all the time, is the idea of repairs a dated idea?

Perhaps it is a dated idea but it is a dated idea with a purpose and there is no reasonable replacement for it, at least not one I can find.

Repairs are a gold sink, the perfect one even, it is something everyone experiences and the more you do the more gold you get so the more you do causes more wear and tear on your gear and more you need to spend on repairs so it equals out, unless you are foolish about your gold.  It is not much gold wise but even if you do not realize it that small repair cost adds up and lots of gold is taken out of the game each day because of it.

My Verdict:  It is a dated idea, but it has no replacement, so it is a good one as is.

Flight Paths:

I remember grinding reputation with the Cenarion Circle but killing the twilight guys for their texts that I could turn in for reputation.  I would get home from work and log in and jump on the flight path from Darnassus to Silithus and then go about the things I needed to do around the house.  I would take a shower, clean up a little, maybe even grab a bite to eat and most of the time when that was all said and done I would sit down and still have not landed yet.

At least it was not like it was earlier where I would have not been able to leave because flight paths only went from one to another and I would have needed to sit there to continue my flight.  So for me, that one long trip was a great way to do it, much better than being forced to sit there.

Well, just like the time changed from stopping at every flight point to one long non-stop flight they keep changing, but they have not changed enough.  The added that lower levels get flight points automatically when they reach a certain level, I love that, no long trips to a new area by foot any more just to grab the flight point because it connected to somewhere else you wanted to go but couldn't unless you had that one flight point and that is a great time saver.  They added the guild bonus to fly faster on flight paths, which is a nice little addition.  But even with those things they have not changed enough.

There are still flights you can take where it will brings you around the world to go some place you could have went directly too.  Why bring me around 4 different zones when the flight path I want to go to appears right next to where I am on the map?  Why can I not just fly directly there?

The old reason was that many areas were unmade, so we did not fly over them on purpose so we would not see unmade areas but once flying was added to the old world everything was made so we can fly over it now as there were no empty unmade places. 

Flight paths need another update, direct flight paths.  The flight from darnassus to silithus is nowhere near as horrible as it used to be and I have not timed it recently but it still takes an extremely long time for a game that has learned in many other aspects that time is a factor in enjoying game play.  A direct path would make it even faster.

My Verdict:  The concept of flying from A to B is not a dated idea, it is a good idea.  The idea of sending us around the world through C, D, E, F, G, H, and I on our way from A to B and not giving us direct flights however, is dated and needs to be changed.

PvE Gear:

This will end up being a post of its own as I have an idea I would really like to share but I will not delve too much into that at the moment.  There was a time, before my time, when there was no such thing as PvP gear and PvE gear.  There was some gear that might be more useful for one thing or another but all gear could be used for everything.  All the best tanks in the game had gear we would call PvP gear in today's society.

Is PvE gear the offshoot or is PvP gear the offshoot?  Who knows, but is the idea of different types of gear a dated concept?  Kind of odd when you look at the older system and see only one type of gear and think the older idea was the better idea.  Wouldn't older be more dated?  So was the one type of gear idea dated or is the two types of gear that replaced it dated.

In a game that is always trying to simplify things to make it easier for people to understand is the two types of gear for two types of things really a good idea?

My Verdict:  Loose PvE gear.  Make all gear PvP gear and you can use it for raiding or for player vs player.  There is no need to have different types of gear and if anything it hinders the flow of game play to have to keep changing back and forth, not to mention all that wasted bag space for extra sets.

Bag Space:

I read an excellent article some years back about limited space in games and why choosing how much space you offer a player can significantly impact their game play experience.  I wish I could find it because if I could perhaps reading it again will remind me why having limited space is a good idea.  Without that article I look at it from the standpoint of a player who has no bag space left.

We have profession materials, we have fun toys, archeology finds, BoAs, holiday stuff, transmog stuff, stuff me might use later if we get something else, stuff we might transmog later if we can get the whole set and if you happen to be dual spec you might have two sets of gear, four sets of gear if you PvP as both.

Where does it end?  There is so much worth keeping for actual use, for fun, or sale or for cosmetic reasons and there is so little space to keep it in.

There is a lot that can be done, let profession items stack to 1000 if in a profession bag.  Make bigger bags.  Add more bank slots.  All of these are just patches.  As more things come out there will be more things we want to hold on to and for every one space we clear now there will be two things looking to fill it later.

Some games have just abandoned the idea of bag space and made things like a giant bag that can hold everything with a search.  Is this the future of wow and should it be?

My Verdict:  The limited bag space idea is a dated concept, even more so being blizzard is making an effort to keep adding toys it apparently wants us to keep and play with.  It is something that needs to be changed.

Dual Spec:

With all the advances to the game to make it easier to do thing while out in the world where is the ability to change our specs in the world.  We can change out skills in the world now being there are no real skills, just secondary abilities, or at least they are treated as such.

So you have to ask yourself is there a reason we can not just choose any spec we want while out in the world now.  A rogue can go from assassination to subtlety or combat and back if they want to instead of just picking two to be only.  Is limiting us to only 2 specs dated?

My Verdict:  You should be able to switch back and forth between all 3 (or 4 if you are a druid) at will if you wanted to.  I think this restriction is dated.

Gearing Dual Spec:

I mentioned PvE and PvP gear, I mentioned two specs of gear in the bags, and I mentioned that would mean 4 sets of gear for the person with two specs and both raids and PvPs.  Gear is a means to an end, we need it to play at our top level we are capable of playing at but I look at this the same as I look at the PvE gear issue.  Why even have it different sets?

Should a Shaman just use all the intellect mail no matter what spec they are in?  How about a druid that likes to switch back and forth, should they need 4 sets of gear for each time they change around or 8 if they are playing both ends of the game?

Perhaps it is time the game stopped making gear spec dependent and make it class dependent.  Just like a hunter uses agility mail or a mage uses intellect cloth and they might reforge things around a little differently but they are completely capable of switching specs and still doing decently without reforging whereas a holy paladin can not just switch to protection and start tanking, they need additional gear for it.

My Verdict:  It is time to lose the "gear by spec" design and change it to a "gear by class" design.  The gear by spec concept is dated.  Not to mention it is completely unfair to the classes that have no choice but to have two, or more, sets of gear because of it.

Faction Loyalty:

Want a horde dwarf or an alliance troll?  I know many people that do and with the advent of panda being able to choose sides you have to wonder if the other races are far behind.  Is faction loyalty a dated idea?

Every game has sides, good guys or bad guys if you wish, which one is which depends on the side you choose of course but all games of this sort have always had sides. Different groups headed for the same objective in their own way with their own set of morals and tactics.  It is a staple of sorts and has been for some time now.

Even more the advent of choosing sides there were always certain races you could play and certain ones you could not.  They did not intermingle.  It is just the way things have always been.

My Verdict:  I want to play an alliance troll.  I like trolls and I like alliance even if I hate the back story to them because they feel like they are always the underdog defending themselves against the unrelenting forces of an aggressor that is more brutal than they could ever even imagine to be. But in the same breath trolls are awesome, mon.

What other concepts might you put on the block as dated and in desperate need of an update?

28 comments:

  1. hey Grumpy - you forgot a couple - give us the ability to change out the beginner's 16 slot bag with another (any type) and if something is collected for turn-in, TAKE IT from our inventory! Don't let it set in our bag. And 1 more, if an intem is needed for turn in and it is in a bank slot, count it and take it for turn in. Otherwise, don't count it.

    as always "Good hunting"

    -roo the maker of guilds "just for the storage space"

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    1. PS forgot to add - great article, Grumpy baby.

      -roo

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    2. Yes, the original bag is dated as well. There should be ways to upgrade it. I forgot about that one.

      Thanks.

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  2. I think you're missing the point. WoW's roots come from the Fantasy genre and in essence it's meant to be a simulator. You're simulating being a Troll, you're simulating being a Mage etc. Everything you're moaning about is designed the way it is for a good reason.

    One of the most important things in any "world simulation" is being able to produce a sense of scale. To give players a feeling for just how big the world is. Travel and movement in a game are critical to that. The time it takes your character to walk from the bank to the auction house give you a sense of how big the town is. Flying from one end of a continent to the other should take a hell of a long time, it's a long way!

    The other thing you've missed with regard to flight paths is the path you take in many cases is not about flying around bits of the map that didn't used to exist, it's about flying over interesting things to look at. Making the journey interesting. Far and away my favourite memory of WoW to date was the first time I took a flight from Ironforge. The scenery was stunning and (coming from EverQuest) seeing actual players fighting actual mobs, LIVE ACTION!, below me just blew my mind. It was amazing. If we'd taken the direct route it would have just been snow snow and more snow.... perhaps a tree.

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    1. Yes, I know it is designed that way and I know were it comes from. I would be willing to guess I was playing fantasy games before half of the people playing wow were alive.

      I am asking if it should change as all things change. I think the point of the post went completely over your head. Thing evolve, even in the fantasy genre, and it is times things evolve here as well.

      The flight path thing was to avoid areas that were never coded, that is not an opinion, that is a fact stated by the developers. It was also not to bring you over points of interest, again confirmed by developers. It goes from flight path to flight path as it was designed to do.

      Also, while I agree it is stunning and I enjoyed looking at everything when I started playing, years later it is just a complete waste of my time that would be better spent playing than wasting my time sight seeing something I have seen 200 times already.

      Again, and not meant to be rude but I think you just completely missed the entire point of the post. Things evolve, they get better, there is no reason things can not get better in wow. You do not need to keep to dated ideas just because they started in the fantasy genre before you, you are allowed to improve on them.

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  3. I agree with every section except PVP/PVE gear. The problem there is that as such a large game, there's many people who focus on different aspects of it. I know many PVP'ers who hate PVE, I know PVE'ers who hate PVP. Making the gear as good for one as the other would make both these sets of people unhappy, because gear is such a huge factor in the game. The new PVP Power system is, imo, the best it's ever been. It's such a big difference in your damage to another player, that even heroic end-game weapons just aren't going to beat a PVP weapon and that is how it should be. A PVE player shouldn't be able to go into an arena and destroy a better-skilled PVP player simply because he has a better weapon. Conversely, a PVP player shouldn't be able to go into a raid and out-dps a PVE player because HE has a better weapon. With the current ilvl's of PVP gear compared to PVE gear and PVP Power providing the balance, both those things are in the past, no more being chased around an arena by some 1300 ranked keyturning DK wielding Gurth yay!

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    1. I look at the gear thing from my own experience and I think one set of gear for everything would be a more practical way to design the game. I do agree however I love the changes to PvP gear. It is perfect in my opinion. Now I wish all gear, even PvE gear, was exactly like that.

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    2. hi Katzbalger-Arthas (these hyphen names confuse me from time to time, so please if I have your name wrong, just forgive an old person) - Does it really matter whether gear is pvp or pve? Why not make it the same. If all the gear is the same then would not the better player stand out, even with lesser gear? Case in point - Miyamoto Musashi, as legend states, used a bokken carved from an oar to win a duel with Sasaki Kojirō who used a nodachi. (and since WOW is fantasy, why not :) ).

      I have found it strange, that in real life a single bullet/arrow/dagger/etc can kill or so severly wound a human or animal and yet, it takes one being about 25 levels or higher to kill someone one shot or having an uber weapon.

      Please do note, not argueing here, just added more thought to the discussion. Thanks!

      -roo "the dwarf who washes his hands after using the lava-tree"

      ps - I see Grumpy added something while I was cleaning up me post and trying to make it sound non-crazy. Sorry, but I put so much thought into this, I am posting :D

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    3. PVP anon here:

      I agree with Katzbalger, PVP gear and PVE gear should stay separated, and that PVP stats are a perfect way to do it.

      The reason is simple. If we remove the difference between PVE and PVP gear, we will inevitably create a situation when it will be easier to obtain PVE gear via PVP, or vice versa. That's just bound to happen, you simply can't balance the difficulties of these two huge activities wrt each other well enough to avoid that. There will be discrepancies. And the fact that these discrepancies will be subjective will only make things worse.

      You said yourself that you know PVE people who despise PVP, and PVP people who despise PVE. Well, making all gear the same will push many of them to do the thing they despise. Maybe you haven't seen the effect of that on the PVE side, but we, PVP'ers had to live with this (some raiding gear *required* to be competitive in arenas in the end of each season) for years. I can tell you, it's not fun, not at all. Just imagine what it would be like if you had to do rated BGs in order to gear up for raids, and raids themselves were only useful for valor (which you'd use to get 70% of your gear, the remaining 30% you'd have to PVP for) and achievements...

      The addition of PVP stats and the opportunity to separate two different types of gear cleanly they provide is one of the few good things they did in MOP (mind you, the opportunity is still only the opportunity, they didn't really fulfill their promise yet, as heroic PVE weapons from the 5.1 raid are still slightly better than the best PVP weapons, but the current system is still better than anything we had before).

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    4. I see nothing wrong with obtaining gear easier. Gear means nothing without skill. I've run into hunter after hunter in the LFR doing 1/2 the damage I do with an item level 10 levels higher than me. Gear means nothing if the person can not use it right.

      Same goes for PvP. I could be in the best PvP gear in the world hands down and someone in the lowest PvP gear available will be able to manhandle me as my skills are limited when it comes to that aspect of game play. Again, gear means nothing.

      I would go so far as to say make all gear purchasable with gold in game. It would be the ultimate gold sink and it would let skill and those with it rise to the top of the game as it should be.

      I always have and always will stand by my opinion that gear means nothing if the person in it doesn't know how to play their class correctly.

      So one gear works for me because I will still be good at PvE and still suck at PvP but with one set of gear at least I would already be geared for PvP so if I wanted to make the effort to learn to get better I would not be stuck behind the great gear wall.

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    5. There was a BiS tanking back from PvP conquest. Even with the wasted stats. Tbh, I don't want to see this again. This isn't about being competitive in lesser gear, this is about the fact that someone who is serious about raiding will try to go after BiS, if not, second to BiS and so on. With gear coming from both fronts, you'd have to PvP to fill in the gaps. Point?

      And gear for gold? It's why I don't like free to play games. I'm not willing to pay extra RL money to make my char better. And yes, RL money, buying gold is such a common practice on my server, people don't even try to hide it anymore.

      The whole game is designed around gear. You cannot remove it because I wouldn't step in a raid again once it's down. And most heroic bosses are not designed to be downed in blues. A good raider in blues cannot and will not perform the same a good player in heroic epics. We're talking about similar level of skill, where gear will obviously make a difference for the one who has it.

      Only thing I can think it can happen with PvE at some point `- be generic. A chest of X iLvl dropped, I won it. Let me put the stats I want on it.

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    6. Assigning the stats you want to the gear? I could see that coming some day but it would destroy reforging as there would be many fewer reasons to reforge if you could pick and choose where to assign your stats.

      People will buy gold no matter what. It is a part of the game and one blizzard actively supports even if they only support it by their inaction. They added the black market to give people a reason to buy gold, so do not let anyone fool you, they want people buying gold.

      As such, let people buy gold, they can have the best gear in the world, who cares, doesn't mean anything if they do not know how to play. Case and point, LFR yesterday, a hunter 2 item levels higher than me. The best he ever did was come up to half my DPS. And I am not even a great player, he just sucks. Gear means nothing, let people buy it. Skill means everything and it should.

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  4. Quest items: Yes and Yes.

    Mob tagging: Yes for Quest mobs.

    Repairs: No, they're fine as is.

    Flight paths: YES!!! and they need to be faster, at least the same as a 280 mount.

    PvE gear: Yes, just Gear, not PvP or PvE, just Gear please.

    Bag space: Yes. I just bought a lvl 24 guild tonight to get more bag space... LOL.

    Dual Spec: Yes, just have any spec.

    Dual Spec Gear: Yes, just Gear, not healer gear or dps gear or tank gear, just Gear please.

    Faction loyalty: I'd go a step further and for PvE realms, just drop the whole Faction war thing. Horde and Alliance work together all the time throughout the lore; but in game, we can't even talk to each other... Let us communicate and cooperate.

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    1. Not sure I would got that far on a PvE server but perhaps one "warless" server that people can not roll on but only faction transfer too where there is no PvP at all, ever unless you enter a battleground. Wonder if it would become popular?

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    2. Jaeger!!!

      that would be so cool! My sister and I could be on the same server and on the same side. She likes horde- says there are less asshats playing horde. I like alliance becuz I like gnomes and dwarves. But it would be so nice to be on the same side playing the race we like, able to co-op and party up.

      -roo "whar do I make my mark" the hunter.

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  5. I'd pretty much agree with all of that, in particular the race options, some of them just don't make a whole lot of sense anymore. Why would, for example, a taruen druid who grew up training with night elves suddenly want to go against them in a war? Why would he side with a group that committed wholesale slaughter of fellow druids and mass deforrestation and mining operations that the Orcs/Goblins partake in, in my mind that Taruen druid may well side with the Night Elves and in turn, the Allaince.

    The Blood elf/High elf thing has always bothered me a touch as well, just a few years before the WoW vanilla timeline the High elves and Humans were the best of friends, we know there are still High elves in the game...why wouldn't they side with the Humans and allaince again? Since pandas have arrived, the developers clearly aren't bothered about silhouette anymore, so its not too big a leap to imagine having High Elf or Taruen allaince. And thats just two examples off the top of my head.

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    1. I have always said that about the taurens myself. They just do not fit with the horde. Even if the alliance are no angels at least they never went around slaughtering druids.

      I also think it would fit the fantasy genre well to have some people switch sides. In every form of fantasy ever there have been people that disagreed with their leadership and moved to the side of the enemy, so to speak.

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  6. Tagging. I tank 40 mobs. Random dps looks at me. Throws in an AoE. Leaves to do his quest where he picks up things off the ground. Better yet, the thing right next to me I can't pick up cause I'm fighting mobs. I finish the mobs. He has his kills because he 'helped'. And his other quest done. I might even have to fight some more, cause he cleared the area of pickable items.
    You give people too much credit. The tagging issue is not so easily solved.

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    1. I give people no credit as I believe most people are scum, excuse the language. The experiences I have had in game and in real life leave me with the opinion that 90% of the people in the world are morons and are only out for themselves. Perhaps it is more a case of I over looked that possibility.

      I still think that would be a fairly good idea compared to waiting 15 minutes for mobs to respawn.

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  7. Guild gets a percentage of all money looted.
    I only use guild repairs.
    Doesn't bother me.
    Not sure if that qualifies as a perfect gold sink.

    Also, I'm OCD about repairing.
    I repair all the freaking time to stay at 100% - because who wants to put it off until you are in the middle of something and find out your gear is no long providing stats because it needs repair, and no one has an engineering bot, and you have to delay the group to go repair.

    So I'm OCD.
    Ugh.

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    1. I am the same way, every time I go near a place that offers repairs I repair. Even if it is only 10 silver, I am there, why not.

      I am also one of those hunters that always carry around three weapons. Habit. New hunters might not know it but bows used to break really fast and very often. I have had many fights where I went through 2 bows in the same fight. And even soloing nef I used to bring 6 bows because he would break that many on me before I would get him down. I have not tried at 90 yet but I would guess he is still a 2 bow fight.

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  8. Regarding tagging of mobs, I often look for ways to help other players, even if it's just finishing off a mob they are working on.

    Since most characters are Overpowered compared to the mobs, they don't usually need my help.
    I try to keep an eye out for people who are losing the mob battle though, and taunt off them.
    I've saved a few players that way.
    There have been a few I've been too late to save though...*moment of silence*.

    Maybe Blizzard wants the dailies to take a long time and is trying to discourage partnering up?
    I know that is why they don't allow quest credit while in a raid.
    I think they've gone too far though.
    The golden lotus dailies with 3 quest hubs that get assigned to you randomly. That forced variety ensured that no one would group to quest at the Golden Pagoda that the quests start at.

    Maybe if you were lucky you could get a response from General chat after you got to one of the 2nd or 3rd quest areas for the day.

    Maybe I should just randomly invite every person I see and play the odds...?

    I am glad that they at least made the elites a shared kill.

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    1. I can see blizzard wanting thing to take longer. The longer it takes the longer the content lasts. There is a line of logic there actually, just not one I like.

      The shared kills on some mobs have made questing a lot easier. For some classes I think it is required, at least until they start getting better gear. I know a few in my guild that say they hang around knowing someone will come sooner or later for someone else to start the fight and then they get their hits in because they would die if they did it alone.

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  9. There are tons of cross-faction NPCs. There is no reason to stop players from doing it. I have always said get rid of equipment for anything other than cosmetic reasons. Make all gear scale with your class/level. Then your legendary works forever. All stat bonuses would be based on color only with 2x, 3x type multipliers.

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    1. Agreed.

      I'm not sure people should be able to switch back and forth between alliance and horde since those are opposite warring factions.

      They could switch to a neutral faction though.

      Like maybe shaman and druids could become Earthen Ring affiliated, for example?

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    2. On the creation screen it would be okay. It would not be switching in game unless you use the paid faction transfer service.

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  10. I actually meant picking a faction when you rolled. Like: human horde would be mercenaries. Horde night elf would be an assassin guild. Orc alliance would be outcasts forced to find uneasy allies among former enemies. Horde gnomes would be mad scientists. Alliance blood elves would be redeemed elves free of the hunger. Undead would be a toughie: for them i would rather let you pick any race to be undead so you could have undead orc and goblin and everything else. Deadbull anyone??! Horde dwarf would be sky pirates.

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    1. That would be the prefect way to add cross faction races.

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