Thursday, August 22, 2013

Reforging and Interesting Choices

I had this whole post about some changes I would like to see with reforging.  Anyone that has read my blog for a while knows that in my opinion the best thing to come out of cataclysm is reforging.  Some, or even most, would say transmog but to each their own.  I loved the addition of the option to reforge and I think it was the best addition to the game in cataclysm.

In my post, which I will abbreviate here, I talked about how I believe it was time for reforging to undergo some changes.  The changes I would like to see are that we could reforge to exact numbers (not exceeding 50%) instead of a flat percentage of 40% like we have now.  Any stats past what you need, haste, hit, expertise, etc, are wasted stats and no one really wants wasted stats right?  So I had this whole post about how allowing us to build our stats with a better version of reforging would be a good thing.

Then I pop over the MMO-C, like always, and see our friendly neighborhood crab saying that he basically does not like reforging because, paraphrasing, nobody makes interesting choices except maybe healers.

It almost seems as if they are thinking of removing reforging with a comment like that just at the time I was about to make a post about how great reforging was and how it can be made even better.

I think that ghostcrawler needs to a little lesson in math before he makes conclusions like he just did.  He also needs to understand that what is interesting for him might not be interesting for us and what is interesting to us might not be interesting to him.  He has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is not the voice of the people because he routinely does not feel the same way about things in the game that the player base does.  This, in effect, makes him the worst person to decide what is interesting and what is not.

Now pay close attention GC.  Reforging is about math, what is best.  Math can not be argued with, it can not be reasoned with, and it will never stop... being right.  Reforging lets us be better with the gear we have by letting us get rid of useless stats based on weights of which stat is better.  See, math.  It doesn't need to be interesting.  It is a tool to better ourselves.

I spend a fair deal of time when looking at gear I can get as an upgrade in deciding which piece would be best for me.  As such, the secondary stats on that piece are a selling point that pushes me toward one piece of gear over another.  If I need new bracers and there is one that has hit & haste on it and other that has mastery & critical on it and a third that has expertise & critical on it I need to look at what I am currently wearing to decide on an upgrade.

If I am current reforging out of something else into hit perhaps the hit one will fill a nice place with me because I need that hit and as the hit one is with haste and haste is very good for me this might be the best piece.  But lets say I was over on hit already and reforging out of it every chance I got, adding another piece with hit would not help me.   Even with reforging you can only get rid of so much so all that extra hit would be wasted itemization and devalue the piece for me over all.

Same example goes for expertise.  Those two things both have exact numbers that are good for me, 7.5%, and going over those numbers basically means all wasted stats.  So maybe that means I might lead myself to think the mastery and critical one is much better as it surely would be if I am currently reforging out of both hit and expertise as I am swimming in both.

Lets take this example even further and evaluate that mastery is by far my worst secondary stat and both haste and critical are better by a fair deal.  I now look closer at the one with hit & haste and expertise and critical.  Can I do something with my reforging, gems and enchants to make use of any substantial amount of the hit or expertise on either of those even if not using all of it?

For example, even if adding the expertise one and reforging everything I can out of expertise on every piece of gear would leave me a 7.9% expertise, .4% more than I need and basically .4% of a useless stat that gives me absolutely nothing, would having that piece with the base critical on it in addition to all the other stats I got from reforging out of expertise on all the other pieces be better than the piece with mastery on it because mastery really is not very good.

So off to find data I go.  Is 1000 mastery better than the 700 mix of haste and critical I got from reforging out of expertise on every piece I have even if I ended up over on my expertise in the end?  This is where it gets to what you said isn't interesting so follow closely ghostcrawler, I am about to use an outside resource. 

I see that the value of haste and critical is much more than the value of mastery so indeed having 700 of those stats mixed is much better than having 1000 mastery.  So I go with the expertise bracers even if I do not need the expertise and will end over cap because in the end I get more useful stats otherwise because of it.

I don't know about you Mr. Crab but I find that incredibly interesting.  Most people would just see that they were at hit and expertise cap already and think, the one without either hit or expertise are best.  But it is not.  That seems pretty interesting to me.  Not everything is black and white as long as reforging is around.  Without reforging the ones without hit and expertise are the best hands down if you do not need either of those stats but thanks to reforging not everything is so clear cut.  How exactly is that not interesting?  Because people use addons to help them make this decision?  I think not.

It is not a case of just getting a piece of gear and going to Mr. Robot and asking what should I do with it.  It is deciding what piece of gear would actually be the best.  Even if things like Mr. Robot are great for helping me decide that they are not perfect.  I have seen that, and many other, resources tell me one piece was better than another but be wrong because they over valued one stat or another.  It takes playing with weights, switching multiple pieces of gear, and basically knowing how to use the resource to its fullest extent to get the best data out of it.  While most just look for what it says is best and go with it, the players that know better will spend a fair deal of time with it to find the right thing.  I find that interesting.

So yes, people can just put on gear and ask some website or some addon for what is best and do it and that might not seem at all interesting but you are looking for something to be interesting that can not and will not ever be interesting to anyone in the game that is just looking for a simple, what is best for me right now answer.

Reforging is not about being interesting, it is about being efficient.  Who cares if people just go to use some resource to figure out what is best?  There is a reason something is best.  Because numbers do not lie.  Best is best.  If I get more DPS from having a 700 stat mix of critical and haste than I do from 1000 mastery is it not up for debate.  It is a fact.  Math does not lie and math is only interesting to those that find it so.  Reforging is about math, not about being interesting.

With all that said, reforging is fine.  Sure, it can be annoying that getting one new piece means you need to reforge 6 pieces but that is how things go and that is why the websites and addons are there.  Because they help us remove the step of figuring it out on our own.  But in the end whether we figure it out on our own or if we use an addon it is not interesting.  It is just a matter of what is best.

That is why for healers, as you mentioned, it is interesting.  Because for healers (and to some extent tanks as well) it is not all about one bottom line number.  For damage dealers it is only about what you can put out.  A simple number that is best or not.  For healers (and tanks) it is about feel.

Is your team weak in the DPS department making fights last longer?  Perhaps you need more spirit to last it out.  Perhaps your team is downing things in record time, you can go for another type of build as mana is never an issue.  Maybe you are a shaman that is put on tank heals and find that a mastery build works better for you or you are the type that is more comfortable with a crit build.  Both can get the job done just fine, so you have choice and it is interesting because it is based on how you, as a player, enjoy playing your class.

The thing you need to remember is that reforging was never about being interesting when it comes to damage dealers.  Reforging was always about being efficient.  Getting rid of that extra hit, or picking up that little bit you need.  Passing on that worst secondary stat for something that is actually useful for your class and spec.  Not interesting, but effective.

Reforging is a great addition to the game and sure many need an addon to get it "perfect" but what exactly is wrong with that?

I would love to go back to what I was going to post and explain how now is the time for reforging to move a step forward, even more so with these insane stats on gear and the blanket 40% really not cutting it.  We need reforging to change to exact numbers.  No longer will I reforge 40% of the hit out of one piece when I only need to reforge 32% out of it.  I can enter the exact number and reforge 32% off of it.

Reforging needs to get better.  Reforging needs to get more mathy.  Reforging need to get even less interesting as you would say.  Reforging needs to be what it was intended to be.  Something that makes us be the best we can be with the gear we have.  I love reforging for that and I am sure many others do, even if we do get frustrated that it is just another thing we need to go through each time we get a new piece of gear.

If reforging is not good because it is not interesting then gems are not good because they are not interesting and enchants are not good because they are not interesting and PvP is not good  because it is not interesting (to me) or raiding is not good because it is not interesting (to some).  I am sure every single aspect of the game someone out there will say, it is not interesting.  Reforging is about being effective, not interesting.

Stop complaining that reforging is not interesting because people use addons for it.  That is like saying raiding is not interesting because we have deadly boss mods.  Just because there is an addon out there that tells you how to do it right doesn't mean it is not interesting.  Someone can have the best reforging they can have, it won't make them a good player, just like someone can have deadly boss mods and it does not make them a great raider.

Addons just help make things easier.  The interesting part of the game is actually in getting better playing it.  Let the addons handle reforging and stop worrying about if it is interesting or not.  It is effective and that is all that matters.

For damage dealers it will never be interesting.  There will always be a best reforge for the best damage you can do.  When there is a set right and a set wrong, there will never be interesting.  Unless you find math interesting that is.

Something does not need to be interesting to be good for the game.  It just needs to be useful and reforging is useful.  Not to mention, it works as a gold sink too.

29 comments:

  1. I might surprise you in that but I pretty much agree with GC on reforging, in it's current state I feel it's pretty pointless and lower the impact of choosing one piece of gear over another.

    I wouldn't do away with reforging though, but tweak it this way :

    -Allow reforging only on piece that already have hit/expertise on them

    -Allow any amount of reforge from the stats up to 50% of its original value (that I agree with you).

    -On a given piece you can only reforge from hit/exp toward the other secondary stat on this piece or the other way around (secondary to hit/exp)

    Doing that will give gear itemisation more impact and I belive more reason to wonder if a piece is better than the other.

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    1. I can't see how you would say it lowers the impact on taking one piece over another. Did you ever read my example? Which piece you take is still important, even more so now with reforging. Without it, if you are hit and expertise capped you take the one with neither.

      No real choosing there. One puts you over on hit. One puts you over on expertise. The other has no wasted stats. However, with reforging you have real choice where you can decide what you can move around to make the best use of what secondary stats you can get out of it.

      Reforging increased the impact of which piece you took. It did not decrease it. Without reforging the mastery piece without hit and expertise is the piece you take. No choice. Reforging added an impact to the choices you make.

      So you are saying that you would like it so you can only reforge into and and out of hit and expertise?

      I am not sure I could support that one. I like reforging because I can design my gear the best I am able to. If I do not like mastery I want to get rid of it every step of the way.

      I got a new neck piece last night. Thunderfored too. Did I put it right on and hit mr robot? Hell no. I have other pieces I can mix and match based on itemization and which ones I can get the most out of. So I will spend some time researching and see what else I would need to change to get the maximum impact out of that new piece.

      Now that is the impact of reforging. It is not longer, get new piece, put it on, be done with it. Nope. Reforging has had a HUGE impact on how you choose gear.

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    2. Same anon as above here

      That works both way.

      I had the exact same situation lately when I get HC horridon neck. I did a bit of tinkering with reforging and in the end it was worse than my current normal neck.

      Did I find all this tinkering interresting? Aboslutely not, in the end the difference was so small, taht on average it doesn't even matter, a good luck, or bad luck streak on trinket procs will have more influence on my DPS.


      On the other end I remember while in ICC getting that awesome deatbringer will. And the choice I had was : do I put it on and find myslef below hit rating, or do I keep my hit rating for now, and hope to get another piece of gear with hit on it to be able to swap latter?

      That I find interesting. I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder now, but for the most ppl, right now, the gear you have doens't really have a huge impact on your dps aslong as it have one of your 2 main secondary stat, just reforge out of the other, and for 90% of the player it will be the same.

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    3. That is the exact same situation I am in. Will work out to be a 327 DPS difference even with all the shifting around. Almost not worth it, but an upgrade is an upgrade and it is sitting in my bags so might as well do it.

      I personally love tinkering with the numbers. I do find that interesting. In the end though there will be people that like it and people that hate it. My argument is that "interesting" should never be part of the conversation.

      Reforging is a tool. To do what it is intended to do it just needs to work and it does. It does not need to be interesting and more than the keyboard I am typing this needs to be interesting to make the post.

      My problem with what he said was he is assuming that people finding it interesting or not even matters. Some will, some won't. But it is a tool. It does not need to be interesting.

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  2. The worst part of the whole system is the lack of control. Change one part and you are way over hit, the next you are way under, and of course the same for expertise.

    I have not used any addons but I have a spidersense for maths without actually needing to the calculation 100% accurate.

    My solution would be have a slider that you modfiy rather than guessing with %. This would need the UI to alter the figures with any change, rather than 7.98% down to 7.23% Hit.

    Now I have written this, it is not very interesting really, but neither do I want to lose huge quantiities of stats by not having Reforging.

    Maybe they just need to have generic choices like:

    1. Cap hit and Expertise
    2. Maximise Mana Regen
    3. Reduce Damage Taken

    The UI will then do the calculation and change all your gear at once.

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    1. That is how I would like to see reforging changed. To exacts. I think it would be better for most people and a hell of a lot easier to work with for everyone. Reforging is a tool and a good one, but it could be better.

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  3. I don't think I've disagreed with any of your posts, ever, more than this one.

    "I don't know about you Mr. Crab but I find that incredibly interesting."

    I'm not sure if you quite understand just how in the minority you are with that one. I like math... I'm the Anon who posted the combinatoric info in a recent comment. I went to University for math (ended up in CompSci but the interest and aptitude for math were there). I can still slap together a decent Excel formula.

    I'm your target market. If ANYONE was going to agree with you, it'd be me. Your post makes me want to cry.

    MORE math? This is a damned VIDEO GAME. I absolutely believe that you find that enjoyable. I would also be absolutely shocked if even 0.1% of the full playing population agreed with you (note - I'm not saying that about your blog readers although I'd be surprised if you get much support even here).

    First off, GC is fully aware of the difference between developer goals and player ones... all of the snide "he doesn't speak for me" comments are absolutely true, he doesn't, but that doesn't meant he and his team aren't trying to make the best game FOR you and don't recognize the difference.

    ---
    Q: the only real gap exists between "interesting for developers" and "interesting for players".
    A: They are sometimes at odds since the player mindset is typically to remove obstacles and the developers' is to add them. It may be counter intuitive, but obstacles are fun. Curving tracks with hills and koopas > straight drag strips.
    ---

    How ironic that all this math COULD (and is) actually an obstacle. Not having reforging would be the player-friendly, simpler option to getting things done.

    Secondly, reforging was NOT introduced as a min/max tool for dps. It was brought in to make more gear viable. (I can track down comments from blues back in the day if necessary but I trust you'll recognize the truth of this). I had a 25-man raid in ICC that used EPGP... the biggest problem in that raid is that NOBODY wanted incremental upgrades, everyone wanted BiS gear and we'd be sharding significant upgrades just because they weren't BiS for folks and they didn't want to blow their points on something sub-optimal. What reforging does is make the delta between BiS and WiS gear SMALLER. Basically, it increases the viability of non-BiS gear.

    The reason it has TURNED INTO a min/max tool for dps (and tanks and healers to a lesser degree) is because of the various caps. Hit/Exp hard caps, haste breakpoints, etc.

    For most of us, reforging is the exact opposite of interesting. Frankly, it's a pain in the ass. The upside of not getting any new gear on my monk recently is that I won't feel obligated to completely re-balance my secondary stats for RoRo, something that no in-game tool can do, far as I know, so it has to be done manually. That isn't fun.

    Gems and enchants aren't exactly fun either but at least in the case of gems they ARE useful on a per-toon/per-spec basis, they ADD stats to gear based on what stats you want, they don't just re-shuffle them. At this point I'm not sure enchants really accomplish much, all toons run the same high-end enchants. Whee? Still, it gives Enchanters something to do, there's value in that.

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    1. As a final note, the only impact that reforging has had on how you choose gear is that it makes more pieces worth using. Beyond that, it's had zero effect, it's the same process as before... if it's an upgrade you take it and use it, if not you don't. No rocket science there. As Anon mentions above, the smaller delta between BiS and WiS upgrades, which I appreciate, could be viewed as a negative if "impact" of an upgrade is the goal. I don't think Blizz is necessarily thinking this way but I do like that GC started the conversation. The only consequences of reforging going away (or not using reforging) would be less optimal stats, which would be compensated for by looser boss tuning, and fewer upgrade options, which I'd actually support, especially in a world with bonus tokens... fewer bosses with upgrades make the tokens even more valuable.

      I'd still keep reforging around, though, I think it's a net positive for the game, at least for raiders. I just can't support a "more math" viewpoint. If anything, I'd prefer less math. Somehow.

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    2. As someone that likes math then you are the perfect person to disagree with me. As you like numbers as much, or even more, than I. So I respect your opinion as such.

      AI will comment however that I think you misunderstood what I meant when I said "more math". I means "more math" to mean more exact numbers, simpler math.

      For example if your haste cap was 4500 right now you have to play with reforging taking it off this and putting it on that to try and get as close to that perfect number.

      If they made it the "more math" way I was saying it would become exact numbers, not 40%. So if I needed 342 more to get to my haste cap I do not need to reforge out of one and into another to try and get there. I could just do the math and see I needed 342 and take 342 off something else exactly and turn it into haste.

      That is what I meant by more math. I did not mean that to make it harder, I meant that to make it easier. To make what I consider an excellent tool even better by letting us have complete control over how we rearrange stats.

      I also disagree with this obstacles comment as well and was thinking of making a post on that. Obstacles are excellent game design. They are what keep people playing, however some of the designed obstacles are just "busy work" and move from the "lets grind this to get this" into "oh my god not this shit again".

      Take daily quests and reputation at the beginning of the expansion. It was a fantastic obstacle. It gave people something to do, something to aim for, it was laid out as a daily path of how and when you would get there. But, once people started leveling alts it became repetitive and annoying.

      I personally did the entire grind on 3 characters and that is more than any person I know did. It was an unnecessary obstacle. So their job is not to create obstacles, like he said, it is to create compelling content that might contain obstacles and to know the difference. I really do hope they learned from this. The set up was great, in my opinion, on the first character, but doing it on others became mind numbing.

      They should worry a little more about making things fun and a little less about making obstacles and I am sure, if they do not make things too free for all, it would benefit them in the long run. Again using the previous example. If they had only made it once you were exalted with one character it shared rep with all. That is what would have made it better. Again, just my opinion.

      I look at reforging as a tool. I like the tool and think it is a great tool. I really hope they do not take it away and actually make it better. But in the end, as a tool, it is not suppose to be interesting, it is just supposed to be useful. And reforging is useful. So I am not even sure why he is brings the "interesting" conversion up.

      Who gives a flying you know what if it is interesting? It is a tool. If you had to hammer in a nail would you choose the hammer that was more interesting? No, any hammer that worked is fine. Reforging is a hammer, it works. It does not need to be interesting.

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    4. lol.. I don't think that really helped at all but it is the perfect Roo type answer for sure.

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    1. I'll agree with you. I think it is time hit and expertise rating went the way of +defense. It was only interesting long ago when nobody was certain how much you needed and there were only a handful of pieces with those stats (or their old variant) on them. Now that everybody that wants to cap out can easily do so before stepping into the first raid tier, hit and expertise are just a silly obstacle for less knowledgeable players.

      Misses are kind of stupid when you think about it. Your shaman is swinging two axes at a 50-foo giant servant of the Old Gods from less than a foot away. Misses with the off-hand? How?

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    2. I actually agree. I support removing hit and expertise cap completely.

      Or how about if they really want us to keep it, make it gems. 7.5% hit and 7.5% expertise gems. That way if we want to cap we gem for it exactly.

      As toughroot said, I think hit and expertise have worn out their welcome. The only time those stats really matter is in raid and look at the size of those mobs. If we would miss them we would have never lived to 90 to begin with. We shouldn't need to be capped in hit and expertise.

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  5. LOL @ Roo we won't let grumpy chase you down. I actually like that idea a lot.

    I'm going to have to agree with the crab and a lot of the posters here. Reforging is annoying at best and tedious at worse. I don't find it to be interesting. Do I want to live in a world where it’s gone? No, I like that its opened up more gearing options for me I no longer wait for that perfect drop I take the upgrade and just move on. I think GC is dead right that its overly complicated and it is part of the reason that getting an upgrade can be sometimes more annoying then it’s worth. It’s a good conversation to have. I do think the amount of editing a new upgrade needs before its ready to wear is out of hand.

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    1. Roo is great isn't he?

      I agree with the fact that it is over complicated and just becomes another thing we have to deal with each time we get a new piece.

      The original post I was going to make before I read that was going to be about making reforging better. Easier by making it simple math instead of percentage juggling.

      The only people that like playing with putting in here and taking out there are geeks like me that dig that stuff and we are few and far between and even I would rather use an addon 90% of the time because unless I have the time to pour over the numbers, it is just too time consuming even when I do enjoy it.

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  6. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

    Reforging was a tool I embraced lukewarmly at best. Yes, there are benefits to be had, but it was annoying as hell to get to the benefits, what with all the stat rearrangements that are needed.

    I liked the idea in theory but in practice I found it horrid. I guess in short, that Reforging was another one of the things that turned me off raiding. Feeling like I had to reforge to get somewhat closer to max performance quickly became tiring indeed.

    To be right honest about it all, I wish that Blizzard had never let any hints of the math behind their game become public knowledge. From recount to reforging, numbers seem to have overtaken a fantasy game environment and to my own personal taste, that is a shame. Yes, I know that puts me in a distinct minority, likely a minority of myself only, but still I get/got/will be forever annoyed by the player base rating players solely on numbers alone.

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    1. Numbers do turn anything from "just do it" into "do it right". Once you tag numbers on to things there will always be a right and a wrong.

      I don't think we can really blame blizzard for letting the numbers out. There are some very smart people that would have figured them out on their own and posted what is best.

      In the end it would turn to the old talent system (which I did like) where you knew who read stuff online and who didn't based on their spec. This would be based on their stats. People that never missed would be the people that were smart enough to look it up online.

      While I am a huge advocate of "look it up" I do agree with many that the game is way to complex on its own if people actually have to use an outside resource to play it.

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    2. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

      Oh, it could have been done with a better effort at disguising the number, i.e. a range of descriptive terms rather than numbers being released with each hit along with a EULA term that forbade reverse engineering the description into hard numbers coupled with a ban for any who post such and threats of lawsuits for websites that publish confidential game information.

      On the other hand, seeing as how that ship sailed a long time ago, I think the numbers they use should be simplified so that it is understandable at a glance without having to resort to super complex formulas to decipher the results. For the Reforging itself, a straight up number that a stat is from perfection could be used, i.e., you need 172 more haste to be capped or you are 916 points over the hit cap.

      Let the conversion be a one for one change and be done with it as in the two numbers I used as example, the player could convert 172 hit into haste and be perfect on haste and not as badly over on Hit.

      Yes, I know it is to simple for Blizzard to ever adopt, but in the meantime, having to adjust multiple pieces of gear to get all the numbers to balance just right continues to be the standard and a lot of folks it seems dislike it that way. Fewer fall into the category that it works fine as it is, and I suspect that even fewer love the current system.

      So in short, Reforging should stay but it should undergo a review to make it easier/simpler to use.

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    3. I agree that for the masses of the game they need to really calm down on the numbers. People just do not get them.

      Reforging should be flat percentages. Just to make it easier for people to understand. Telling someone their haste break point is 2520 is confusing.

      I am at 18% so what is that? Hover over it to get the number. Oh.

      Things like that. If everything were flat percentages it would be easier for the masses to understand.

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  7. I don't care about reforging one way or the other. I'm an electrical engineer/software developer by trade, so I like math and data and algorithms, etc. Reforging is just an optimization algorithm to me though, which I gladly allow an addon to calculate the different reforging iterations to find the best solution (ReforgeLite). I rarely have situations where I'm debating two pieces of gear for the same slot, so reforging rarely comes into that equation.

    I don't think that reforging itself needs to change. I think that secondary stats need to change. Stat caps/plateaus are an unnecessary complication. As others mentioned, Hit/Expertise need to go; I'd throw Dodge/Parry in the trash as well and maybe even Spirit.

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    1. I am firmly in the camp of hit and expertise need to go. That would solve some problems. I am not sure how well they can change other secondary stats however. There will always be a best stat to stack and we will stack it. As long as math is involved there will always be a right and a wrong solution.

      I think reforging can be made better if it used exact amounts based on our input so there is not so much bouncing around needed. It would make it a lot easier for the average player and leaps and bounds easier for people that might dabble with it but do not use an outside resource to do the numbers for them.

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  8. Another simplifying tool that would be fairly easy to code would be a 4 or 5 point conform system.

    Player designates 2 stats they want at a fixed value and then defines a sort order for 2 or 3 others.

    Set Hit and Expertise to 7.5% and Crit > Haste > Mastery and the Reforger sort sets all your gear to achieve that.

    Smaller overall adjustments, including all your gear and net result exactly matches defined values. And only 1 "Reforge" button.

    Covers both the "math-ugh" folks and the precision is comforting peoples.

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    1. That's basically an addon already out there. It doesn't make things more interesting.

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    2. There are programs like reforgelite, mr robot, and others out there that already do that.

      I am guessing you mean you would want the guy in game to let you add those stat weights and do it for you?

      I think that is what our crabby friend is against. He does not like the fact that people just go to some site or use some addon and let it do all the work for them. That is why he says it is not interesting.

      I think of it as s tool, don't care if it is interesting. But to him that seems to matter, so I doubt he would bring the outside resource into the game as that resource is the reason he thinks it is not interesting.

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  9. I think the issue here may be one of, “which group of WoW players are Ghost Crawlers statements applicable to”?

    I don’t believe it is to the top end raider, the player that reads web sites to get the best rotation, and then spends hours in front of target dummies perfecting it. Those individuals will take the time to really get into reforgeing and be the absolute best they can be. They have the add-ons, the appropriate websites bookmarked, and will take the time to mathematically work through every piece of gear they have to get it exactly right. I can absolutely see reforgeing being pretty cool for them.

    Now let’s go to the LFR. I have no numbers to back this up, but I would say that those individuals are probably closer to the “typical” WoW player than the top end raiders mentioned earlier. The type of player in the LFR doesn’t see reforgeing as anything other than a pain, because who cares what is better? Is crit really better than haste is better than spirit is better than anything else? Would they even bother to look it up? With a jewel, it doesn’t matter what it is, even if it is totally wrong for the class they are playing they still improving something, and that is good, right?

    Your “typical” WoW player is not making interesting choices, because he is not making choices at all. There is no point to reforgeing if you don’t know what stat is better than what stat in what circumstance. With Gems you do at least have a modicum of choice, “do I want str, int, dex, etc...?” When it comes to the reforgeing options, I would be surprised if most people even bothered to look at those options let alone knew what the choices they made meant for them.

    Any statement Ghost Crawler makes is not meant for the individual. It’s meant for the "typical" WoW player, and should be treated as such. You may not agree with it, but in the end, it’s not meant for you.

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    1. I am not a top end raider. I barely finish normal modes most of the times and I like it.

      I think any label anyone puts on a player can cover a wide range of people. But I do agree with you that "raiders" like the tool more than most. While I am no where near top end, I do like to raid and I do like the tool.

      I do agree with your typical assessment however. To the typical player gems, enchants, reforges, they are all just busy work. I bet they do not even consider using food or a flask for anything they do and maybe do not even know those things exists.

      With that said, who cares about them? Not to sound rude or elitist or anything. But if they are not using the tool then their opinion of the tool does not matter. That is like asking me what I think about the new season of mad men, I don't watch it so who really cares what I think about it.

      If the people it is aimed at, as you mentioned being raiders, are putting it to good use, interesting or not, it is a good tool.

      Why is he even talking to the people that do not use the tool because lets face it, the only people that would see his comment are the people that look things up online and the people that look things up online most likely reforge.

      The typical wow player will never see his comment because the typical wow player never looks anywhere outside of the game for information.

      So, why is he aiming his comment at people that will never read it?

      He should speak to the people that will actually care what he has to say.

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  10. I like reforging. Mostly because I can make a crappy loot piece into something useful. Like 522 neck tags with haste and mastery are good. With hc twins neck drop, I get to choose between that and a dodge/exp piece with a socket. Without reforge, hc piece gets sharded.

    Problem... well, maybe it is indeed the fixed number which makes us reforege 4 pieces out of hit and 3 pieces into hit, 3 into exp, 2 out of exp and so on to waste as little as possible when we add in that necklace.

    It sounded good enough to be able to choose my percentage. That way it would be straightforward and nothing would be wasted. But then again. If I do 40% off dodge into hit and another 10% from another piece so I reach the cap, that's like a potential 30% wasted haste. So we're still left with a lot to toy with, to find out how to waste as little as possible. I don't know, I don't think there's an easy solution.

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    1. That is what the programs are for. I like to try to figure it out on my own first playing around. I am weird that way. I get out some paper and play with the numbers. In the end the resources are usually either the same result I get or do it better. So it is nice to have them.

      I think it would be a nice change to the reforging system to let us reforge exact numbers. I need 7% more hit, I take 7% mastery off this item and turn it to hit so it is dead on. That would be nice.

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