Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Tuesday Random Thoughts

- Because monday alone just wasn't enough I have some more random thoughts.

- When I first played rift there were a few things, three small things, that I though I would love to see added to WoW.

- All three were simple quality of life things.

- This expansion WoW added one of those three things, AoE looting.

- Woot for taking good ideas, making them your own and implementing them.

- Next expansion they are taking another page from the Rift book, quest book that is.

- Quest items no longer take up bag space, they are kept in your quest log.

- Awesome quality of life update.

- I loved that when I first saw it in rift.

- So what is the third quality of life thing I liked in rift that has not yet made it to WoW?

- Profession dailies.

- They had so many levels of profession dailies in rift, giving tokens, crafting materials, etc.

- I think that was a nice little quality of life thing, maybe wow can still add it.

- At least it made all materials from all throughout the game useful to some extent.

- They seem to be adding a lot of other things to questing that I am sure many will like.

- Makes me wonder if lore master is really anything special any longer.

- Remember trying to hunt down those quests you were missing and them being impossible to find?

- Now everything just appears there for you.

- Good or bad, it would all be opinion based.

- Even if I do not like it, I still call it progress.

- Most of the people that play this game need their hands held, and this is just some serious hand holding.

- How much do you want to bet that people will still be asking for help where to go next?

- No matter what quest help you put in the game, people will still not read it.

- Nice to add it, but wonder if it will actually be useful for the people that would actually need it, because the people that actually need it, aren't the ones that would look at it to begin with.

- Kind of like the encounter journal for dungeons and raids.

- The people that could most use reading it never do.

- More events popping up in the world is another thing taken straight from the pages of rift.

- That is another good thing.

- Don't think I am blasting wow for "stealing" ideas.

- I am not, that is how a good game gets better, they see things that are good and they add it.

- I am hoping they keep stealing good ideas.

- It is amazing how so many people just can not get the "time travel" thing.

- Everyone is complaining about how this will screw over every thing we know.

- People, it is an "alternate" reality.  It is not time travel.

- HUGE difference.

- Time travel - You kill your dad, you disappear.

- Alternate reality - You kill your dad, the you from that reality never appears but you are fine.

- I saw some blizzard people trying to explain this and I think they confused the people more than they were before they asked the question.

- You would have thought that someone would have known this would confuse a lot of people and they would have prepared for answering these questions.

- Nope, they were too busy patting themselves on the back because the gnome females have such hilarious, but cute, facial expressions.

- Public service announcement: We are not time traveling, we are going to an alternate reality.

- A "what if" world, if you will.

- They had to expect this from a bunch of people that even the LFR is too hard for.

- Even veteran sci/fi fans have problems with time travel sometimes, and these are people that are not into that sort of stuff.

- That is why it is even harder for them to understand.

- While I do not mind a "what if" world scenario I do not think it was the best course of action for a fantasy game.

- Even more so this fantasy game with this player base.

- Just be happy some of them can figure out how to log in, don't make them try to understand time travel and alternate realities.

- I see lots and lots of "but that isn't what happened" or "what is this going to do to us now" type of posts in the future.

- Expect the next two years to be filled with people answering nearly every forum post with "it is an alternate reality and has no effect on our history".

- So how about pet breeding?

- In your garrison you can breed pets for a chance to make epic pets.

- Sounds kind of cool if you ask me and I know I will be doing it.

- So much better than they adding epic pets out in the world and having to go around and recatch and relevel them all again.

- I would have hated that.

- So much better than giving us new stones we needed to grind for to upgrade to epic.

- I would have hated that too.

- I wondered if they would go full on pokemon with cross breeds.

- Doesn't seem so, and that is a good thing, or we would need a hell of a lot more pet spaces because I would be cross breeding the shit out of everything I could get my hands on.

- Speaking of garrisons, they will be required for raiding.

- Yes, you heard that, required for raiding.

- You can get buffs that last for 4 hours and persist through death.

- So I believe all raiders should have any buffs they are capable of getting.

- Being we never raided 4 hours in a row in our entire career that means you should always have the buff for the entire raid night.

- Anything less and you are not an actual raider.

- You are someone that "wants" to raid.

- There is a difference between someone that wants to raid and a raider.

- Someone that is a raider will have those garrison buffs without even being asked to get them.

- I am not going to even mention it to new recruits, I will just see if they have the buff on them when they join a group.

- If they have it, I will give them additional consideration.

- If I am a casual raider and think that, what do you think hard core raiders would be like?

- It would be "get the buff or lose your raid spot".

- Yes, I see that happening.

- But to what end?

- We will see what the buffs are and what is required to get them.

- Maybe someone will want a bunch of professions instead of buffs.

- So not having a 1% crit buff would not be a reason for me to kick someone, not even in the slightest, but for a hard core guild I can sure see it being a reason.

- I wonder if we can already say having a high garrison will be considered "mandatory".

- Sure, anything "mandatory" is actually an option, but not an option if you want to do the best you can do.

- If you want to do the best you can do the garrisons will be mandatory.

- Get extra crafting materials, get a 4 hour buff that increases your performance, get epic loot from sending followers on quests and dungeons and raids, yeah, absolutely mandatory.

- As long as it is fun and does not take a long time however, it will not get the back lash that dailies had.

- That was the problem with the dailies, in part, that they took so long to get done those first days.

- People complained about golden lotus and klaxxi, both with what seemed like hundreds of dailies.

- They did not complain about the anglers or the august celestial ones because that was 3 or 4 dailies.

- Small doses of dailies work, not huge quest lines of dailies each day.

- Hearing little to no dailies upsets me, I like dailies.

- But even I hated the golden lotus.

- So what is this I hear about no flying until 6.1?

- Rumor?  Fact?

- Either way, I do not think it is a half bad idea.

- Sure, it will suck for gathering, it will suck for getting around, it will suck for rare hunting or event hunting, it will suck because we have gotten so used to it.

- But there are good side effects people are forgetting.

- The smart players will still find the best farm spots.

- The dedicated players will still make the effort.

- The stupid and the lazy will be shut out because they will not be able to find the quick routes or not be willing to take the time to head out in the world on foot.

- So maybe that is a good thing.

- But I will surely be putting my garrison as close as I can to my home city if I am going to have to hoof it there every day.

- Speaking of home city, the black temple is the home city of the alliance.

- Cool beans.

- There is so much more information we did not even get, seems like blizzard is holding back on us.

- Like the extra stats on gear.  Speed, unbreakable.

- What other ones are there out there?

- I want a full speed set.

- It will make getting out of bad easier, questing easier, gathering easier.

- Heck, anything that increases movement speed is a welcome addition.

- Can you imagine having a complete speed set in PvP?

- Yes, I will be the flag carrier and you will never catch me.

- I think stuff like that one would have to be made to not work in PvP.

- It would give a huge advantage to the lucky mofo that farmed a full speed set.

- I might only be guessing here, but I doubt their intention will be to give people an advantage.

- They are supposed to be small bonuses.

- Do you think they will go the route of diablo with extra stats on gear?

- Like increased rare item drop rate gear?

- Like increased gold drop rate gear?

- Things like that?

- I wonder what all the other little extra stats will be.

- I also wonder how rare gem slots will be.

- And what items we will no longer be enchanting.

- Lots of questions still bouncing around in my head.

- For as much as they showed us they left us with more questions.

- What is that saying, "always leave them wanting more".

- Well blizzcon did just that for me, it left me wanting more.

- Actually left me wanting so much more it has nearly all but killed my desire to keep playing now.

- I have completely given up on leveling any more alts now.

- Why you ask?

- Because of the shared BoA heirlooms.

- Why waste time leveling now on other servers when next expansion all my characters on all servers both sides will have access to the BoAs?

- Sometimes announcements make things worse.

- The only thing I do for fun now when I want to escape the end game feels like I am wasting time because if I do it later it will be done better and more efficiently.

- I hope they change the way drops work next expansion, try to even out the RNG some.

- My poor lock still needs one sigil.

- My poor lock needed 1 sigil at the beginning of the week.

- It killed everything under the sun and did not get one sigil this week.

- Screw you mr RNG.

- I think the single best change they could ever made to the game is fixing the RNG to not be so darn random.

- A friend of mine just got to the secrets part of the legendary quest this week.

- He has 15 secrets already.

- Yes, in 1 week.

- My priest has been on it for months, yes months, and I only have 11.

- Got one this week running all raids that I could get it from.

- Hey, at least it is better than last week when I got none doing all the bosses.

- Now that is an upgrade I would love to see for warlords.

- None of that one person is lucky and get 15 in one week and another person is unlucky and gets 1 in 2 weeks.

- Fix RNG, that would be the best thing blizzard could ever do for the game if you ask me.

- Random will always be random, but fix it so it is not abusively random, as in screwing me over that badly.

- They can do it by adding streak protection, like they did for extra rolls, on all personal drops of all sorts.

- That is all I ask.

- If secrets are supposed to have a 50% drop rate now than doing 20 bosses each week for 2 weeks I should have gotten all 20, not 1.

- Streak protection is a nice thing.

- Just a quality of life change for the unlucky people like me.

- And people wonder why I am so grumpy.

- I wonder what they are going to do with profession bonuses.

- Someone asked in guild yesterday if switching to black smith was a good idea for the 2 extra gem slots.

- I didn't know how to answer.

- I said, right not it would be good but I can't say what the future holds.

- We are not going to be having as many gem slots, so maybe they will not have the gem slot bonus any more.

- But if they do still, then that would be a huge bonus, black smith might be the best professions for all we know.

- In the end I suggested, unless he really wants to for some other reasons, not to bother until we find out what is happening with professions.

- I would really like to know what is happening with professions.

- Will black smiths still have 2 gem slots to add?

- They mentioned no more bracer enchants, so what happens to the leather working bonus?

- Will they be the only one with bracer enchants, or will they just lose out?

- So many questions, but I guess that is the fun part.

- It means lots of information still to come, and I am excited to hear it all.

- Have you signed up for the beta yet?

- I did, of course.

- Not sure if I will actually do the beta however.

- It takes away from the real game once it comes.

- And I would not hold my breath to get into the beta any way with my luck.

- So many questions, so few answered.

- Does anyone else feel like the blizzcon left us with too little information?

- And what was not mentioned that is coming.

- Remember the BC one, they only mentioned alliance would get a new race, did not say what it would be.

- So big announcements could still be on the horizon.

- But do not expect a new race or class, that would have been mentioned.

- I am actually glad for that.

- We do not need a new class, we need the old classes balanced.

- Speaking of old classes, I am so glad we are not getting new abilities.

- We did not need any more buttons to add to our bloat.

- I like the level 100 talents, all changing existing things instead of adding more.

- That is really what it should be like from now on, not adding abilities for the sake of adding them.

- Kind of the reason they said no new guild levels.

- They would have to add bonuses for bonus sake and it makes no sense.

- Glad to see they adopted that to the class abilities as well.

- Not adding abilities for abilities sake.

- Thinking of hunter abilities I like the with or without you.

- Just hate the name for it.

- But adding 30% damage when you do not have your pet out will need to be balanced.

- I can not remember the last time my pet was 30% of my damage when not in BM.

- I am sure it will be adjusted.

- 20% sounds more reasonable, but we do not know how things will balance with the new stats and such.

- Maybe a pet will be worth 30% in warlords even for MM or SV.

- I can see a few fights were pets bug out where I would love to have that now.

- Heck, I would love to have that on any fight now because I think the most damage, percentage wise, I have ever seen my pet do this expansion is 21%.

- So it would be a 9% DPS increase for me at worst, and much more at best.

- Who would say no to a 9% DPS increase.

- Lets do some unscientific napkin math.

- I am doing around 250K now and my pet maxes out at best of 20%.

- Minus 20% of 250K to give me 200K then add 30% to 200K from the with of without you which will give me 260K now.

- So at the very least it would be a 10K increase to say goodbye to fluffy.

- I'll take it.

- Over the other two shots, it is not even an option as it stands now, with or without you wins.

- Makes me wonder what changes are coming if these things are considered all on the same level come warlords.

- Or is the design balance not even close to being looked at yet and only in the idea phase.

- That would really mess with my prediction for a may release of warlords.

- If warlords is any later than May it would be an epic failure on blizzards part.

- Even may is stressing it big time for an expansion we have gotten used to having at least a story telling content patch every 3 months.

- With the announcement that there would be no 5.5 that would mean may puts us at what, 9 months without any new content?

- So yes, any later than may and it would be an epic failure for an expansion that will go down as the best expansion to date when it comes to timely content releases.

- Any later than may and all that credit we can give them for an awesome expansion of releases gets lost in another last tier we get burnt out on.

- And we will be getting burnt out a lot faster with LFR, flex and normal/heroic.

- So like I said, 9 months is pushing it about as far as it should be pushed.

- I hope I am wrong, I hope it is march, but that is impossible, isn't it?

- Even if beta started today march would be out of the question.

- Or would it?

- This is the new world of faster releases, anything is possible.

- Maybe blizzard will surprise us.

- I just hope it is no later than may.

- I know I am ready for a new expansion right now.

- Have a great day.

30 comments:

  1. I got a WF helm this morning from Ordos, which brings me to all normal SoO gear except one Flex trinket and one thunderforged ring from last tier. I savored every moment of looking through my spreadsheet to figure out hit/exp i needed. Bought 5 primal diamonds thinking this very well might be the last helm I get with a meta gem (hopefully I'll get a heroic, but who knows).

    I'm really excited for the changes, no hit/exp, and less gems/enchants. But it was still fun to think about that posisbly being the last time I'd do some of those things.

    Blizz was right, as simplified as stats are, those things needed to go. Even the legendary cloak, it's cool, I'm glad I have mine. But it's required for raiding. It's not something special I got. It's mandatory for any raider.

    We have one hunter in our 25m that doesnt have her cloak yet. She really wants to be part of heroics too, so our RL asked me to work with her on her output. I spent a while poring through her logs and trying out different variations on SimC and Female Dwarf, and really there wasn't that much she could improve. She's doing around 190k - 210k in single target. The highest sim I could get in her gear was 235k. I generally think a normal mode raider is doing well if they can get 90% of their sim, she's getting 85%, ok, let's see, you could have gotten in 5-6 more KCs against thok on this fight; you could have gotten one more Rapid Fire against Malk on this fight; let's get you an ICD count down weak aura so you know whether or not to save this CD for a trinket proc... We went over all of those things, but really she just has to get better luck with secrets/runes/whatever dropping and finish the cloak quest, if she wants to be in heroics. For a newish player, who wasn't around for 5.0 (and didn't know the cloak would be required until half way through 5.2), that's pretty hard to hear.

    As for garrison buffs, That'll be an obnoxious requirement. If it's an "option" that's available to anyone, then it will be required of everyone.

    So, I'm glad they're trying to address all of that. Not quite there yet, but at least they're making progress.

    Also, yes, it's very strange how many people are asking in /2 how we're going to level from 60 - 70 since outlands will be gone...

    ~Delirium

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    1. I agree, the cloak is mandatory. At this stage of the expansion if you do not have the cloak, you are not taken seriously, even if LFR is your top tier of raiding you should have it by now.

      I say anything over 80% of the sim is doing well. In my opinion at least. I would say I know maybe 3 people in the entirety of my playing that could ever get over 90% on a consistent basis. So 80% is pretty damn good.

      It will be an option that is avaiale to everyone, so prepare to make sure you get your "critical strike" building leveled. It will be mandatory. You can be sure you will never see me step into a raid without that buff on.

      People are generally hairbrained (better than calling them stupid). They do not think before they talk and even if they do, they do not listen and then ask a question based on what you just said.

      And god forbid you say, "we don't know yet". it will make their head explode.

      I like to think of it this way. If you need to ask about it, then it is probably something that doesn't matter for you. Like the hunter that keeps asking me "what is the best spec". If it really mattered to them, they would have done their research, or listened to me the first time I explained it.

      I look for myself first, ask questions later. Perhaps that is just me.

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    2. My current main raiding toon is just starting the Runestone portion of the questline... at least 2 weeks left, probably more. The folks I raid with take me PLENTY seriously, I do competitive dps despite a gear deficit AND without benefit of the cloak proc. So, would I be a problem for you?

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    3. If you just rerolled and now have a new main, I don't think anyone would look down on you for not having your cloak yet. Toward the end of 5.3 it was clear we needed some healers, and we were denching all of our spirit leather, so I rerolled a resto druid. I certainly don't have a cloak for her yet, and no one in their right mind would expect me to.

      If on the other hand, you've been playing the entire expansion, and wanted to join a heroic progession raid team, but didn't have a cloak. I don't think i'd take your application seriously. Though i'm sure there are exceptions, most of the time people who are serious about progression got their legendary the day 5.4 came out. Even if that's not fair to you, it is in general true.

      ~Del

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    4. Even I got my legendary cloak the day 5.4 came out and I haven't even been raiding in MoP other than LFR and a couple of pug runs.

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    5. @R

      No, not at all. If someone just started playing, switched mains, or was not really into the expansion at the beginning, they will be behind. I take actions to mean more. A good player can be seen and I would take them along. But a good player would also make an effort to catch up with the cloak. And that is the bottom line.

      As del said "If on the other hand, you've been playing the entire expansion, and wanted to join a heroic progession raid team, but didn't have a cloak. I don't think i'd take your application seriously"

      That is the key.

      Even if all you ever did was LFR you can still get the cloak. Heck, I have many alts at various stages, not even trying to get it on them, and I am sure I will end the expansion with at least 6 or 7 characters with it, without even trying.

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  2. Many words.

    @Anon

    Stupid questions in trade are more likely to be trolls than morons, at this point I just tune them all out equally.

    @Grumpy

    Well, at least it took you until day 2 to play the "mandatory" card. :) Mandatory is something that's required... say, having a required iLvl to queue for something. What you're calling mandatory falls in the "perk" range... not significant enough to actually impact results but worth having if you choose to do it. That's what those types of things SHOULD be... if someone doesn't want to do Garrisons, that should be perfectly fine as long as they perform appropriately for the content. You've said yourself before that all you care about is PERFORMANCE, not POTENTIAL. It's time to start extending that viewpoint to things like buffs, food, etc. Sure, if someone falls short then point it out as something they could do to improve but you shouldn't be pre-judging them based on not having the buff.

    "With or without you" sounds like the hunter equivalent of the Warlock's Sac talent... if so, it'll likely be dps-neutral to slightly negative vs the other choices for those who would prefer not to deal with pet management (and from a cynical point of view, give hunters a viable workaround if pets bug out on particular fights).

    June 8! (or whatever date I predicted earlier... early June, anyway!)

    I think Blizzard released pretty much the PERFECT amount of information. Enough to get people excited and talking but not enough to actually impact our current gameplay. Since we don't know what will happen with professions, nobody will be switching professions for WoD purposes and perhaps regret it later if something changes. In current terms, though, BS is really only beneficial if the class will benefit SIGNIFICANTLY from secondary stats vs primary stats, otherwise it won't be any better than something a lot more generally useful like Alchemy for any toon, or Enchanting for a raiding toon. Still, nothing wrong with BS if someone really wants to be able to make belt buckles.

    Some 100 talents will be active buttons for some classes... and that's okay, as long as active buttons are balanced evenly across all tiers for all classes. Get new ones at 100, maybe lose ones at 75. I think they'll get that right, they're conscious of button bloat by now.

    I was able to do the Secrets stage in just under 3 weeks (2 weeks, plus 5/6 wings in week 3... was able to get 1 Runestone week 3 as well for the next phase), for a buddy it took a full 3 weeks. Your friend was lucky getting 15 in a week but the thing about RNG is that it's random... it could take him 3 more weeks to get the last 5. My buddy was something like 3 or 4 ahead of me going into week 3 and I finished one wing sooner. It's random! (and nice when it works in your favour every now and then) I think Secrets are a 25% drop chance from the non-guaranteed bosses, with 2 guarantees (Lei Shen and Sha of Who Cares At This Point in SoO wing 1). So, with 16 non-guaranteed bosses and 2 guaranteed ones, should get an average of 6 per week, if you do all those bosses. 3-4 weeks. If you have 1 after 2 weeks you're absolutely doing it wrong, you're guaranteed 4. :)

    I'll still be leveling alts in the meantime when I'm in the mood, same as always. Heirlooms don't really impact how I choose to play the game, at least not significantly. I definitely don't see a need to hold off with heirlooms going actually cross-server down the road. Hell, we're likely to have 90s on demand in WoD (and I don't think that's a bad thing even though I won't take advantage) so leveling won't even be necessary if it isn't something you enjoy doing.

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    1. I saw a partial list of tertiary stats listed somewhere, not sure if it was official or not, I think the list was (going from memory) movement speed, indestructable, cleave and lifedrain... might have been one more. But yeah, they seem kind of D3ish and I'm good with that, as long as they don't count against stat budgets I'm a fan.


      I believe no flying in 6.1 is a "Blizz are discussing it internally" thing, not really a fact or rumour. Just a possibility. I'd be surprised if we could fly for the first while but I'd like to get it at some point for leveling toons, I really don't like that we still can't fly in MoP while leveling, by the 5th (or 20th) toon being on the ground is significantly more of an annoyance than a challenge.

      Re: pet breeding, I'll just paraphrase BBB here: as long as I don't have to actually put this into that myself, what they do behind closed doors is none of my business. I snickered at his Creepy Aspect, though, that would be ... curious. And creepy.

      As for profession dailies, they've been somewhat common over the recent years... cooking and fishing dailies. JC dailies in Wrath/Cat (hell, my JC still does the Cat one whenever it's the perfume one... free 1%+ of level, she's picked up 1.5 levels in the past year just doing that quest when it's up). There may have been others... I'm not sure why they didn't stick and get expanded but I'm pretty sure Blizz have evaluated them and decided against them. The Garrison may usurp that kind of idea, anyway. It could end up doing a LOT of things.

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    2. Anything that I can get solo that will give me a leg up in raiding is mandatory.

      It is a perk if it doesn't matter. Like if it makes my critical strikes show up in purple lettering, it is a perk, IF I choose to use it. If it increases my critical strike, if I want to call myself at the very least a raider that is trying, it is required for me to have it.

      Huge difference between a perk and required. It will be required of every hard core guild. Absolutely, no question. I might not require it of my raiders, but I will require it of myself.

      That means mandatory.

      There are no guaranteed bosses for secrets. Trust me, doing all 20 two weeks in a row and getting 1 once week and 0 the other week. You are thinking runestones. And that only has one guaranteed drop. Sha is NOT, repeat, NOT guaranteed like rumor seems to have it all over the internet.

      I only have one character at the rune stage now and he has never received on off sha and he kills it every week.

      Those are the only 4 I have seen also, I am sure there are more and they did not show us everything at once. I think there might have been one for reduced AoE damage as well.

      I've done something like 15 through the new expansion and not flying has never bothered me. But I love to level and it is so fast anyway but I can see how people that hate questing must hate walking. I personally have no issue with it.

      I think blizz has an issue with keeping old content useful and that is why old profession dailies go the way of the dodo. I think they should try to keep everything current, so to speak. Lets people do a JC daily for level 75 people, 150 people, 225 people, 300 people, you get the idea. Would be nice. In my opinion of course.

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    3. And that's fine, if you want to consider it personally mandatory then you're perfectly entitled to hold yourself to that, probably is that you keep projecting that requirement on to OTHER people. These are your own words with slight formatting change to cut down on the clutter:

      "Speaking of garrisons, they will be required for raiding. Yes, you heard that, required for raiding. You can get buffs that last for 4 hours and persist through death. So I believe all raiders should have any buffs they are capable of getting. Being we never raided 4 hours in a row in our entire career that means you should always have the buff for the entire raid night. Anything less and you are not an actual raider. You are someone that "wants" to raid. There is a difference between someone that wants to raid and a raider. Someone that is a raider will have those garrison buffs without even being asked to get them. I am not going to even mention it to new recruits, I will just see if they have the buff on them when they join a group. If they have it, I will give them additional consideration. If I am a casual raider and think that, what do you think hard core raiders would be like? It would be "get the buff or lose your raid spot". Yes, I see that happening."

      I'm not misreading that, it's an obvious projection on your expectation for anyone you might potentially raid with and how you pre-judge them before seeing if they can actually, y'know, raid well.

      I haven't done a minute of pet battles... haven't even trained it. If they introduced a buff you got after doing a pet battle daily that was, say, 10% additional drop chance of gear for the next 2 hours, by any criteria that you've used in the past, that would be a "mandatory" raiding buff. I don't pet battle, I won't pet battle, therefore I'm not a "real" raider, I'm a "wants to" raider who wouldn't be given "consideration".

      All I do is bring my own consumables, show up fully reforged, gemmed and repaired, show up ON TIME and don't require a summon and generally perform significantly above average for any group I've ever raided with. But damn, I don't pet battle and I can't be bothered to do the Garrison mini-game so I guess I'm not worthy. Unfortunate.

      I'm not just thinking Runestones, I've been doing the Secrets stage for the last 3 weeks and just verified in the Wowhead guide:

      http://www.wowhead.com/guide=1653/mists-of-pandarias-legendary-questline

      Lei Shen IS a guaranteed drop:

      "Secrets of the Empire: These drop from bosses in Throne of Thunder, on LFR, Normal, or Heroic difficulty. Lei Shen is guaranteed to drop a Secrets of the Empire. In 5.4, the first eight bosses in Siege of Orgrimmar can drop Secrets of the Empire as well."

      No mention of Sha but both my buddy and I got drops off Sha all 3 weeks and I've heard that elsewhere so even though Wowhead doesn't specifically mention that, I still believe that's the case.

      Actually, I can confirm it:

      http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10137754011#2

      "Lei Shen and Sha of Pride are 100% guaranteed to drop the item that you need."

      Guess if I can't be a real raider I'll go into research instead, I seem to have some talent in that...

      Yeah, I never minded the profession dailies although I have to admit I prefer just hitting a daily cooldown button, makes that process much quicker/easier when I'm doing it on 15 toons a day. I wouldn't be up to 15 profession daily quests a day... life's too short for that grind.

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    4. It's not hard to predict that hardcore raiding teams will require any buff that is possible. Even if that means doing pet battles. A lot of people grumbled and grumbled that they had to PvP to get the cloak, but if you want to be the best you can be, you need the cloak.

      If you're not in a progression focused guild, the no one will care. Kill a new boss every once in a while, it's not a big deal. but if your goal is compete for realm firsts (or especially world firsts) then there are different expectations.

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    5. @R

      Any raider, at least any raider that takes their person performance seriously will get the buff because it makes them better. Yes, absolutely, no doubt about that.

      Not sure what point you are trying to take here. Are you trying to say that raiders will not do it for the bonus?

      Sorry, you are wrong. People who "want to raid" might not get it. People who "are raiders" will get it. And as Anon said, hard core guilds are not hard to predict. They will require it to raid. No ifs, ands, or buts here, not guessing here, they will require it.

      Now, if anyone, either as a guild (as in hard core guilds) or on a personal level (like me wanting it) feels they need to do something or be stuck behind, it is mandatory.

      About your pet battle idea. Yes, you are correct. If you want to get the best out of your time playing and maximize your ability, then it would 100% mandatory for anyone that takes their game play seriously.

      You sound like a good raider, a ready raider, and someone that would definitely be an asset to a team. You already do more than most people on my 25 do.

      However, with that said, if there were ever a choice between you and someone doing the exact same as you, same numbers, same skill, same everything, and they had the buff from garrisons, and the buff from pet battles, guess who gets the raid spot when all things are equal? Yeap, the person that put in the effort.

      I do not raid for firsts or anything, but I will always do everything within my own power to be the best I can be. If doing garrisons makes my character better I will do it.

      Would I require it? No, like I said, I can't even get half my raiders to show up with their own flasks. But if I could, if there were a better selection of raiders to choice from on my tiny server, I sure as hell would require it. Even in a casual guild.

      There is no difference between saying "if you want to raid you have to have DBM and vent" and "if you want to raid you need to bring flasks and potions" and "if you want to raid you need to get your garrison buff".

      They are all the same thing. You can raid without DBM, you can raid without voice chat, you can raid without potions or flasks, and you sure as hell can raid without the garrison buff. But you would be a better raider with them. That is the bottom line.

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    6. What I'm saying is that "raider" isn't the criteria that'll determine whether someone does it or not, that's just what you seem to think it will be.

      TIME will be a factor. DESIRE will be a factor. PERFORMANCE will absolutely be a factor.

      But someone not having the time, or having the desire, or needing the performance, not doing whatever optional but slightly perky task is today's mandatory raiding activity does NOT make someone not a raider. It isn't just people who play 20+ hours a week who are raiders. It isn't just player who specialize on one toon who are raiders. Part-time altaholics can be raiders too, Garrisons and Pet Battles and whatever else comes along with some minor benefit doesn't make someone a raider or not. It just doesn't.

      If I have the choice between someone who spends 10 hours a week perfecting their raid performance IN RAIDS vs someone who plays for 20 hours a week and spends 15 of those hours leveling their Garrison, I'm taking the guy who cares about his actual raid performance, not that peripheral crap. I'm not going to penalize the Garrison addict as long as they perform but I'm going to run with whoever performs better.

      Your similar sounding comment about "all things being equal I'm taking the guy who levels his Garrison" is silly but fine on its own, if that's what you want to make the tiebreaker, that's your right in your raid. Me, I'd be looking at tiebreakers like "who can stay for an extra 15 minutes if our last attempt was a 1% wipe"? "Who's willing to sub in as a healer/tank if someone has to leave early?" "Who's running with us in 5-mans and gelling with group members outside of raid?" "Who's contributing mats to the guild bank?" "Who's doing free (or at cost) gems/enchants/crafting for fellow raiders?" "Who's the one who raises his hand when we need someone to be on interrupt duty?"

      That kind of stuff. Stuff that matters. So yeah, Garrisons would probably on my list too... at the bottom, behind all the stuff that will actually make us perform better as a group. If 1% crit or whatever the perk ends up being really mattered I'd expect all raiders to race change to Worgen... I mean, hell, I'd rather pay $25 than be forced to level a Garrison if that wasn't something I actually wanted to do.

      And as always, @Anon, I'm not talking world first or even server first raids here, I'm responding to @Grumpy specifically about the raids that HE'S in (and that I'm in, we're at roughly the same progression level historically). And the PvP for the cloak thing is a straw man argument, that was a one-time thing that could take anywhere from 20m to a few hours... but if I had to CP cap every week in order to gear up slightly faster for raids then whatever RL came up with that rule would find himself down a body in an awful hurry, and probably more than just mine.

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    7. DBM and vent are totally different things... Vent is a communication tool and while it's possible to run without it even in progression raiding (there are a few deaf raiding guilds around, I've heard), it requires a lot of effort to work around. It makes sense as a requirement. DBM similarly, fights have been balanced around DBM existing for a while now so not running DBM is a legitimate handicap for a player. Now, if they interrupted in time and weren't getting hit by mechanics that DBM would have warned about then I'd consider waiving the requirement for that person specifically but they'd have to prove their ability to perform first.

      And yeah, there are absolutely differences between them. Flasks and potions? Crafted or off the AH, 5 minutes. Vent and DBM? One-time installations, always there. Garrison? SIGNIFICANT TIME INVESTMENT. Yeah, sure, if you get whatever buff 5 minutes after starting the process I'd expect it too. It won't be that simple. Ultimately, you can absolutely control what players in your raid do DURING RAID TIME. You can't dictate what they can do outside of raid and as long as they perform to your requirements in the raid, you shouldn't feel the need to micro-manage their non-raid playtime. They don't owe you that.

      (I keep telling myself I won't get sucked into these "obligations as a raider" discussions but it keeps happening...)

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    8. Sure, anyone can do it, not just raiders. But not anyone would consider it mandatory. Only raiders that are trying to get every little boost they can get will consider it mandatory. Time be damned, they will.

      If someone is building the garrison just to boost their raid performance you can be 100% certain they are also the person that works on their in raid performance. So your comparison is wrong. You are comparing a raider (one working on their raid performance) to a non raider (someone thinking that a garrison boost will be enough). Of course you are going to take the raider. Do not compare raiders to non raiders and ask which one I would take to a raid, that is really a bad example. Of course I would take the raider to a raid.

      If you want a good example for comparison here is a good one.

      Two players with the exact same skills, gear, experience, attitude, etc. One has the garrison buff, one does not, who do you take?

      The one with the garrison buff, just in case you were wondering.

      I just feel that the people that make the extra effort are the people that want to do everything they can to win. Those people, to me, seem more like people I have a better chance of success with.

      As you know, being we are roughly the same progression wise, we are not very good, not even in the slightest in the grand scale of things. We are the true average guild. If 50% of the guilds have killed something, we are most likely on that boss or the one after it historically. That is how average we are.

      So with those people, with those average skills, the only thing that separates the person that raids "for something to do" and the person that raids "because they want to win" are the little things. The garrison will be one of the little things.

      When you do not play with top people to begin with, the people that care about what they do will stand out. Garrisons will help them stand out.

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    9. I expect my in-raid attitude and performance to stand on their own, either I'm good enough or I'm not. The Garrison buff won't change that one way or the other, neither will farming world bosses every week, or buying gear off the AH. 1% more dps is noise and it may not even be that much. It may not even give a buff!

      And to answer your specific question, no, all things being equal, if someone needs the Garrison buff to be as good as someone without it, I'll take the guy without it. If the Garrison ever catches his eye he'll have a way to improve. Same idea as comparing two players with the same performance, one with better gear (got lucky with some Ordos drops and the legendary cloak) and one without. I'm taking the guy with less gear every single time if it's a choice, he has the most upside and if his performance ever falls behind, he has a lot more ways to improve his performance, including getting the legendary cloak, farming Ordos, etc. The guy who already has the gear is closer to the top of his curve, it'll be a lot harder for him to improve in the same situation.

      I've always said, and I've seen you agree with, that whenever possible I want to run with people who get the most out of what they have. Not what they CAN have, what they HAVE. I want a 95%er rather than an 80%er with better gear and a Garrison, someone leveling a Garrison tells me nothing about their attitude toward raiding. If they run LFR and Flex weekly to learn fights as much as possible for their Normal runs, that's the type of thing that'll impress me. It's not necessary, but that's the kind of over and above that I'd notice and reward when possible.

      I'll let you have the last word after this, I think I'm done with this topic for now. :)

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    10. That is where we differ. I believe doing world bosses, buying or crafting that new BoE, getting that garrison buff, all to be the signs of a true dedicated to doing their best player.

      You can be the best player in the world, but if you do not put in the effort to be the best you can be, why should I put in the effort to send you a group invite for the raid?

      It is not asking much of people to try to do their best. At least I've never believed so. That is all I ask as the minimum, is people try their best.

      "And to answer your specific question, no, all things being equal, if someone needs the Garrison buff to be as good as someone without it, I'll take the guy without it. "

      You did not answer the question. You made up your own conditions once again.

      Both are completely the same. Lets say they are a clone of one another. Absolutely not difference what so ever.

      If one came with the buff and one didn't, who would you take?

      I did not say one needed the buff to do as good as the other. You just do not want to answer the question because it proves I am right.

      I do agree, I would take a "good" player over a "blah" one with the garrison buff. But I am not talking about that. I am talking about equal skills. If they are equal, the one with more buffs becomes better.

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  3. My money on release date, google wildstar's release date, thats when they are going to release it, they love to stomp new mmos to ground.The garrison feature that they have shown is copied from wildstar.

    -straws-kazzak-eu

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    1. Don't know anything about wildstar except that people keep talking about it.

      I don't think they are worried about wildstar. When even someone like myself, that is looking for other games to play, has not even had wildstar appear on my radar, I don't think it is anything for them to worry about.

      But I have heard a lot of people saying they would try to trump one of the other releases.

      Wasteland 2 is what I am waiting for. But I am probably the only person in the world that even remembers wasteland 1.

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  4. I'd be willing to bet that this "buff" wont stack with flasks or wont work in raid instances or something to that nature.

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    1. If they do not want it to feel mandatory that will have to be something they implement. I would support it. No need to add more "must do" stuff. They need to work on stuff we want to do, not feel we have to do.

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    2. Ye I think so too. Something just out in the world or the likes.

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    3. I really hope so, of there will be a lot of crying over it for sure.

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  5. I get the whole alternate universe/timeline thing, but there are a ton of people who are totally clueless about it. That's why I think it was a bad idea the expansion.

    On a more positive note, just got a warforged helm off Ordos, so I'm up to 553 now. Got to spend some of that excess vp on upgrades.

    Since I'm not actually raiding, I only have a couple more items to get:
    - tier gloves off celestials
    - warforged wrists off ordos
    - warforged shoulder off ordos
    Everything else I have is the best I can get w/o raiding.

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    1. There will continue to be people that will never get it. Last night on vent I explained the entire things to a group of people. 2 minutes later someone says, but I don't want to go back in time. They completely missed, or did not understand, anything I said. That is your average wow player.

      The idea might not be a bad idea, but this player base can not handle it. The story is a bit to advanced for them.

      I actually got 2 new pieces on my priest yesterday. I was never so excited to spend valor. Got the gloves from the celestial and the chest from ordos. Which worked out awesome, because putting on the gloves meant I had a 3 piece, so I removed the LFR tier chest for 559 (now 567) one.

      I did every single run I could do to try to get my secrets. Again, only 2. Hey, at least I got 2 this week, only 1 and 0 the 2 weeks before.

      I hate random.

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  6. I think with Garrisons being 'mandatory' it's a case of cost vs benefit. Anything that can increase performance can be considered mandatory, it's just a question of whether the increase is worth it. For really super hardcore world first groups then every advantage, no matter how small, would be mandatory. They are pushing the envelope and they need to do whatever it takes. For more casual groups it's a case of cost vs benefit like I said.

    I refuse point blank to run LFR. I did run it in order to get my legendary cloak as I had appalling luck on the drops. Thank merlin they made Lei Shen a guaranteed drop or I'd probably still be hunting for runestones. In that case I decided that the cost (running LFR which I hated) was worth the benefit (getting my legendary). Once we started clearly Throne every week I didn't have to run it anymore, as I got my drops, or lack or, from normal instead. Before that, or if I was on standby, I did run LFR. I hated it but I did it anyway.

    I haven't run Siege LFR once. I also don't run flex as my guild doesn't offer it. We've sort of grouped with another guild but they are in charge of it and it's a mess. They wipe on the early wings that we one shot on normal. I already give sometimes up to 4 evenings a week to normal, I can't give up anymore to fruitless flex runs. LFR is an easy choice, I have upgraded Throne gear so it's 530, I'd have to upgrade the 528 LFR gear, which I'm not going to waste the VP on, in order for it to be higher. Flex is a straight upgrade and from both those places I could get tier bonuses. I still don't have my 4 set and tier is actually good in Siege (I avoided it like the plague in Throne). However, it's cost vs benefit. I don't believe that the small percentage of stat increase is worth it, I will get my 4 set in time and as a tank gear isn't as important, in fact I often pass on a lot of stuff for dps. So I get away with it. If I was raiding at a higher level I would have to run LFR or Flex or both for those small upgrades, as those small increases would be worth more.

    In terms of Garrisons I don't know exactly how it'll play out. I'm a nutter for my farm, I have 8 fully unlocked farms which I do work most days. I like the easy access to mats, I haven't touched my gatherer all expansion as farming herbs/ore has given me multiple guild bank tabs full. Cost vs benefit, half an hour of my time everyday if I'm slacking to work the farms.

    So it just depends on what you are willing to do. I will run Garrisons because I like that kind of content, I refuse point blank to run LFR because I hate it. If LFR offered something more compelling then I might force myself (as I did for the legendary) and if Garrisons sucked then I wouldn't bother unless it was again for something really awesome. A small advantage only matters if you are on the edge, or if that sort of things bothers you. Me I'd rather do what I enjoy in game and so long as I'm happy with my performance then I don't sweat the small stuff. Then again as I've said before I can get away with it as it's not a numbers game as a tank, it's about survival and utility. I could never play a dps, couldn't take the pressure.

    I'm not sure I've made sense. I understand why you think it's required because for you it is. You can't pass up the small advantage and would feel bad if you did. It makes you a very conscientious raider and it means you set a good example for your team. We don't know how powerful Garrisons will be so whether I agree they are required or not will depend on that. I don't agree that some things are required that you think are and that's ok, it's just a different standard and I have lower standards than you. Cost vs benefit, I won't make myself miserable for a very small reward.

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    1. I think you and Grumpy are basically saying the same thing.

      We don't know yet how "worth it" the reward will be, but the the top guilds will take any advantage they can get and the rest of us will make a judgment call based on cost vs benefit.

      We'll just have to wait and see. I think it's too early to invest time speculating. Grumpy has a blog though, so he has to talk about something. :)

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    2. I think I will run garrisons because I like that type of stuff too. I can see it being like the farm for me, where I have, 14 I think open already. I do not do them every day like you do, have not since early expansion. I think I have done my farm once in the last 3 months on any character, maybe twice.

      We will have to see but I think garrisons will have a little more staying power. If they are faster to do each day and offer better rewards perhaps I will stick with it longer than I did the farm. But even if I do not use the farm I must say I love it and I will miss it.

      For my main a maxed garrison will be a priority for me, but not sure about my alts yet. Looking at the cost for upgrades as they have it now, it can get extremely expensive. Over 10K for one buildings upgrade? Ouch. Even with the gold I have if I do that on all buildings on all characters I will be broke in no time.

      You are right. I can not and will not ever be able to pass up any advantage that is easily attainable with a little effort. If I was willing to subject myself to the hell that was LFR, this should be fun in comparison.

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  7. If buildings are costing 10k to upgrade, they must be expecting a lot of inflation. Remember how expensive that traveller's tundra mount was in wrath? and how expensive that Yak was when it came out? And now definitely everyone has the mammoth, and most raiders have the yak (well, I don't know about most, but it's not uncommon). I'm guessing 10k will still be a lot, but it will be much more reasonable than it is now. I'd be surprised if the garrison cost you money (other than up front). Over the xpac it will surely be at the very least revenue neutral, and most likely you will make money off of it, even if you're mostly building with buffs in mind.

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    1. Of course it is all "in design" right now and could change and I have one seen one image upgrading one building that costs 10K. So they are most likely different costs. Just said 10K as it is the only price I have seen on any image.

      Yeah, everyone seems to have the mammoth now, but in wrath it took me a lot of saving to get it and I sure as hell made sure I was exalted before I bought it. The yak was no biggie, I came into mists with enough for it 5 times over, but most people still do not have that one. Three people on my main 10 man do. But I would think anyone that is active, as in usually doing something and not standing around in trade, would easily make enough for it in a few weeks.

      Inflation seems to be going higher and higher, so that 10K might be reasonable even if it sounds like a hell of a lot now when I think of all the building and all the characters I have.

      I wonder how the players would react if they did a gold squish like they are doing a stat squish. Could you imagine logging out with 500K and logging in with 5K? Ouch.

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