Monday, December 23, 2013

Monday Random Thoughts

- Not many random thoughts this week.

- Did not spend a lot of time in game this weekend.

- Actually, I spent nearly none.

- Enough to do the holiday event trying to get pets on 5 characters.

- And to help a guild mate that just hit 90 do AoA for the 450 quest weapon.

- That is it, my entire weekends play.

- Just a busy weekend and the few hours I did manage to play I spent testing out a new beta.

- I'll post about that tomorrow.

- I capped valor on my new hunter quickly during the week.

- Have to love scenarios, 1 hour and capped.

- That is the phase my hunter is on.

- My lock is still in the same phase but I have not been playing him so getting 3000 valor is going to take quite a while.

- At least until I get in the mood to play him again.

- That is why I hate caps sometimes.

- I might not play my lock for three weeks and then be in the mood to play him.

- I could get 3000 in that one week I decide to play him, but nnnnnoooooo.

- Of course not, that might be fun and blizzard isn't big on making thing fun for alts as this expansion proves.

- So that is why it takes so long for alts to get there for me.

- I play them in spurts, not dedicated.

- And the thing that sucks even more is when I am in the mood to play them, limits, well, limit me.

- Sure I can keep running content for drops and such, but once I am no longer getting valor, I log off that character.

- On my main I would do everything I can to get gear no matter if capped or not.

- Alts do not work that way.

- When it is not getting the "most" out of their time investment I move on to another alt.

- That means if there are 4 raids that still drop quest items I need and I am capped, I don't do them.

- That means if there are more raids that I can get gear that is an upgrade from and I am capped, I don't do them.

- I have no idea how it could be "fixed" but I really think a design that makes me log off is not really good for the game.

- That is why I spent my weekend playing something else.

- I was not in the mood to work on any specific character and I knew if I did I would have to deal with the LFR and strict limits.

- So it is hard to get into the grove of playing an alt when you know it is over before it begins, thanks to limits.

- And it is even harder because you need to use the LFR system and be thrown in with a bunch of people I would not even throw water on if they were on fire.

- Not exactly a compelling reason to log in.

- I have not been raiding much since thanksgiving thanks to a lot of people with family obligations.

- No biggie, it is what makes us a casual guild, we do not rush stuff, we will get back to downing it after the holidays.

- We got to garrosh a few times with fill ins but where not able to down him.

- More so because we ran out of time than because we ran out of attempts.

- So I've even been bringing alts to the main run knowing we are not going to finish it as well.

- I bring my main in for the bosses I need something on only.

- I did manage to get my first trinket of this tier however.

- AoC from pride, finally.

- Thought I would be stuck with the LFR one all expansion.

- But LFR AoC is this tier, how come I said I had no trinkets from this tier?

- Because it was a lower item level than my heroic thunderforged trinkets from last tier.

- Even if it is better than juju, as it is a lower item level so I do not consider LFR gear as gear from this tier.

- Even if I do consider it from this tier, there are better versions of it.

- So being it is a lower item level than gear from last tier I call LFR gear last tiers gear with this tiers bonuses.

- In a way I like that, means if I really wanted to I have plenty of characters, ones I rarely even play, that do not have to do LFR at all.

- So that crap gear means many geared players from the previous tier can just skip it.

- Even more so if they dabbled in heroics the previous tier.

- So why do they still design LFR with the idea that there will always be some skilled players there?

- So why do they still design LFR with the idea that someone that knows the fights will be there to explain it?

- So why is LFR not designed for the people it is intended for?

- We all blame the community for acting badly in there, but you can blame blizzard for making them act this way.

- If you just went in, blew things up, collected loot, left, without ever needing to explain, wipe, or talk, the community would not be as bad as it is.

- Put adversity in a group of random strangers and it becomes the blame game.

- Blizzard needs to understand that difficulty and random do not go together.

- They tried it at the start of cata with content meant for everyone and they noticed that content intended for the masses could not have any difficulty involved.

- So why are they repeating the mistake and making LFR, content intended for everyone, something that not everyone can do because it it too hard for them?

- Not like the cata heroics where hard, just in randoms they could be.

- So I am not saying LFR is difficult, just saying it is difficult for the people it is intended for when assembled at random.

- Same as the cata heroics were too difficult for the people they were intended for.

- See, did not even touch the game this weekend really and surely didn't do the LFR and the place still bugs me enough to bitch about it.

- If anything in game can be that badly designed that it bothers you even when you do not use it, there is something seriously wrong with it.

- Maybe all those alts I had no desire to play I would have the desire to play if I did not already know where I needed to go.

- It is not because I don't like playing my lock or my mage or my druid, because I do.

- It is just that the content they would need to go do to get the most out of their play time is unplayable.

- For me at least.

- So I'll keep looking for other things to do.

- Like playing betas for independent games.

- The one I tested this weekend I'll post about tomorrow.

- I will tell you two things I have noticed about it so far, without telling you what it is.

- 1) I absolutely LOVE this game.

- 2) It will BOMB big time because of the reasons I love it.

- Have a great day and have fun trying to figure out what game I am talking about.

6 comments:

  1. "I have no idea how it could be "fixed" but I really think a design that makes me log off is not really good for the game."

    Gonna disagree with you completely on that point, there's a reason why there are regular comments in-game suggesting that players log off regularly. The best-case scenario for Blizzard is that you stay subscribed and that you're relatively (but, importantly, not completely) happy when you're playing, it's that simple. If you didn't feel like playing the right answer IS to log out and do something else, not to force yourself to stay in to grind 3K VP on one toon. That in a nutshell is why caps exist, in the global sense they do more good than harm.

    I've been spending a more time in LFR lately (maybe more time than I have since SoO came out) since 5.4.2 came out, now that I can share my Garrosh BoA weapons with my other server toons, I'm running them through to try and get them some decent non-BoA weaponry to run around with.

    It's giving me a somewhat different perspective on LFR. At this point, I'm willing to claim that, for the first wing at least, skilled players aren't required, it just requires competency from the bulk of the players.

    In 5 runs this week, the only thing that bugged me was after a wipe on Sha of Pride (due entirely to something like 10 players standing in the floor crap and blowing themselves up), someone said "With this crap dps we have no chance." There were about 10 of us over 100K and a few pushing 200K... it was one of the higher dps groups I've seen in LFR on that fight. Sigh. You can't fix stupid.

    Also, Atonement is still awesome, especially now that I switched out of Cascade for Halo. Had a shadow priest in a flex run do 42K hps on a fight, 75% from Halo... thought it might be worth trying. It was, at least based on one wing so far.

    I have no theories on the game. :)

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    1. I know there is a balance and they are trying to keep my busy and in game. But I am an adult, I judge how I spend my time. If I want to do 3K valor on my lock in one day, I should be allowed to.

      However, with that said, I agree with the limits, even if I do not like them. I just wish they were eased for alts. Alts are treated differently. Just not sure how you would manage that.

      Halo rules for some fights if you are standing in the right place. Get halo helper, it will really help those numbers.

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    2. Yeah, in a perfect world the game would be customizable to our current needs... I approve of caps almost always but there is an occasional time when I'd like to turn them off and just grind. I just don't expect or need the game to be that granular.

      Gah - last thing I need is more add-ons but thanks. :) At this point I'm just standing in the middle of the group and hitting it right when big AoE effects go off, most fights have those so I can't imagine many cases where Halo wouldn't be a good choice. My big issue with Cascade is that it takes forever to actually go out... by the time it hits the last batch 5-10 seconds have passed and players have all been healed up. I'm not sure why I didn't switch away from it sooner, I was basically pre-hitting it before the big hits and was wasting the first bounce or two as a result.

      (and the other option in that tier isn't an option for me, when I'm healing especially I don't like having to worry about directional stuff)

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    3. I like the grind type of games, many don't, that is why we will not see things that are pure grind any longer. Effectively the start of mists was like that if you wanted valor gear ASAP. You had to grind all the quest. People do not like things they "have to" do.

      If you time cascade correctly it will out heal halo on predictable fights. When you know big damage is coming and hit it before hand a few seconds the numbers it puts out halo could not even dream of touching. But if the damage is out there, a well placed halo will destroy cascade.

      What I believe it comes down to is the fight and more so the people you are healing with. While one might do more, depending on your healing core, you might be better off with the other. It is not just about numbers, sometimes it is about need.

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  2. I wonder how many people have your problem.

    Maybe it's our people, but we don't really cap our mains anymore, let alone our alts.
    For us, the cap works more like an incentive, not the other way around. Like if I see I'm short 200 vps, I may do a few dungeons and / or some quests. Without the cap, I wouldn't bother. I feel much happier for reaching a certain 'target' than grinding as much as possible.

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    1. I can't cap my main, he has been capped for ages and on the rare occasion I get an upgrade getting 500 valor just from raiding to cap again is easy.

      People would not grind as much as possible any longer because there is nothing to use it on. That is why they should remove the cap. What difference would it make it I had 200 valor or 20000 valor really?

      The cap no longer has a reason being you can not get gear with it any longer. It only had a cap to make buying gear upgrades slower. Can't buy gear means no need for a cap.

      The only thing no cap would change is that you can get the 3000 valor part of the legendary quest line done in 1 week instead of 3.

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