Saturday, February 15, 2014

I Support Removing Challenge Modes

Seeing that blizzard is going to be removing challenge modes really upsets me.  I have not done them yet for a few reasons, one of course being that I have yet to find a group to do them with and the other being I always thought I could do them whenever because they would always be there.  It was scaled technology and no matter what we were wearing we would be scaled to it.  So it would be there forever.  I could do them now, in the last months of the expansion, in warlords, or even some time in the future when we face the legion again 2 or 4 expansions from now.

But no.  Blizzard is removing them and now I have a ticking clock if I ever want to do them to get the title, mount and transmogs sets.  So yes, I am upset they are removing them.  Something I waited to do because I did not figure there would ever be a rush to need to get it done because I did not think it was added with an expiration date is now going away and I am pretty upset about that.  I guess I have my work cut out for me in the coming weeks.

So if I am upset about it why exactly do I support blizzard removing them?

Good question and one I believe is best explained by something I like to call "looking at the big picture" and the big picture right now is that they need to be removed.

Challenge modes were designed with the concept of the game we have now.  The game we have now is changing incredibly next expansion.  Not just a minor change in abilities or what they do but huge sweeping changes and all those changes will effect challenge mode balancing.

Challenge modes where made with the following in mind, all things that are changing, and were scaled back to 463.

Hit and Expertise:

With the removal of hit and expertise come warlords those stats will be changed into some other secondary stats be it mastery, critical strike or haste.  Now every even half way decent player is sitting at their appropriate caps for hit and expertise and that is a hell of a lot of stat points going into those.  That stat allotment will mean that we will have that much more of some other secondary stat when hit and expertise removed.  The scaling tech is not designed to scale down appropriately in a world without hit and expertise.

Fewer Gem Slots:

We have been told that fewer pieces of gear will have gem slots on them.  While you might not think it matters but it does.  Challenge modes were built with a self nerfing system involved and anyone that has ever considered doing them knows exactly what I am talking about.  When gem slots are added to a piece some of the base stats are removed to afford the slot in the stat budget.  So the smart players will not go in there with a pair of 463 gloves with no slots because a pair of gloves with 1 slot would be better.  The 160 of a main stat or 320 of a secondary stat you gain from the lost base stats is much more than the pittance taken away by the scaling down to 463.  Two gems slots are even better.  Challenge modes where designed knowing this and with fewer gem slots they need to be rebalanced to correctly allow for some changes when you do get gear with gem slots.  Remember, gem slots in warlords will not take away from the base stats on the item, it is a true bonus.  So not only do they need to readjust for fewer gem slots but they need to readjust for more powerful gem slots.

Fewer Enchanted Items:

While there have been no specifics told about what will be able to be enchanted and what will not we have been told that we will have fewer items that will be capable of being enchanted.  You might not believe this but the challenge modes were designed around us being enchanted.  Yes, they expected everyone that was doing it to have every slot that could be enchanted enchanted.  With the removal of some things being able to be enchanted there needs to be some adjustments made to scaling to adjust for that.

Tertiary Stats are Being Added:

The challenge modes were not designed with the concept that some people might have tertiary stats or that someone might even go through the trouble of building a specific set with those stats to use for them.  Sure the chances of items with tertiary stats dropping is low but being challenge modes are scaled down people have basically forever to start building pure sets filled with as much of those stats are they can get. 

Full life stealing sets, full speed sets, full cleave sets, you name it.  When warlords starts going deep people can run the starter raids just for drops with the tertiary stats they need to complete full sets with as much of the stat as they want.  Being they will be from old raids they will be easier for people clear each week, even multiple ones, increasing the chances they get them.  The fact they are old gear would mean nothing to the person doing the challenge mode being it will be scaled down, so having a piece with tertiary stats from the first tier in warlords would be just as valuable as having one from the second or third tier. 

So while that could be considered as someone going above and beyond to make a set just for the challenge modes with all speed on it or all life stealing on it, which undoubtedly would help with challenge modes, they were not designed to interact with them so there is no saying what bugs or unexpected things could happen being they are on the gear, even in small amounts, and this would need to be tested for balance purposes first.  Don't put it past people to build specific sets for running old scaled content either.  I know I would make a set if I knew it would be best for me and I am not even hard core about it.

Reforging Being Removed:

Don't think that challenge modes where designed with reforging in mind, think again.  They were designed thinking that people would reforge their gear to whatever is the best stat for the scaled technology.  They knew that their player base would take every advantage they could in trying to get them done and they were designed to meet the challenge for those people that were smart enough to do so.  With no reforging people will not be able to handle pick which stats they want just for challenge modes.  Sure they can farm gear with the stats they want but that will take longer and they can not switch to their challenge mode reforges just for them.  There will be some rebalancing needed to work with reforging no longer being in game.

No More Snapshots:

A good player with abilities that snapshot what they do will use that to their advantage and get the best possible DoT on a mob when they have the appropriate temporary buffs.  It might not seem like a lot but trust me, good timing of your abilities that take a snap shot of their damage can be large.  With no more snapshots in warlords the balance needs to change, not much, but just a little bit and they will need to take that into account for challenge modes.

No More Breakpoints:

As mentioned in reforging, one of the things people would reforge to were haste break points.  With no more reforging and no more break points, just like with snapshots, there might need to be a little bit of adjustments that need to be made.  It might not be a huge thing all on its own but with all the other changes this too will need to be taken into account and balanced around.

Stat Squish:

We are getting our stats squished down which I figured everyone knows by now unless they were living under a rock or they got hit in the head by some stray debris from something a gnome blew up, presumably accidentally.  Being everything in the game needs to be adjusted to work with the new stat squish it would not seem like a stretch to say that challenge modes would need to be adjusted as well.  And as something that is scaled to one specific level of gear and not intended to be over geared, it has a set difficulty level involved and the balancing needs to be a hell of a lot more precise than the redesigning of the older raids which they might not care if we over gear to work in the squished world.

Profession Bonuses Being Redone:

Okay you can call me out on this one because blizzard has not specifically said they are doing this but listen to me first before you say that I am talking out of my ass on this one.  They will be removing or changing many if not all profession bonuses.  How can I be so sure about that?  Logic of course. 

With fewer gem slots in the game having your character be a blacksmith that can add two gem slots becomes insanely over powered as a profession.  Every character that is serious about doing their maximum potential will become a blacksmith just for those two extra gem slots.  The addition of them would be incredibly insane in warlords where few pieces even have a chance of having a gem slot on them. 

Lets not even start on jewel crafting where those two stronger gems would mean so much more than they do now.  If you only have two gem slots having two better gems in them is a huge increase over what we have now when you have 14 slots or so and only two of them have better gems in it.  The effect of those better gems means so much more when you only have two slots than it does when you have 14. 

And what about leatherworkers with better bracer enchants, will we even still have those?  Or scribes with better shoulder enchants, will we even still have those?  Or, well, you get the idea.  With the removal of enchants and gems being so abundant and on everything professions need to be changed to adjust for it.  Challenge modes are designed with today's profession bonuses as they expect that everyone that is doing a challenge mode is someone that wanted the challenge and people that usually want a challenge take advantage of their professions.  There would need to be some rebalancing here as well.

Talent Changes:

Every expansion some talents change and this one will be no different.  While we are not getting a completely new talent tree for the first time in, well, ever, there are going to be some changes to talents, or so we have been told.  Some talents might be removed, others will be reworked, and there will be added level 100 talents.  With everything else changing around it as mentioned in the previous points, how these work can very well be unexpected.  Time will be needed to tell if these changes do not turn mages into challenge mode gods where they can solo gold.  Sure it is not likely at all, but who knows how things will work out.  And being this is a wild card along with the other things it would be best to adjust the challenge modes to better work with the new talents.

Removed Abilities:

We might not know what is being removed or how much is being removed but we know for a fact some things are being removed.  Control things like CCs and the such.  For anyone that has ever done challenge modes, even myself with extremely little experience, we know that control can sometimes be huge in making the timer.  The challenge modes are designed for people to use all their tools.  Sure there is some cushion there where you can still get gold with a very talented team and no control at all, but control makes it easier sometimes and it was originally designed with that in mind.  So with various abilities being removed it is quite possible that some adjustments will need to be made to the challenge modes.  Whereas they expected every group to have something to deal with a certain pack or abilities the pack did, with some things being removed, that might not always be the case and that is why they will need to adjust the challenge modes to deal with fewer CC options.

Timing:

Just a complete guess here but I believe that, in blizzards mind, they will think people have other things on their mind at the time they remove the challenge modes so much so that people might not actually miss them.  I am going to guess they will be removed at, or near, the 6.0 patch, the prepatch for warlords.  Which means people will be doing whatever prepatch event they give us to do then we will all be working on leveling to 100 and running new dungeons and gearing up for new raids and testing new abilities and building up our new garrisons and catching new pets and exploring new areas and doing new things that we won't actually be caring about running old content.  So, like I said, while it is only a guess, they are removing it to work on them when people would be least likely to be doing them anyway.  That is of course assuming they ever add them back which is no slam dunk mind you.

End Note:

So while I am really upset that I never got a chance to do them all because I thought I had all the time in the world or might not even get a chance before they remove them I do support them removing them.  The reason for that support comes from the fact that so much is changing that to fix challenge modes to work as intended they would basically need to completely redesign them from the ground up to deal with no hit and expertise, fewer gem slots, fewer enchants, tertiary stats, the stat squish, profession bonuses, talent changes and skills removed.

I just think they are better off spending the time it would take to fix them making warlords better, more clean and finished, when it comes out.  I am glad to see they are setting their priorities straight and taking care of the new and not the challenge modes.

Sure, challenge modes are something that have no time table, you can do them any time and they are meant to always be the same experience.  As scaled content you can do it whenever and it will always be just as difficult, or easy, as it was when you did it 6 months or 2 years ago.  But that is the thing, they can fix it any time they want, it will always be there.  It will always be scaled content.  It will always be just as challenging as it was intended to be, even if we do it three expansions from now.

So I support them not wasting their resources on fixing them currently.  I do hope I can get them done before they are removed of course but if I don't and if they do come back, who cares if I did them now or if I do them a year from now.  They will still be the same exact challenge they were intended to be.

Now, with all that said, I do support blizzard in removing them, but if they never adjust them and never bring them back and I never get to do them, I might be a bit more upset.  Over all blizzard is doing the right thing removing them now and being it is so rare they do the right thing, we might as well enjoy that for this moment, they are doing the right think and thinking about us for once.

35 comments:

  1. I guess everyone is thinking about challenge modes right now. I went through with some friends and knocked out all 9 golds last night. It was lots of fun. Especially since I raid 25m, I'm just not used to having so much responsibility. It was great to be using such a large part of the hunter toolkit in a PvE setting. :)

    Anyhow, I also think that it's not feasible to have the challenge mode continue into the next xpac. And had they not announced that, I probably wouldn't have finished them all last night. Probably should've have realized that when they first announced challenge modes, and announced them as a season type event.

    Even right now it's a bit obnoxious that you can't use certain abilities or items because they didnt' have them when challenge modes started (like drums of rage, for example). So trying to balance it around a new xpac doesn't seem reasonable at all.

    Have fun compeleting them before 6.0! I enjoyed it so much I'm going to go back in to try to get the achieves for other guildies.

    ~Delirium

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    1. I wish I could find people that good to get it done like you did. I have a few people in my guild I believe are capable, more than a few actually, but they are not the type that would be willing to wipe or reset while learning it. I guess that is a big part of why I have not done them yet.

      Too bad you can not drag me along with you. lol

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  2. I don't know. I never liked the idea of challenge modes to begin with - I just don't like timed runs. Several months ago when I had very little to do in the game overall, I decided to try them out on the "who knows, maybe they are fun" basis. Never watched any videos, just read a bit, then went in with two guys who I did arenas with and two friends of friends or something. We did two gold and one silver in the evening, and, frankly, it was very boring. I am not saying that to boast or anything, I don't have all gold - or even all bronze. But it was pretty boring. A couple of tricks like "skip this pack using invis" or "don't skip these mobs, you need to kill them for kill count" - that's all these modes are. It's like fighting a pet battle trainer, just in a group. Everything static, the strat is fairly straightforward and uninvolved. Meh. Boring.

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    1. I liked the idea, a real challenge. In my mind it could, or should if designed right, be more challenging than even heroic raiding. With the exception of world first type guilds that do heroics in low gear levels from the previous tier, most people beat heroics by over gearing it. I know that is how mine even gets a few down. It we had to do heroic SoO in heroic ToT item level gear I bet we would never get more than 1 boss down.

      With scaled levels so they can not be over geared it makes them the ultimate challenge. That is why I liked them, even if it would have been so hard I could not do them I still like the concept of a real true challenge.

      While I agree it is all a pattern to know what to skip and what do fight there is a lot more to it. A great deal of skill in needed.

      How many people do you think can pull over 100K in 463 gear, and I am not talking AoE? That takes some skill, maybe not boat loads of skill but surely enough to show you know your class. How about knowing when to use cooldown as a tank when you have gotten used to being able to take certain hits? Or managing mana when you have been used to having near unlimited mana? Not just any crew can go in there and do them.

      Case and point. I went in with a pug a few months ago and the tank was getting torn to shreads on the first pack. We reset a few times and he said he got it, but he had to use all his cooldowns when he should not have needed to. The healer even needed to use their cooldowns. All on the first trash pack. I was doing 160K DPS AoE (or something like that) and the other two DPS were doing under 40K.

      I gave up, these people would never even get bronze. And the kicker of this is, they were all from the #1 guild on my server. As in the most progressed guild, as in what are supposed to be the most skilled players on our server. And they could not even manage a bronze in one challenge mode.

      They are a lot more difficult than you give them credit for being.

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    2. Well, 100k in 463 is nothing easy, I agree, especially while doing the mechanics. 40k from two DPS and not a bronze... I guess my experience might have been atypical then.

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    3. Tank dying too easily. Healer going OOM. Lots of issues. Healer probably went OOM because fight was 1, lasting too long and 2, the DPS were standing in stuff they should not have been standing in. And because DPS matters they had to heal them, and the tank died.

      Too many wipes means start over and everyone quits.

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  3. I'd just like to point out that we will get new challenge modes in WoD and blizzard developers have tweeted that they would like to come back to the mists ones and refit them for WoD at some point.

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    1. That is excellent news. Would suck if I ended up missing them completely because I took my time with it. Thanks for confirming it. I thought I had heard them say that but was not 100%.

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    2. One part I have heard, but cannot confirm, is that even if the Mists Challenge Modes are re-adjusted to deal with the changed stats in WoD, the rewards are being removed. i.e. You will not be able to get the title, mount or transmog sets, post 6.0.

      New rewards are to be issued for the WoD Challenge Moes, along a similar line, I think.

      IMO, I think this is a good compromise, which will reward players who completed it when it was 'current' as-it-were and differentiate between those who completed it afterward.

      Incidentially, I agree with you Grumpy, that the Challenge Modes are certainly a good test of skill and require dedication to get golds.

      My guild's team worked over months to get all gold and I have only seen one other hunter in Alliance on my server who has the transmog set, so I wear it with pride.

      An interesting question I ask of those who went in and got gold the first night: Was the group you ran with already experienced with Challenge Modes or not?

      Cheers, Bronebeard (Saurfang-US)

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    3. I guess I need to get myself a group then. As a collector of sorts I want the title and the mount. Don't care of the mog stuff, it is not good looking anyway. But the title and the mount as well as the achievements I would like to get.

      "current" means nothing with scaled content. Even if you did it 35 years from now it is still current. So no need to differentiate between people who did it when mists were out or not. As long as it is returned it is just as current in warlords as it was in mists.

      I have no golds, so can not speak. But I did grab an experienced healer once with just a decent set of people and we got a silver no problem. The only one that has ever even stepped into it was the healer. I am sure if I could get that group to run again a gold would not have been out of the question. Problem was, after doing it once, none of them had any desire to do it again.

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    4. "An interesting question I ask of those who went in and got gold the first night: Was the group you ran with already experienced with Challenge Modes or not?"

      My group (see my post above, two guys I arena with and two guys I barely knew whom we picked up via gchat / voicechat) was all new. We weren't aiming for anything, just wanted to try it out. First gold took two tries, second gold took four, then we had two (or three?) tries with silver, then we called it. I did some reading beforehand (so we all had invis potions / ambers from the start, some of us even had separate heads with non-legendary metas, and we had a good setup - blood-rdru-ele-frost-ret). We determined what to skip / kill on the fly.

      I don't know. Again, not to boast, but it felt very straightforward. As in, you don't get gold on the first try almost solely because you don't know how many mobs apart from the skippable ones you have to kill, but that's it. Interestingly, none of the bosses were problematic, all restarts were caused by inefficiencies on trash (eg, an overeager pull followed by a wipe).

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    5. Yeah, instances (which are important, I think): first gold that took two tries was Mogu'shan Palace, second gold that took four tries was Temple of the Jade Serpent, silver that took two or three tries was Shado-Pan Monastery (god, it's so long...). I heard the most difficult was Stormstout Brewery, but that was after the run, otherwise we'd try that out.

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    6. You had people willing to work on it, do progression on it if you will. That is my issue. I can not find people willing to do that. And at this stage in the game no one want to do them unless you already have a gold in them and know what to do.

      I am going to try to find a group that is rededicated because they know it is being removed. Hopefully that will push some people that were not willing to suffer a few wipes and do it a few times to do it.

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    7. Shado-Pan Monastery is probably the easiest of them all, it's the kind you one-shot. The first time we did it we got to the end and we were missing a mob. So we went back and started killing bear packs. But those don't count, it seems. So we cleared what we had skipped and went back all the way to the first bridge (where the skeletons shoot flame) and we killed some sha we skipped there. And we were still left with something over a minute of a timer.

      Maybe only Scholomance easier and more time forgiving, but never really compared.

      Stormstout Brewery though... ugh... we did it in the beginning, with 3 melees. I still have nightmares...
      And the second time I think still with 3 melees. What was it... pala tank / priest / warrior / rogue / ret pala and pala tank / resto shaman / frost dk / frost dk / rogue

      I like them. They are very fun the first time around. We also had crap setup most of the time (2+ melee) so they were interesting to figure out to say the least. Setup helps if the whole team is inexperienced.

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    8. SPM was the one I was talking about that the group could not even get past the trash at the beginning. The group with people that were in the #1 guild on my realm.

      I was trying to get a group so I could get the shado master title and that was the last thing I needed for it, the gold.

      Easiest, sorry, have to laugh, after my attempts with that group I would have to say highly unlikely.

      But that just fits my luck.

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    9. The first trash pack is the absolute hardest part of the instance because the tank may get cced and hammered down. I can see ppl wiping there. But if you pass that, it's clear sailing, trust me.

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    10. I did get a group that got past there, we killed the first boss which was super easy compared to the trash, and then everyone quit saying it was not worth the effort.

      It comes down to I just need to find people that want to play like I do. Most players just do not like a challenge.

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    11. I think there are several were the first trash pack is the hardest pull of the run... And at least on all of them, the hardest thing to do will be a trash pack, not the bosses. That's what makes it fun as a hunter. We're well equipped to deal with a half dozen mobs who all have the ability to kill you. :)

      To whoever asked above, in our group that did all golds in one night (one long, 6 hour night...) we had a tank who had already gotten 2/9 golds, and a healer who was maybe 7/9. The healer's experience helped a ton.

      ~Delirium

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    12. I think with one or two experienced people and the rest dedicated to learn you can knock out all golds in 4 or 5 hours easy. But that is a big if, finding the group like that.

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    13. In retrospect, I believe we had a pretty bad team compossition, including 2 melee, which didn't help us:
      - Prot Warrior
      - Resto Druid
      - Ret Pally
      - WW Monk
      - BM Hunter (Me)
      We did start soon after we were geared enough to do MSV, so very early in the expansion. Hence we also did not have much gear with gem slots.
      To those who were able to walk in a get golds first time, I applaud you. That is not an easy feat for most.
      My group did start taking other guildies through once we had gotten our golds and we noticied a significant decrease in difficulty accounting by experience. Silvers were a cake walk, but golds were definitely still challenging.
      SPM is by far the most lenient time requirement and that first trash pack is the hardest pull in it.
      One we had the most difficulty with to get a gold time in was Gate of the Setting Sun. Lots of 1-shot deaths due to random bad luck.
      Grumpy, my comment about 'current' content was in context of your main post points. 'Current' in this case was meaning in context of being tuned for the abilities existing in the game right now. Obviously the dungeons can be re-tuned to account for the differences in: gear gem slots, new talents, etc. but the rewards can show the player completed that content when it was designed to be completed, regardless of later gear scaling.

      Good to see some spirited discussion was raised here! :-)

      Cheers, Bronebeard (Saurfang-US)

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    14. Ah yes, current as it is designed for what we current have in game. Got ya.

      As long as it is adjusted as new things are added it will always say current (other current). But that becomes a question of if it is actually worth the time for them to keep it updated to work. Most would say no.

      There are a lot of people that are against them removing things. I am one of those people. Old raids like ZA and ZG should have never been removed, heck, old naxx should have never been removed. I am against them removing old content because what would it really hurt them to keep it in the game? They do not need to be kept up to date because it is old and intended to be easier when we go back. Challenge modes are on a different level however being they are always meant to be current difficulty wise. And I can support them removing them for later updating because of that reason.

      But that does bring me back to the other stuff now. Why the heck did blizzard remove all that stuff. I never got any of the ZG mounts even if I ran it all the time. I am still pissed they removed it and even more pissed they replaced it with the crap they did.

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  4. I'm fine with their removal, but there IS one thing I'd like to see:

    I think the titles for "Realm Best Time" should be awarded to everyone who has the Feat of Strength for having attained it, and not just the 5 people who currently hold it.

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    1. That would seem like a fair trade off.

      Not sure how it works now, but wouldn't the people that currently have best time be the ones that have the best time over all since it came out?

      I know it is easier now being some people have done it many times and with current tier gear having a few extra gem slots it does make for quicker runs. But the best time now should be the best time ever, am I right?

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  5. I liked this post TGE. I hope you get yours done - with a like minded group you vcan achieve a lot. But like so many things in this game finding someone or a few someones who have the same attitude as you is harder than the challenge mode itself.

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    1. Tell me about it. Finding the group is the hardest part. Doesn't help that I am not a social person so I am less likely to actively look for a group. But if I hear of one pop up I might join it. I am sure that is why I have not gotten it done yet. My circle or in game friends and real life friends do not want to do it, which means I do not get it done.

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  6. I skimmed the comments and didn't see the actual full text of Blizzard's comment about the upcoming change, it's below for reference. Basically, the current MoP challenge modes will be going away in the future since the upcoming changes will be significant enough to make comparisons with current times unfair (either pro or con), sounds like in 6.0 when hit/exp are going away, but will be re-introduced in WoD for WoD dungeons... so, more of a competitive / ranked PvP model, which I think is appropriate in this context.

    Full text:

    Countless adventurers continue to brave the most trying versions of Mists of Pandaria dungeons, but the clock is ticking. This “season” of Challenge Modes will be coming to an end with the upcoming release of a patch prior to the expansion’s release.

    Challenge Modes are designed to offer as close to a “normalized” difficulty as possible, and they’re tuned to be tough to master. With Warlords of Draenor’s class changes, itemization changes (e.g. the removal of Hit and Expertise), and—of course—increased level cap on the horizon, the difficulty of Mists of Pandaria’s dungeons will no longer be tuned the same as they were. In the spirit of fair play, when the aforementioned patch is released a little while before the new expansion launches, the current slate of Challenge Mode dungeons will no longer be available, and the achievements they award will be converted to Feats of Strength. The reward items will still be available for purchase by those who qualified prior to the end of the season, but it will not be possible for new players to earn those rewards going forward.

    If you still need to earn your Undaunted title, Ancestral Phoenix, or class-specific Transmogrification sets, now’s the time to get out there and prove your worth. In Warlords of Draenor, an entirely new set of Challenge Modes will be available . . . and with them an array of new rewards for you to earn. Until then, stay sharp!

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    1. It would really be nice if they gave us a time frame to work with on finishing these. I hate that blizzard is always so tight lipped with everything.

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    2. Seems like it'll be happening with 6.0... and they probably have little idea when that will actually hit, at least in terms of dates they want to share with us at this point. When they have a date, they'll provide it. Ballpark, try to get it done by the end of April and you should be safe, I think.

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    3. I am thinking the sooner the better as well. I figure it will be in the 6.0 pre patch as well.

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  7. Good post, enjoyed reading it. My husband and I have been doing challenge modes on and off since spring 2013, and we love running them. I get a bigger rush from completing golds than I do from downing new raid bosses. We are currently working on completing our 6th gold toons, and I'm pleased to see that Blizz actually said that you can still purchase your gear next xpac if you qualified this one (just in case I vendor something like an idiot..) If you really would like to get a group: openraid has done wonders for us. Our server is rather empty and we could NEVER find skilled, interested people. Just a thought :) *crosses fingers for CM transmog weapons next xpac!*

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    1. I might give OR a try. A few months ago I attempted to get into a few groups and none of them would take me because I had no gold experience. One of those catch 22s there, you need to know how to do it to get into a group, but if you know how to do it that probably means you did it already and do not need to do it again.

      For me I would do them once, get gold, never go back. Just like I did with proving grounds on my characters. They are one trick ponies in my mind. Once you beat the challenge there is no reason to do it again, other than quick valor.

      You are the type of person I wrote about when they first announced challenge modes. I said there would be people that love it and would rather do it instead of raiding. I can see how for some people it can be a real rush.

      I bet if I had a group of 5 and we always ran together, it could reach that point for me too. To push myself to see if we can do it faster and faster but were I stand now I just want to get it done, how doesn't matter.

      I even looked up online about buying a carry. I might just end up going that route if I can not find a group. Never used any bought service on the game, but feel as if I want to get it done that might be my only option.

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  8. Ya I've seen a lot of groups run with that logic (no gold xp = no invite), and I never do that when I post my runs. Skill is far more important than experience in CMs. Sadly, I can see how it would be very hard to join a decent group as a single (low experience) dps. We keep running CMs because we're alt lovers and we like the transmog sets on various toons - if I only played one main character I would probably not still be this interested. It was also a personal challenge for me, I did the full gold runs on 4 different healers, and I liked being able to complete that just for myself. Just keep an eye out these days - all of a sudden tons of people are looking to complete them :) Wish you all the best!

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    1. Yeah, I am sure it will be a little easier to get a group even with only silver experience because people will be wanting to get it done. I have 2 silvers and a bronze I think, nothing more. But I am an experienced player so that might count for something as well. Perhaps people will be desperate to get it done and I can nudge my way in somewhere.

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  9. dang, how did I miss this?!? with all these changes, really, why should folks buy WOD? There goes the reasons why I have a jeweler, an inscriptor, enchanter, blacksmith, tailor, LW, engineer, and the one who takes herbs and make custom drinks with the flowers?

    -roo "the one who really doesn't like changes"

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    1. I am sure they will create something to be done with the professions to make up for the loss, just not sure what yet.

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