Monday Random Thoughts

- I took a week off of the LFR so none of my alts made any legendary progression.

- I tend to do that quite often, take a week or two off.

- I think it is needed for sanity.

- I did however get asked to help get into a downfall LFR because the damage dealers in the group did not feel like waiting over an hour to get in.

- I do not blame them.

- In my opinion any wing of the LFR should never take more than 30 minutes.

- That includes waiting time.

- As long as it keeps taking longer than that, it is not designed for the casual player, time wise.

- And that is the target audience.

- How can you make something for a target audience and then not make it so it works for that target audience?

- A true casual player can not wait in queue for over an hour and then do the entire run which might take another 30-45 minutes even in most best case scenarios.

- So I joined them on a healer that just happened to have the kill garrosh quest from finishing the cloak a while back.

- Figured if I was going to help them, if I decided to stay, might as well get that quest out of my quest book.

- I am a little OCD about having quests undone in my quest book anyway.

- Would you be surprised if I said we had no wipes?

- On a weekend run?

- We did have garrosh reset once when we were ported after we killed all the shalings.

- It just ported us back down, all alive, before we touched garrosh.

- Odd.

- Even if we did get a stack of determination because of it I do not consider it a wipe.

- It was not what I would call a good group, but it was a capable one.

- I wonder if I chose the wrong week to take a week off from the LFR.

- If this week had runs like that it might have been a great week to run.

- I got complemented on my transmog on my priest not once, not twice but three times the other day.

- My priest is level 36 and is not wearing a transmog set.

- I told all three of them that and they asked where I got the pieces from, it looks great they said.

- I said, quest rewards that just happened to be upgrades.

- I've said it before and I will say it again.

- Quest reward gear is 100 times better than raid gear in terms of looks.

- Always has been, always will be.

- I wonder how they can manage to make such awesome looking gear for gear that is intended to be thrown away yet the gear we are supposed to wear for long periods of time, raid gear, is all horrible looking.

- I noticed the hunter set is not as bad looking as our normal sets are.

- It kind of grows on you.

- They must have screwed up something along the way and forgot to make us look completely stupid.

- Then at the last moment they said, lets put some headlights all over it.

- Had to have something out of place on a hunter set or it would not have been a true hunter set.

- And having bright lights shining out all over place are not exactly something a hunter would want while out hunting.

- Lets shine some bright lights so what we are hunting can see us coming from a mile away.

- Yeah, that makes sense.

- At least we are prepared if we ever want to go spelunking.

- So I have been keeping assorted quest gear on that priest with the idea of mogging it later when that character reaches max level.

- Well, if that character reaches max level.

- It is four or five years old and only level 36.

- When I say I take my time leveling alts, I am not kidding sometimes.

- I do the darkmoon fair on it once in a blue moon should I remember to.

- Just decided I want to do some questing so I popped on to it and headed out.

- I picked up the quest on the heroes call board and thought, thank god I know the zones.

- Being I had not done much in a while, but have leveled a bit over the years, and fight paths are not being automatically given any longer, where I needed to go was going to be one hell of a trek.

- I knew how to get there.

- A new player would be lost completely.

- Then again, a new player would not have sat in a city only leveling from the darkmoon fair and some cooking and fishing dailies for years.

- But it made me wonder if it is a good thing or a bad thing they removed instant flight path knowledge.

- One of the things I used to love was finding flight paths while questing.

- When I got to a new zone that was always the first thing I did, pick up a flight path.

- Even before turning in the quest that sent me there I would run to the flight master and grab the flight path.

- The world has changed, leveling has changed, so as much as I liked finding them for myself you level way too fast now for that to be practical any longer.

- If I could completely out level not one zone, but multiple zones, without even trying it would have been nice to have a flight point.

- But noooooo, I did not have one.

- I needed to head from stormwind to the western plaguelands with my furthest flight point north  being ironforge.

- You are aware what type of a trek that is hoofing it right?

- At level 36 with a slow mount?

- Hey, at least I have a mount, a few years back I would have had to do it on foot.

- I would need to go from dun morogh to loch modan to the wetlands to arathi highlands to the hinterlands to western plaguelands.

- I would also, being I am me, have to go a little out of my way to grab all the flight paths along the way.

- But it would be something I would suggest anyone doing a trek like that does.

- Three rules to leveling.

- 1) Never pass a vendor without emptying your bags.

- 2) Never pass up learning a flight path.

- 3) Kill and loot everything.

- In this case you actually need to grab all the flight paths along the way.

- You can not just grab the flight path at camp chillwind because if you did and tried to fly back there it would tell you that there was no connecting path.

- You need to pick up all those flight paths if you ever intend on going back there.

- Of course I skipped all that hard work and asked a friend to fly me there and let me grab the flight points along the way.

- So it turned what would have been an hour or two long adventure into a 20 minute flight stopping to get all flight points along the way.

- Now, add the fact I knew the fastest way to get there and where I go to and try to think how if a newer player somehow found themselves in this position how long it would take them to get there.

- With no prior knowledge of the faster way to get there.

- With no prior knowledge on which zones connect to which.

- With no prior knowledge of how they connect, because some are tricky, like the back way path I take from the hinterlands to camp chillwind.

- I take a path directly there and that path does not even appear on the map.

- I found it while exploring.

- And that is where I am torn.

- I knew all those quick routes and secrets because I had no choice but to explore.

- So should new players be forced to explore too so maybe they too can find things like that?

- Or should they just be given the flight path so they get there and continue questing when they wanted to quest?

- I just wanted to quest and quite honestly if a friend with the 2 seat flying mount was not on to help me my priest would have stayed in stormwind until the next darkmoon fair and it would have continued to level that way.

- I just wanted to quest, I did not want to spend an hour or two running all the way there and collecting all the flight points along the way so I would be able to get back there when I wanted to continue questing another day.

- In the end I made it to 40 before rested ran out and before a headed back to stormwind for the night I ran ahead of myself and went to the bridge between western plagelands and eastern plaguelands.

- Why you ask?

- To pick up the flight path there because I know the next place I will be sent to is to that exact flight path.

- A new player would not know this of course. 

- So should flight paths be given automatically again or keep it old school?

- I have a solution, a really good one I think.

- When you pick up a quest from the heroes call board / command board you are automatically given the flight path to where it is sending you.

- Only that one flight path, not everything in between.

- Then fix it so you can actually use that fight path and it will not give you a no connecting path error.

- That means people still need to find flight paths on their own unless they are directly sent there from the board.

- It also means when someone wants to continue questing they do not need to find their way to some place they have never been because that path will be given to you automatically.

- I think that is a fair compromise between the old school get it on your own system and the recent past way of get anything that is level suitable as soon as you are that level.

- I think that is a fantastic idea, one of the best ones I have ever come up with.

- Listen to the grumpy one on this one blizzard, I nailed this baby on the head.

- I took a look a buying some new heirlooms being I lost a bunch when I sent them to my other account and that account is now inactive and I have no intention to activate it again.

- And now that we can send them cross server I want to get a few more to replace those on the other account.

- So farm justice or buy them with darkmoon tickets.

- Either way, it seems like a waste.

- Why do I need to buy the up to 80 ones and then pay again to upgrade to 85 ones.

- When they changed them they should have just changed them.

- Just retroactively made the ones that went to 80 now go to 85.

- It just seems like busy work.

- It also goes to show you what I always say about blizzard.

- They design everything as if it will be the last thing they ever make.

- For someone like me that knows these things and looks them up it is not bad, but for someone newer, buying them then needing them to pay to upgrade them can be confusing.

- So there were two "reasonable" options blizzard could have taken.

- Make a new set of heirlooms that go to 85 with a different look or make the old ones just go to 85 now.

- They took option three, add another layer to upgrade them and create busy work for the people that understand it and confusion for the people that don't.

- I hope when they put heirlooms on a tab next expansion they make it a lot easier for people to understand what they need to do with them.

- I am getting tired of trying to explain it to people that ask about it.

- Would be nice if you can just buy it, and upgrade it, from the tab itself.

- That would work with the upgrade system.

- Lets say the mail intellect shoulders, one of the things I am going to buy.

- I look it up on the heirloom tab.

- I see it says 2400 justice to buy (as I do not have it).

- I click it and buy it.

- Then it says, 1200 justice to upgrade to 85.

- I click it and upgrade it.

- Then it says 1200 justice to upgrade to 90.

- I click it and upgrade it.

- Now that would work, that would work very nicely.

- No needing to trade in the piece with more justice.

- No need to run back to the vendor each time you get the justice for it.

- No need (like I will now) to buy it on one character and send it to another character to upgrade it then send it to the character that will use it.

- It all just seems like busy work.

- I am not a fan of busy work, it is wasting time.

- If you ever read my posts you will know there is nothing I hate more than wasting my time.

- Speaking of wasting my time I attempted to do the PvP part of the quest on my lock again this weekend.

- Had no luck the last time I wasted 2 hours losing in battlegrounds.

- Been sitting there for a while because of that.

- I spend the better part of 3 or so hours losing every single battleground I entered.

- Not even one was close at the end.

- Only two were close at the start but went south fast.

- We are talking losing a massive amount of battlegrounds.

- I did manage to learn a lot about lock PvP while doing it.

- By the end I was actually doing quite well which is contrary to how bad I was when I first went in.

- Blizzard seems so keen on trying to sell things now, how about selling us the ability to skip this part of the quest completely.

- I would pay 10 bucks to completely skip this so fast that blizzard would not even be finished posting the announcement before I paid for it.

- Shut up and take my money.

- I would be glad to pay for it.

- I would think it was the greatest addition to the store ever.

- Blizzard seemed to forget something about putting this PvP requirement in the legendary quest line.

- They ruin it for both PvPers and PvEers.

- And if you happen to catch a grove, like I did, where tons of people from your faction are trying to do the quest and the other faction happens to have none or few on its team, you have no chance to win.

- That is what happened, I was in full groups of people there just for the quest.

- One person in one group even asked, am I the only PvPer here.

- Yes, he was.

- He dropped group, we got another person on the legendary quest.

- We lost the temple with a total of 33 points for our side.

- That is the worst I have ever seen it.

- I am not against PvP, I am against wasting my time.

- I did mention I hate wasting my time right?

- Doing a part of the game I do not really get into much on a character I am only doing to advance a quest line and taking me hours to do it for no reason is not fun and it is a complete and total waste of my time.

- Just offer the ability to skip this part of the quest, even charge me for it, and let me move on.

- Thank you very much.

- Not like I am completely against PvP because I have been having a ball in cross realm groups for the celestials and ordos.

- Got in an ordos group on a PvP server on the previously mentioned lock and it was not only fun, it was freaking awesome.

- There was a horde group and an alliance group both assembling for ordos.

- This alone on a PvP server could be dangerous.

- But it was almost like there was some sort of piece treaty in effect or something, no one was attacking anyone.

- When our group hit 17, yes, 17 people, the raid leader said he was pulling because the horde was almost ready to pull.

- 17 people, on ordos, all flagged, on a PvP server, with an horde raid sitting right there.

- Yeah, we are going to wipe.

- Hell no we didn't.

- We destroyed the entire horde raid group and ordos at the same time.

- Gold and gold of course, but it had to be the most fun I have had on an orods fight, ever.

- Was doing a celestial boss on one of my horde characters and got ported to a PvP server.

- Same thing, horde and alliance standing there both assembling.

- I knew this was going to be trouble when all the guards were dead.

- You know that place on PvE servers where people stand when they do not want to be attacked?

- Yeah, those guards were dead, and they were instantly killed if they respawned.

- Both sides worked together to make sure they stayed dead.

- This server is serious about its PvP and no stinking panda guard was going to get in the way of that.

- It was also something I did not expect, mostly civil about it too.

- Alliance pulled first and only a couple of horde played the roll of jerks.

- It was enough to wipe them however.

- Now it was our turn, would they return the favor and try to wipe us?

- A few jerks attacked us, but not their whole group, they let us fight.

- We killed the jerks and the boss and I got gold and gold, of course.

- When walking back to the stairs however, it was another story.

- All our war.

- I guess because we killed it and they wiped, now it was time to vent some of the frustration.

- I think it was very civil of them to not try and wipe us however.

- We fought like crazy for a good 15 minutes and then alliance reassembled and went about their business getting a celestial kill.

- See, I do not have anything against PvP, I even like doing it some times.

- Heck, I stick around on PvP servers after a boss sometimes because it is fun.

- I just do not like one sided no win situations.

- Being in a battleground as alliance is a no win situation if everyone happens to be on the legendary quest line.

- My lock now has a total of over 6 hours (estimating) trying to get those 2 wins since I got to that part of the quest line.

- And you wonder why I keep forgetting about him and finishing it off is really low on my priority scale right now.

- A guild mate of mine said an interesting line when I mentioned the troubles I was having in the battlegrounds.

- She said, that is why she does not like PvP because it only festers anger, hate, and insults and it is bad for the game and the community and should just be removed form the game to make the game a better place.

- I said, no, that is the LFR, but PvP comes in as a close second.

- In the long run, I've actually started getting kind of good at PvP with my lock.

- Added a few abilties to binds, things I do not normally use.

- Got a simplified rotation working now that fits a little better for fast paced action.

- But still can not stand that I can get chain CCed and killed without ever getting one shot off.

- Yet when I try to fear someone they are immune, it misses, or it only lasts for 1 second.

- If you want my opinion on what would be a good step in the right direction to fix PvP it would be to remove all stuns, fears, silences and that sort of crap.

- Just let people fight.

- I can not even count the number of times I was stunned or feared and was dead before the stun or fear wore off.

- I do not care if you are a PvPer or a PvEer, there is nothing fun about that.

- And there is absolutely no skill involved in killing someone that can not fight back.

- Remove loss of control of PvP and let people fight.

- Let the best fighter win.

- Then and only then will PvP be more enjoyable.

- All I ask for is a chance.

- If I lost fighting it out, I need to get better.

- If I lose while stun locked, I was never even playing so it does not count.

- There is no fun in the idea of run in, get stunned, die, wait for rez timer.

- That was the story of my life in battlegrounds.

- I also wonder why my chaos blots were hitting for 60K or 80K yet when someone hit me with one it hit me for 400K or 500K.

- If they are not going to balance PvP, because not even 2 of the same class are balanced, I might have to agree with the person from my guild.

- Remove it from the game.

- Have a great day.