Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Clueless Blizzard Increases Item Level Upgrades

When 5.4.8 comes out there are some interesting changes coming and the one in the title is the newest one, the older one we heard about concerned the legendary quest line.  They will be adding buffs, not sure how we get them yet, that will increase valor gain, increase black price reputation gain, and increase the drop rate of quest items needed for the legendary quest line.

I will talk about those changes first before I get to the valor upgrade that made me want to write this.  First, it has me thinking I might bring another character through the legendary line or finish off the 3 or 4 I have close but never finished it because I quit doing LFR completely as the reward you get from doing LFR does not equal the hell that LFR is to do.

However, blizzard once again shows they are incredibly clueless even with those changes to speed up the legendary quest line.  Drop rates are not so much the problem any longer. Sure they could be more generous of course, but the biggest hang ups on the legendary quest line, and where I have 8 characters sitting, are the valor collection and the PvP wins.  Three thousand valor is huge for a rarely played alt.  If they really wanted to help speed things up they could increase drop rates, sure, but what really needs to be done is to change the valor collection to 1K or even better, just straight out remove it. 

It is a waste of time to wait 3 weeks for no real reason.  When you hit that part you "might" still need stuff from LFR, so it is not so bad running it.  By the time you are done with those three weeks of collecting valor for no reason other than to waste time, you most likely will not need anything else from LFR and even if you do you are most likely about as sick of running that cesspool of content that you just want to never go back there. 

Which now means you have to endure that hell for no reason other than drops.  So even with 100% drop rates, it would still be a waste of time.  You could have been collecting those things during those three weeks instead of just collecting valor.  When the quest was new and it was current that wait was a good thing, it filled up some time where you would not be doing anything else anyway.  Now, it is a complete and total waste of time.  If they really wanted to fix the quest line you would have to do the collect three thousand valor and the next parts of the quest at the exact same time. 

As in, you will still need to collect three thousand valor, but the quest line continues, even if you have not done so yet.  When all is said and done, you will surely have the three thousand valor when done collecting all the pieces and it will just be part of the quest line that is done as you go and not a three week bump in the road that slows you down and makes you lose interest.  The fact they are doing things to speed up the legendary quest line and the valor collection part is even still in there at all shows that blizzard is not only clueless, but that they do not give a crap about playability because waiting three weeks doing nothing isn't exactly fun game play.

The second part is that PvP part.  Sure, I had two characters that went in and one shot both.  I also have 2 characters with many attempts and still no wins.  Druid over 10, warlock over 30.  If blizzard really wanted to speed up the legendary quest line and make it leaps and bounds more enjoyable for the people that do not want to PvP, and the PvPers that hate seeing the PvEers poisoning their content, they should change that part of the quest line to "participate" in each battleground, not "win" each one.  Small change but a huge one for the player base.  It would be a good change too, but blizzard, the clueless ones, will never see that because it is too obvious.  I am so amazed, as in holy crap how did they not even think of that amazed, that the battleground part was not changed to "participate" a long time ago.  Are the people in charge of the brain trust at blizzard really that clueless?  Don't answer that, we already know the answer is yes.

Now that we got the older news of their clueless nature out of the way lets get to the newer news that is the topic title.  I do not even know where to start on this one.  So many rants are going through my mind at the moment.  But I think I know where I will start.  I will start exactly where my mind went the moment I read a response from a blue.

Whats the point? honestly? just put in a SoO zone buff...pretty sure most of us are bored to death of dungeons and scenarios. this is also why it's a good idea to have new dungeons (hint, hint) as well.
Different strokes, I'm sure, but I prefer earning my power, and playing to get stronger. Zonewide buffs/debuffs always feel kind of... like pity. I don't want to be pitied, I just want more paths to success.
What immediately came to my mind when I read this is, who the fuck cares what you prefer.  How about thinking about what is better for the game for one and taking your head out of your ass for just a moment.  For the record, Bashiok was the dimwit that basically said his desires matter more than what would be good for the game.  He is just that important, remember that, he matters, the players don't.

For the record, I do not need the zone wide debuff, I finished normal a long time ago and that is all I do.  I do not do heroic, maybe a few here and there, but I do not work it as progression.   So me supporting a zone wide debuff has absolutely nothing to do with my personal preference.   I don't need it, I don't want it, and I could care less if it were even there.  What it is about is what is good for the game.  And if they are adding things with the intention of making SoO easier for some a zone wide buff can do that and valor upgrades can not, that would be what is best for the game as a whole.  Unlike Bashiok that only cares about what he wants, I, as a player, care about the players.

Lets put it this way.  When we stopped raiding, after finishing it off and many people took breaks or went on to a guild that was still going to push, we had new people that wanted to jump in.  They were lesser skilled and lesser geared and quite honestly, I did not feel like doing the entire raid again over again as progression with a group of new players.  A zone wide buff would mean I could bring them along and not feel like it was progression all over again.  So maybe that is part of the reason I support it.  But it would not be for me, it would be for them, those people that want to raid but are just not really ready to raid normal.  I got my title, I got my mount, the only thing I need from normal is that trinket off shaman.  Quite honestly I would be happy to not raid again until warlords, but warlords is way the hell too far away to just quit.  So if I want to raid, I need to find new people to raid with.  And no, I am not going to do group LFRs or group flex any longer, not this late in the expansion, to gear up and train new people.  No thank you.

A zone wide debuff is a good idea for many reasons.  Many reasons that valor upgrades could never even touch on.  Lets start by looking at valor upgrades and what allowing us to upgrade out gear 4 times instead of the current 2 times means when compared to a what a zone buff would give us.

It makes the powerful more powerful. 

As I said, I already cleared it and I could again with a normal group no problem.  So giving me 4 upgrades instead of 2 means nothing.  Sure, I can down stuff a little faster which is nice and all but it is not exactly needed.  I still can not bring that new lock that never raided before without it feeling like progression.  Or the druid that raided with us two tiers ago that just came back to the game.  Or the paladin that returned for the first time since cataclysm and wants to try his hand at tanking again.  Why?  Because they do not have the gear to upgrade and even if they did have the gear they do not have the valor to upgrade it.  Sure it will come, in time, but that does not help the here and now.  I would still need to raid progression with them and wait for them to catch up.  So as you see, valor upgrades do nothing for people starting or coming back.  It only helps the powerful get more powerful.  So now I can do 400K instead of 350K on bosses that only require 150K to down?  Woo - fucking - hoo.

It does not help with bad luck. 

You could make gear upgradable 10,000 times, it doesn't make a difference.  If you can not get the drops you will not have anything to upgrade.  I am still rocking a ToT heroic trinket I got last tier because the shaman hate me.  Maybe I kicked their ghost wolves in another life or something.  Sure, I do not need it, but that does not change the fact, you can't upgrade what you do not have.  Those players I mentioned, lesser skilled, lesser experienced, returning people, do not have the gear worth wasting valor on upgrading.  So how exactly does changing it to 4 upgrades from 2 help people that do not have any gear that is even worth upgrading two times?  Upgrades work for the people that have gear, they mean nothing for the people that don't be it from lack of winning gear or the fact they are just starting.  Upgrading nothing really does not help you beat a boss, but a zone buff might be able to.

You can't feel the power. 

Okay, I will be the first to admit that upgrading your gear can be huge.  But then again I am the type of guy that got a new pair of boots that were a 300 DPS increase and changed into them even if 300 DPS is not worth a pile of beans when you are doing over 300K normally.  What is that, 0.1%?  Who the hell is going to notice that.  So while I see the valor upgrades, which are more than 0.1%, most people do not feel it.  Feelings matter.  If people do not feel they are getting more powerful, they are not getting more powerful.  Yes, I know that is a falsehood, but perception is everything.  If there is a zone wide buff, or debuff, people, all people well geared and not, get to experience the power it gives you.  It would be a flat 5%, 10% or more.  Everyone gets 5% better, everyone gets 5% more effective, everyone as a team get stronger which makes the you yourself feel even stronger.  Appearances mean a lot and even if valor upgrades give you more power, to the average player, they can not see that power so to them, it is not there.

It is not inclusive. 

A zone wide buff lets everyone take advantage of it.  It lets everyone feel as if they are moving forward.  Valor upgrades are fine for people like me.  The type that capped every week, that raided all the time, that used their coins to get gear, etc.  We were always doing everything we could to get gear so the valor upgrades work for us.  For someone that is not that dedicated, valor upgrades don't really include them.  Doesn't blizzard understand that the people that get the most out of the valor upgrades are the people that need them the least?  Like myself.  I will upgrade my stuff the second the patch comes out, but I do not need to.  However, the new lock in our raid will not be able to, because he is still gearing up and he has no valor, so what does this patch do for him?  He is not an every day player, he is not a grinder, he is not someone that will go out of his way to get the best he can at all point.  He might be an okay player, he might have potential, but this will do nothing for him. Valor upgrades do not include him.  Hey Bashiok, I'll let you in on a not so secret secret.  He is the average raider.   Valor upgrades do not include him unless he works his ass off and the average player does not work their ass off.

It does not immediately impact the raid. 

Lets use my guild as an example.  We are rolling with at most two people that were part of the raid team on the characters that killed normal.  A couple of us are on alts, which means we know the fights and that makes them easier, but everyone else is new, lesser skilled, or just filling in to help out.  Valor upgrades are not going to impact this raid team, which is the type of raid team you see a lot this late in the expansion.  The mains will upgrade their stuff, but they are already caring the group, so a tiny boost to those two is not really going to make bosses fall over.  Us on alts are still gearing and have most likely not upgraded 2 times yet unless we are approaching valor cap because we are still looking to collect drops that never seem to drop.  So when we have not upgraded two times what does allowing us to upgrade four times matter?  And then there are the others, the average players, the ones we are just bringing in.  Even if they did upgrade their gear 4 times, will it teach them the fight?  If they are new, they are slow and learning.  If they are new they have lesser gear and even upgraded 4 times lesser gear is, well, lesser.  If they do not have the health to move from say a puddle on the first boss before dying upgrading a piece of crappy gear 4 times is not going to give them the split second they need to move, but maybe a 5% or 10% or more reduction to the damage it does might.

Now to sum things up I want to go into a make believe story.  But it is not as fantasy make believe as you might think.  It is exactly what my guild and hundreds if not thousands of guilds are going through at this very moment.  It is something a zone wide buff would help with but valor upgrades do nothing.

Lets say you are a normal mode team with no designs on heroic.  People are getting the gary kills and then taking some time off.  So you are now looking to fill spaces and recruit.  You are getting a fair deal of interest but that interest is coming from people with little or no experience and sometimes no real gear either.  You now need to step back to flex to gear these people but you have been through that already and had people either quit, gear up and leave, or just not show up.  The last thing you want to do is step back to flex again, not this late in the expansion.  You have been clearing normal and you want to continue to clear it.  You do not mind a few wipes here and there as you bring new people in, but you do not want to step all the way back to progression all over again.

Then you talk to your friends in other guilds and they say they are going through the same thing.  The heroic guilds looking to poach the few remaining regulars from normal teams because their raiders are taking breaks too, and the normal raiders not being able to get others to continue on normals.

Recruiting is at a dead stand still because anyone that was a real raider, someone that killing gary mattered to, has already done so and either wants to take a break, continue to clear normals with little fuss, move on to heroics, or just do something different for a while.  The picking are slim and keeping a raid going each week gets harder and harder.  To the point you invite a priest that has not healed since ulduar but she has been in the guild forever and is willing to give it a try again just to help out.  You will take anyone you can get your hands on.  Raid experience becomes so much more important that gear because you keep recruiting these 550+ item level people that could not pull 150K DPS if you set their ass on fire.  I am sure it would not surprise you to hear that I have seen more people at 550 item level doing 80K than doing 150K.  Or at least it would not surprise you if you experienced this scenario I am describing.

So you want raiders, even old raiders, even under geared raiders.  You just want some people to fill the open spots left by a raid that has already run on way to long and might very well run on for another 6 months or more.  It is harder and harder to get people and it is really better to get someone with some raid experience and just a need for gear than someone that you have to start from scratch with.  At least the people with raid experience will do the mechanics right and you can hope that the now over geared other players can compensate a little for their lack of gear.

The valor changes do nothing for filling those empty slot.  That 553 lock that can not pull 120K will not suddenly be pulling 200K because he can upgrade his gear 2 more times.  The 560 tank that you tried one week that had no clue what a cooldown was will not suddenly realize he has them if he upgrades everything and is not a 568 tank.    Sure, we can teach them, but it would be so much easier to teach them with a zone wide buff, or debuff.

See, that is where the game is now.  With a raid that has already ran way to long and worn out its welcome and a raid that has no end in sight, the only people that want to do it are the people that can't, even with another 8 points of upgrade, even if they could afford them, which they most likely can't because the people that can are usually the people that were better players to begin with.  But that zone buff can help. 

A zone wide buff can help a lot.  It can keep those normal groups raiding if they wish to.  It can keep them recruiting.  It can allow them to let more people with little or no raid experience in so they can carry them, so they can teach them, so they can gear them, so they can make these people into raiders.  Something that can not and will not be done with just valor upgrades.

All valor upgrades do is increase your item level (and potential of course).  Sure, it might help with those groups for flex that ask for a 560 item level to do flex one which is a joke, but does blizzard understand that the jerks that ask for a 560 item level for flex one will just say they want 568 for flex one now?

In the end this is basically what it boils down to.

Valor Upgrades:  They help those that help themselves.  The people that are fully upgraded and always remain so are most likely to be the people that do not need the valor upgrades to beat the content.  It will do nothing to extend the life of an already stale raid.  It might help some, very few, raids get past some bumps in the road, but that percentage is extremely small, and a zone wide buff would do the exact same thing for them.

Zone Wide Buff:  Helps those that do not or can not help themselves by allowing them access to something they might have not been able to do otherwise.  It increases the life span of a raid that should have been old content 2 months ago but we will be stuck with for another 6.

In the end, remember that the people at blizzard are clueless and like Bashiok they would rather think about themselves than the life span of the content.

Zone buffs can give life to a raid that should have been replaced by a new expansion or a new raid months ago.  Valor upgrades are like trying to stop the bleeding of having your arm cut off with a bandaid.

The ICC and DS buff and debuff are what kept people raiding and what kept them going for such a long time even if people were bored stiff of them.  Letting people, who don't need to, upgrade their gear 8 more levels is not going to keep them going.  Them getting more powerful, alone, is not going to help the team as a zone buff would.  They'll eventually give up trying to recruit more to keep going because it just is not worth it.

Remove the achievement with the title and the mount if you have to, but adding a buff or debuff will help us deal with 6 more months of this crap.  Just like it did with ICC and DS.

But Bashiok would never understand that because he works for blizzard and they are not allowed to be open minded, they are only allowed to be clueless.  Valor upgrades are nice, I will like them and I thank them for them.  At least for a short time I will have something to spend some valor on.  But over all, it is not going to help my raid team or the hundreds and thousands of other raids teams.  Not in the slightest.  Blizzard is clueless.

37 comments:

  1. Excuse my French but " A-FUCKING-MEN!!!!!
    We were in the exact spot your describing but normal’s to heroics, This is the first time in almost 15 years that I am not raiding in a MMO and I can directly link it to no Debuff. I had a frank conversation with my guildies a month plus ago. We won, we did good, but I cannot handle the continued recruiting and regearing that has to be done. This is like the burning crusade raid environment guilds poaching from others guilds falling apart. Valor upgrades are a clear failure and if I was rich I would go to blizzcon fight my way to the front of the Q&A line and call them on this bullshit.

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    1. That is the why a zone wide debuff is needed. It would make the recruiting and continuing easier as most of the players that have already done things start to take breaks. It would give a lot of newer people a chance to do something that they have not done yet instead of being on the outside looking in. No matter how cool it will be for me to upgrade my gear, it will not help others, only me.

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  2. Nothing Blizzard can do will make you or most of the players happy , you come across as an elitist jerk.

    With your "I/m better than you " attitude, you must be a real prick to raid with .

    If you stop at normal and don't want to do heroics (which is ok) don't complain when you have nothing to do

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    1. good lord your dense.

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    2. Someone that would rather stay in normals and help people learn to raid actually seems like the exact opposite of an elitist jerk.

      Did you read the same post as me? Clearly a zone debuff is not something an elitist jerk would ask for. An elitist jerk would want it to stay like it is so others that can not do it would not get access to it.

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    3. I agree that nothing blizzard can do will make everyone happy. But catering to the 1% by making valor upgrades and not zone debuffs is not really what is in the best interest of the game.

      Do some basic math. Valor upgrades will help a few, lets just call it 10% for arguments sake. Zone debuffs can help everyone, everyone means 100%.

      Now, which is a bigger numbers 100 or 10?

      As for elitist, as tiggi and the second anon said, you really missed the whole point of the post if you read it as me being elitist.

      As for me stopping at normals, it is by choice because I choose to play with people I like to play with. Sadly some of them are not heroic ready, and there is nothing wrong with that. Would I like to raid heroics? Yes. Is it worth leaving people I enjoy playing with behind to find a better guild so I can do so? Absolutely not.

      If you think heroics are the only end game hate to break it to you, you are the elitist one. No matter what your group, not you personally, your group is capable of doing, that is your end game. Be it LFR, flex, normal or heroics. You do not "need" to do the same content another time. End game is where you stop. Not heroics.

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    4. (Not the same anon)

      Actually I quite disagree with you there.

      The zone wide debuff would be cattering to the 10% (actally more the 50% according to last charts on MMO champion), and assuming that the debuuf would only have been applied to Flex and above.

      The items upgrade will apply to ANYONE that do LFR or even only timeless isle (LFR being 70% of the players according to the same charts)

      Now, you can argue that the way it is implemented is not the right one (they could have, for example, just have bumped all ilvl by 8) but saying that it affect less players is plain wrong, it just affect players differently depending on their playstyle.

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    5. You are under the (false) assumption that most raiders raid like us and cap valor.

      People do not cap, most people do not cap, I can tell you from trying to recruit that more than 95% of the people that apply do not have their gear upgraded, even people in all normal gear. People to do not cap and do not upgrade, not as much as you and I might.

      This means while it "could" help everyone, it doesn't. It requires people to help themselves first and as sad as this might sound, people will not help themselves. They are not doing it now with 2 levels of upgrades, they will not do i with 4.

      Whereas a zone buff, or debuff, helps everyone. Even if they do absolutely nothing. It helps everyone.

      So I stand by my statement. A zone buff helps everyone, an item level upgrade only helps the few that will actually take advantage of it.

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    6. BTW, just noticed you mentioned that it would help people on TI as well. Yes, that is true. You are 100% correct and I did not even think about that. Upgrades help everyone in that aspect. It helps even the people that do not raid. But I am talking about raiding, not about TI or other outside things.

      Perhaps valor upgrades AND a zone debuff are the way to go.

      And please, do not quote MMO-Cs list. I would be counted 18 different times on that as 18 people because I do not share achievements across my characters like many people so those 18 90s do not get filtered for having the same achievements my main does. They would think of me as 18 different people.

      So there is no way in hell even half the people they say are raiding are raiding when I am counted as 18 separate 90s.

      Unless shown otherwise, how they filter people that avoid the filter like I do, their information, while interesting to look at, can not be quoted as facts.

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    7. I'm pretty sure you're an exception here with not sharing your achiev and all. And even with that, they DO warn that it's not 100% accurate, but I still elieve taht it give a good estimate of the amount of ppl who are raiding (and the 50% was immersseus flex kills btw, so I was pretty generous^^)


      As for the item upgrade, I never said it was a good way, I never mentionned the fact that ppl cap valor or not (and being able to buy 100 valor for 3k timeless coins will help anyway). I just stated that the item upgrade DO affect more ppl thatn the zone debuff.

      Whether ppl take advantage of it or not is another question entirely.

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    8. I wonder if anyone could find any information on people not sharing achievements. I know many people do not even know that is an option. I've had to tell a lot how to do it. But yes, I would say that there are not that many that do it. I do it more as a social experiment. You would be amazed how differently you are treated with 2K achievements when compared to having 18K.

      It only "could" effect more people if they took advantage of it, and that is only true because it effects people outside of raids as well. I am talking about in raids. And in raids a zone wide buff effects 100%, even if they do not go out of their way to take advantage of it like the upgrades.

      The whole post was written in regards to raiding and what would best help get new recruits and new raiders into it. A zone wide buff helps in that endeavor, valor upgrades do not.

      We can agree to disagree here but I stand by that. A zone buff effects 100%, valor upgrades do not.

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    9. I still think item upgrade is a better way to nerf content.

      Problem here is that you have to be active to take advantage of it.

      See if when 5.4.8 dropped everyone ilvl was upped by 8 whithout them having to do anything, the result would have been the same and everyone would have the benefit immediatly.

      I think it is better than a zone wide debuff, because debuff does not affect bosses in the same way and would affect difficulty curves far more than just making gear more powerful.

      Note again, that I never said they implemented the item upgrade the right way, I said it technically affect more ppl.

      So yes, item upgrade>zone wide debuff on paper. As it is done currently? maybe not.

      (I should really learn how to tell what I want to say clearly)

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    10. I agree with you 100%. I think the item upgrade is a much better way to nerf content. It rewards the players doing it with a way to get stronger to keep moving forward.

      Sure, it works for me. Not everyone is me. So I am not taking the standpoint of zone wide nerfs for me. I am taking the standpoint of zone wide nerfs with the understanding that no matter how much I like the valor upgrades, everyone is not me.

      I think the item upgrade was implemented fine. We needed something to use valor on since they stupidly removed valor gear for no good reason. Just for conversation sake, what do you think would have been a better way? Adding 1 upgrade every month or every 2 months? That might sound good.

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    11. MMO-C's #'s shouldn't be treated as fact your right but they should be treated as a poll. There's a Plus or Minus such and such % just like other statistical polls. It's good enough that you can make resonable assumptions on it just like other polls of say the presdents popularity etc. Arguing that the # is usless because it doesn't count everything exactly perfect is sour grapes. TLDR It's not 100% acurate but its close enough.

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    12. It is a valid poll of active guilded players who are raiding. For that purpose, it is good. Using as an observation of the over all player base is not.

      If you want to use it to tell how many "raiders" are downing things it is entirely good for the purpose and probably somewhat accurate. If you are looking to judge "players" than it is not.

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    13. I don't think you know enough of the methodology to pronounce it good or bad for something. Right now its the tool we have but not the tool we deserve to figure out raiding stats. (the tool we deserve would be blizzard giving us the damn #'s)

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    14. I know enough based on what they said to make that assessment. Using their own words, it only counts active people that have raid achievements and even at that certain people that are active and have raid achievement that are not guilded might not be counted.

      That is more than ample data to say that it can not be used to judge the player base and only be used to judge active guilded raiders.

      I would love for blizzard to give us numbers but they rarely give us anything to chew on. The last decent number to work with was a long time ago, I believe during cataclysm, when ghostcrawler, if I remember correctly, said that not even 50% of the players had a max level character.

      Blizzard will never release numbers because then it will become harder for them to push things through. Not good or bad things, but any thing, because people would use their own data against them.

      If they do not release any data then we can just sit there and argue. As someone said here that "over 50% of players are raiding" and I said, that is a compete falsehood. I would be willing to bet that more than 50% of the player base is still not max level just like back then. Maybe less now with the free 90, but without a shadow of a doubt and with no question in my mind what so ever I can say that more then 50% of player are not raiding at once level or another. I am sure of that.

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    15. No you really don't. You don't know the exact methodology so you don't know scientificly.You know what MMO has Said publicly but you don't know how they get thir #'s any Guess you make is still just a guess or an assumption. You can make an assumption which is what you are doing but we all know what happens when you assume. Here's another thought tho. Blizzard activly moniters MMO-C and activly asks them to take down things that are blatently wrong. IE the darkness below amoung many other things that they have asked to take down. it's not without reason to think that the #'s being posted are close enough that blizzard doesn't feel they need to correct te record. You are making assumptions based on what you want the data to say. Thats as good as denying climate change because you don't want it to be true.

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    16. basicly I'm not saying they are 100% accurate I don't know the methodology so I can't prove that but I don't think they are as wildly off as you seem to think and you don't know the methodology so you can't prove that. my theory is that they are "close enough" that blizzard doesn't feel the need to correct them and say they arn't right. I can work with that in my mind as a close enough value.

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    17. I do know how the get their data. So that is what I am basing my "findings" on, what you like to call assumptions.

      Any assumption I make is the same as any assumption they make. I can scan for the same data they did and get the same numbers. You are just assuming it is catching everything when it is, as an absolute fact, not doing so.

      Why would blizzard have them take it down when it makes them look good? It could be as wrong as the day is long but being it makes it look like LFR and raiding in general is a huge success they would never ask it to be taken down.

      I am not making assumptions on what I want the data to be, assumptions on data, yes, but not on what I want it to be.

      The thing is I can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that their data is faulty. I will explain how and you can test it yourself. Because of how the test is done it can only be done once per character and only on specific characters.

      1) Find a level 90, with or without raid achievements that is NOT listed on wow progresses.
      2) Realize that their data is faulty because that character was not counted.

      See, nice and simple. They pull their data from wow progress, they have said so themselves.

      Once you search a character it is in their database, so it no longer can be used as proof that they do not count everything. So I can not give you a name off the top of my head to search for because if I searched to see it was not there, it would then be there.

      Then they run it through a program that removes duplicates based on achievement numbers and dates on achievements to remove duplicate players. Then they post the data they get.

      It is absolutely accurate based on what is listed on wow-progress. It is not even remotely accurate based on actual number of players.

      Just sit in stormwind or org and search for 90s you see on wow - progress. You will see many, even a great deal, are not in the database. If they are not in that database, they are not part of the scan and not counted in the data.

      That is how I can say, as fact, that their data is faulty. I am assuming that the actual numbers a MUCH different, yes. But I am not assuming it because that is what I want them to be, the data is actually faulty. Fact.

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    18. Let’s try this again with a different example. Gallop does a survey of Americans and finds that 41% approve of Barack Obama’s job. Your argument is that because they didn’t ask you. The survey is wrong. That’s not how it works. MMO-C samples 2.3 million accounts that # is significant enough to make statistical conclusions about the rest of the accounts. Now the sample is slightly biased yes but so is a gallop poll that say doesn’t survey cell phones but it’s still statistically sound and accurate enough to say that the 41% is + or minus a few % points of the actual #.

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    19. There are at least two biases in MMO-C data. First, they only include players who have a level 90. Second, they admit they are much more likely to miss players who are unguilded (or if their guild is a small, family-type one), than players who are in large guilds. That'd be similar to Gallop doing a survey of, I don't know, only the East coast and only in big cities.

      MMO-C data does provide a good answer to "what proportion of players with a level 90 who are in large guilds raid", It doesn't provide a good answer to "what proportion of players overall raid".

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    20. @ Tiggi

      Let me refer you to penn and tellers old tv show called bullshit. Go look it up, I am sure you can find it somewhere online to watch for free, and watch the episode on polls. Then you will understand that if you see a poll that says only 41% approve of obama it was most likely a poll taking by people that wanted to make it look like people did not like him. Polls always have been and always will be a piss poor way of judging things because they can be skewed by what question you ask or the way you ask it so the poll returns the results you hope it does. Watch the episode, really, not only is it funny but it is very informative when speaking about polls. You will learn a hell of a lot.

      The data MMOC is collecting is data specifically designed to show something, they are looking for that, so their data is tainted toward that. They even say so themselves that their data is tainted toward that.

      Remember, the people that do not appear on wow progress are most likely not raider, are most likely not downing bosses. Maybe not all, but in larger majority than those in raiding guilds. So if they are only asking raiders if they raid of course their data will say that raiders raid. Just the same way as if you ask republicans if they approve of obama they will return disapproval. It is tainted data. Scanning raiders to see if they raid is not exactly looking for accurate data is it?

      See, PvP Anon gets it. Their data is basically what portion of raiders are raiding, not what potion of players are raiding.

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    21. Still, even with the potential bias (esspecially the fact taht they're only scanning level 90), and I'm not sure about the "small guilde" argument, they state that the data is based on 2.3 millions account.

      That number is huge, it's about a third of WoW WORLDWIDE active accounts. And I'm pretty sure they're not scanning Asian realm, or at the very least Chinese one.

      So unless they're lying on the number of account scanned, even with the bias, the number IS representative. And for the discussion at hand (# of ppl affected by the gear upgrade) it is even MORE representative since ppl without 90 are obviously not impacted (nor would they be by a zoe wide debuff).

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    22. I've already explained why the 2.3 million accounts is not an accurate number as well. It is probably close but possibly not. There are people that do not share achievement and those will be counted as different accounts. So it could be 2M, it could even be as low as 1M. No way to know because the data is not accurate. We can not even guess. But we can say, without a doubt, 2.3M is not accurate.

      Lets, for arguments sake, say that 2.3M people raid and it is accurate however. Adding the upgrade "could" help 2.3M people. Adding a raid wide debuff WILL help 2.3M people.

      Do not assume that everyone upgrades because I will tell you they don't. Just hang out in your home city and start inspecting people, see how many people, even ones with raid kills, are not fully upgraded or even upgraded at all. Most people do not take advantage of it. Heck, many people do not even know it exists.

      The argument I am presenting is that a debuff helps more people than the valor upgrade does when it comes to raiding and I am right. Valor "could" help 2.3M raiders, debuff "will" help 2.3 raiders.

      One example of could and will to show which is better.

      If your state lottery was being held tonight and there was a record 500M prize and some guy came to you and said he had 2 tickets. One of those tickets "could" win the lottery tonight and one "will" win the lottery tonight.

      Which one is better?

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  3. - I agree that the valor grind is an unnecessary step in the Legendary quest line. Even Blizzard has stated as much... stupid that they aren't removing/modifying that part though.

    - "participate" in PvP would be a very good change as well.

    - I can finally spend my valor that I've been capped at 3000 for months.

    - I'll have a reason to grind valor again.

    - Oh wait... that means doing dungeons and scenarios that I've done a zillion times each...

    - I think I read that we can spend coins on valor, so I can get rid of some Timeless coins.

    - Upgrades are a weird choice though. As Grumpy mentioned. I can't see how it makes sense in practice. It sounds nice on paper, but in reality, I don't think it'll help people progress better than a blanket nerf would.

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    1. Upgrades work for the people that hit the gear wall, it does nothing for everyone else. While I do like them, they will not help the majority of the player base.

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  4. Isn't this (Bashiok-bashing aside) just a really long-winded way of saying you want a bigger buff/nerf?
    What if it was 16ilvls? i.e. 8 per upgrade. Or more?

    I quite like the idea of buffs only for those that put in the effort, but I think the reasoning behind this method is more cynical.
    Zone buff/debuff would still just have people logging in for raids and nothing else. With this method, those people are now running other content for Valor Points.

    I wouldn't be surprised to see a further 8 ilvls added a few weeks later.

    I definitely agree that the 3k VP grind has no place in the legendary questline now, but I always felt it was an artificial barrier just to extend the timescale anyway.

    Mixed feelings about 'participate' in PvP...
    What's worse than PvE players in your BG? PvE players with absolutely zero incentive to win! At least it would only be for 2 bgs in total, I suppose.

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    1. I am not saying I do not like the upgrades. I do like them. Been capped on valor for months and it will be nice to spend them. It will be nice to feel stronger. But it does absolutely nothing to help raid teams that are trying to fill spaces lost from people taking breaks or burning out.

      While it is true Bashioks comments did trigger my idea for asking for buffs his arrogant attitude that "if it is good enough for me it is good enough for everyone" deserves being called out. He played the role of am elitist jerk and I called him out for it. Not to mention, he works for blizzard, he really should know better than to make such an arrogant comment like that. That was incredibly rude to the majority of the player base.

      I, like bashiok, believe that the valor upgrades are fine and a much better way to "nerf" the content by earning it. However, unlike Bashiok I do realize that I am not everyone and the vast majority of the player base will get little or nothing from the upgrades.

      I would be willing to bet the number of players that were sitting on valor cap with nothing to spend it on are lower than 5% of the player base. So they are making the minority stronger, how does that help everyone else?

      That is why I say a zone buff or debuff is a better idea. It helps 100% of the player base. Not just a few people here and there.

      On the PvP part, yes, at least it would only be 2 games. I would rather it only be 2 games then the same person in there day after day, week after week, doing nothing to help but trying to hide in a corner and get a win. Just let him get in and out.

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    2. You seem to infer a great deal from Bashiok's pretty innocuous statement, is there more to it than you have quoted in the main text?

      To me it just appears to be one man's opinion on the subject. I don't see any arrogance, or anything to suggest he thinks his views are more important than anyone else's. He even agrees that others may view it differently.
      It basically says he wants to feel like he has earned the extra power... and pretty much nothing else, certainly nothing about how anyone else should feel.

      As for the upgrade buff itself, I agree with most of what you say.
      The ones to benefit most will definitely be those who need it the least, particularly in the short term.
      It will, however, benefit anyone in the raid... if they are willing to take advantage of it.
      Even the small benefit to your Ulduar priest upgrading only their raid drops, instead of wasting vp on timeless gear that they should (hopefully) be replacing soon.

      I strongly believe that it benefits the game to have players rewarded for their efforts rather than indiscriminately but, I am under no illusion, it is an idealistic view.
      Maybe this is not the time for these ideals?
      Not when we are just fighting to keep the guild together and the raids running each week.

      Maybe they just don't take it far enough. They have added an extra way to earn VP but that also only benefits those who don't really need the help.

      To really make this vp upgrade work as a buff to guilds but stick to this concept, I think Blizzard also need to relax or remove the weekly 1k valor cap.

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    3. I infer a lot yes, but I also have the past knowledge of the many things he has said which help me put those words in a frame of reference based on his historical posting.

      No, that is all he said, but if you just take a look at his history of you will see countless times where he comes off with his "the way I like it is best" or "I don't care what you want, this is better". Taking what he said as being arrogant and/or obnoxious is just reading it in the tone he always speaks.

      It would be like reading what I say and thinking I am just being a smart ass and arguing for the sake of arguing. I've been known to argue things I did not even agree with just because I liked the back and forth of the conversation. I have a history of that. So it would not be far fetched to say "I don't think you really believe this" because I have past history. When someone has a history, you can usually fall back on that.

      "It basically says he wants to feel like he has earned the extra power..." That is exactly where it shows his arrogance.

      He says he would rather earn his extra power as if that makes him better than others when the fact is you did not "earn" two more upgrades any more than you "earned" a zone wide buff. The only difference, and it is an extremely minor one, is that you spend valor on the upgrades. Valor that we get from everything we do and have absolutely no use for otherwise. So it is not like you are spending a resource that has any real value to it.

      Him saying he "earned" it by upgrading his gear is where he is being arrogant. Him thinking because he "earned it" through upgrading gear he is better than the person that never raided normal before that would like to start but has no gear to upgrade so he can't get into a group but the zone buff would or could help him do so.

      That is why he comes off like that. I might be over examining it of course, but his insistence that he earned something and someone else didn't is what makes him, for lack of a better word, a jerk.

      I agree that it benefits the game for people to be rewarded for their efforts. As I said elsewhere here in the comments I love the valor upgrade idea. It is great for people like me. I am not saying I dislike the valor upgrades, I don't. I just do not think it is in the best interest of the masses.

      I agree with removing the valor cap, but again, who does that benefit? Me and you and people like us. I will go, spend my 3K valor to upgrade, trade in massive amounts of timeless coins to upgrade more, and then grind all the rest of the valor I might need and all my gear will be upgraded the day the patch comes out. Once again, it most benefits the people that need it least. The only people the valor cap hinders are the ones that care enough to cap. That is not, has never been, and will never be, the majority of the players. And that is my point. The majority of players are not going to be helped as much by a valor upgrade as you and I might.

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    4. The difference lies in the fact that one is active, the other is passive.

      It is not arrogant to say that one is earned while the other isn't, it's just a fact.

      How can you claim that 'the majority' of raiders are not willing to cap VP yet those that do have not 'earned' their extra power?

      If VP are raining down from the skies so much that they they can't be considered as 'earned', why isn't everyone capped anyway?

      I'm also intrigued by these raiders of yours that have enough gear that they expect to get into raids, but the gear isn't good enough to upgrade. What gear is this??

      As for the ones in full normal gear with no upgrades, what have they been doing with their VP? They must have earned thousands while gathering that gear and, as you say, there's nothing else to spend it on.

      Nobody disputes that a raid-wide buff would make killing bosses easier, I dispute that free buffs for all are good for the game (or the masses, or however else you want to phrase it).

      Rewards that you earn, even if the effort required is low, are always better for the game than rewards freely given.

      The majority of players might not be helped as much by a valor upgrade as you and I might, I agree. But, all players that want to be helped by the buff will be.

      And we come back to the fact that these rewards can be earned by anyone in the game that decides to take them.
      Once they decide to take these rewards, the only obstacle remaining to them is the weekly VP cap.

      Removing or relaxing the cap would help me and you for 1 week but it would help 'the masses' for as long as they wanted it to.

      If you think that the VP upgrade doesn't make enough difference then fair enough, but that's just going back to my original point that you really just want a bigger buff.

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    5. I can understand why "paying" for something and having to do something to get the currency to pay for it is earning it more than it just being there passively. I just do not like the way he present himself over and over.

      How can I say it? Because I have eyes. Just stand in any hub and start inspecting. Don't inspect raiders that actually care about how they do, they will be upgraded, inspect everyone else.

      Go into an LFR and inspect people there. Go on to wow progresses and start randomly clicking on guilds and through their membership, not top 10 guilds, all others, all the ones that actually need the help.

      Once you actually look around and see that the people that actually NEED the help are not using valor upgrades, or not using them as much as they are capable of, you will see how a zone wide buff/debuff would be more useful.

      Not to mention basic math and simple logic. Valor upgrades "could" help raiders, a zone buff "will" help raiders.

      Even if 99.9% of all raiders upgraded every piece, which you have to admit is not going to happen, it will not not be as much as the 100% a zone buff would.

      I love this question you asked.

      "If VP are raining down from the skies so much that they they can't be considered as 'earned', why isn't everyone capped anyway?"

      Because most players do not try. That is the difference between the people valor upgrades help and who it doesn't. It helps the people that try. The people that try are more likely to be the people that do not need that extra 8 levels of help. The people that do not try, as in won't even cap valor, are the ones that need the help.

      You, me, and many others live under the false impression that because we do something, like cap, that everyone does. They don't.

      I would like to know what the hell they are doing too. Seriously. If you have been active this entire expansion there is absolutely no reason you could not have everything fully upgraded. But once again, it is just me seeing it from my standpoint and apparently one you share.

      Once again I will say it. I like the VP upgrade, love it even. Glad to have something to spend valor on again. Glad to get a little more power when soloing. All that good stuff.

      But the bottom line is valor upgrade does not help the people that need it most.

      The people with lesser skill and lesser gear with get nothing from the increased valor upgrades because face facts, if they wanted to be better they would be more skilled at least and they would be upgrading to begin with.

      So in the simplest terms, and how I look at it, it comes down to this.

      What is better for the game?

      Bashiok feeling like a special snowflake that "earned" his gear or the entire player base that wishes to raid having a better chance at doing do?

      Zone wide buff is better.

      Remove the titles and mounts if you have to but make a zone wide buff that helps everyone and not just the people that help themselves.

      Once more, for emphasis, I am one of those people that have been capped for ages and will take full advantage of the 8 new item levels. And I still think it is the wrong decision.

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    6. So you are saying that people want to raid but don't want to put any effort whatsoever into their gear?

      And you want to facilitate this by buffing them?

      And that this is good for the game?

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    7. Yeap, and that is their biggest customer base.

      Is it good for the game? Well that is an excellent idea for a post and a conversation all on its own.

      I will however go against the grain here, at least against the grain of most raiders who actually do go out of their way and cap and get everything they can as soon as then can and put in the work and effort, and say, yes. I do believe it is good for the game.

      It would not be good at the start of a raid tier. Oh hell no. But when you are looking at 6 months, 9 months, 12 months and possibly 14 months, then yes, it is good, to keep those people playing. All those people that were not able to get into it because of their inability or lack of desire to do so coming back so they can "feel" like they are getting better. Yes, that is absolutely good for the game.

      Do I like it? Not really, I would have liked WoD to be out in march, or another raid tier to be out in march. But being blizzard decided to get stingy on the content with us after such a fantastic start to this expansion I believe something needs to be done and a blanket nerf is the way to go to let those coming up the ranks now feel better.

      Remember, the majority of the player base are not raiders. Allowing them to raid means it gives blizzard more reason to keep creating raids so the people that want to raid keep having something to do. So it is in the best interest of raiders to have those people getting into raids even if most raiders might say they do not "deserve" to be there.

      Just my opinion of course. But I believe having more people being able to do more things is good for the game.

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