Monday Random Beta Thoughts

- Before I get to beta thoughts I need to spend a few moments venting about live.

- I killed garrosh twice again this week and still no heirlooms.

- For the first time ever I did see a lot fall however.

- First kill 2 out of 10 got one, second kill 5 out of 10 got one.

- Is that insane, 5 people got an heirloom.

- I have killed garrosh a bunch, in flex, normal and heroic and never saw a heirloom.

- Someone in guild got their 5th this week.

- Someone that a guild member knows got his 23rd this week.

- Sorry but the random is random thing does not work with me.

- Blizzard needs are better loot system.

- Now to beta.

- If you read my post about night elf models there was a beta being beta issue with it.

- Night elves do not run with their arms at their side, as I said in the post.

- Was just beta being beta.

- But now with their arms swinging I am thinking maybe they would have been better staying at their sides.

- Just too darn bouncy for a male night elf if you ask me.

- I started leveling another character because I wanted to test things more.

- Also figured I would like to see how the leveling flow was on a lesser geared character.

- And how it was on a character I was lesser skilled on.

- So my rogue it was with his lesser gear and my lesser skill, but at least he has the cloak.

- Note:  If you have the cloak you do not even need gear in the first zone.

- Seriously, I am not kidding.

- My cloak was killing things before I had a chance to kill them.

- Guess my idea of bringing over a lesser geared character to see how they did is not actually going to work if they still have the cloak.

- Either way, still gives me a chance to test 2 more professions.

- Note:  The cloak works up until 100 but does not proc at all at 100.

- I also found that one of the items I found a good use for many times in mists does not work any longer.

- The dagger you use to kill yourself that you get from that one rare in the cave on the isle of thunder (name escapes me at the moment) doesn't work if you are level 91 or over.

- Damn, it would have been a super awesome tool for exploration.

- That is probably why they disabled it.

- So I have completed every quest that isn't bugged, every quest event that isn't bugged, basically everything in the game that isn't bugged.

- Not counting group content of course.

- But it is sad that I finished all there is to do that quickly.

- But it is good, because it allowed me to notice some things I think blizzard should know.

- And of course I am just the elf to tell them about it.

- Having rare mobs that are only rare to you once is a bad idea, no repeatability.

- Having quest events that are one time only things is a bad idea, no repeatability.

- Having activated events (like the brew guy) only reward you once is a bad idea, no repeatability.

- Basically, everything at max level is do it once and then you have nothing to do.

- Bad bad bad idea blizzard.

- People like rare hunting because they are looking for something.

- If you give it to people right away and the mob is no longer rare there is no reason to ever kill it again.

- It also takes away what is easily 100s of hours of game play, for me and many many others.

- How much time have you spent rare hunting?

- Well, gone are the days of that in this expansion, kill it once, get your goodie, no need to ever kill it again because you get nothing from it that a normal mob would not give you.

- My advice to blizzard was this, keep it giving the drop guaranteed like it is now but keep the rare tag on it and allow it, after the first kill, to have a percentage based drop of some other goodie, a BoE version of the BoP one you got the first time, or basically anything you can think of that makes it worth killing again.

- Have it drop small bag of goods at a low clip, and big bag of good at a very low drop, like in mists, because they helps rare hunting.

- Basically the reason rares were so hugely successful in mists was because people wanted to kill them over and over.

- In warlords you made millions of rares (or so it seems) but there is no reason to kill any of them more than once.

- Bad choice.

- When you finish loremaster for a zone you get something in the mail that you use to learn it and it puts treasure chests on your maps.

- Not all the zones seem to have these yet, or it is bugged.

- The two zones I did get it on, talador and nagrand, I went and got all the treasure chests.

- I did nagrand first.

- This kept be busy for the better part of sunday really.

- Lots of running around and some thinking involved.

- Don't worry, I am sure someone will post a guide so no one hurts themselves trying to figure out how to get these.

- But if I could figure them all out on my own I have no doubt anyone else could.

- I got them all, save one, because it seems bugged and is not there.

- There is no place above or below where it could be, and I checked everywhere, so I can safely say it is not there at all.

- Most likely a beta is beta bug.

- All the others are there, and some are amazingly hard to get to.

- Some require a lot of work to get to.

- Some involved some skill to get to.

- And the one that really bugged the heck out of me was so far away and I missed it 4 times.

- I found a goblin willing to allow me to borrow his glider up a mountain side.

- I jumped on the glider and went flying down trying to crash into a tree yet I kept missing it.

- You ever notice the only time you hit a tree with your glider is when you are trying to avoid it but when you want to hit it, you can't.

- Murphys law.

- Worst part is, where I landed was so far away it took forever to get back to him.

- BTW, nagrand is the one zone that is large, nicely sized.

- Smart move if you ask me, this is the max level zone, it should be the largest one.

- If only all the zones were this big it would be nice.

- I managed to get into the tree and get the treasure.

- That was not the hardest one to get, but it was the most annoying.

- I am completely dreading having to do this again when it goes live.

- It was not fun even in the slightest and I can not believe there would be anyone in the world that would say it was.

- What is blizzard thinking?

- The hardest was one on a wall where I needed to use a little creative walk jumping to get to.

- When showing a friend how to get it I manged to do it the first time and made it look easy, but it wasn't.

- The jump has to be perfectly timed.

- It took me a long while when I first did it, was really amazed I got back up there so easily the second time.

- I saw dozens of people running by me trying to get up there and every single one completely missed where you needed to climb up.

- I was amazed there are this many new players to the game.

- It is the only explanation because any older players would have immediately found where to climb up like I did.

- But getting up was half the problem, that jump needed perfection.

- My friend never got it, I told him to die and I just used mass rez and got him up there that way.

- A level 603 2 handed sword that looks freaking awesome.

- Too bad neither of us could use it.

- After I finished nagrand I went to talador and talador did not have as much effort put into it as nagrand.

- Nagrand ones took thinking, planning, looking, most of talador treasure were just easily found laying somewhere that did not take much effort to get to.

- You can tell blizzard designers put a lot of effort into the treasure in nagrand but it looks like they just threw them on the floor anywhere in talador.

- I ran into Hemet, in nagrand of course, where else would he be.

- I love that guy, hunter extraordinaire.

- Doesn't seem too happy being there however.

- I'll let you find him and talk to him to find out why.

- I ran into the mother of all rare mobs while doing treasure collecting in nagrand.

- It had 43 million life and was at the bottom of the ocean.

- And he could not be baited to come up.

- And even if you hit him at ranged and got really far away, he could still hit you.

- Not sure if that is a bug.

- He is also surrounded by level 100 and 101 elites.

- So he will not be an easy kill for sure.

- To give you a concept of how hard he is to kill, the world bosses have less health than he does.

- Yeah, that hard.

- More health than a world boss, under water, surrounded by strong elites.

- This guy will need a raid group.

- Tried to 2 man him.

- Did not go very well.

- So I did all the quests I could, found all the treasures I could, killed all the rares I could.

- All that is left are the dungeons and raids because the expansion has nothing else to offer.

- We need daily hubs, big time.

- Blizzard is over compensating from mists where people back lashed against dailies.

- Word to the wise for blizzard, being they missed it.

- People where not upset with the dailies, they did not hate the dailies, they just hated you gated things behind the dailies.

- If you add dailies and they are 100 percent optional, people will do them as a form of content when they are looking for something to do.

- People wanted you to remove the daily gating, not remove the dailies.

- Sometimes I think the people at blizzard take stupid pills every morning.

- With all that said...

- There is no reason to go out in the world once you do any of those things like completing loremaster, killing rares, collecting treasures, etc, because as I said, there is no repeatability anywhere.

- So warlords, unless they add a hell of a lot more to it, is sit in your garrison, or a city, and queue for stuff.

- Way to move backwards in game design blizzard.

- Congrats on destroying a great franchise.

- I loved that mists never gave me any reason to stay in a city, there was always some reason to be out in the world.

- Gone are those days. :(

- Beta is beta, lets hope they add something to do, change how rares work, add some dailies, something.

- There are other things I could do, but I would not grind them on beta, like the goblin faction reputation.

- Over all, there is not much to offer in this expansion.

- You know all that bag space they opened up for us?

- Well it was nice, when I first logged in.

- Now I have less bag space than I ever had before.

- Blizzard added too much crap to the game.

- And the trading post supplies do not stack, really?

- And the garrison follower upgrade items do not stack, really?

- I have nearly 2 royal satchels filled with that stuff.

- At least when I get a follower to 100 I can use some of it.

- But why pour so much junk into our bags, and make none of it stack?

- They could give me all 100 slots bags and I would probably fill them.

- Can't believe I have only been in the beta 2 weeks, not really going all out or anything, and I am already out of space.

- I do not want to see what will happen on live after I have been playing for a few months.

- LFR did open up so I figured I would give it a try.

- Zoned in on a boss with 7 stacks of determination.

- We wiped and the bosses health did not even budge, it was healing more than the damage we were doing.

- In a couple of attempts we finally got the grove on and started to damage it.

- But we could not do enough damage to kill it.

- We were killed by the enrage timer.

- Even our best attempt we were not close.

- But if there was no enrage we would have done it.

- A least half the raid was wearing a hellscreams downfall title so I would guess these were at the very least competent or capable people.

- And we still could not even get close to downing the boss.

- And LFR is supposed to be easier this expansion?

- Beta is beta, but this is really your first attempt at super easy LFR?

- When mostly heroic raiders can not down an LFR boss there is, without a doubt, major tuning issues here.

- Group fell apart and we never downed it.

- It was not a hard fight, easily really, and even not knowing about it picking up on it was no problem, kill adds, interrupt what you can, win.

- Not as easy as it sounds.

- I hope they give the level 100 mobs loot tables.

- If it goes live that all the mobs in the daily (the one we have) zone drop nothing except the rare crystal here or there, I see a major outrage coming.

- I did write blizzard and tell them, people like to loot stuff, even if they give them a standard junk only loot table with a few silver here and there they need to drop something.

- You can not ask us to kill all these mobs every day, and be really hard at fresh 100 item level, and they all drop nothing.

- Some of these zones I really feel bad for a fresh 100 that is not very good at their class.

- They are strong mobs, they are cluttered in huge packs sometimes, and there are many stronger or elite ones running around.

- Some areas are elite only.

- I see a lot of people dying a brutal death doing these dailies.

- Replaced all my SoO gear already, except my cloak.

- Did I mention the cloak no longer procs at 100, but it still has awesome stats.

- Every time I get a piece of gear with versatility on it I want to punch a blizzard employee.

- Not because I am angry, but because they deserve it for letting that stat get into the game.

- Seriously, how F'N useless of a stat is this.

- They really think this is a good idea?

- It should never be on any gear a hunter would wear, get it off my gear now blizzard.

- I feel dirty wearing gear with versatility on it.

- I feel like a noob hunter that rolls on resto shaman gear while wearing anything with versatility on it.

- It is wasted stat allotment.

- I swear I am going to put a bug report in on live whenever I get a piece of gear with versatility on it.

- Dear Blizzard, I found a piece of hunter gear that is bugged, it has a useless stat on it for a hunter named versatility, please fix.

- It is as useless as bonus armor or spirit on my gear, get it off my gear now.

- Your gear is basically one stat gear if you get a piece with versatility on it.

- We need reforging back blizzard and it should be a 100% change of a stat now.

- Really, just do it blizzard.

- Actually I dare you to do it so I can prove my point.

- When everyone in the entire game changes all their versatility to another actually useful and performance enhancing stat maybe you will realize how useless of a stat it is.

- Then you can use all that data you keep saying you collect to see that no one in the game has any versatility on their gear and you can remove it.

- Who the hell came up with this useless stat idea?

- And even worse, who the hell in their right mind allowed it to be put in the game?

- Does anyone at blizzard stand up and say something when someone comes up with these horrible ideas or are they all yes men?

- No need to answer that, we all know the answer.

- So now that I am done with everything (not group related or waiting on quests to pop up) that there is to do in the game through testing I can tell you the expansion has nothing to offer outside of garrisons.

- But I do like garrisons even if I did expect more.

- Not like they can keep me playing for more then a few minutes a day mind you, but I do like them.

- I plan to make a full post on garrisons later this week.

- Lots of little things to like about it.

- I still have not tested dungeons yet.

- Because to me the game needs to interest me on a personal level, group content is just for the sake of doing it.

- Outside of gear the game needs to offer me something if it wants me to do group content.

- And right now, with mass disconnections and lag, even for testing purposes, doing dungeons is not worth it right now.

- When it comes to live it will be different, we will need to do dungeons to gear up, and there should be no lag.

- But did I mentioned, there is no reason to really do group content either?

- Once you have gear from dungeons or LFR there is no reason to touch them with a 10 foot pole.

- There is no valor any longer, so no need to do stuff to build valor.

- There is no justice any longer, so no need to spam dungeons to get justice to buy heirlooms or convert to honor.

- So dungeons offer nothing except gear which means as soon as you get gear there is never a reason to do them.

- There are no motivating factors to get you into dungeons.

- To reward us with gold?

- I would sooner spend an hour on the auction house and make 100 times the amount doing one dungeon would net me.

- At least now you would do dungeons for some valor, or justice maybe.

- Now there is no reason to do them.

- So now if you queue up for a mists dungeon you will get a tank that will chain pull, because he can, or me who could solo it and does not need anyone, because I can, or many others that just make the run fast and smooth and fun.

- We do it for valor, that is our motivating factor.

- Without that do you know the only people you will ever see in dungeons.

- The people that need the gear from there.

- You are aware if you make a group of only people that need gear from a mists dungeon, it still could be somewhat of a challenge.

- Even more so if they are not even remotely skilled.

- But that is what it will be like, only people that need the gear in dungeons.

- Because there is no reason to go anywhere near them otherwise with no actual reward from them.

- No valor grinding means no need to touch dungeons after the first week of release on my main.

- Bad move blizzard, really bad move.

- So nothing to do at max level solo, nothing to do at max level as a group once you have gear, makes you wonder, do they want people to unsubscribe?

- We are less than 3 months away and they are not looking like they have even considered what people are going to do at max level yet.

- Because there is nothing to do at max level.

- I am not being grumpy, I am not being negative, I am being 100% honest here.

- They need to add content for max level, content that has replayability, content worth doing.

- Lets hope they pick up the production pace and add a hell of a lot of stuff.

- Otherwise I would not be surprised to see them lose another 2M subscribers over the life of warlords.

- I read some treads on a few forums asking, what do I do at 100.

- I would say, hang out in the garrison, that is all there is to do.

- Or better yet, log out and find something else to do.

- Lets hope blizzard reads those types of posts and notices they have their work cut out for them instead of just dismissing them as "haters gonna hate".

- The people complaining there is nothing to do at 100 are telling you what is wrong with the game blizzard, stop dismissing them as if their concerns do not matter.

- People are complaining because blizzard completely forgot to add any real lasting content to their new content.

- Garrisons post will be coming this week.

- What I call the main bright spot of this expansion.

- Have a great day.