- This is part one of two random thoughts today.
- But nothing random about this one, it is all on one topic.
- Just felt like venting, so I am random thought pattern venting.
- Skip this one and wait for the next one if you don't want to hear complaining.
- But if you read here I am guessing, my complaining is what entertains you.
- So hope you are entertained.
- No new 100s this week to report on.
- Might have one new one next week, depending on how motivated I am to play.
- Blizzard killed my motivation to level more characters with their changes to the salvage yard.
- It will come back I am sure, but I am no longer excited about getting more characters to max so I can get the level 3 salvage yard and churning out as many missions as possible.
- I had put in multiple bug reports this weekend about getting small bags of salvage instead of the big crates of salvage I am supposed to before I decided to put in a ticket about it.
- When it was one it was a bug report, when it was two, I put in another bug report, but after the third one, it was more than a bug report, I wanted a real answer and not just to report a bug, so I put in a ticket on how the level 3 salvage yard was broken.
- Turns out it wasn't, blizzard changed it without thinking anyone would notice.
- They really have balls don't they?
- Stuff like that should be announced, not working perfectly one hour and then when I go back an hour later is has changed.
- The ticket said it would take 4 days but the reply was rather quick, less than 24 hours.
- At least the GM I got was very polite and he sent a well explained response to my ticket.
- Color me surprised.
- Most ticket responses are just stupid generic cut and paste answers to something you never even asked.
- I thanked the GM for their response but did not close the ticket and marked the issue as resolved.
- It is not resolved, my level 3 salvage yard is still not giving me level 3 salvage, so no matter how well he explained it, it was still an issue.
- I said I appreciate their clear, accurate, informative and quick response but I the change was not acceptable.
- Simple as if you have a level 3 salvage yard you should get level 3 salvage.
- So the change is not acceptable.
- I know they will do nothing about it but I asked the GM to please revert my garrison to the way it was.
- No matter what his response is after that I will close the ticket.
- He gave a great response and explained their reasoning perfectly.
- I just needed to make myself heard that I was not happy with the change.
- If we do not let blizzard know we dislike a change, they will take it as meaning we like it.
- Can't let that happen.
- Blizzard could have fixed this in other ways but no one there is smart enough to realize that.
- They could have drastically reduced the drop rate of big crates for lower level missions.
- That might even have gone unnoticed.
- It is not like people were getting filthy rich off the darn crates anyway.
- Out of all the people in my guild with the level 3 salvage yards they have going and a few being on all the time to start new missions as often as possible we never saw much.
- I would say, combined, we had done near 5000 missions.
- We, as a group, received 2 665 items, and 1 645 follower piece.
- So we were not exactly overflowing with over powered goodies were we?
- So I have to ask blizzard, was giving us the big crates for the small missions really giving away too much?
- No, absolutely not.
- As the GM explained it was more about not wanting to make people feel as if they needed to log in all the time to keep missions going.
- I can understand, I felt that way myself.
- Was even trying to squeeze in missions before I left for work.
- The first time in many years I was logging into wow before going to work.
- I was enjoying the game, that is why I was doing this.
- Blizzard can't have that, can't have people enjoying the game.
- How dare we enjoy the game.
- That can not happen.
- Now, who cares.
- Not like I am going to get crates from the smaller missions any longer.
- So no need to make sure I have 20 running at all times.
- Once again blizzard made a change to save us from ourselves.
- The figured people would burn out fast from having to log into characters all the time to keep missions running.
- So if they made those missions worthless, we wouldn't burn out on them, because we would not do them.
- That is why they made this change.
- How exactly did something blizzard do to save us from ourselves work out the last time they did it?
- Do you remember?
- I do.
- The gated august celestial and shado-pan reputation behind golden lotus reputation so we would not feel as if we had to work on all of them at the same time.
- It went over like a lead balloon.
- No one liked it.
- Blizzard should stop trying to save us from ourselves.
- So I do, in a way, appreciate the change to salvage in saving me from myself, but it really did decrease my enjoyment of the expansion a fair deal.
- No longer do I feel like rushing characters to max to level to get them all the level 3 salvage yard.
- No longer do I feel the need to log in as often as possible.
- No longer do I feel like even when I am not playing I should check back every so often to send out new mission.
- No longer do I have the one thing I was really enjoying about the expansion.
- Sure, we now get big crates at a 100% drop rate for 100 missions.
- But there is a huge difference.
- Lower missions needed 1 character, 100 missions need 3.
- So you could do more lower missions.
- Lower missions took 30 minutes to 2 hours at most, 100 missions thae 4 hours to 10 hours mostly.
- So you could do more lower missions.
- Lower missions needed one skill to complete, some 100 missions needed up to 6.
- So it was easier to finish lower missions.
- Lower missions had a better base rate of success starting at 35% to 50% sometimes where as 100 missions start a 0%.
- So success rates on lower missions were better.
- Lower missions just needed a follower, sometimes any follower, 100 missions need specific followers at specific item levels.
- So it was more likely to have the right people for lower missions.
- See, lower missions were just easier, more often, and as such worked as content that kept me coming back to send them out again.
- Now I sit there with 10 level 100 missions and no team that is capable of doing them at a reasonable success rate.
- So I don't send anyone out.
- Or I send groups out with a 60% or less chance and personally I hate doing that.
- So what was fun and exciting 2 days ago is just another boring piece of junk presented to you by blizzard, the people that could even ruin a day in heaven.
- Making changes where none were need.
- The blizzard motto is, if people are enjoying it, remove it quick.
- I wish I had more random thoughts right now.
- But I don't.
- I am completely baffled by this arbitrary change for no reason.
- Why remove something that did not need removing?
- Another one of blizzards knee jerk reactions to fix something without thinking first.
- Not like it even needed fixing to begin with.
- But as I mentioned, they could have lowered the drop rate of the crates on low level quests and it could have went by completely unnoticed.
- But instead, they did this?
- Do they think before they act?
- This is proof they do not.
- Sorry to leave you a one topic random thoughts, I will make another one later that is more fitting for random thoughts.
- Have a great day.
The Queue: “Hope” is the thing with feathers
1 hour ago
Ah this explains what I'd noticed, that I wasn't getting very many salvage boxes anymore. Previously I'd get a few everytime I collected missions. I like missions and like you was logging in throughout the day to collect and send out again. I still need 3 more followers to 100 for the achievement but the salvage was like a nice bonus.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shame as your stats prove it wasn't hurting anyone. Out of all those thousands of missions to only get 3 high level items is almost too low IMO. I would have thought that increasing salvage would have been a better hotfix than decreasing it. Honestly it's not like it was hurting anyone.
I have my level 3 salvage yard, I hadn't really seen anything good from it. Mostly just weapon follower upgrades which is annoying as now their armor is massively behind.
Blizz doesn't need to save the playerbase from itself. We'll do what we want and trying to manage it, well it's that kind of garbage that leads to things like 'no flying' so we play how they want is too. I know it's their game and all but even so, within the confines of possibility, what does it matter if some people do one thing and others do something else?
I agree with you dumb change.
I guess some people where complaining because they had to work and the people that could be on all day long could do more missions than they could and get more and they felt it was unfair. As one of those people that work, I agree, but guess what, I don't care. If they have more free time to spend in game than I do, more power to them.
DeleteI would have rathered they just lowered the drop rate from lesser level missions than change them completely.
Here's what happens:
ReplyDeleteThey design something. That something has multiple factors which interact with each other and interact with other parts of the game. The factors have to be balanced as a set, so they throw some numbers at the wall until they think it kinda works. They invite the beta testers. The beta testers work out the ways the factors interact, find the imbalances, report them, provide other feedback.
What should happen: Blizzard make quick adjustments based on feedback, the testing repeats. After several iterations we have something that more or less works.
What happens in reality, in particular with WoD, but also with previous expansions / patches: Blizzard don't have time / diligency to even read the feedback more than cursorily, they underestimate the scale of issues, think it is going to work out reasonably fine (and, I guess, say to themselves, that they don't have time to do much anyway), so they do a couple of minor random last-moment "fixes", which frequently destabilize things even more and go ahead with the expansion / patch.
The issues soon become apparent, and Blizzard have to act now, because the issues are, indeed, huge (like beta testers reported). Blizzard try to patch issues, but since there is more than one and Blizzard again don't have time (and ability) to think carefully and address them all at once, the process goes like this: Blizzard patch a couple of issues, the balance tilts heavily in the other direction, they scratch their collective head and patch some more, the balance tilts again, etc, until it all kinda stabilizes - frequently not at all in the best spot. All this is done on live, infuriating players to no end.
In essence, we are in the beta phase. What they called the beta was the alpha. They are fixing things that should have been fixed long ago. That's the main issue.
Of course it was huge, I said it here many times that a level 3 salvage yard was required of everyone. That is me and thousands of other bloggers, forum posters, and such. It is not like it was any secret. They should have left well enough alone. This was not some "surprise" that snuck up on them.
DeleteIt does seem like we are all playing an open beta because they did not listen to anything anyone said on the actual beta where they were supposed to.
Yep, reducing the chance to obtain a crate on lower level missions would have been the much better way to go. I submitted my bug report first thing and saw the Tweet today. Not happy.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that they started stacking follower upgrades, but think that two-stack issue is weird. I swear it looked like it was playing three card monte trying to get them to one stack.
My luck has netted me way more armor upgrades than weapon. I have stacks and stacks of all sorts of armor with most of my 100s in at least blue armor now. Very few weapon upgrades. Poop.
Also, as an aside to your earlier post on missions, I received a mission for a 645 neck and was successful. The replacement mission for that was for a 655 crate... and that turned out to be a neck. Still an upgrade, but why does it feel like a failure? Humans are weird.
I don't understand why blizzard never goes the route that makes sense, like what I mentioned lowering the drop rate, and always goes the route that they are sure will promote someone to complain.
DeleteLike I said, if they lowered the drop rate some it might have even gone unnoticed.
I noticed the two of the same stack issue as well. My only guess is ones you get from missions do not stack with ones you get from salvage. That is the only thing I can think of. But hey, at least they stack now.
I know what you mean. Always feels like a failure to get something you already have.
So wait a minute, Crates dont drop from low lvl missions At All now? Like a lvl 99 3 follower mission wont ever drop a crate, not even a small crate?
ReplyDeleteI got the lvl 3 salvage yard on Saturday, and was pleased to see all 4 lvl 100 missions I finished Sunday give me a crate.
I guess I can handle this change, but it makes me much less interested in checking back often to send guys on the lower lvl missions.
Level 95 to 99 still have a small chance to drop a big crate, but level 90 to 94 only drop level 1 salvage now.
DeleteSee, that is what I am getting at. Before it was something you were excited to do, now with the change, eh, maybe I will check later. This is why I think it is a bad idea.