It was really the first question I answered here I wanted to complain about but I went and dragged out a few more that I could do a little bitching about for fun. It has been a while since I went on a full out complaining streak, so I might be a little out of practice. Lets have some fun with the clueless devs of WoW, shall we.
Question:
Spirit as a secondary/primary stat. It's super discouraging that we as healers don't have any enchants, gems, or flasks with spirit. The nerfing of that crystal recently you get in the inn was hard hit also. My question is: What is spirit? Secondary stat or Primary stat? Why can't we have it on either gems and enchants or flasks? It should really be treated as one or the other. It just seems unfair as the odd one out, when tanks even get a stam flask to use.
Answer:
It's your best secondary stat as a healer, similar to what Armor is for tanks. Early on in beta, you actually could get Spirits gems/flasks/food, but we found that it undermined part of the point of consumable philosophy. We removed primary stats from gems and enchants in order to add some player choice and allow players to customize their secondary stats in a post-reforging world. If you want to try a crit-heavy build or want to stack mastery on your healer, you can use our profession system to accomplish that. But if Spirit were an option, it would clearly be the correct choice, and you'd never for a moment consider using any of those other secondary stat options. So in the interest of preserving some interesting choice, we removed Spirit and Armor food/gems/enchants and balanced healers around that change.
My Comment:
I have two major problems with this answer.
1) What is it, a primary stat or a secondary stat? You completely ignored that part of the question. You call it a secondary stat and then say you decided not to make gems and enchants for it. Well, being gems and enchants are for secondary stats and you call it a secondary stat there should be gems and enchants for it.
Stop the double talk and tell us what it is and then back that up by treating it as what it is. If it is a secondary stat then have gems and enchants for it. If it is a main stat then have flasks and potions for it. If it is a bonus stat, then do not count it toward the stat budget on the item. Spirit (and bonus armor) is a stat without a home. It is half a stat. Start treating it like either a main stat or a secondary stat or make some major changes otherwise. Don't call it a secondary stat, clump it with the main stats, and then do nothing for it one way or the other.
2) You want gems and enchants to give people choice and do not want spirit to be an option because it would be the correct choice. Hate to break it to you numb nuts but there will always be a correct choice. When numbers are involved there is always a right and wrong. That is not up for debate, that is an absolute concrete fact. You can debate the numbers maybe, but it will end in right and wrong. So sure, if you want to try a crit heavy build you can have one, but if it is the wrong choice it will still be the wrong choice.
Stop trying to say spirit is not an option to add gems and enchants for because it would be the correct choice and you want to give options. There are no options. The correct choice will always be the correct choice.
If anything adding spirit would actually allow for more choice. Someone really good with managing mana will have fewer or no spirit gems and enchants, someone that is average might have some, and someone that is a rookie might have all. You see, that gives choice. Leaving it just basic secondary stats mean the best stat is what you add so if haste is your best stat you make everything haste, no questions asked. No choice involved.
Adding spirit adds choice. You add lots when you are starting and slowly remove some as you get better gear and better at managing your mana. How do you not see that as choice. Spirit gems and enchants would offer choice, a hell of a lot more choice than the other secondary stats which are based on numbers and not of fell of use like spirit is. Seriously, did you even think before you said that line that spirit would offer no choice. Think mcfly think.
Question:
What's the deal currently with your stance on flying, any new developments, or insights?
Response:
Overall, we’re happy with how ground travel in Draenor has played out thus far, and we’ve heard a lot of feedback to that effect as well, though we of course recognize that there are players who feel differently. We’ll have more to announce about our 6.1 patch plans in the very near future, but as the focus of our endgame outdoor content remains in the main Draenor zones, our reasons for disallowing flight in 6.0 continue to apply in 6.1. Whether you’re navigating your way to Orumo the Observer in Shattrath Rise, trying to reach a treasure cache atop a column in Spires, or working your way around the ledges encircling The Pit, you’re engaging in gameplay that simply would not exist in a world with unfettered flight. It was never our intent to make large-scale navigation of the world inconvenient, and in 6.1 we’re going to be improving our flight path system to always take the most direct route between two points, even if you have not discovered some of the intermediate nodes. Please keep the feedback coming – if you’re unhappy with the design, some of the most helpful feedback would be specific examples of situations or systems that feel frustrating without being able to fly in Draenor.
My Comment:
First, I am glad you are happy with ground travel. Forgive me if I put absolutely no stock in your opinion on the matter as you are being paid to have that opinion. If blizzard sent me a check each week to say how no flying was great I would be touting the complete awesomeness of it here every single day too.
Now to your examples.
Orumo the Observer is not hard to navigate to without getting into any battles, or too many battles. All being on the ground does is slow down you getting there, not increase the fun of getting to him because lets face it, who on this earth thinks it is fun to have to stop for meaningless and useless battles on your way to something you actually want to fight. I'll hazard a guess here and say no one.
Caches in spires are not fun jumping puzzles. On my night elf, which is my main and I am pretty good with movement and jumping with it so I managed to make the jumps and snag the stuff easily, no big deal. On my mage, a gnome, who jumps differently and I am not as used to moving on it all this ends up being is an effort in frustration. I can not tell you how many alts I have already said, screw it, I'll wait for flying, while leveling them. I know many people that hate jumping games with a passion and have never even once in my entire life playing this game have I met anyone that said they enjoyed them and wished there were more of them because the are so fun. So no, jumping to get to stuff is nothing more than annoying at best.
Circling around the pit is engaging gameplay? On what universe do you live in where running in a circle is fun? Are you secretly a dog that gets a kick out of running in circles chasing your own tail? No, it is not engaging gameplay. Never has been. Never will be. What the hell are you smoking?
Now I actually like being on the ground right now but I would like flying. It would make archaeology less annoying, my pet collecting more fun, my rare hunting more efficient and my game play over all more satisfying. Simple that that.
If I were to say that so far this expansion I have gotten on a flight path 20 times having forgotten something I had wanted to do or seeing a mission pop up finished just seconds after I took flight I would be greatly under estimating. Each time that happens I say, I wish we had flying because I would just turn around and land and do what I forgot.
And please stop with the we will make fight paths better line until they are actually going to make an attempt to do so. While I admit they are slightly better this expansion, they are still much longer than they need to be. They still go from point to point to point to point to point to destination instead of from point A to point B. They also still move way to slow to be a reasonable replacement for flying. So forgive me if once again I do not believe a word that comes out of your mouth when you say you will make flight paths better. I've been listening to it for so many years. Something you say but have no intention of actually doing has a word for it, a lie. So stop saying it. You are not ever going to make fight paths direct, at least not in the middle of an expansion. Maybe at the start of the next one, but we will not see any reasonable or adequate changes now so stop pretending like we will.
I am all for keeping us grounded for "new" content. I don't mind leveling on the ground. I don't even mind grinding and doing dailies on the ground right now. But once 6.1 comes out all the release zones of draenor will be old content and we should be allowed to fly. There is no real reason to keep us grounded in old content. Heck, I believe that flying should be enabled in places like timeless island and the isle of thunder now as well.
In the end what it comes down to is if you personally like it so much and think it works great, so you want to be on the ground, there is nothing keeping you from being on the ground even once flying is available. So if you really truly believe the garbage you are shoveling that you like it grounded, add flying once 6.1 comes out when all the release content is now old content and stay on a ground mount. Everyone wins that way. And we will point and laugh at you as we pass you wasting your time traveling on a ground mount while we are actually getting somewhere where we will be playing the game. Playing is always more enjoyable than traveling. Always.
Question:
Scenarios were a great thing for DPS to jump in a quick queue for and do for slightly less rewards than a heroic. Is there any chance we will see end game scenario queues even if it is for the leveling scenarios already in game?
Answer:
That was definitely one of the great benefits of the scenarios for sure. We don't anticipate having queued scenarios for WoD atm (although I wouldn't rule them out for future expansions), and we do have some ideas for how we can significantly improve dps queue times, but they will take some time for us to make happen.
My Comment:
Why did you not include any in on launch? They are cheaper to make, production wise, than dungeons because the scenes are already in game and you do not need new art. They can use all models already in game. They can tell a story. They make for faster queue times for damage dealers. I really do not see a downside to having them in game. I have yet to hear even a remotely reasonable explanation for why blizzard effectively removed content for no reason other than "we didn't feel like making it". Sorry to break it to you, but removing content is a bad thing. Maybe one day someone that works there will figure that one out.
Question:
Could you elaborate on how you would shorten DPS queue times?
Answer:
We could potentially allow another dps in a dungeon and use scaling tech to accommodate both 5 and 6 player groups for them.
My Comment:
No, just no. Why would you do this? So the under geared healers that will be doing them now have 4 idiots standing in the fire to heal? No thank you.
How about make a reason for people that can tank and heal them to spam them and then DPS queue times will go down. And no, baggies are not an answer. Try justice and valor and allowing them to convert to honor and conquest, as well as giving worthwhile things to buy with them and you will see how fast those queue times drop as everyone and their mother that has a tank or healing offspec and seriously over gears them starts spamming them to get something worthwhile from them. Valor and justice are an awesome incentive, as all previous expansions have showed, when there is something worth buying with them. Oh wait, you removed those too because you are obsessed with removing content. Sorry, forgot about that. I'll try to not mention you removing content for no real reason again. I am sorry.
Question:
Is there any consideration into redoing the run animation for Night Elves?
Answer:
Yes, I believe that's on the list of things to refine, potentially in patch 6.1. Don't quote me on that though. =]
My Comment:
Too late, already quoted you on it.
The real question is, when night elves were released on beta many people complained, myself included, instantly, about how dreadful the run animation was. It was not like it was an isolated incident where it was just me that disliked it. There were countless forum posts, blog posts, you tube videos, you name it, all talking about how horrible it was, making fun of it, asking for something to be done and not only was nothing done, it was completely ignored from the designers. Why?
This should have been fixed on beta. At least for a company that actually listens to any feed back seeing the huge outcry over this it would have been. Shows blizzard does not listen and if it is not changed in 6.1 it will just further show they do not listen. This is the single most complained about thing (out side of same face) that I have seen about the character remodels. How does this get over looked?
Well, that was fun. Was nice to get my grumpy on again. Leave it up to the devs to give me few good things to chew on for fun.
Really, I still do not get it. Spirit would offer no choice? Really. Really. Spirit is about feel, not numbers. And lets even pretend it was a flat number issue, what is the difference between stacking haste or stacking spirit. Best would still be best right? No choice my ass.
Have a great day.
The Queue: “Hope” is the thing with feathers
1 hour ago
Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:
ReplyDeleteWell, I can't get past the no flight likely ever in WoD, maybe not even into the new expansion beyond this one. I am still going to stick to my plan of buying the new expansion even so and the reason why is that I am convinced I can make it to level 100 without ever having to set foot in Draenor beyond what is needed to get my primary crafters up to level 700 proficiency.
That means I will need to have my jewelcrafter, my scribe, my alchemist, my tailor/enchanter, my blacksmith/Leather worker and my engineer all do some duty time in Draenor to get the skill level up to 700. That means six characters in Draenor, but I am willing to bet that most of their leveling will be done in Pandaria, where they will be able to fly and for all but two of them, all the quests will be brand spanking new.
It really is stubbornness on my part to keep on playing. I don't enjoy the game nearly as much as I once did. It is only the promise I made to myself to hit level 100 that keeps me playing to be frank. The games appealing qualities are beginning to be overshadowed for me by the things I find less so. Blizzard does not seem to plan in advance beyond the next expansion and the fact is they keep re-inventing the wheel with every expansion. In truth, with Blizzard an expansion should be really called a replacement. They redesign the game every time and that is so dang unnecessary.
The game rules should stay reasonably consistent and be applicable to just about all situations. That is part and parcel of why blizzards mounted combat generally sucks. Instead of doing the obvious thing and having mounts treated as pets or minions, mounts are simply faster feet (or wings). A mount should be able to have its own health bar, an attack that can be learned to use as a combat attack under the control of the player, and the player should be able to learn to attack from mount back as a skill apart from other training. Instead...ya got faster feet or wings--but not in current content.
The unwillingness of Blizzard to design to the specifications I want seems like a reason to me to get what enjoyment and satisfaction I can out of the game and then simply quit. And likely, that is where I am headed.
The good thing is I can give you a nice little path to go as directly to the quest you need to do to learn your professions to limit your time there. However, you will need lots and lots and lots of crafting materials from warlords to level them. Perhaps with just the garrisons you can get most of it done however, and trade for the rest. But you will need to spend time on draenor if you want to level professions, there are not ifs ands or buts about it. And unless you want it to take literally a year to level your profession, you will need to use the garrison builds to get the resources that are needed in large amount for every single thing you can make.
DeleteI you like pet battling, you can actually level from 90 to 100 just through that and never need to step foot on draenor. But that would leave the professions behind.
For completeness sake, you can also reach level 100 by doing Archeology in Azeroth (and/or the Profession Dailies).
DeleteAlthough (s)he seems to have stopped playing, too, because of specifically the loss of Archeology progress due to the bug mentioned earlier, one of the more vocal posters on the EU levelled her plethora of characters that way to 100 so it should be perfectly possible.
Though for Professions you need Draenor and effectively Garrisons.
Basically yes.
DeleteLeveling through arch, that is one of the rare ones. I've leveled with pet battles, but not that.
I'm biased when it comes to flight. I would like it at minimum unlocked at level cap, preferably I would only like to have to level once to cap without it and after that unlock it for my account. I much prefer flying for the convenience of it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, trying to be semi-reasonable about it. There's still one major argument in favour of flight - archaeology. As it is I didn't get all the archy achievements in Pandaria as there were so many of them. That means if I want to grind archy I can head back to Pandaria and fly. However, if they don't ever unlock flying then the way to do Draenor will be to do archy where you can fly and buy fragments for Draenor. All my fragment purchases are still on Tol'vir for that damn mount but I'd swap to Draenor once it was done.
I haven't healed yet this expansion, haven't levelled any alts yet but I probably will at some point. To be honest I think the stat overhaul is awful. All those new stats, the squish, it's just a mess. I know reforging, enchants, gems etc. the whole thing was a lot of work but then I had control, I understood what I was doing. Right now I know what stats are good but I have no real control over whether I have them or not. I'm using identical gear for prot and ret, just different weapons, as I haven't been able to get any proper itemized gear. I miss reforging and the whole needing to get a drop to unlock profession, the whole weird way they've screwed with profession training, just professions generally it sucks. I don't understand it anymore.
I have confidence issues and optimizing my gear, making sure everything was right, really helped me. People scare me and LFG can be really intimidating. However, knowing I was in the right, that my character was as ready as possible, it was like a shield. I still haven't done any heroics yet as I've been too nervous. I'm not a bad tank but they have readjusted so much since Mists. Everytime I look there's a call to arms for tanks but a bag just doesn't cut it. Everytime I see someone ask "how can we cut dps queue times?", the answer isn't a 4th dps in a dungeon and it's not more bribes. The answer is for blizz to stop screwing with things.
I have always loved tanking but Mists took that to a whole new level with active mitigation. Now I feel weak. Even right at the beginning of Mists there was feeling to my rotation. I could see the difference in how hard my buttons hit, my self healing did what I expected, my cooldowns felt like cooldowns, like the oh shit buttons they are. Now? I just feel weak, everything hits the same, my self healing doesn't do much at all, the cds don't feel like they do anything either. Blizz messed with so much and for what reason? If they can take someone like me, who actually loves tanking, loves dungeons, and make me not want to queue, then why would they attract new tanks? I have a questlog full of inn quests, 24/25 as I'm a coward. I've heard heroics are hard and I don't have anyway to build my confidence.
I bet you never thought anyone would say they missed reforging?
Anyway that's a bit offtopic but it kinda goes with what you were saying about blizz removing things all the time. Sure I get the idea, something drops they want people to be excited, not store it and wait because they have to reforge, enchant and gem all their gear again due to stat balancing. It's just it's like one extreme to the other.
For prot you would need to look for neck, cloak, rings and trinkets with bonus armor. Otherwise you can use the same stuff. Except weapons of course as you need different ones for each.
DeleteDungeons are not so horrible if you get people that have a clue. Even in a complete pug semi knowledgeable people can make it a nice run. But the sad part is that one bad person can really ruin a run super fast. And that is not even talking about the bad people in terms of attitude and such. I am talking one hunter using barrage and pulling a second pack, one tank that does not know where to aim the charge on the first boss in grimrail, one healer that can't keep up with the heaps of damage. They, at this gear level, do need decent players but they are not hard, not like opening of cataclysm hard. That is the only problem.
I said removing reforging was a mistake before they even removed it. The second they announced removing it I said it was a horrible decision. Still have no clue why they removed it. I knew, if I gave it enough time, people would come around to see what I saw and it seems you and many others are now. There seems to be a small but growing movement to try and get reforging back.
Except for the self healing which is weaker, I don't see much change in prot. Our rotation feels about the same for example, we still kept most of our abilities unlike other classes that were stripped (I miss wings just for the visual). We don't have insane haste like we used to but you get used to it. Mastery feels ok, reminds me of Cata. And you worry way too much about not having best stats on gear. I actually like plopping whatever piece on me and every piece having the potential of being closer to best piece stat-wise. Sort of like Wrath.
DeleteI think I've LFG-ed very dungeon I've been in so just get out there, it isn't actually as bad as you think. I think you've just lost confidence because you're not raiding anymore. Let go and you'll do fine.
I feel druid self healing was destroyed. A hunter with spirit bond out heals me even if I spam FR the entire fight. It is dreadful. Maybe I should give paladin a try again. Is it really that much better in the self healing department? I just don't like feeling so weak and so healer dependent. My DK feels strong in the self healing department but I like druid tanking better personally.
DeleteNo, self healing is quite weak. It's the only thing that truly feels changed, as I said. But you get used to it.
DeleteI guess it is one of those things that will take time. Thanks for answering.
DeleteJust one want tank spec that feels as if it can take care of itself again, that isn't a DK that is.
If you want some numbers... in a hc 22man Imperator. with a druid and a paladin tank and 6 healers, top healer did 22m healing, last healer 19m, paladin tank 13.5m (out of which 4.2m absorb), druid tank 9.3m (out of which 4.4 absorb). So tanks are ok-ish. There is no dps nearly close to that. The 3 hunters with chimaera shot and healtstones are at about 0.5m.
DeleteI guess my druid will get better with gear. I just got so used to vengeance and healing so much it is taking a lot of getting used to. Loved solo tanking garrosh. I would tell the healers no need to worry about me. As long as I was getting hit I could heal myself all day every day. I miss that. But I completely understand why it was changed. It was too powerful.
DeleteI don't always agree with everything you say. But I agree with everything you say today.I'm miffed about the flying. I got my 'fun' out of the jumping puzzles the first time through Spires, my alts were waiting for flying. I've also been waiting for flying just to fly around and look at all the things I can't get to or see from the ground. Zones like Nagrand just make me angry to run around in sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI don't find it at all engaging gameplay to run around for 2-3 times longer than it would normally take me to get to something just trying to figure out the one little finicky path up to it. What I find it is frustrating. Rather than puzzling something out it means that frequently I go... 'eh forget it' and hearth back to my garrison.
As someone who is trying to raid main a healer this expansion... wtf is up with spirit and the double standard on rules that doesn't really make it seem like either a primary or secondary stat, just 'the stat we don't want you to be able to have'. Making healing harder and then taking out spirit seems like a good way to increase dps times by making mostly only dedicated people even want to mess with it.
Reforging also should have stayed in. I don't know anybody who likes RNG so much that they're happy to be entirely at its mercy when it comes to gear stats the way you are now with crafting.
The male night elf run definitely needs to be fixed. It should have been fixed before release, but I've honestly felt like male night elf remodels were very much a second thought at the bottom of their priority list, so it's probably not surprising they got stuck with at terrible run animation too.
I enjoyed your grumpy post today. Thanks for sharing.
You mention the perfect line "eh forget it". So many people I've heard say that already. They are doing something, it gets annoying or frustrating and they say "eh forget it". There is fun on the ground and wasted time on the ground, making us run all over the place more than once is no longer fun on the ground, it is "eh forget it".
DeleteThey need to get off their butts and decide what spirit is and then treat it like that. It can not be in a league of its own. It either needs to be a secondary and this have gems and enchants for it or a main and then have potions and flasks for it. It NEEDS one or the other.
I really miss reforging. It was always a straight out math thing on damage dealers, but it allowed me complete control over my healing experience and I loved that.
Night elves look super bad. I agree it seems like they were a rush job just to meet a deadline. Kind of much of the expansion seems like that, but nothing more than the male models.
Glad you enjoyed it.
- Spirit/Armor: let's just call it an extra special role stat for healers and tank. it's neither primary nor secondary, it's just some powerful stat to distinguish some gear from pure dps gear and give extra power but doesn't do anything beyond that. there's no need to classify them as primary or secondary imho.
ReplyDelete- Flying: I'm with you there, at least partly. I think we can agree that flying during levelling time would be bad. But I'm also tired of wasting time to climb some mountain in nagrand for the 29384723th time in order to get to the same glider so I can get all those badly needed GR caches. But now that I've done almost all of them, I'd be quite angry if flying would be handed out just for free. Imho, they should bring it, but linked to a hard achievement, like getting all treasure or 200 or something. That would make kinda sense imho.
In any case, they should implement back flying for dead players immediately. The slow walk, being stuck in stuff, falling off and then taking ages to get back or having to reset position is just frustrating. I've managed to die in the pit once or twice (me being tired + barrage usually results in death) and I've considered just spirit rezzing and go to the kitchen to make some tea and cookies and wait out the timer every time I saw how stupidly far away I am.
- Scenarios: yeah I miss them too. I liked spontaneousely jumping in them with some friends while chatting away in TS. That was fun. I wonder why they removed them, they were pretty fun and well done, and much more flexible than 5 mans. The Inn could provide content for scenarios too, as well as other buildings.
- 6 man dungeons: yes, pretty please! I fully disagree with you on this one, but it also looks like you've had MUCH worse experience in random groups than I did according to your previous comments and posts. Imho, an additional DPS would improve the DPS/heal+tank ratio. Stuff dying faster means lower risk of healers running oom or tanks running out of CDs. And I'll take a shorter queue any time! 30 min are just too long.
NE running: hahahahahahah! sorry. :P but it is ridiculous, yeah.
Removing content: I'm with you on this one. I dislike how they patched things out of the game, like the levelling weapons from Garrosh for instance. Or the inability to aquire the CM set, mounts, and the legendary cloak. There doesn't seem to be a good reason for this. It's a shame, really.
Then they need to keep listing on gear "with" the main stats and referring to them as secondary stats. We can not adjust to a new theory of "special case" stats when they keep referencing them as main and secondary stats. If they want them to be something different, they need to actually make them something different.
DeleteI think flying should be linked to the loremaster draenor achievement. But there isn't one of those so forget that. Maybe the treasure hunter one for 200 treasures. Once you find 200 then you can fly, thus it will not devalue all your work getting those hard ones because that is what helped allow you to unlock flying in the first place. Sound reasonable to you?
I also think once unlocked it should be account bound. And I would not mind if it were tied to 100 and you could only fly at 100 ensuring you still level on the ground.
I would agree with 6 man, or even 7 man dungeons, if they removed AoE damage from all fights. Do not pressure the healer alone to make the DPS lives easier. It is unfair.
Yeah, night elf run is a sad story for sure.
I really had wanted to go back and get the cloak on some alts one of these days while soloing it. Sad they removed that.
I agree with all your points, I already miss flying especially when I'm doing archaeology. It is really disappointing that I cannot use my flying mounts in current content and may never be able to do so again. I'm not sure how much longer I'll continue to play if they keep with that choice, I haven't upgraded my secondary account to WoD and I probably won't. My daughter plays on that one and she doesn't want to play if she can't fly on her druid.
ReplyDeleteHowever, re the current zones being 'old content' in 6.1, I believe I read somewhere that the plan is to incorporate new patch content into existing zones and that's why enabling flying in patch 6.1 won't work etc.
I think they should stop doing the 'maybe next patch' dance with flying. I have guildies that didn't realise flying wasn't an option and wanted to know where the trainer was when they hit 100. They have to stop messing around and giving people hope things will change. People take the comment 'currently no flying in Draenor' with the new mount to mean there will be flying soon. They have to stop being evasive and just say outright there will be no flying in WoD. They're already doing patch 6.2 content, they know what the plan is and they need to stop giving ppl a glimmer of hope.
Archaeology and pet battling are the two things I hear people that miss flying say they miss it because of that the most. Arch seems like a profession that was designed with the intention of being able to fly. Or at least I always felt that way about it.
DeleteI agree, they need to stop with this maybe stuff. Make some decisions and be firm about it. Or tell us outright that you do not want to let us know what you have planned if you have not made up your mind. Stop with the maybe stuff.
I see at least a dozen people in trade each day asking where to learn flying. Most guild mates as soon as they hit 100 asked where they buy flying. If there were ever a reason there should be flying it is that. People believe it to be part of the main game, because it is.
OK, so I'll give a quick comment on the stuff (following the flow of the Wowhead summary), but generally, I agree with Grumpy.
ReplyDelete-General
-Heirloom Collection System: Good that it's coming in 6.1 but should have been there at launch
-Transmog System: It's bullshit that it's so hard for them to do this that we have to wait until the next expansion...
-Success of New Versatility Stat: "I think we wound up with more secondary stats than we really need." No shit sherlock! There was no reason to add any new stats whatsoever. They were moving in a good direction by removing hit/expertise/dodge/parry. They should have also removed spirit and gave healers the same benefit using haste. So three secondary stats: Crit, Haste, Mastery are enough stats to work with, especially as Grumpy said, there is always a right stat and a wrong stat. And no need for any new tertiary stats. 1. they were not needed. 2. we didn't need more RNG on gear.
-No Flying for 6.1: I think I'll leave it at that...
-Apexis Gear with Random Stats: This is why reforging was a good thing... The only thing that made it so that you couldn't just slap your gear on when it dropped was hit/expertise, not reforging. On another note, I don't understand why they removed valor and valor gear to replace it with apexis and apexis gear... It's the same system done in a different way. They gave all these "reasons" for removing valor but they violated all of those reasons by adding apexis.
-Garrisons
-Garrisons Easier for Alts: I really wish that all the buildings were available to everyone and that the Garrison was account wide. If you're solo, you can grind them all out over time. If you have alts, you don't have to build everything from scratch every time. Basically with the current implementation, Blizzard is saying, "If you want to get a complete Garrison, you must have 4 max level characters." Which is just stupid. This could have been an experiment for allowing a character to learn all professions at once. If it worked out, they could allow it next expansion, if not, they would just leave that aspect of the Garrison behind.
-Character Models
-Night Elf Run Animation: "I believe that's on the list of things to refing"... It should have been definitively on the list of things to modify before it even got put on beta... What idiot thought it looked good???
-Classes
-Healing and Spirit in PvE: This ties in with my comments above. Either Spirit is a true Secondary stat (with enchants, etc) or it shouldn't exist at all and should be combined with Haste.
-Rate of Class Changes: Let me rephrase their answer "Hold on to your butts! The ride ain't over yet!" It's good that they are trying to fix it, but it's a problem that they created themselves, so... As Anon mentioned, they feel the need to totally change game play with every expansion, and I really just don't understand that.
Part 2...
Delete-PvP
-Ashran Zone Design: Thank goodness for those outer areas. I never would have done the Ashran apexis dailies if I couldn't do PvE in the PvP zone. When you are killed by another player, you lose some of the items you need to farm for the daily. It's stupid and encourages you to not do PvP, so I went out and did PvE just like I would for the other dailies. However now that they "fixed" faction balance for Ashran, there is a queue... The Ashran daily came up yesterday. I sat in queue for what felt like 10 minutes and said screw it. I went and did the 800 apexis daily instead because I couldn't wait any longer. So I think I'm probably done with Ashran now.
-Dungeons, Raids, Scenarios
-No Queued Scenarios in WoD: I think the main problem is not that they didn't add scenarios, it's that they tuned the Heroic dungeons incorrectly. If you want to do challenging dungeons, go do Challenge modes. I think heroic dungeons were best in Wrath, they shouldn't be faceroll but they should be easy and quick. Waiting in the queue for 30 minutes as DPS is honestly a waste of my time. I try to do one heroic every day to knock out some Inn quests and get some garrison resources. However now that my iLvL is 630, I rarely get a useful 630 item from a dungeon run, so I have less and less desire to do them.
-Shorten DPS Queue Times: Yes, please shorten them. But to do that, it needs to be easier for tanks and healers and/or they need to be better incentivized. A 4th DPS would also be OK, but I don't think they need to scale anything; just let 6 people do the content that Blizz thinks is "tuned" for 5 random people.
-Professions
-Professions and Gathering Materials: There is WAY TOO MUCH gating for professions this time. The people trying to quickly go to Mythic needed an army of alts to create mats for their main. Obviously, the game should not be designed around the top end raiders, but it raises a flag with the design. It takes many many days to craft something and then you can only have 3 crafted items equipped (which I just hit my limit: crafted the mail legs, bought the cards for DMF trinket, and just bought the engineering gun a few minutes ago since one came up on the AH for 5.1k). I'm a fan of free market, not artificially restricted markets...
-Alchemy updates: I'm not sure what this person was complaining about. There will always be a need for pots and flasks for the entire expansion. Gear goes out of style quickly since Blizz never creates new tiers of crafted gear.
-Crafted Gear Upgrade for Tier 18: "we'll most certainly have some sort of upgrade for crafted gear with Tier 18." I'm not holding my breath. They've never done that in the past, afaik.
My comment for flying didn't get pasted in properly... Must have been because I put it in brackets...
DeleteI meant to say:
-No Flying for 6.1: ::insert big middle finger emote here:: I think I'll leave it at that...
Seems like we are mostly on the same page. Will comment on some of the things you touched on otherwise.
DeleteAshran is getting a lot of negative feedback and rightfully so. I thought they said they would phase it to be equalized even on servers that were dominated by one faction. Sure as hell does not seem that way to me. I have not done the PvP apexis one yet but might some day, just for the hell of it. Just not looking forward to it personally.
I would not hold my breath on them upgrading crafting stuff for T18 either. They have a dreadful tack record with keeping things updated. Once a new tier comes out all I expect our garrisons will be for is to gear alts and maybe make bags.
Think you're overly nitpicky about the first question. It is a secondary stat but the term secondary stat is not defined by the idea of it being on food, gems etc. So I think he was pretty clear meaning that they had a philosophy and that was not 'remove main stat' or 'remove secondary stat', but remove stuff that looked like best in slot - str, int, agi, spirit, bonus armor. As he says, there was spirit on stuff to begin with but all healers used it. Maybe healers will pick one stat again but overall you probably won't see all healer classes using crit all all of them using versatility etc.
ReplyDeleteAs to flying, I don't care either way. I do think it was fun the first time and less fun on alts but still. Yes, I'll probably not fly around like I used to and do less things (because I'm not about to go walk to pet trainers in Draenor like I used to fly to them in Pandaria) but I'm probably just lazy.
If it is a secondary stat than it should be something you can make gems and enchants for. If they want to make things consistent.
DeleteI just want some consistency. If it is one or the other, treat it as one or the other. Is that too much to ask for?
Also, spirit is not the BiS stat, spirit is about feel. Each healer would run with what they feel they can do the content with. Being able to adjust it with gems and enchants, for example, would be perfect. Unlike all other stats spirit is the only one where it is based on feel, and not a mathematical equation.
You are not lazy, so to speak, you are human. We all have become accustom to having flight for things like that and even those that say they are fine with no flying still miss it for things like that. Call it lazy if you feel the need to do so, but if we, as humans, are lazy is it because blizzard trained us to be that way. Which is part of the reason flying should be in the game. We were trained that we always have it at max level.
And this is what I don't get, why "should", why need to define a secondary by it being on gems and stuff. Look at armor (it's on almost every piece, it has potions, there can be extra on some pieces and the fact that it's called bonus doesn't mean it's a different stat since it does the same thing, it can't be gemmed and so on; all of this has been true since Wrath at least). This consistency you're looking for is sort of like wanting a second shoulder on one-shoulder armor for symmetry sake.
DeleteSpirit was best as far as every healer on beta was using it. In theory it sounds as if it shouldn't be, but there it was.
They "should" because that is what they call it.
DeleteIn wrath spirit was a main stat. As a matter of fact, it still is listed with the main stats. But the developers call it a secondary stat.
I do not think it is wrong to ask for a clarification on it. And for it to be treated as such.
I agree with you, it is like bonus armor is now, a "bonus" stat meant for either tanks or healers, as they each have their own thing, but blizzard refuses to refer to it as that.
As long as they refuse to refer to it as that and keep listing it with the main stats and calling it a secondary stat I will continue to ask for it to be treated as one or the other.
Don't blame me for being logical and wanting what looks like a duck and walks like a duck to be called a duck. Blame blizzard for calling the duck a chicken.
The reason spirit was tops on beta is because you needed every bit you could get. They never tuned healing on beta until the weeks before it closed. That is why spirit was stacked. Not because it was the "best" stat. It was because healing was not tuned yet and healed needed massive mana regeneration because they had to spam heal their biggest heals for everything, even incidental AoE damage, once again, because healing had not been tuned yet.
Trust me, on live, healers would not go completely for spirit, they would go for a balance. Maybe some fights they might go spirit for, but that is the beauty of spirit over all other stats. It can be changed from fight to fight. If you need more add it, if you don't, remove it for more haste or crit or what have you.
Spirit is about feel. It is not a BiS stat.
Last expansion I raided with one of the top healers (according to WoL) in the game and if you asked her she sould tell you that she would dump even more spirit if she could. She was an amazing healer and because of how well she was capable of managing her mana, with mana tea (monk) she never needed much spirit.
That is how spirit is designed. The better healers use less, or adjust it based on the fights, the piss poor healers stack it in every slot they can find in every way they can.
Monk was a special case if I recall. Our monk was trying to get rid of spirit too as much as possible. I think most classes were trying to do that the better gear they had. As I see healers now though, mana regen is actually not even an issue - healers seem fine with mana, they just don't seem to have decent output.
DeleteI guess we need better healers in my group than. We wipe on bosses to healers going oom. Not to mechanics, not to enrage timers. We wiped to the mana timer. As soon as healers go oom, fights over.
DeleteThen again, trying to do it with a 612, a 622 and a 631 healer is a little rough. lol We could only manage the first three. Forth boss, healers could not keep up. I am hoping with a little more gear it gets better. Guild went out and got the 612 healer the candle and a leather BoE (druid) so she should be much better off. Was pumping 28K HPS at 612, so I think heroics will be fine if we can get her and the other one over 630.
Back to spirit. Even for disc priests it was like that. Not just monks. A disc priest in guild was running at 6K mana and could not dump any more, I liked to run around 9 or 10K and another one in guild never felt comfortable with less than 16K. We all had our own style, different skill levels, and as such needed different levels of spirit. That is the beauty of spirit. It is not a BiS stat, it is a use as much as you need stat.
My shaman would out heal any other shaman, even more skilled shaman, because I knew how to cheese it running with nearly no spirit because I knew the fights would be short. See, spirit is a decision, not a requirement. Later on of course. Right now having some spirit on that 612 healer might have meant a few more bosses down instead of dying the the oom boss.