Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Beaten, Broken and Bruised, I am Grumpy No More

I will start this post with the obligatory random is random comment.  We all know that RNG can be a fickle friend or fiend and you go through moments of feast or famine.  But this post is about me finally being pushed to far by the RNG gods and having finally lost the fight.  I can not take it any more and I am planning on throwing in the towel.  My days are numbered and I am not even sure why I am still playing right now.

My character goes weeks on end without feeling any sort of personal progression.  Not feeling as if I am moving forward.  In a game like this as soon as you stop feeling like there is some place for you to move forward it stops giving you reasons to play.

It is not just one thing but a collection of things that have led me up to this point.  The point where I am seriously considering throwing in the towel and ending my subscription.  I have never been a fan of random.  I don't believe any game should evolve completely around luck and it seems the game is moving further and further into the luck category instead of the do your job and earn your reward category.

That is one of the reasons I always liked valor gear.  Even if I did not need any of it on my main the fact that it was there was always a comfort.  Having some bad luck with a piece of gear and you could pick it up with valor.  Alts that you rarely play but want to keep at least close to raid ready, it was there.  Even characters you had no intention of ever raiding with, it worked as a way for them to see some personal progression by getting a new piece once in a blue moon.

When they added item upgrades it just made it better.  Say you were having one of those dreadful spans of no drops, at least you could log in every day to get your valor, cap out, and even if minimally you could upgrade a piece of gear.  Not nearly as exciting as getting and upgrade but still something that allowed you to feel as if you were moving forward.  Making some personal progressions even if it were in the smallest of small amounts.

Blizzard tried but failed to replace valor gear with the combination of apexis gear and crafted gear but failed miserably in both aspects.

Apexis gear is way too expensive for what it gives and it offers way to few gear slots to actually be very attractive even if you were willing to deal with the fact that it could take you well over 30 days to get one piece of crap gear.  So apexis gear is not an option, never had been since release and still is not now.  Even more so for alts.  If it would take a main working every day to get as many crystals as possible over a month to get even one piece, what do you think it would be like for that rarely played alt you only occasionally log into?  One new piece of shit gear every year?  No, it is not an option, not even close.

Crafted gear is only slightly better.  But the insanely high costs of making it makes it restrictive for anyone without an alt army or lots of gold.  For me it was no big deal as I fit both those requirements.  I have an alt army and I have lots of gold.  But for everyone else making a piece of crafted gear up to a reasonable item level of 680 can very well be game breaking expensive and / or impossible.  Then, add to the fact that outside of being disgustingly over priced to make in terms of time spend and materials used, you can only equip three of such items.

Blizzard should have picked one or the other in my opinion.  Make them reasonably cheap to make so even people that play less can easily get three without busting opening the piggy bank and limit them to three equip or keep them with their sickeningly high prices and let you equip as many of them as you wanted too equip should you be able to afford them or be capable of working your butt off to make them yourself.

Then there are the world bosses, which on their own were a mistake in design of epic proportions to begin with.  Had you noticed that there were still groups going 24/7 for the celestial boss and ordos even after 14 months of that hell we so affectionately call SoO and now finding a group for the world bosses even on reset say is sometimes near impossible depending on the time of day you play.

There is a reason for that.  Ordos dropped better than normal (heroic) gear, as it was guaranteed warforged.  The celestial offered two normal (heroic) mode tier pieces and also top of the line PvP pieces which were still huge upgrades for many a few 90s out there. Even more so if you were a freshly dinged 90.  Nothing better than even pulling out to "losing" pieces from the world boss by getting two pieces on a fresh 90.  Now if you lose, which you will 90% of the time it seems, you get 17 gold, which in most groups will not even cover 10% of the repair costs you incurred to do the world boss.

These world bosses drop dog shit, for lack of a better description.  They are harder than the previous world bosses we know and love and they offer nothing worthwhile to an actual raider, which you need in your group to get these things down in a reasonable manner.  The only people that are doing them are people in need of the gear and being the gear is lower than standard raid gear (read as heroic mode) it really serves little or no purpose.  Add to the fact that none of them have the fall back of dropping PvP gear so even if you did not get the PvE piece you were looking for it was quite possible you might snag a PvP piece that would still be an upgrade for your PvE set with the old bosses, but not so now.

So harder world bosses that need higher geared players to make them easier for the freshly dinged 100 which would be the only one that really would get 100% usefulness from the kill.  Do you think someone at blizzard missed the memo that these bosses need to be tuned for fresh 100s because they offer nothing for actual geared players by having crap rewards drop from them and no back up in terms of PvP gear that would still be a sizable upgrade for a fresh 100 if you do not get any PvE gear.

The rewards from garrison invasions are a joke too.  I managed to get myself an awesome 645 bow from a platinum invasion the other day.  Lets forget for a moment that getting platinum is more about luck of the spawn (I hate RNG) then actually getting platinum itself, but look at it from the perspective of the gear it offered me as a reward for doing it.  

Do you honestly think that if I was in a group were all three of us could actually use 645 gear we would have been able to get platinum like we did?  Hell no.  You most likely need a better geared group than a bunch of people under 645.  Which means the reward from getting platinum is most likely going to be 100% useless for anyone that is capable of getting platinum to begin with.  Blizzard logic fails.  The platinum bag should look at your gear before you open it.  If I have a 670 weapon and it decides to give me a weapon, it should give me a 680.  It should look at what you have and give you an upgrade to it.  It should not give out gear that, more often than not, will just end up as enchanting material or vendor trash.

Blizzards design for the gearing system this expansion is, in a word, dreadful.

So as you see, blizzard basically did everything that they could to screw over every single way people go about getting gear.  Poor methods, for poor gear, and poor decisions all around.

So that leaves the only viable way to get gear is by kissing the ass of Mr. RNG and hoping he likes you enough to shine a light on you.

Two issues with that, the first being I have always had horrible luck with RNG and I can't find his ass to kiss it, beg of it, or even get down on my knees and cry in complete desperation just for something, anything, to give me something, anything, to show me that there is a reason to keep playing.

The second is that with no other way to get gear outside of this RNG method I am losing faith in the game.  I do not raid for gear, it is a by product of doing it, but I love to raid and more gear means I can do better and down more bosses in a more timely manner.  So getting upgrades is important even if I do not raid for gear specifically.

Opening my mythic highmaul mission rewards, my sixth mythic one mind you, and seeing that not only did I not get something I needed but it was the exact same thing I got last time that I didn't need really hit home.  If I did not need it two weeks ago, why would I need it now, where is my bad luck protection to keep me from getting the same garbage I don't need over and over.  It started to make me think, why do I even try.

I have done 6 mythic highmaul missions so far.  In nearly every single slot on my character a 685 piece would be an upgrade.  Of those 6 missions I've only managed to get three different items.  Gloves, which I did not need, a ring, the same one three times and one which I did not need, and a neck, which also happens to be something I have received twice and something I did not need.

Try to tell me again random is random so I can reach through the screen and slap you a few times.  After you get screwed by random enough the last thing you want to hear is some imbecile that is luckier than you rubbing it in saying random is random.  Just because you are lucky does not mean that hell does not rain down acid fire on the rest of the world screwing them just because it likes to watch the world burn.  So please, if you are one of the lucky ones I am happy for you that you do not need to go through this, but do not take your experience and think it is representative of the rest of the player base.  You are, happily, one end of the spectrum and I am, sadly, the other.

Yes, random is random, but this should not happen, this should never happen.  Blizzard should have coded the game better to not give you the same exact reward over and over.  If I had gotten 6 different items and did not need any of them at least I could say I am getting different items, but giving me an item I do not need and then giving me the same exact item I do not need again is insulting.  It makes me feel as if there is someone on the other end of the computer screen giggling, "we are screwing with grumpy again, want to watch".

And then to add insult to injury I hear about people in my guild getting their best in slot trinket from it, warforged and with a gem slot.  And here I am making a collection of rings and necks I have no use for.  And it is not just one person, it is many.  One person in guild said, I need pants more than anything else, what does she get?  Pants.  It seems more often than not everyone is getting what they need. Sure sometimes it takes them 2 cases, maybe even 3, but they get it.  While little old me is working on 6 in a row without one single thing being useful.

I still have never won a weapon, a trinket, or a tier piece from an actual raid.  Want to hear how bad my luck really is?  I can not even win that garbage tier piece gear in LFR because I don't even win anything there.  Sure if I won I would bring it right back to my enchanters study and disenchant it, but at least I could say I won something.

My guild is sitting mostly in their 2 piece sets, some working on 4 piece sets.  Me, I have not won a single item from BRF yet.  Nope, not one.  Well, I lie, I won a normal mode gruul trinket, but it is not like I would use that.  I am wearing one piece of BRF heroic gear that wasn't something we farmed trash for and it was something someone passed to me.  How sad is that?

I feel beaten, broken and bruised.  I am not being grumpy, I can't.  I just feel defeated.

I know that luck in game comes and goes.  I could write this now and then this week go into the raid and win something off every single boss.  But see, that is part of the problem.  I do not want to play a game where I have to wait for that one week were I am lucky and win everything.  I would rather win one piece of gear a week every week than win nothing for two months and then 6 in one run.  It just doesn't feel right.

In a word, I would want the game to move away from RNG and toward actually earning your gear.  Valor gear worked for that, valor gear was earned gear.  You work hard, do what you are supposed to do, gather, collect, and then you purchases that hard earned piece of gear.  It doesn't need to be valor exactly, but blizzard needs a reasonable way to earn gear and they need to ditch this RNG world we are living in.

Getting a garrison invasion?  RNG.  Having the right mobs spawn in said invasion so you can get gold or platinum?  RNG.  Getting an item or a mount?  RNG.  Follower raid missions success?  RNG, when you can fail 100% chance missions don't tell me it is not random.  Getting something useful from the mission?  RNG.  Killing a boss?  RNG, because lets face it, how many boss kills have you been on and said, as long as bob does not get the debuff on him we got this and the first attempt he doesn't you kill it, so yes raiding is RNG.  Having a piece of gear to roll on drop?  RNG.  Needing that piece of gear?  RNG.  That piece being warforged?  RNG.  That piece having a gem slot?  RNG.  That being being both warforged with a gem slot?  RNG.  Winning something on your roll?  RNG.  It being something you needed?  RNG.  It having a gem slot or being warforged or both?  RNG.  Crating a piece of gear?  RNG.  Rerollng the stats?  RNG.

I can go on and on and on, but everything in the game is all RNG based and I am getting sick and tired of it.  And I am jealous, so jealous, completely green with envy because it seems everyone else is having great luck with it and I am still getting the smack down from RNG.

I told some people about the kara music scroll, all three of the people I told went in and got it on their first try, still no scroll for me.  Everyone seems so excited about their best in slot items from their mythic highmaul caches, one even has the best in slot from highmaul and blackrock already.  I mentioned there was a new toy item that could make you a fire cat all the time instead of having to go back for seeds each week to firelands.  So my friend goes in to try to get it and gets alys to drop the mount, lucky him, but further more he gets the drop of the mount of rag too.  Are you f'n kidding me?  I have been running that for years trying to get them and he goes in there not even looking for them and gets not one both both mounts.  Is there a kick me sign on my back?

I am just so fed up with RNG.  It has treated me like a red headed stepchild lately and I am starting to hate the game I once loved.  I always said here on this blog that the main reason I complain about things is because I love the game.  You complain about things you care about.  But with the way RNG has been treating me lately I am starting to care less and less. 

With an expansion that has little to nothing to offer in terms of play value to begin with not being able to feel like I am having any semblance of personal progression on any of my characters leaves me feeling less grumpy and more depressed.  Almost as if I know the game I have loved for so long has changed, and not for the better, and it is no longer something for me.  It might only be a game but I believe the saying still fits, "breaking up is hard to do".

I have not completely given up, but I have stopped caring as much as I used to.  I need one of those pendulum weeks, one where you win everything, because I am running short of patience and I am not sure how much longer I can hold out.  Or even if I should.

But who knows, as depressed as I feel now, maybe I will get one of those "good" weeks and be back here later all happy again.  What short memories us humans have sometimes.  But even if I get a week with lots of goodies dropping into my bags I still have to say, I am sick and tired of RNG and this roller coaster ride.  I want steady character progression, not to live and die by the luck of the drop to feel as if I am moving forward.  Is that really much to ask?

36 comments:

  1. I feel like you're burning out grumpy.

    You're so burning out that you see RNG where there are none.

    Triggering and mob spawn in invasion are NOT RNG.

    I can trigger 3-5 invasion per week easily just by doing the apexis dailies.

    Mob spawn in invasion is not RNG aswell, they have a minimum spawn time and won't spawn if previous wave is not dead. So much so that now when I do invasion there is down time cause we kill mobs too fast.

    I totally get that they should ba a way to get around RNG for gearing, but if you make a system where you know that after X kills you'll get Y reward, people will complain game turned into a grind.

    Essentially the only part I'm agreeing with you on this post and RNG is the world bosses, they are idd too hard for the reward and should reward PvP piece/LFR tier.

    And no I am not THAT lucky with RNG, example : 3 month without trinket from highmaul. 5 full clear of BRF, still not getting that token that would allow me to use that better off-piece I got from mission. Sure it's a different kind of screw up by RNG? but still a screw up :"here is an awesome piece, ho wait you can't use it for now, u mad bro?"

    ANd the worse offender for me : I'm doing the archeology achievement, I'm missing only one pristine, and I'm at more than 2000 solves, 4 times what a friend needed to get his achieve.

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    1. I feel like I am burning out too. I've done everything I could to try and stop that. I do not log on all my characters any longer to do my garrisons, have not done so in a while. If I do log on to a character to tank or heal for someone I will do their garrison, but outside of weekends my garrisons remain dormant. That helped with the burn out a little.

      Mob spawns in an invasion are RNG. This is not imaginary, this is 100% accurate. I did the same invasion 4 times this week to test it as well as my other invasions over the past weeks to compare. (it was a bug on beta I reported and it seems they never fixed it for live)

      For data purposes I will explain what I mean. The one we used was shadow council. It was the same group of three people, so no variations between who was there and what we were capable of doing. We had the same buffs and patrolled the same areas each in every single one.

      One invasion we got 1415 and of course platinum by process. Second invasion we ended with 893, which is not even gold level. Third invasion we ended with 1291, good enough for gold but would have missed platinum. And the forth invasion we finished at 1010 which was just enough for gold.

      The difference is in the 800 one we had no mobs spawn that attacked buildings, we had no terrified workers and we only had 3 big mobs, as marked with the giant circle. Can't score points if there is nothing there to score points with.

      The one that was the best, 1400, we had 6 terrified workers, 4 buildings get attacked, giant red markers where all over the place I do not even remember how many there were but I had three at once at the entrance one time and it was awesome, and there was a constant flow of mobs to kill. Lots of mobs to kill and high value targets and platinum is a forgone conclusion.

      The one we just got gold on we had a steady flow of mobs, a couple of each thing as in workers, reds and attacks, but there was a little bit of down time here and there, one of close to 30 seconds where none of us had anything to kill, but not enough to stop gold, however completely impossible to get platinum.

      The one we just barely missed platinum on there was nothing we could have done better. It was absolutely perfect execution. There were never any mobs alive. Even at the end when there was the clean up phase there was nothing to clean up. We killed everything as it came out. This means, once again, it would have been 100% impossible to get platinum. We executed perfectly.

      So anyone that tells you there is no RNG for invasions is either 1) flat out lying or 2) misinformed.

      We plan to do the same thing this week to test it further. I put in a ticket about it with the results, but I expect it to be ignored like everything else.

      This was something I saw on beta and reported then. Some invasions are just impossible to get higher on based on RNG. They never fixed it on beta or live it seems. If you would like I can fill you in on this weeks results, but I am 100% completely certain with absolutely zero margin for error, that invasions are RNG based. If you get lots of the "big" things you do well, if you don't you can't do well even with a group of 3 people that are good players fairly well geared over 680.

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    2. I do understand that triggering an invasion is "supposed" to be at a set mark. But unless there is some counter that says "kill 100 shadow council to trigger an invasion" it will always appear to be random. Simple as that. Easy fix for blizzard, but they want it to seem random, that is why they do not show us in game what we need to kill and how many of it we need to kill.

      "if you make a system where you know that after X kills you'll get Y reward, people will complain game turned into a grind."

      I challenge you to ask 100 people this question. Would you rather kill a boss 10 times and automatically get the item you want or kill it 30 times before RNG will let you have it.

      Trust me, every single one of that 100 would rather kill the boss 10 times instead of 30 to get their item. You can not argue that, that is human nature, people will always want something sooner than later.

      In my opinion the ideal fix for blizzard is to give you that item after 10 times OR you can luck into it with RNG sooner. That way everyone is happy, people with good luck get it fast, people with bad luck don't feel like giving up because they know in a few more kills it is coming. Win / win.

      I feel your archeology pain. Until they add flying I am not going all out on it, but I have most all of them already too. My pain is I now have over 1000 tol'vir solves and still no mount and no pet. So trust me, yes, I feel your pain, and RNG can suck a duck. It needs to be removed removed from the game.

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    3. > In my opinion the ideal fix for blizzard is to give you that item after 10 times OR you can luck into it with RNG sooner.

      I love that idea. They already acknowledged the concept in MOP when they said they were building "bad streak protection" in to the bonus rolls. It's still non-transparent though and people don't feel better about it.

      Bad RNG doesn't bother me too much because I am a Blood DK tank and part of my job is to play better to overcome bad gear - plus I am not pushing heroic/mythic progression, so my gear is more than good enough. But it bothers me when it bothers other people. I am getting tired of hearing people complain "aw, just gold" every time they use a bonus roll. I'm surrounded by downers. But maybe I have more fun getting bosses down than I do getting upgrades.

      Then again, I probably would be more disappointed if I played as much as they did. I have too many Seals of Tempered fate right now because I try to use them only on bosses with upgrades and haven't been killing many of them lately. The limit of 10 per character is too low for me. I think the MOP bonus roll token limit 20, but I can't remember if it started off as 10.

      re: burnout

      I burned out a bit on SOO doing LFR and PUG cross realm Flex/Normal/Heroic to try to learn the fights and get better gear to help the guild. So I'm kind of a minimalist now.

      One week we killed Kargath on heroic repeatedly to get our Garrison caches to give mythic gear. By the end of that death march we knew how to do Kargath like the backs of our hands. I wouldn't mind doing that for each boss. A week between attempts is too long for me to get good at it, but I'm not willing to do the whole PUG thing anymore. Will just try to do the best I can within each encounter.

      It's probably just life changes, but I don't seem to have fully recovered from the end of MOP burnout.

      Anyway, hope you have better luck this week.
      --
      regards,

      regardsanon

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    4. They might have "acknowledged" that but they have done nothing to fix it, nor have they even attempted to, at least from how I see it. Getting the same exact ring 3 weeks in a row followed by the same exact neck 2 weeks in a row from my highmaul mission is proof they have done absolutely nothing to "protect" their players.

      Gear means little to me either. I am more then well enough geared and skilled to do BRF mythic, or at least start soon, but gear would make it easier. There is no denying that. Also, it is about feeling as if I am moving forward, personal progression. Even a non raider needs to feel like they are logging in and getting stronger once in a while. If they sit in the same place too long and see no advancement then there is no reason to log in anymore.

      I don't think this expansion has done anyone any favors in trying to help them get over burnt out. I know people that play 1 day a week that are already burnt out on it. It is not a very good expansion. The questing when leveling is beyond compare, some of the best they ever did, but outside of that, this expansion really sucks.

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    5. It seems to me that every two apexis dailies of one enemy (Iron horde, ogres etc) I get an invasion.

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    6. I think it might have something to do with "what" you kill. I have done the one with the orcs in nagrand 4 times in a row (hate when they do that) and did not get it to trigger. But what I do there is kill the one guy that drops the missive, summon the rares, kill them, kill the guy again, summon the rares, kill them, etc. It takes all of 4 minutes to do the daily that way, but it doesn't seem to work toward triggering quickly.

      Yet when I do the shat ones, which I working on reputation with, I slaughter anything that moves and it seems to trigger every other one.

      Also as a note, you can trigger an invasion even if you are not on the daily. I went to the bontani area, for easy platinum, and just killed until one popped up, and it was not the daily zone. Just need to be "A" daily zone, not "the" daily zone.

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  2. I don't agree with most of your points, but you're spot on about World Bosses. I haven't run them since November, and I'd do anything for some tier gear right now. In MoP I downed them every week for most of the expansion, if just for a chance at some PvP gear.

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    1. They really screwed up big time on world bosses this time. I only do Ruk on my main (mains) for a chance at the mount, but even then I sometimes avoid it unless I get it on the first day, because they are too damn hard when you do them on a weekend when all you see are people ranging from 580-620 trying to gear up. It is just not happening.

      They either need to make the world bosses way the hell easier so a group of 580-620 people can easily handle it, as the gear it drops is for them, or start dropping actual 670 gear from the first 2 and 680 gear, tier at that, from the newer one. And of course, adding the fall back PvP gear would be awesome.

      I, like you, would cycle through all my characters on reset day even after 14 months for the celestial bosses, just for a chance at PvP gear. It was just a better design for world bosses, it made them worth killing.

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  3. I think another reason is your playing way too much. I play about half an hour a day! Of course that means my ilvl is an average of 650...

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    1. Yes, that is part of the burnt out factor. I've been playing a lot less than I normally do lately. But if anything is is making me more upset when I do play because the fact you get nothing stands out more in a smaller time frame.

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  4. Your raid team seems a bit stuck too that's probably contributing to frustration

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    1. I don't want to leave them, so I have to deal with that as well. But very true, not having the last boss of highmaul down, even on normal before BRF really weights heavy on me.

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    2. I know you love your guild and love your team but when I got to the point you seem to be at in ICC I had to take that leadership step back and just become a member of a guild again and let someone else worry about leading and refocus on having fun

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    3. I know what you mean and I wish I could, but there is no one there that would want to do it. I'd love some time off just to be the rank and file guy, but I am afraid if I step back there is no one else to step up.

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    4. I totally get that and I know exactly that feeling, but when you do burn out and quit they will have to face that same issue and you will have burned yourself into oblivion to boot.

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    5. It is one of those things that I'll have to address sooner or later. If I keep this up as is I might end up hurting the group instead of helping like I am trying to.

      I need in game therapy, know any good gnomes with a comfortable couch?

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    6. Well I know we don't see eye to eye on most things which is why I read you but if you would like to talk guild leader to guild leader raid leader to raid leader we have a lot in common except I made a few different decisions along the way. I'm happy to listen I'll send you my battlenet ID when I get home on your E-mail if you ever need to talk shop I love talking Guild management issues. feel free to add me I wont be offended if you don't either. PS I used to be a gnome on the alliance side. :P

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    7. Well the gnome part does fit. Thank you for the offer, I just might take you up on that. I appreciate it.

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  5. At least with valor in the game you could come out of a raid empty handed, and know, hey at least I got 150 valor for my time. A little bit closer to that piece of gear.

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    1. Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

      You might get nothing, but at the very least you got some valor that could be used for something. It did not feel like beating your head against a wall for nothing each week when you were on a dry spell.

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    2. This, this, this! Give us a PVE raid/dungeon currency. Give us a reason to do it besides gear. If you reward a currency, folks will even do lower level stuff to help others progress. Throw in the ability to convert said currency to other things: PVP, epicurean marks, etc.

      Back in Wrath, you could buy PVP gear with Frost Marks. What a great way to spend your marks that were hard to come by and prevent yourself from capping or losing at a patch.

      Have a currency exchange for Honor points (other than seals, which you can only get 3 of per week even though you cap at 4000 honor). What do you do with Honor points when you have 620 or better gear in every slot?

      Bring back tabards for reputation. This would encourage folks to do heroic dungeons lowering que times. What's the incentive now? Fulfilling a quest in a bar for toy and gold that isn't enough to cover the cost of repairs?

      This expansion smoothed many things for convenience sake (still waiting on a tabard tab). But it's hard to do something with nothing to show for it. Everyone's reasons for raiding may be different, but other than seeing your Guild/Group succeed (achievements, progression), where's the consolation prize for participating? Yes, I know that you should feel good helping the Guild/Group, but the whole purpose of marks/valor in the first place was to help people get gear for those items that would not drop for you. So why did they remove it? Perhaps the Blue that handled the in game valor vendor lost his job. Last I checked Blizzard wasn't cutting people.

      I love this expansion as far as lore and content. Other than the DDOS at release, and the last patch, this expansion has been pretty smooth. But there is something missing. I took a year off so I wouldn't get burnt out killing Garrosh. The Timeless isle just didn't do it for me. I would say that when Ghostcrawler left Blizzard, WoW has started to decline. The Blue's don't pay nearly enough attention to the player base (I'm looking at Arms Warriors the most with their gutted rotation and spec; BRING BACK OVERPOWER!!).

      But I feel you Grumpy. I return to this game feeling good. I get with a great Guild as a Freelancer (I'm on a different server, but they are cool with that: Arena Team to consider on my current server). But I'm getting burnt out and I don't want to go through the ordeal of gearing an alt (I have 6 100's right now and one on the other Faction to see the story from that side).

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    3. Not only would I love having currency back but being able to convert that currency to something I can buy PvP gear with has been how I started my PvP gearing for a long time.

      I routinely would spam dungeons for justice points to convert them to honor to get some starter gear. I liked doing that, it gave me something to do. Even if I had no intention to PvP any time soon getting a few pieces off the world bosses and a few pieces from spamming dungeons was a great starting point for when I did.

      I am nearly 100% certain that all those new 100s that are doing the dungeons would love to have a DPS of my caliber that does 60%+ of all damage done and helps them clear the dungeon fast and easy for them.

      Now I only do dungeons if someone in guild asks for help and usually only in a full guild group. No reason to do them otherwise. I was completely 100% done with dungeons the day the expansion came out because there is no currency involved and I out geared them already by that point.

      Tabards for reputation would be nice. Make people earn friendly first, then they can buy the tabard. Not everyone digs grinding like I do. If I can realize that as a person that really only cares about if I like it or not how can a billion dollar company not realize that?

      The badge, points, whatever consolation prize also worked for another thing. Lets say I wanted to bring my priest in, because I wanted to start gearing her up some. I would not roll on gear someone that was a main raider, but I could still get those points to get something for myself. Or lets say I have to cover on my tank, which happens often. Now it is falling behind at 660 when we are doing higher content, as I do not play it often, only when needed. If there were points I could buy some pieces so it would be higher and still be able to work as a better back up.

      We should not need to raid 24/7 on each character we want to raid on to keep it raid ready. Simple as that. If my druid is a back up tank and my priest is a back up healer, I should be able to keep them close to current, even if not perfect, with some sort of point type of gear they collect from the days they play fill in.

      The alt situation is huge. As mentioned with my druid and priest not being as geared as they should or could be. The grind of garrisons, the time sink, the need to run everything to get gear if you want to or not, the expense if you choose to gear through the auction house, everything, it is just so alt unfriendly.

      The least they could have done for alts is share some things with mains. If one has reputation, they all do. If one has the trading post, they all get gold missions. If one has the stables, they all get speed boosts. It would not help a lot, or even much at all, but at least it would feel like having alts was a benefit to your game play instead of just another grind you have to deal with. Sitting at 8 100s now myself. Only my main is doing the legendary so far. For a guy that had like 11 or 12 last expansion, it should really show something. I am not liking playing alts this expansion. That is all on blizzard, not me.

      I still want to level my horde side, I have not yet. Just need to find a new server to transfer to before I do. Preferably one with an active mythic pugging community.

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  6. Whats my Prize?! lol

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  7. 'Back in my day' did 27 Atramedes kills to see the neck drop. 38 DS runs and never seen even one ring drop. So on and so forth.

    Seriously though, I understand where you're coming from. Random random everywhere. Why? Because it wastes time and makes you log every day / week etc. They exaggerated this time around.

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    1. I understand the business reasons for random, but I do believe they went a way overboard with it this time around.

      DS was a nightmare for weapons for me. We must have killed DW every week after we first downed him, which did not take long, so if I were to say it was 40 kills it would probably be close, and I never saw the hunter weapon drop. Never, not once. We had alt runs where we would kill him most of the time, in those alts runs, which easily added up to another 100 kills over the time of DS, only one bow ever dropped. Kicker was, there were no hunters in that group.

      Good times, good times. /end sarcasm.

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  8. The last time I commented here was on your post about the blue's party line on the removal of reforging. I complained about RNG, about all the changes, the professional overhaul and feeling out of control. James replied and said it was because I didn't care anymore as I didn't raid, that what was a tank without a raid? That I should start again.

    I agreed with him for maybe 2 minutes and then I thought about it. It's not just about me, it's about everyone that plays a little differently. I spent some time sifting through all the available gear to work out exactly what I could get without raiding.

    I already have mostly 645, some 630 so dungeons are utterly useless. I don't want to spend my apexis crystals on gear if I can help it. So basically the answer boiled down to garrison follower missions to Highmaul, awarding 655 gear.

    Now, that's 'easy' but it's not a good gearing method at all. There's only one quest every 2 weeks, it's RNG what you get as you pointed out you can get the same thing repeatedly. It's also not playing the game.

    I want gear so I can solo Mists raids and get past bosses I have trouble with in Brawlers Guild. It doesn't have to be the best gear, but I would like some way of slowly improving what I have so I can do more of what I'd like to do.

    I have said a million times, I am very much a broken record. That I miss dungeons being relevant and I really, really, really miss a currency system.

    Warcraft is a big game, with a massive playerbase. In my opinion it should support many different playstyles, not just raid for progression, not just RNG till your eyes bleed. RNG has it's place, as annoying as it is, it works well for mount/pet farming as it keeps you going back, and it's vanity items that aren't time limited. However, there is such a thing as too much RNG.

    I get that everything costs money, costs development time, takes resources etc. but why should it be either/or? Well actually I know the answer to that. Blizz make a ton of money on their current system so they have no incentive to change. If they were to add more content, it would cost them more money, they would have a higher profit margin etc.

    I would love them to add more dungeons or at least make the gear rewards relevant, have a currency system, scenarios, more quests, daily hubs - choice. Give people options of how they get what they want. Make all the gear rewards LFR level, I'm not arguing for raid gear, just for something to work towards. Something that increases every raid tier, or can be incrementally upgraded over time. Just something.

    I think it's a shame. I loved this game as soon as I started playing it really. I bought the two expansion packs and a subscription after just 10 minutes.

    I fully admit I have changed. I don't have the time to play that I once did. I used to spend hours and hours every week, now I login a few minutes of an evening, and have a few hours on weekend which is in competition with other games. There used to be no competition though, as logging in and accomplishing something on my main or on an alt, was preferable to any other game. Now? What accomplishment can I get. What progress can I make?

    I haven't even got that damn selfie camera yet. Not that I want it, but I want the achievement. The only 'new content' that was really in 6.1 and it's random, says it all really.

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    1. You explained perfectly what I always say, even if you do not raid, you need gear. People love to say if you don't raid you don't need gear. Sorry, but they are as wrong as wrong can be. You explained how you can have things you would like gear for that are not raiding. We need, desperately need, currency gear.

      I wish blizzard would realize that there are different types of players in the game and this "raid or die" attitude is bad for the game over all. Would it really hurt them to have alternative gearing methods?

      It does seem that they want to lock any relevant gear that would make players feel as if they were getting some sort of personal progression behind RNG and raiding, and that is just wrong. In my opinion at least.

      So many people, even ones that play daily, still have not got the selfie camera. I agree, it is one of the few new things they added, and weeks later even active people do not have it, RNG should not lock content, even if it is silly content like that. Of my 11 characters on draenor, only 5 have the camera so far. Meaning 6 are victims of RNG. Only one got the camera upgrade, which means 11 are missing out there. And it has been weeks. This is bad, really bad.

      Sad part is, even if we are upset with the game, warcraft is still the best game of its type out there and they know it, that is why they can get away with abusing us, their paying customers. I would love to see another game come and really challenge them. Not because I want something new, but because I want the game I love to start showing me it loves me back instead of taking me for granted.

      Notice the name change, good thing you are still carrying your NCIS credentials or I might not have recognized you. ;)

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    2. Taitrina! Sorry, I didn't want to come across as mean, I just thought I related. I had an accident, didn't raid, for a while and felt like you were describing. Tank without a reason to tank. Tank that will never raid again. What's the point. But maybe I was wrong. It just seemed so familiar.

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    3. Taitrina! Sorry, I didn't want to come across as mean, I just thought I related. I had an accident, didn't raid, for a while and felt like you were describing. Tank without a reason to tank. Tank that will never raid again. What's the point. But maybe I was wrong. It just seemed so familiar.

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  9. Oh man. I feel ya. The options are very limited if you don't raid. However this is bad too from a raider's perspective.
    First because you can't compensate for bad drop luck streaks with gear from alternative sources. Only the profession gear is kinda suited for this but horribly expensive, especially if you buy the basic piece off the AH to ensure good secondary stats.
    Second, if you recruit someone who is a bit late to the raiding party, they will have shit gear which will have to be upped via raid (something we don't have time for).

    And don't get me started on the mount and pet currency called apexis crystal. Honestly whoever designed this should change their job because this thing accomplishes exactly nothing in the game. I wonder what they were thinking.

    As of the RNG, I don't see as many parts of the game as being RNG dependent. But I'm also a bit disappointed because my two hunter colleagues have like 5 socket slots and 2 WF set pieces, while I have... guess how many (you can't divide by it). So I feel gimped because my DPS is lagging behind (sure, partly because I still suck at managing FF and SF).

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    1. Addendum: that said, I wouldn't be playing anymore if it weren't for raiding. I view this as the most important content, and without a competent raid, the game is just not as compelling. I do enjoy other parts of the game too, but that alone wouldn't make it for me.

      So therefore I always strived to find or lead a good raid above all. Social contacts would be a result from this, and not the other way round like you're doing. I know I couldn't stand a gimpy raid for as long as you did, no matter how much I liked those people. Therefore you have my full respect for holding on for so long.

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    2. Those gem slots and warforged pieces can be huge. Heck even just gem slots is huge. I remember early in the expansion I had dungeons gear with gem slots in nearly every one of them and I was destroying people that "should" have done better just because of them alone. Item level most definitely does not tell the whole story.

      My team is not bad. We have been downing all heroic (pre normal) content since I took over while it was current, which was always my goal, but this expansion and having flex in that mode seems to be hurting and not helping. We always start off the first tier slowly, but when we are still not done with normal (a mode that never existed before and is supposed to be much easier than what we are used to and usually capable of) even when we down a boss and it is a success it still smells like failure.

      And to boot, when we finished things, which like I said we always did, we used to dabble in mythic (was heroic) and we can not do that any more.

      So, for me the question is, I know my group will catch up, it always does, but what do we do when we are done with heroic, like we always do? We can't do mythic any more because we are not 20 people.

      So, maybe being stalled a little is actually a good thing. Because the alternative is quitting because blizzard apparently does not want people who prefer "a small group of skilled players" over "and epic raid size with lots of people" to raid mythic.

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  10. Take a break. I did. WoD is not very good. Go live life.

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    1. I believe that would be the right approach. I just hate feeling on as if I am letting people down if I do so. I think that is what keeps me from doing it.

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