Friday, July 24, 2015

Is Too Much Choice a Bad Thing?

Choice is a good thing, I like choice, actually I love having choices, but sometimes choice can lead to confusion for people that are not reading all the websites out there.  For fun I decided to take a block of item levels and see how many chest pieces I could find for a hunter between the 690 and 700 item level block.  I counted all items that have a base item level between those numbers and did not count any PvP gear, which there were 13 possible options for on its own in that item level range. 

Guess how many different chest pieces fits into that category?

Would you believe me if I said 48? 

I know the level range I picked includes the empowered apexis pieces but it does not have the mythic dungeon pieces and the LFR pieces, so it evens out some.  I decided on this item level range because this is the range of items someone might be seeking if they want to begin doing hellfire citadel heroic.  That said someone might also try to get some of the mythic dungeon pieces or maybe even the LFR tier set, who knows, there could be even more options than just the 10 levels I decided to focus on.  But I am comfortable with saying that for someone looking to step into heroic HFC there are, at least, 48 options for a chest piece alone. 

This also does not even take into account the idea that some of these pieces can also have one random tertiary stat on them.  If I really wanted to push it and add them you could increase that number to have 112 additional possible outcomes bringing the total of non pvp pieces in the base 690-700 item level range to 160 different chest pieces.  But as they are not stats, I left them out and only focused on the 48.  Not to mention, the list would be way to long with 160, it is already too long with the 48.

  1. Chestguard of the Siegemaker
  2. Chestguard of the Siegemaker - WF
  3. Chestguard of the Siegemaker - GS
  4. Chestguard of the Siegemaker - WF/GS
  5. Chestguard of Unending Roars
  6. Chestguard of Unending Roars - WF
  7. Chestguard of Unending Roars - GS
  8. Chestguard of Unending Roars - WF/GS
  9. Empowered Axeclaw Chestguard of the Aurora
  10. Empowered Axeclaw Chestguard of the Deft
  11. Empowered Axeclaw Chestguard of the Feverflare
  12. Empowered Axeclaw Chestguard of the Flashfire
  13. Empowered Axeclaw Chestguard of the Harmonious
  14. Empowered Axeclaw Chestguard of the Merciless
  15. Empowered Axeclaw Chestguard of the Peerless
  16. Empowered Axeclaw Chestguard of the Quickblade
  17. Empowered Axeclaw Chestguard of the Savage
  18. Empowered Axeclaw Chestguard of the Strategist
  19. Hauberk of the Savage Hunt
  20. Hauberk of the Savage Hunt - WF
  21. Hauberk of the Savage Hunt - GS
  22. Hauberk of the Savage Hunt - WF/GS
  23. Jungle Flayer's Chestguard
  24. Jungle Flayer's Chestguard - WF
  25. Jungle Flayer's Chestguard - GS
  26. Jungle Flayer's Chestguard - WF/GS
  27. Ringmail of Madness Accordan
  28. Ringmail of Madness Accordan -WF
  29. Ringmail of Madness Accordan - GS
  30. Ringmail of Madness Accordan -  WF/GS
  31. Rylakstalker's Tunic
  32. Rylakstalker's Tunic - WF
  33. Rylakstalker's Tunic - GS
  34. Rylakstalker's Tunic - WF/GS
  35. Vestment of Illusory Might
  36. Vestment of Illusory Might - WF
  37. Vestment of Illusory Might - GS
  38. Vestment of Illusory Might - WF/GS
  39. Wayfaring Tunic of the Aurora
  40. Wayfaring Tunic of the Deft
  41. Wayfaring Tunic of the Feverflare
  42. Wayfaring Tunic of the Flashfire
  43. Wayfaring Tunic of the Harmonious
  44. Wayfaring Tunic of the Merciless
  45. Wayfaring Tunic of the Peerless
  46. Wayfaring Tunic of the Quickblade
  47. Wayfaring Tunic of the Savage
  48. Wayfaring Tunic of the Strategist
While the fact might be true that of all the options above, there is only 1 "best' piece and maybe a few other "good" ones, so it is not like we really have 160 options, we really do not even have 48 different options.  All that other stuff is filler, fluff, pieces added to make it seem as if there are more choices and all these additional choices do is make it harder for people that do not go out of their way to research which pieces are best for them.

Even for someone that knows what stats are best, like myself, I long for the simple days when there were just a few pieces of gear, the stats or gem slots that came on it were not randomized, and you knew exactly which was best for you without even thinking really.

Lets kook, in comparison, at a level range from wrath, I even tried to pull a cluttered level range from wrath, one that includes 4 raids and 4 dungeons that have gear that drops in that level range.  One that has 2 different tier sets, like the 690 to 700 did. So lets look at the item level 210 to 220 range and see what options we have that are not PvP based.

  1. Chestguard of Flagrant Prowess
  2. Chestguard of the Lasher
  3. Chestguard of the Ravenous Fiend
  4. Cult's Chestguard
  5. Tunic of Masked Suffering
  6. Valorous Cryptstalker Tunic
  7. Valorous Scourgestalker Tunic
As you see we only had 7 choices back in the day.  The choices were simple, each one had different stats (they don't now due to how stats have changed but they did) and you sought the one that had your best stats for you but were happy to get anything else while you were waiting for the drop you wanted.

There was no RNG to tell you which stats were on the gear.  There was no RNG to decide if it had a gem slot or not.  There was no RNG to see if it would be warforged.  There was no RNG to tell you if you had a speed boost, or an avoidance boost, or if your gear would be indestructible or give you the leech ability.   There was no RNG other than the RNG of the item dropping at all to begin with.

To me I do not see gearing today to be any "harder" than it used to be.  It is still the same, you seek the gear that is best for you and keep killing that boss until he coughs it up.  But to many a new players, with choices cluttering their screen, find themselves overwhelmed by all the options which leads me to ask, is too much choice a bad thing?

Or maybe a better way to phrase it would be, is the game better now because we have all this RNG and all these other options?

Personally, I do not think so.  I am suffering from major RNG burnout.  The number of choices do not matter to me, best is best and will always be best whether I am choosing between 7 pieces or 160 of them, but I would really like to see the RNG factor removed from loot.  Isn't the RNG of having it drop enough RNG to begin with?

I would welcome the removal of random stats.  I would welcome the removal of warforged.  I would welcome the removal of random gem slot.  And if they removed all that RNG guess how many choices we would have in the 690-700 item level range?  9.  Yeah, now that is more like it.

So yes, sometimes too much choice is a bad thing in my opinion.  It doesn't add anything to the game except RNG and I can live without that thank you very much.

32 comments:

  1. I don't mind the choice in principal, and actually prefer "too many" options IF I have the information and knowledge that helps me understand the slight differences between them. But Blizzard doesn't really produce this for the public. They leave it up to fan sites and such which not only allows for bad or out of date information, it just seems customer unfriendly.

    The thing is, none of this would matter if I didn't risk getting kicked from an LFR or a dungeon because I'm not doing enough DPS. And if I wanted to get Garrosh heirlooms, I needed to raid or LFR at least. If I wanted to get my legendary cape. Raid or LFR. Legendary ring. Raid or LFR. Or, and this bugs me, just see the entire story of the expansion...raid or LFR. And so if I'm not performing what I could be because I don't have the gear (and skill) necessary, I don't get to do any of that.

    And I so agree with the exhaustion with RNG. I was just kvetching about this myself. To quote myself, as one does:

    "For the game mechanics of WoW, I want it to be about my skills and abilities, not random number generators....[the problem is] that we have two different games. The one I like to play and want to play is, mostly, based on my abilities. The one that I don't enjoy but am being forced to do if I want to get back to the one based on my abilities, is mostly up to an algorithm, and that isn't fun for me.

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    1. That knowledge is a big deal really. For most players they just play, that knowledge is nowhere to be found in game. For those that look outside all the choices just mean is clutter because we will always know what the best choice is.

      So it is lose lose. I like choice too, but in this case with so much choice it means the ones without the knowledge are more likely to make wrong choices and people with knowledge, lets face it, never have a choice to begin with, we will always look for what is best for us.

      RNG is not fun for anyone. Not sure why blizzard is hanging so much on it this expansion.

      Even people that used to fight against me when I spoke of my hate for RNG have started to turn to my side. The over use of it this expansion had shown everyone what I have been saying for years, RNG is not fun.

      If blizzard did anything right this expansion it is that. They have proved, beyond a shadow of doubt, that RNG is not compelling game play.

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  2. With so many choices now and so much reliance on RNG, I think it is a much worse situation than in wrath. Not only do you have to be lucky enough to get a drop, but you also then have to be lucky enough again for that drop to have optimal stats for your spec. I suspect if Blizz put out their actual probability algorithms for all aspects of gear drops, the chance of getting "the" piece of gear best for you would be shown to be impossibly low.

    Example: On my two hunters (one BM and one MM) I have amassed close to 50 pieces of Baleful gear. Want to guess how many of those are either "Impatient" or "Decimator"? Zero.

    Say you have a 1 in 10 chance of getting a Baleful gear drop, and say there are 15 different flavors of the gear you can get. That means you have a 1 in 150 chance of getting your optimal gear. Much worse than the Wrath chances, which are whatever the drop rate is times 1/7.

    The same reasoning applies to gear drops in raids, except that you have the added huge time factor for a single drop, and possibly the complication of rolling against someone else even if your optimal gear does drop.

    So really there are no choices -- you get whatever RNG dictates you will get. Any semblance of choice you get has to do with choosing which piece of suboptimal gear is less bad than the other.

    RNG has tons of choices. You -- not so much.

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    1. In fact, it is even worse if you are looking for a piece for a certain slot. Even with Baleful gear, say you are looking for a helm. If the overall Baleful drop rate is 1 in 10, and the drop of a helm item is 1 in 12, and there are 15 different flavors, your chance of getting an optimal helm from any given mob kill is 1 in 1800.

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    2. At-least for crafted gear there are defiantly weights on what you produce. I produced 5 SteelForged shields on my warrior which has assigned random stats looking for the Haste/Mastery combo. Out of ~60 re-rolls on that toon it never appeared, but it skewed heavily to Master/Crit, majority, Crit/Vers came in 2nd (they are the best warrior stats). So I mailed the item and 10 re-rolls to my pally who got the needed stats on the third attempt. Now there are only 6 combination of stats on this item. So its easy to explain this as a dice roll. This would equate to me rolling a dice 60 times and never getting a 6, (5^60 / 6^60). That’s a .001774701 % chance….. so they do tinker with these “random” enchants by at least class.

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    3. @Fiannor

      I think it was intentional for us to have an insanely low chance to get the "right" piece. It is their desire to do so. I just do not think they understood the bigger picture that we, as players, like getting that best piece once in a while. Thanks to RNG they took that away from us in many cases.

      I am like you on my horde hunter trying for BM pieces. I must have clicked on 100 pieces already. Guess how many I upgrade to 695 because they were my best stats? One.

      @Rick

      I hate rerolling those. But at least we have that option to reroll. It is something. One thing took me 25 rerolls, another 3. I hate random.

      If you had a 60 one I really feel bad for you. There was one guy in trade at the beginning of the expansion that was telling everyone his story as he went for the right stats. He was buying from everyone. Last I remembered he was up to 180 rerolls and still had not gotten his stats. I am sure he has gotten it for now. Or based on how his luck was going, he replaced it with a drop and all that work was wasted.

      I've explained before that blizzards "random" generator is not coded correctly. There has to be something wrong with it. It does not actually seem random. Or the most random you would be capable of making as true random is impossible. You need a start point to create a random number thus random in code is impossible.

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  3. I think that RNG deserves a post on its own. As to gearing in WoD I don’t think it is any more complex that the old reforge/upgrade path, which was as confusing or more confusing than crowded loot tables.

    The many options path is also supported with the removal of enchants and gem slots, you have less of an investment in any given piece equipped.
    All that said, you are left with 7-8 different sources for loot, out of necessity. No new dungeon tier means a players can’t repeatedly run ZG in 4.2 or WoE in 4.3 to become raid ready. A player should not have to wait a week to get gear needed to enter a current normal raid, because the available options are so few and on weekly/daily lockouts. So WoW now has numerous (on lockout sources) for upgrades.

    That said the current form RNG is awful. At least on personal loot, never won items should have their likelihood increased after each roll, and reset afterwards. Purely random odds are just bad by design. They create droughts and floods naturally. Players can easily identify any clusters that form in a random data set, and falsely attribute it to a broken system/a lack of fairness than to randomness.

    Sid Meyer’s view of RNG, is to protect its effects from the player from extremes and to limit and control its possible effect on game play. Randomness is brutal, imagine an RPG dungeon where the average number of mob encounters is 8, and the difficulty of the boss is based off of the party having taken damage/burned inventory for 8 battles. Now lets assume some one with particularly bad luck enters the dungeon, lets call them Grumpy and assume they have 24 mob encounters and the boss is unbeatable as a result. They then reenter the dungeon, are attacked only 4 times and boss battle is no challenge at all. That’s a really disjointed, and frustrating game play experience, and basically how it feels to gear a character in WoW.

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    1. I have been over that post a hundred times in my head and because of all the curse words involved I don't think I could ever write it.

      But I will try one day. It is a post that will come.

      I have often called it the feast of famine that I see with the RNG. You either win something off every coin you use that week or win nothing. And the win nothing can go on for months and months. You win gear in blocks, a lot at once and then nothing for months. I hate that, hate it with a passion.

      I would rather win one piece a week for 8 weeks than win 8 piece in one week and nothing for 7. The every week winning keeps me wanting to come back, keeps me enjoying it because I am getting stuff as I go. The 7 weeks with nothing makes me want to quit most of the time.

      Sid seems to have an idea of what I am talking about. There needs to be some sort of intelligence programmed into the game to "smooth" out the RNG. Blizzard lets it run out on its own and do whatever it wants, they need to learn to control it.

      Some people might say controlled RNG is not true RNG, but controlled RNG can, and does, keep the RNG from over rewarding and underrewarding people, which is good for the game as a whole.

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  4. In my opinion, all your posts proves that ilvl is not the only measure for performance in a raid setting. I understand you are frustrated with RNG, but all the Apexis gear and crafted gear is exactly a way to not have to deal with raid drop RNG.

    Also I think you overdid it with the list, for the crafted items, you can reroll stats pretty cheaply, you may not get the perfect combination, but e.g. crit/vers is still acceptable. Rerolling Apexis gear is a bit harder, but 5k per piece is still affordable. Also all the HFC items are base ilvl 695 or higher, so the WF versions are above 700 :)

    Also I really dont see your issue with WF/gems, its just a nice bonus, but in 99 % of the cases not having it wont prevent you from killing the boss, which is what raiding is all about imho. The obsession with BIS is just not feasible in the current system.

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    1. I can only second the statement that WF/gems on dropped gear should never be considered required for the "BiS feeling"

      You can aspire to own a particular chest piece, but never that this will be warforged or having the gem slot. Trying to do that will really burn you out, because won't even feel the joy of achieving that intermediate step.

      I feel like people go with BiS lists because they are easy to handle. There's an item at the top and you can push hard (like use bonus rolls or never skip that boss) into that direction - you have a clear goal.
      Having WF/Gems dillutes this goal quite a bit, because suddenly a normally worse piece of gear can actually be better than the one you really reach for, just because of 6 iLvl or +50 stats.

      If you're like me, just ignore all that randomness while setting your goals, but embrace any luck you encounter while climbing step by step that BiS list.

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    2. @Calen

      As a raider that gear is not an option. I already have my three crated gear and the baleful gear can and will never replace tier gear.

      So while there are other options, I am still restricted to luck and luck only. There was only one baleful piece I could make that would be an upgrade, it was a small one, but I made it and was done with T2 upgrades.

      So on my main at least, baleful gear was never needed.

      And those 695 pieces are 695, even if they are 695 warforged. Their base item level, as stated in the post, is between the range listed.

      While I do agree you do not "need" WF/GS gear, who doesn't want it? It is still the best piece for you and people want the best piece for them. Anyone that says otherwise is lying. Plain and simple.

      @Marrion

      Then what exactly is your explanation of "BiS" feeling?

      Mine is, as it says, best in slot. That means the best item that goes in that slot. A warfroged and gem slot piece of gear is BiS and as such gives that BiS feeling. Anything else is just an upgrade on my way until I get BiS.

      Is it "required" to down bosses? Not even close, you could down bosses on heroic with everyone in the group wearing only baleful item if they are goof players. Does it mean you would not want a better piece if you could get it? Nope. People like upgrades, it is what most play for.

      People do go to best in slot lists because they are easy to handle. No need to "feel" it, that is the flat out truth. People will always look for the best gear.

      Pick any game where there are randomized aspects to it. Search for the best team make up for this boss, best items for that battle, best skills for this level, best weapon for this quest, etc.

      It is human nature to see a list that says "this is best" and then try to duplicate it.

      If anything, that is the heart of warcraft and games like it. People see the best in slot as the fabled "ultimate weapon" and will keep playing until they get it. Lists telling people what weapon that is are extremely important. Making that weapon attainable is even more important, even if it takes a lot of time and effort.

      Actually, I am like you, I do not have much luck mind you, but each time I get one step closer to having that best in slot piece I am happy to get it. Like I said, even you and me (and I do not raid for gear, I gear for raid) follow those lists. Lists are good.

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  5. There's also the added RNG with Baleful gear that just because it's "Feverflare" or whatever, the balance between the two stats is also random...

    Because the odds of getting the "best" item are so low, it encourages me to just say "screw it". I'm sure that I'm not the only one who considers taking the first item I get and never bothering to get anything else.

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    1. That makes it even way more randomized. You could get one with 200 crit and 100 mutilstrike or 200 multistrike and 100 crit. If I delved into all those possibilities you are talking a difference of perhaps thousands of gear options. I did not feel like going too deep into it because none of those pieces with random stats are BiS, but as you said, I could have.

      I think that is blizzards idea, they want people to just say screw it and wear whatever they get and just be happy they got something.

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  6. Right on the money Grumpy. Some RNG on gear (warforged OR gems instead of both) would still provide the re playability they want for farm bosses. As it stands, it's just too much. I don't even pay attention to tertiary stats anymore (which isn't much fun). Hopefully Blizzard will dial it back going forward. Right now the only upside is all the enchants I'm selling.

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    1. I think gem slots should be standard. A piece either has them or doesn't. Gem slots are what throw off item level as sometimes lower item levels are better because of gem slots.

      I can say okay to random for warforged, that increases item level and power, so they move up together. If we have to have some random, that could be it. But random gem slots need to go.

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  7. I would add that I suspect this system is a reaction to Siege. They always talk about it in terms of the re playability of content. If Blizzard thinks that turning loot into lottery tickets will keep players engaged in the same raid for over a year, they really don't know their customers.

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    1. Make content good, make content enjoyable, make content worthwhile, and it will be replayable. Add RNG for the sake of RNG and people start giving up. Which is what I have seen a lot of people do.

      I know a few people that have just stopped raiding completely. Or they only do LFR now when they want to raid. Why? Because the reward is not worth the effort. Even more so because if they get a plain piece without it being warforged or with a gem slot they feel as if they wasted their time.

      So they do not add repeatably to the content, they instead, for some, made them give up on it.

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  8. what's RNG, LFR? I can't find what it stands for on this page.

    Honestly GE, maybe have a side page that lists these abbreviations? Even in military documents before an abbreviation is used it is listed as for example - "Heavy Whipping Cream (HWC)" then after the first time "Heavy Whipping Cream" is used the initials "HWC" are used in it's place - like what you folks are doing. I am sure I know what it means, but truly have forgotten.

    Thanks.

    -roo

    PS - if I remember correctly, Blizzard changed every thing around on armor and wespons, dropping this stat, this gem slot, that stat to uncomplicated our gear. Now, it looks like they are going right back to the black hole of all this shyt is. I wonder if Ask Mr Robot wanting to stay in business has something to do with this or is it that 10 percent of "I'm de boss" players? I say, go back to having grey armor, green armor, blue getting from dungeons, purple from raids. And of course green armor can be great, but it needs to be able to be able to take on ALL mobs outside of dungeons and some inside of the beginning dungeons to be able to get that blue to start going inside higher level dungeons and blue to go into raiding, etc.

    as I see it, gear has become even more complicated. Oh well, what's a crazy roo to do, lol

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    1. RNG is Random Number Generator.
      LFR is Looking For Raid; it refers to Raid Finder.

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    2. Hi Jaeger.

      Thanks. I still think there should be something on the right side showing that for folks who are either new or forget this.

      And no other thought about the different color armor- I did forget to add (a wonderful example of a mind that lags) there is only stats on it whatever the toon uses (str, int or agi) and health. As it gets better (goes up in color), then the extra stats are seen - haste, versatility, mastery, smack down (sorry, I forgot some of the others), etc.

      Or armor is just like heritage - once you get it, it goes up in values. All I know, is with each patch, armor/weapon numbers are climbing thru the roof like it did pre-WOD. And blizzard is there giving it out like candy.

      :-(

      -roo a sad sad panda

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    3. Adding an abbreviation page might not bee a bad idea Roo. Should do it some day.

      They exchanged one level of complication for another. They didn't fix anything, they just relocated the problem. Standard for blizzard.

      They seem to not grasp the concept that if it is not broke, don't fix it.

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  9. Grumpy, i'm afraid although you are technically right, you seem to have missed the point. The reason there are so many choices on gear is so that the gear you want is very difficult to get, but blizzard knows you will farm it anyway. The extra fluff stats are blizzards way of making the worst expansion in history last longer by making the gear you want less likely to drop and ensuring you take much longer to burn through the limited content.

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    1. I do understand that is why they are doing it. They had said that they want to make it harder to get BiS.

      I did no so much miss the point as I disagreed with the point. I do not like this format.

      I also do not agree with making it harder to get the gear you actually want is a decent way to extend the life of the content. Which as you mentioned, seems to be what they are trying to do.

      I am sure it works for some people, those that raid for gear only maybe. But not for me. I would rather be able to get my full BiS as quick as possible so then I could just raid for fun and not have to worry about gearing any more.

      I gear for raid, I do not raid for gear.

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    2. I don’t think this is true, I think the issue behind this is Blizzard trying to be fair. They are constantly revamping looting and currencies in every expansion because they approached fairness in the least invasive way possible.

      Random = Fair as apposed to Effort = Reward = Fair. By making something random the developer can throw up their hands and say “its random, its out of my hands”. Everyone has the same chance, its random. But I don’t think the player base wants looting to be random. If you kill a boss 9 times looking for the tier gloves, should the 1st and 10th times have equal odds at dropping them? It behooves Blizzard to make this type of change, players expect their odds at seeing the gear go up after each kill, its called the gambler’s fallacy, and while its logically incorrect it feels correct emotionally. Each week a player see’s no loot, they become more and more frustrated.

      Quest’s where the player is tasked with collecting a number of X off mobs works like similar to this. After each mob killed the RNG equation updates. If the looted mob did not drop the quest objective the odds of the next kill dropping it increases, if it did contain the quest objective the RNG equation resets in short the solution has been in the game since vanilla.

      Blizzard does not need another level of RNG to make gear more rare to extend content. The current probably for a player not seeing ANY loot from a boss, (not factoring in if its usable or tier) is 10-33% after 10 kills. That’s why groups will be re-running the same bosses repeatedly because someone will always need a piece of loot need loot from them in even small raid groups.

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    3. Random is only consider fair by people that get the gear.

      Effort = Reward is fair for everyone as everyone needs to put in the same effort to get the same reward.

      So I will never, not in a million years, say that random generated gear drop, gear upgrades or gear stats is fair. Even if suddenly my luck turned for the better and I was winning everything all the time, RNG is still the worst way ever to design a reward based system.

      I do agree with you that if they want to use random they need to change random. So if you kill a boss for the 10th time without getting those tier gloves you are guaranteed to get them on kill 10. What that does is adds an effort = reward net over the RNG gear. It fixes the inherent problems with RNG, not perfect, but better than what is in place.

      I also agree, people will keep running the same bosses, because as you said, there will always be someone that needs to loot. Any good guild, even any casual guild with decent people, will have people that need nothing from the content helping those that do. Content does not automatically become useless when you have the gear you want, unless you are raiding for gear only. And who wants to raid with those selfish people anyway. :P

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    4. well, if I may add - I don't like the random as I believe armor, whether crafted or drop should be for that class of toon. And the game is on a computer and an program, where it can look at what most of my gear is and drop or give me the same type - i.e. if I have mostly haste, then give me haste. Pretty simple, but Rick has it down - it's random and that gives the programmers an out, :)

      Egads, 3 beers gives me an exclusive to the game - time to play

      -roo

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    5. I would like that Roo, but sadly it goes against what their design is. They want to keep you from getting that "perfect" piece so you keep playing. It is their bait, they believe people will keep trying until they get it and quit when they do, so they are trying to keep people from getting it as long as possible.

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  10. Talking of RNG is burnt thru 60 of those engineering devices until I got the stats I want on my helm and gun. There's another example of how poor this expansion is, if I can make it for myself I should get the stats I want not some random piece of crap

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    1. I got lucky as in it did not take me that many, but still a fair deal. Did manage to get one of my three crafted pieces on the third try once. All others took a while.

      It is purely luck based and one hunter in my guild made himself three crafted pieces early expansion and all three rolled with the perfect stats to begin with and he did not need to change even one of them. lol How is that for luck. I wish I could borrow it with all this RNG.

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  11. I would say that more choices are always better than fewer BUT only if they do not detract from each other.

    To give an example, I also play GW2 on the side and I applaud their decision to include 23 different stat combinations on maximum level equipment while keeping said stat combinations more or less equally easy/hard to acquire. Stuff is either crafted or acquired through dungeon tokens and said tokens are not RNG. You get a set amount after each run. There is a "meta" stat combination that the number crunchers go for but if I want to experiment, I can.

    48 chest pieces would be perfectly fine if you could pick which ones to work towards to. But because Blizzard decided that RNGesus shall be the playerbase's collective deity, the number of possibilities ends up frustrating people.

    It's just as heckling as no longer being able to mix and match items not designed for your class + specialization. I wanted to derp around with agility weapon and cloth spirit gear with stamina trinkets on my mistweaver monk (not in a competitive environment! just for my own amusement while doing dailies or soloing old content!) to see where I can push fistweaving but hey ho the developers seem to think that I'm a bad girl for not sticking to the status quo and as such I'm only allowed to have fun the appropriate way. Gear stats are to be automatically converted when you switch specs and you can only win the type of gear that your class wears.

    I miss the days of mixing equipment in all sorts of spectacular way on my feral druid.

    Blizzard somehow managed to change the game in a way so that it offers more choices but at the same time heavily restricts choices either through "quality of life" changes or pure RNG. I'm not sure whether I should be annoyed or amused.

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    1. "Gear stats are to be automatically converted when you switch specs and you can only win the type of gear that your class wears.

      I miss the days of mixing equipment in all sorts of spectacular way on my feral druid."

      This drives me crazy! I used to love carrying around a set of gear to be whatever I needed to fill until we got a dedicated fill-in-the-blank. Tank drops? Bear up, switch spec, gear up, I can hold us at a slow pace for a while. Healer drops, I don't have the spec but I can probably keep us up if we are careful.

      Plus it was just fun! What a concept! Oh, nevermind, removed in 6.0

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    2. @Anon

      Tokens from dungeons that are not RNG. Sounds strikingly like valor. ;) I really do miss less RNG options in warcraft. Relying on RNG for gear and then RNG for stats and RNG for warforged or gem slot it just too much RNG for me.

      As you said, 48 would not be a big deal if you could pick which one to worth toward. No RNG involved. Work for it, get it. Reward for your effort instead of random stats. It is the random that make it bad, not that there are 48 of them.

      Using stamina trinkets used to be something I did all the time soloing. I used to use them all the time, had to use some PvP gear as well so my pet would not be crit while soloing.

      That was back in the day when we actually had talent trees too. Sure I would use a spec I could never use in a raid, but just like I wore the wrong gear sometimes I needed special talents or weird arrangements to get the results I wanted when soloing.

      In that case there were a lot more choices, those choices were good because I could change them as I saw fit. Sure there will always be 1 best spec for raiding back then, but having the ability, the choice if you would, to mix and match your spec was awesome in my opinion. Choice really can be good sometimes.

      I'd say they destroyed gearing in the game by leaving everything up to RNG. No other options to earn your gear, it is RNG and RNG only.

      @Casually Odd

      Another case of them talking away "fun" choices and replacing them with RNG choices.

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