Are Caps the Reason Things Feel Mandatory?

The word "mandatory" has been the buzz word of the mists expansion and I would not be surprised if a few years from now if someone made a post on the forums that said to describe mists in one word that many would say, mandatory.

While some people argue that nothing in the game is mandatory, and they are 100% correct, that does not change the fact that people felt things were indeed mandatory.  There is a reason for that feeling as well and that reason should be a buzz word in its own.  Caps.  The reason things felt mandatory were the fact there were so many caps in the game put in to slow people down and that is what gave some people the feeling of something being mandatory.

What am I rambling about you ask?  Limiting what a person could do. 

Lets take a look at the change in reputation from previous expansions to the current one.  In BC the reputations where, mostly, ones you could grind if you really wanted them by killing mobs for reputation or repeatable turn ins for reputations.  The items those reputations gave you, which in some cases might be nice, were really nothing all that special. So with that said most reputations could be sped up if you were willing to spend the time doing so and what the reputation offered never felt all that important to the point you felt you had to get it.

In wrath and cataclysm the reputations because a dungeon run away.  You could get as much reputation as you wanted in one day if you were willing to put in the effort to do so.  While nothing except the head and shoulder enchants were really interesting you could just pop on a tabard on a saturday and chain run some heroics with friends or the LFD (later on) and be capped out.

Now enter mists (talking about from the beginning here) and the only way to get reputation is from dailies.  The dailies where limited, even if they removed the cap on how many dailies you could do per day if the faction that you needed reputation with only offered 1200 worth of reputation per day, that is the most you can get.  There were no mobs to grind, there were no repeatable quests, there were no tabards you could throw on and grind some dungeons.  You would do all your dailies and get your 1200 per day and that was all you could get.

But wait, there is more.  Unlike all previous expansions, there was actually something more than just worthwhile or filler behind these reputations, namely, all your gear.  You could earn as much valor as you wanted, up to another cap that is, but you had nothing what so ever to spend it on if you did not grind that reputation.

This collection of stuff all thrown together gave many people the feeling of mandatory.  If you could only get 1200 reputation a day, and you need 6000 more reputation to buy the piece you need, if you want to get it as soon as possible, it was mandatory that you did those dailies for 5 days.  And that is why people felt it was mandatory.  Because it was if you wanted that in 5 days.

When you could miss a day and make it up, no one cared about reputation.  Big deal I will run two dungeons tomorrow instead of one and catch up.  I will turn in 12 pieces of cloth for that repeatable quest and make up for what I missed.  I'll go slaughter some innocent humanoids that just happen to grant me reputation to catch up for what I missed.  None of that was there.  If you missed doing those dailies that day you missed getting that reputation.

Again, there really was no huge rush, unless you felt you needed to get it done.  But many people did feel that way, just look at the forums back then to see all them complaining if you don't remember them feeling that way, and the caps on what you could gain in a day is exactly why people felt it was mandatory to do those dailies, daily.

How about those coins, the elder ones, the ones that gave you extra rolls on raid bosses?  I know many, myself included, that believe if you did not get your three coins a week you were just not trying.  I still believe that now.  If you still need loot from the bosses you are currently killing and you are not getting coins each week for an extra roll, you are just not trying.

The fact they were limited to 3 per week made getting them feel mandatory.  If you miss getting them one week there was no way to get them the next week.  It was not like the next week you could get 6.  Nope, 3 per week, you were capped.  And 10 over all, you were capped.  Basically this built on the system that you need to get it now or you miss out.  There is no going back, there is no catching up, if you missed it you missed it.

At least the lesser coins were a better design.  You could get as many of them as you want.  I made enough just that first month of the expansion doing every daily every day that I will never need coins on my main for the entire expansion and that is good.  That is actually great.  Blizzard needs to take a look at that, and the change to no cap on dailies per day, and see what they did right.

If someone wanted to, like I did, they could stack up a few thousand of them right at the get go and basically never need to worry about them for the rest of the expansion.  Never be put in the position where I felt it was mandatory to do quests to get lesser charms to turn in because I farmed them when I wanted to farm them and I have enough of them now. 

So while you can say that lesser charms still have the mandatory feeling, as you need them for those elder (rune) coins they never really had the same mandatory feeling because there was no cap placed on them.  Right now, if you were so inclined to do so, you could go pet battling crazy or barrens farming or do all the dailies for a few days and build yourself up 600, 700, or more of them all in one day and then not need to do it for a few weeks or even months depending on how many you farmed.

Kind of like with the tabard for reputation you could get as much as you want when you wanted it, you could get as many lessers as you want when you want them.  That is the reason why they did not feel as mandatory.  Because there was no cap.

That is the ultimate play at your own pace gaming design I would like to see a lot more of in the game personally.  But that is another post completely so I will not go on too much about it.

If you were only able to get 50 (90 at the start) lesser coins a week to turn in for the three elder ones it would have had that mandatory feeling.  Because it was capped.  Because if you miss it you would never be able to catch up.

The cap, the limit, that is what makes things feel mandatory.  It even goes to the oldest cap to grinding in the current state of the game that we can remember, the valor grind.  By placing a cap you are saying you can only get this much and if you do not get this much, you will be behind because there is no way to catch up once you missed it.

I sometimes wonder if the valor cap were removed how much it would change the game.  Lets take one of my more recent 90s for example.  As an alt I am not going crazy gearing it up but I will only play it until it is capped.  Once it it capped I no longer play it because I feel as if I am wasting my time playing.

Would I prefer to play it like crazy one weekend while trying to gear up and grind 4000 valor in one weekend or would I prefer to have to cap it every week for 4 weeks to get that same amount? 

Personally, I would rather play it when I feel like playing it.  That would mean that if I want to grind 4000 valor on one weekend play session I should be able to.  And then I could let it sit on the side for the next three weeks.  I would get the same amount, but I would be doing it at the pace I wish to play that character at and not being limited by caps and forced, if I wanted that 4000, to play it every week for 4 weeks.  That is why the valor cap makes it seem mandatory. 

If I am looking to collect 4000 valor the most effective way for me to do it would be to cap for 4 weeks.  Without the cap, nothing would seem mandatory.  I would get that 4000 when I wanted it.  I could do the 1750 I wanted for one piece saturday, the 1250 I wanted for another piece on sunday and then maybe on monday I could knock out the 1000 to upgrade them both.  As long as I am forced into the 1000 a week cap thing I can't play at my own pace, as long as I am forced into the 1000 a week it is mandatory for me to cap each week if I want that 4000.

While some people might not look to raids and consider them as another cap, they are.  If I do not kill the three ranged weapon bosses this week that is three chances, six with coins, that I miss for getting the weapon for my hunter.  It is not like I can go back next week and kill them each twice getting six chances, or 12 if you will.  A missed chance, because I am capped at looting raid bosses once a week, is a chance that is lost forever.  So if I want that ranged weapon it is mandatory I down those bosses every week to get it.  The one loot per week cap makes killing it each week mandatory if I want the weapon.

Any time there is an enforced limit on anything in the game it has the chance of feeling mandatory.  Only when you can do things when you want, how you want, and at your own pace, will things begin to lose that mandatory feeling.

We need to take a look at why there are caps to begin with to fully understand the reasoning why people feel they are mandatory.  Understanding the reason for caps will help in understanding why there are mandatory for many to reach.

Capping reputation to 1200 per day means that the game is effectively telling you the pace you can proceed at.  If it is going to take you 18 days to get to the level you want to be, it will take you 18 days.  The cap is there to ensure you are playing the game for those 18 days.  If they let you put on a tabard like in the last two expansions you could get that 18 days worth of work done on one weekend and you played 2 days instead of 18.  By making a cap they are slowing your progression on gaining reputation and keeping you in game playing.  It is by design, it is intentional, it is a cap for that very reason, to keep you playing, it is mandatory by design.

Same goes for raid drops.  If you could keep killing a boss until you got what you wanted you could effectively gear yourself up in a short time if you had the people and the time to do so.  Just like in dungeons where you would spam the same dungeon over and over until you got what you wanted.  That is why you get one shot a week in a raid and only one.  They want to slow you down which in turn keeps you playing and also makes killing those bosses each week seem mandatory. 

The raid loot once a week is probably the only cap I actively support in game, as it is the end game, it should take a little longer.  The LFR looting once a week however I am against.  If I choose to practice some self abuse and endure the LFR multiple times for bottom of the barrel gear I should be allowed to do so.

In the valor example I gave where I was talking about getting my new 90 two pieces and upgrading them both I said I would do that over one weekend.  With caps however it would take 4 weeks.  And more so, 4 weeks of me playing that character every week for its 1000 valor cap and maybe even more.  So not only is it slowing my personal progression down to a halt almost taking me 4 weeks instead of 3 days but they keep me active in game over those 4 weeks because of it.  That is the reason there is a cap.  To slow me down on purpose.

Everything there is a cap for in game is there for the reason that they want to keep you in game playing and that is why they are slowing you down.  It is only a side effect of the person playing that makes it feel mandatory.  The caps themselves were never put in with the intention of feeling mandatory, but they were put in to slow you down so you play for a longer time.

So the question is, are caps really worth it?  What is gained from making me cap my new 90 for 4 weeks in a row instead of letting me do what I want to do in 3 days?  Is it worth all the "mandatory" backlash because of these fixed caps?

There might be other reasons why people feel things are mandatory in game but in my opinion the only reason it is such a big deal is because of caps.

Sure, if there were no caps at the beginning people would say they did not like that they needed to be revered with the golden lotus to get the valor piece they wanted, they would say it felt mandatory.  But if they were capable of putting on a tabard and banging out that rep doing dungeons instead of being stuck gaining only 1200 (or whatever) reputation per day because of a cap it would become more of a choice.  A person would then have the choice of moving at the 1200 per day pace or the choice of putting on a tabard and grinding it out in one day.  Choice, something that gets around the caps, it helps remove the feeling of mandatory.

To answer my own question of the topic, yes, caps are the reason things feel mandatory.  What do you think?

What if: Gear Dropped From Anywhere

Right now we know where we get our gear.  From vendor or from bosses and the occasional crafted or BoE/BoP drop.  It is a simple format that we all have grown accustom to and accept at least on some level.  You might not like that your best in slot trinket drops from the last boss, but you accept that is how it is.  You might not like that no weapons can be purchased with valor but you deal with it because what choice do you have.

But what if any mob of the appropriate level any where in the game could drop any piece of gear, using the smart loot system.  So while out and about grinding mobs if you get lucky to get that 1% drop it will be something that is for your loot specialization.  Might as well add that part being it was added to the game right?

I could effectively go out and grind mobs by the hundreds or thousands  hoping for my bow being none of the bow bosses like me all that much.  It still leaves it up to my most hated thing in the game, something I would pay to see removed, the random number generator, but it does increase my chances as every mob could drop it.

And lets even pump it up some.  There is a 1% chance to drop something for your loot specialization and a 10% change that thing you do find when you find it could be heroic.

Lets not leave the PvP players out of this either.  They too will have a chance to get gear for their specialization as well.  Whenever an enemy player dies that you helped contribute to killing, either by healing someone that did damage to them or doing damage to them yourself you have a 5% chance it will be a piece of gear honor level awarded to you and a 10% change on top of that that it will be a piece at conquest level.

How about using this gear grind for PvP to inspire more world PvP by saying the chances are increased to 7% and 14% when not in instanced content.  I can see that being abused however so maybe that would not work as well in action as it does on paper.

All the talk about getting people out in the world however and the game seems to be failing at finding anything that actually motivates people to get out there.  While I might not be the type that is completely driven by gear you can see that gear is a huge motivator in the game for the vast majority of the player base.

People love to judge people by their gear, think they are better than others because of gear, so much so that the game itself uses gear to judge if people are capable of doing content when anyone with a brain knows that gear is only the tool.  It is the person using the tools that make the tools effective.

People raid for gear, they rage when they lose a roll, they complain when they need stuff for their raid and a holy paladin piece drops and has to be disenchanted because they have no holy paladin, they grind valor for gear, valor for upgrades to their gear.  They gem their gear, they enchant their gear, they reforge their gear and if they are so inclined to do so they even transmog their gear.  I am sure there are some parents in the game that pay more attention to their gear than they do their own children.  Yes sad, but I am sure it is true.

Gear is huge.  The idea that even a casual player that never raids can get heroic level gear just from killing mobs, even if the chances are minimal, is the ultimate motivator to get them to playing more and get them out in the world.  What can be more casual friendly, or any type of player friendly at that, than killing things you know you can kill at a pace you can kill them whenever you want to kill them and getting the chance to get a piece of gear that you would never in a million years get otherwise.

From the player vs player standpoint this works wonders too.  Even someone like myself that is not into PvP can really get into world PvP from time to time.  I actually love it and would love to see more of it.  If there were an active world PvP player base I could honestly see myself quitting raiding and just fighting all the time.  I really do like it that much.  Perhaps that is why I would like to see something done to bring it back, to bring things back into the world and out of the instance.

But having gear drop from world PvP would not only be a motivator for people to world PvP but it would also allow people like myself to gear up slowly with a small chance to get gear from doing it.  You never know, with a little luck with drops and maybe even getting some conquest level stuff and I might actually want to join in on organized content as well.  It would also, in time, increase my level of skill by doing it often.

Having gear drop from every player and mob in this what if world would be a way to get people back out in the world.  It would give them a reason to be doing things instead of standing around waiting to do things.  You could grind gear while waiting to get into your LFR in hopes of getting gear there as well.

What other advantages or disadvantages could this bring?

What if gear dropped from anywhere?

Breakfast Topic: How did you choose your faction?

Today's breakfast topic at wow-insider is how did you choose your faction.

I am sure that there will be a lot of reasons why people decided to be who they were, alliance or horde.  I can see many taking the "pretty" path while many others took the "evil" path.  We all know based on fantasy backgrounds and our own eyes that alliance is the pretty faction and the horde is the evil faction.

Many people in one way or another will say they decided which side to fight on based something along those lines.  "I liked the horde because they are the underdog" or "I choose to be a human because it is easier for me to relate to", you get the idea.

For me, the choice of my faction was much more practical.  I had many friends that played the game that had been wanting me to join them both on horde and alliance side.  So I was not really swayed by them, I could have went either way.

What made me choose my side more than any other factor involved in the decision making process was what I saw when I looked up some stuff about the game.  Let it be known I have characters on both sides now but am still more alliance than horde.

The people who play on the horde side are more into player vs player content, at least that is what my initial research about them.  The people that play on the alliance are more into the player vs environment content.  Being I do not like PvP the choice was made for me.  I really never had a decision in it.  I will not join the PvP part of the game if I am not into PvP, so alliance it was for me.

Yes, my understanding of how it worked was wrong, but it is still how I came about my decision.

The funny part is all these years later nothing has changed and if someone were to ask me I would sum it up in just a few words, the same words I read a long time ago that made me decide on which faction I would play.  If you like PvP roll horde.

It is as simple as that.  It had nothing to do with looks.  It had nothing to do with story.  It had nothing to do with the feeling of being the underdog or the top dog.  The faction I play came down to that one line.  If you like PvP roll horde.  So I rolled alliance.

What Would You Do Just For Achievements?

Someone made a comment in a post about achievements being a motivator for some of the things he does in game and it got me to thinking how much of what I do would I do if there were no achievements tied to it.

Archaeology is the one thing that really made me think about it.  I have it on only one character and it really is boring.  Sometimes I did while waiting in queue for my dungeon when it first came out, as a timer waster sort of thing, but still not something I would ever do on another character.  Once skilling one character up I see no reason to get another up.

As a secondary profession it fits neatly where it should I guess.  You can live without it.  I personally did it for the goodies but this expansion I did it for the achievements more so.  I was lucky and got the goodies in the first few finds, even before I managed to get to max level.  Even when they added the klaxxi ones I got the goodies there really quick. But I still kept at it.  Why?  Achievements.

The 20 of each achievements, the one of each pristine achievement and of course the seeker of knowledge title.  If it where not for the achievements once I maxed archaeology and got my goodies I would have never done it again.  Achievements drove me to do it.

It got me thinking about some of the other things I do.  Like right now I still solo old dungeons and raids trying to get mounts.  I have the mount I use and I like it.  Been using the same mount for years and even if I got other nice ones and checked them out, like ashes, I still went back to my mount.  Sure, I collect mounts, but it is sort of something of a byproduct.

When I go back and solo this old stuff looking for mounts it is because I need 5 more for the 200 achievement.  I could easily live without the mounts and there is so much to do in the game as is so it is not like I am bored and looking for something to do, which is how I got into collecting them to begin with.  So each time I step into stonecore to do my 5 before I am locked I am doing it for the 200 mount achievement, not for the mount itself.

I don't PvP really but when I do it is always in the back of my head that I can get achievements at it.  When I enter a battle ground the first thing that pops into my mind is what achievements should  I work toward while I am here, not about winning the battle.  The battle is secondary.  I am going to end up with my 100 wins anyway sooner or later just doing them, might as well get the achievements like capping a node, returning a flag, getting honor kills, etc.

I think the first bullshit achievement, and by that I mean something I did just to get an achievement, was shave and a haircut.  I did it not because I wanted to change my hair, I don't give a crap about my hair, but I wanted to get the achievement.

I went around the world to read books for an achievement, I loved squirrels to get an achievement, I did a ton of things that I would have never done most likely if it were not for the sake of getting achievements.  It is not so much that I am an achievement whore, it is just that when I see something there on the achievement list it becomes a todo list.  I need to go read these books, I need to love these squirrels, I need to get a haircut.

I wonder if there are certain aspects of the game you would never have done if it were not for the achievements associated to them.  I know there are some things I never would have done and the archaeology thing is first and foremost.  I would never have went on to find 20 of each thing and one of each pristine thing after I reached max level and got my goodies I wanted.  There really is no motivation to do it when you have everything.  And that is where achievements come in.  They are the added motivation to keep us doing something that we would never do otherwise.

I do find some achievements to be quite odd.  I mean do we really need an achievement for level 10?  It is something you just bump into.  You were leveling anyway.  It was bound to happen if you kept leveling.  But other things that add up numbers do seem to make sense.  To some extent.  Looting 1000 gold, while just like reaching level 10 is something that will happen sooner or later anyway, makes sense to keep track of.  Maybe because it is not a number we see on the screen all the time.

Then they have all those new achievements they added being they tied achievements together.  Makes me wonder, why stop?  We have an achievement for having 2 90s, 3 90s, 5 90s, one 90 on each side, but why not have one for have 1 90 of each class, or 2 90s on each side, or, well, you get the idea.

Sometimes, even for the achievement hunter that I have become, it seems like it is really getting out of hand.  They are adding so many achievement to hunt, so much so that it almost seems like it eats a lot of time for a limit period of excitement for achieving it.   When on the other hand, there are achievement they could have added and they didn't.  We have an achievement for killing all the rares on the island or killing a certain amount of warbringers and warscouts but why not have one for killing all the commanders in the barrens?

While I am asking the players what do you do just for achievements I could ask blizzard what is the reasoning behind some achievements? 

Or what are the reasonings why some other things that scream achievement don't have one?  With the achievement happy blizzard lately, one that wants you to grind (20 of each artifact) and ones that want you to camp (kill all the rares) why are some things that seem perfect for achievements absent.  Like killing all the commanders or killing all the named hozen in the valley.  Those would both fit neatly into the kill all the rares sort of thing.

More importantly, for this post at least, is if they did add those achievements, would you go and slaughter all those named hozen to get it?  Would you make groups to hunt down commanders to do it?

I know I would, because I do a lot of things in game I would never do, or want to do, if it were not for the achievements associated with it.  What would you do just for the achievements?

Monday Random Thoughts

- I played a lot this weekend but didn't do anything.

- I did not get much alt time in.

- Go no lower level alt time in at all.

- I did not run the ToT LFRs on my alts to try and get some gear.

- But I did run a ToT alt run with some really low geared alts.

- Managed to go 4 deep.

- Not bad with some people around 490 item level.

- Including one of the tanks.

- I did waste a lot of time trying to collect stuff I am still missing.

- I soloed stonecore another 30 times.

- You can get the mount on normal so I run until I get locked out a few times during the day.

- Still no mount.

- No mounts from firelands, onyxia, UP or strath either.

- That is basically what I spent my weekend doing mostly.

- Trying to collect junk I don't have yet.

- I should make a list of what I need to do so I do not forget.

- I have to be well over 1000 attempts at stonecore now and at least 600 on UP.

- Onxyia is the one I always forget to do.

- I would say I do it once every few months because it always slips my mind.

- I did finally get my last pet I needed for raiding with leashes 2.

- Took doing it on multiple characters each week since the patch came out.

- That is a horrible drop rate, or really bad luck.

- To put this in perspective, in all the weeks I have been doing them all on at least 2 characters, sometimes as many as 6, just to see if I could get extra, I only managed to get 2 extras.

- Yeap, you read that right, in the many weeks since release that I have done all of these on at least 2 characters I have only got 2 extras.

- I also never got one of them, I traded one of those extras for one of the ones I needed.

- Is the drop rate really that dismal or is my luck really that bad?

- No need to answer.

- My luck really is that bad, I already know that.

- I did do a couple of the early LFRs on saturday in the early morning.

- Seems there are much nicer groups then.

- I guess that is because the people that cause trouble were up late friday night making friday LFRs hell so they were still sleeping saturday morning, thus it made for a quite pleasant run.

- Healed for the first time in ages trying a new rotation on my priest of going straight attonement with just shields and prayer of mending on cooldown on the tank.

- I read how insane the numbers are and I wanted to test it out being I have not healed in a long time.

- My numbers were dreadful low compared to what I am used to, but I chalk that up to it being the LFR.

- But I am judging LFR vs LFR.

- And with that in mind I seemed to put out more raw healing doing straight healing than I do with attonment healing.

- I guess I need to work on it more, I trust the data, but I don't see it as it is working.

- I did manage to get the last of the sigils I needed for that character however so on to collecting 3000 valor now.

- That was part of my reasoning for doing it as well.

- Not just to test out the healing, but to get junk out of my bags and those sigils were just junk taking up space.

- I doubt I will ever get the legendary on any of my alts.

- Too much work for it on an alt in my opinion.

- Even more so when you count in horrible drop rates worse queue times and dismal groups with people I would rather not have to group with.

- If they would make the drop rates better and enforce some standard code of behavior in the LFRs then doing them would not be such an annoyance.

- And the queue time, it is beyond a joke.

- A few guild mates decided to queue up for the last LFR yesterday.

- Nearly two hours after they entered the queue popped up and they go into a group that proceeded to wipe on trash three times.

- Yes, the trash in the last one, you know the trash that it has to be nearly impossible to wipe on.

- They said that both tanks dropped before they even got to the first boss.

- Then they all dropped group after waiting another 45 minutes, which put them over 2 and a half hours.

- Two and a half hours for nothing.

- If you count on the LFR for your fun in the game, the game is completely unplayable now.

- If, and that is a huge if, you can get into it in a reasonable time frame you still have to deal with the dregs of humanity.

- Not exactly what I would consider "fun" game design.

- I think it is time blizzard went back to the drawing board with the LFR, it is not working as it should.

- Working as intended maybe, but not as it should.

- See, not even doing the ToT LFRs myself this weekend and it stresses me.

- All from hearing the horror stories of others in it.

- It should never get to this point.

- And tanks are so hard to find and they continue to nerf vengeance.

- So you are nerfing one of the only things some people even tank for because they like being able to do insane damage on the trash and have fun with vengence and expect that to get you more tanks?

- Blizzard really needs to think before they act, seriously.

- How about adding more stuff tanks like to make them want to tank instead of taking away the stuff they like because of the very few that found a way to use it to their advantage.

- So some tanks were gaming vengeance to do some insane thing.

- Big deal.

- More power to them for using the game design to their advantage.

- Perhaps they are having fun.

- You know what people that are having fun do blizzard?

- They keep playing.

- I know, hard to believe isn't it?

- Try adding some more things to LFR that make the tanks enjoy it and maybe there might be a few more willing to do it.

- So those very few that enjoyed the vengeance angle will no longer have that even.

- Just keep stripping away the fun parts of the game blizzard, that will surely make them want to play more.

- It was like when they nerfed the ore spawn rate to oblivion.

- I had fun farming my ore, it was all over the place.

- I always had enough for what I needed to do, I could always farm whenever I needed more, and it was quick and easy.

- Then you nerfed it to the point I would fly around for an hour for a stack and a half.

- More is better, more is fun.

- Flying around forever to get nothing is not fun.

- Getting it all over the place is fun.

- Blizzard seems to have some sort of agenda against people enjoying something.

- If people are having fun with something, nerf it.

- Hunters and warlock can solo the panda rares because their pets do not get hit by the spinning kick.

- They enjoy that, nerf it.

- Tanks like leading the damage done charts on AoE pulls because of vengeance.

- They enjoy that, nerf it.

- Healers like having to concentrate more of keeping people up and less on mana.

- They enjoy that, nerf it.

- Gatherers are enjoying having the resources they need around to gather when they need it.

- They enjoy that, nerf it.

- What is this obsession with nerfing everything that people enjoy.

- There is a huge difference between too powerful and needs a nerf and nerfing for the sake of nerfing.

- Blizzard nerfs for the sake of nerfing.

- Yet mages have been over powered for 6 years now and they leave them alone.

- Logic?  Blizzard has none.

- I think sometimes they try to chase people away from the game.

- Like the people that quit at the beginning of cataclysm.

- I swear I had never seen so many people quit so quickly and actually not come back.

- I've seen many come and go, but out of that huge bunch of people that quit at the beginning of cataclysm, none of them have returned.

- I still hope they will one day return.  I miss a bunch of them.

- This expansion has scared off a few too, not as many as cataclysm.

- At its absolute worst mists is still 100 times better than cataclysm was at its best.

- But the beginning of the expansion and their "daily or die" mentality killed off the game for a few people.

- Then the next raid patch where they changed it to "raid or die" it scared off some more.

- I noticed the raid or die time is when tanks started to disappear.

- Lost two of them in guild during that time and heard of others that did as well.

- Tanks do not queue for the LFR and forcing them to do the LFR meant they had to.

- Now, if it were the option of LFR or nothing I think I would choose nothing also.

- And that is why they quit, in part.

- I know a warrior tank that quit because of various things.

- The daily or die at the beginning to get the rep and gear and coins when he hated dailies.

- The raid or die at the middle when he need to do the dailies for coins and the LFR for reputation and gear.

- So he just gave up.

- Too much of what he "had to" do and not enough of what he "wanted to" do.

- Blizzard really needs to rethink their design of making things "have to" do and changing everything people enjoy.

- I think for him the final nail in the coffin of the game was the fact that warriors were extremely lacking when compared to all other tanks in the game.

- He felt week in defensive cooldowns, he felt week in self healing, he felt week in damage done, he felt rage generation never left him with enough to do what he needed to do and he felt he needed to grind everything twice as much just to stay on par with other tanks that did half the work.

- For him I understood his desire to quit the game.

- If I were him with that being my only character I like playing I too would have quit and never looked back.

- The other tank we lost around the same time I think he just got bored with doing the same thing every day.

- Lets face it, we all do the same thing every day.

- The least blizzard can do it attempt to make it fun.

- But they seem to be anti fun.

- Remember, the new blizzard motto is, if the players are enjoying it, nerf it.

- Have a great day.

Easy or Hard, What Makes it So?

I have often said here on my blog that each person is different and I stand firm with that belief.  Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses.  As a raid leader I see that in places most might never notice.  I am sure any observant person even if they are not in a lead position has noticed that guy that "does great when he is alive".

I wonder if strengths and weaknesses are connected to the personality of the real person behind the character.  There is no way for me to actually find that out without some form of extensive research with people that are honest about their weaknesses.  Something I won't be doing any time soon but would love to read if someone ever did.

I've raided with many people and have seen many different types of players in the raiding environment.  I've seen those people that can do no wrong, they just seem like they run as the picture of perfection and I have seen those people that can do no right no matter how much time and effort they spend on trying to get better.  I've also seen everything in between both as well of course.

Is it something in us, the person playing, that dictates what is easy or what is hard for us?

I often say that my team is better in the raw numbers department and worse in the mechanics department.  It seems to take them longer to get the "little things" down then it should (which bugs the crap out of me), but if there is anything that can be forced with shear force, we will force it and succeed doing it.

Just look at the bosses we basically one shot as we made our way through the raid.  Council of Elders, Megaera, Primordius, Iron Qon and Twin Consorts.  And then look at the bosses we had the three highest amount of wipes on.  Our friendly neighborhood destroyer of guilds Horridon, Tortos and Ji-Kun.

If anything is more telling of what is easy for us and what is hard for us that it is.  The fights that are basically about stay out of the crap and put out big numbers we did exceptional on and the fights that had some gimmick or required more coordination we had fits with.

Yet there are some groups that I have friends in that have been stuck for weeks on Megaera or Primordius but had little issue with Horridon and Tortos, which where the ones that took us weeks.

Some say my group is in a good place because we can do numbers and dancing is only a matter of practice.  Others would say that the dancing should come natural and you can teach numbers.  I believe both are wrong.  It goes back to what I said at the start.  Everyone has their strengths and their weaknesses.  While both things can be trained from either angle they will always remain a strength or a weakness for the people that are inclined for them to be a strength or a weakness.

I am interested in seeing what people consider easier and what type of person they consider themselves.

Are mechanic based fights easier for you or are power fights easier for you?  Would you prefer something with a little of both or in the middle leaning a little one way or the other?  What are your strengths and weaknesses and why do you think they are your strengths and weaknesses?

Remembering My First: 200 Days

This is a little different of a post for my "firsts" section which usually pertains to a first time doing something.  My first companion pet, my first dungeon, what have you.  But it still, I believe, fits the category.

The grumpy elf has hit 200 days played.  That is a hell of a lot of time spent on the game.  Way more than I would like to admit looking back at it.  But what is more telling than my 200 days played as my main hunter is the fact that even with my countless alts, and many max level characters over the years, all of them combined do not even come close to touching that 200 days.

It goes to show you that the vast majority of my time spent playing the game has been on my hunter.  Makes sense because it is the character I enjoy playing the most.

Looking back at my 200 days on that character I can't help but wonder what did I spend the most time doing for those 200 days.  Could it be soloing?  Could it be raiding?  Could it be dungeons?  Could it be questing?  Could it be PvP?  Could it be fishing?  No seriously, could it be?

In over 200 days played my hunter has caught over 25,000 fish.  That has to amount to a fair amount of time.  It is not like the fish just come jumping up out of the water at me.  I needed to spend the time catching them.

I think someone once figured out that the average time to catch a fish is 12 seconds, not sure how accurate that is, but using that number it would mean I spent at least 3 and a half days catching fish, I think.  I would guess it is closer to 4 days, for arguments sake.  Have you ever missed a fish because if you have then you will understand why I think it might be closer to 4 days.

4 days played of just catching fish.  That could quite possibly be up there on the activities I have spent the most time on.  If they ever added an achievement for catching 25,000 fish I would be willing to guess I would be one of a very few that would have it.  That is a lot of wasted time, as some would say.

I am sure I spent more time in dungeons however.   Whether it be soloing or with groups or with the dungeon finder I would have to guess I have done at least 1000 dungeons on this one character over the course of the years.  Knowing I spent a lot doing mount runs for the various dungeon ones that 1000 number would be quite generous.  Even if the average run took only 15 minutes that would mean over 10 days played in dungeons.

I can't tell how much of that would be solo stuff or how much of it would be group stuff.  But I do recall some groups while leveling, like mara groups, that would last for what seemed like hours.  Or the dungeons the first weeks of cataclysm where it was not unheard of to get into a 2 hour deadmines run.  Or even a 6 hour one as one guild mate had that first week.  I am sure I have spent nearly as much time in groups as I have solo in dungeons but even separated into two things they would both have to be up there on the list of things I have spent time on in the past 200 days played.

I have not spent much time doing player vs player content, as my complete lack of achievement in that area show me, but I did spend a fair deal doing world PvP.  Yes, even in this dead time where world PvP is nowhere to be found, I always seemed to find some.  I would get some guild mates and we could spend hours going back and forth in the tram.  It was fun and even as a person that is not really into the player vs player aspect of the game I am sure that added up.  Maybe even enough to make it into the top 10 activities over the first 200 days of my game playing life.

Raiding would be like dungeons.  Some solo and the rest as a group.  Even before the days of the LFR I spent a fair deal of time in raids.  With my guild and alone I would spend time there every week.  I don't think a week has went by in the last few years where I did not spend at least 2 hours of my week in a raid, most likely 4.  With the addition of the LFR and some 4 hour adventures alone to finish one of them in this new raid or die expansion I have spent upwards of 10 hours or more a week raiding just in the LFR at some level or another, but not all on this character of course.  But at least half of that has to be attributed to my main, at least I would think.  So if I had to guess I would say my time spent in raids on this character would be roughly the same as that spent in dungeons.  Enough to rank high on my activity list, but not quite enough to make it to the number one spot on it.

So what could be the activity I spent the number one amount of time doing in the first 200 days?  My guess would be traveling.  By traveling I don't mean going from quest objective to quest objective.  I mean time spent running from one place to another, just to get there.  Time spent on a boat.  Time spent on a flight path.  Basically, any time spent getting from point A to point B.  Even if the end result was I was going there to quest, it is the time spent traveling to a zone or area using some sort of transportation method.  That is what I mean by travel time and that is what I believe to be the activity I have spent the most time doing.  Traveling.

It would be nice to think that traveling would not have taken the biggest chunk out of my activities done but thinking back it seems almost impossible that any other activity could even come close..

I remember flying from darnassus to tanaris every day when I first got home from work and knew I was going to play that night.  I learned after my first fight there that it takes roughly three billion years, give or take, to get from darnassus to tanaris so I would come home, log in, get on the flight path and then go about my business at home.  I would usually come back to being logged out from inactivity of course, but at least I did not have to wait while I was in flight.

I spent a lot of time in tanaris because I really liked the zone and then I spent even more time in silithus after that.  I actually went there every single day I played to grind encrypted twilight texts because for some odd reason I enjoyed doing that and I did get a fair deal of experience from it.  If I remember correctly, which I could be wrong, I think I leveled from 58 to 60 just doing that and that alone, a little bit each day.

Not sure what hooked me on it but I was dead set on not stopping until I hit exalted with the Cenarion Circle.  Not like I even knew who they were or what reason I would want to be exalted with them as I had no factions ever at exalted.  I just liked doing it and liked getting that rep.  Please do not ask me to explain it because I can't.  I can, and will some day most likely, go into my first grind and my first exalted reputation and this would be it, for both.

I would say I spent a month or more there alone.  I did not spend as much time playing back then but I did do this a few days a week and it was the only time I played.  I would spend however long it took to fly there, while I was actually AFK doing things much more exciting than staring at the screen while it found the absolute longest path it could ever find to get me to my destination and then I would play for about and hour or an hour and a half before hearthing back for the day.

Yes, I know, I could have just stayed there.  Excuse me for wanting to "go home" at the end of my hard days work of collecting twilight texts.  But the next day it would all begin again.

I think I timed it one day and it took something like 24 minutes to make that flight.  Like I said, I quested a lot in the lower zones of kalimdor, for months most likely, so I am sure that those 24 minute flights added up.  Just like all those other flights added up.

Flying to get around was a huge thing.  I would take flight paths everywhere.  Anything to cut down on the amount of time I needed to run.  Lets face it, running was probably the single most annoying way to travel in the game and quite honestly I am surprised that they have not allowed mounts lower yet.  But at first, you ran and ran and ran so much that I am surprised your character did not turn to the screen and look at you and say, "really, you want me to run back where I just came from after it took me 8 minutes to run here".

Then there was BC, I don't recall ever flying there like we do now, at least not while leveling.  I am also pretty darn sure I did not get flying in northrend until I was like 77 or 78.  So I spent a lot of time hoofing it, mounted on my tiger, or taking a flight path.

I've always been a supporter of lowering the levels for mounted travel.  If they put up a poll asking if we think you should get mounts at level 1 I would say yes.  At least the slow speed land mounts at level 1.  No reason people should have to run until 40, or 30, or now 20.

Do you remember those old world quests that sent you all over the world.  I really loved them, but there was a lot of travel time spent.  From eastern kingdom to kalimdor to eastern kingdom to kalimdor with boats, trams, flight paths, running, all between each move.  I would guess it could be something along the lines of hours of traveling to get each quest line done.  Each of many like it.  Yes, it felt epic, yes I would love to see more like it back in the game, but there was a lot of travel involved, and when thinking about what I spent the most time doing in my first 200 days, that is something to think about.

All this travel, all this time spent, if I had to guess, of the 200 days played that my character has, most of it was spent on the super simple, you don't even notice you are doing it, travel time spent.  A little time here and a little time there, but it all adds up.  It adds up so much so that if someone were to tell me I spent 50 or even 75 of those 200 days traveling from one place to another I would be perfectly capable of believing that.

Thinking back on the first 200 days of playing if I were forced to guess what I spent the most time doing it would be traveling.

I wonder if the newer generation of player, the one that can sit in SW or Org and level through the dungeon system and basically do the vast majority of their game play without traveling would come to the same conclusion I have, that traveling is the single activity I have spent the majority of my time playing doing.  I doubt travel time would even amount to anything for them when comparing.  Lucky them.

Happy 200th anniversary to me.

How many days played do you have and what is the single activity you think you have spent the most time doing?