Honor System (v3) Raises Excitement and Concerns

As a reminder I will start by saying that everything here is based on a tiny bit of information we have from the announcement of legion and everything is subject to change, and some of it most likely will.  However, this post is about my first impressions after the announcement so those impressions are made based on the little bit of information supplied to us.

Quite some time ago a question was asked, it wondered why we play PvP in heroes of the storm and do not play PvP in warcraft.  I jumped on this topic as I really wanted to answer it.  I have tried to dabble in PvP many times over the years and I either got bored quickly, lost the crew I was playing with, or run into a string of discouragements that caused me to stop playing again.  So I had opinions, like everyone else, on why I do not PvP in one but I do in the other.

Seeing the announcement for the new honor system v3 actually made me a little excited in a few ways because I could see that a few of the things I mentioned in that post were being addressed but it also made me want for more information as I had some concerns with the announcement as the information we were given was so little.

Excitement: No More PvP Gear

Some people are screaming about this on the forums, and rightfully so.  If I had to PvP to get the bulk of my PvE gear right now I would not be a happy camper either.  However, as I am a PvEer the idea that they are removing PvP gear completely is very exciting to me.

No longer will I ever find myself caught behind that wall.  The one where I did not start to PvP from the get go so everyone I run into has full conquest gear now and here I am having just saved enough up for my PvP trinket and that is the only piece of PvP gear I have. Can you say dead elf?

Trust me, as someone that is not a regular PvPer the most discouraging thing in the world is to step into a 3v3 and find your entire team dead in less than 20 seconds because all of you were wearing PvE gear.  Yes, there is absolutely a skill factor involved as I am not a very good PvPer, but knowing that gear different was there was always a mental road block for me and many others I tried to get to go with me.  The line "but I have no PvP gear" was all I ever heard when asking people if they wanted to do some PvP.  How many beating am I willing to take until I get lucky enough to win a few here and there so I can get some gear?  That was the uphill battle every PvEer that wanted to join the fight had to ask themselves and most of the time it came down to just saying screw it, I won't PvP.

The removal of PvP gear with PvP stats entirely is something I look at with great excitement.  Sure there will still be people better geared than I, but at least I know I have the potential to catch up in gear now and gear means a lot less in PvP too whereas before there was no way in hell I would have gotten the best PvP gear without getting a million butt whooping and trust me, no one really wants to see a beaten and bruised purple elf butt.  It is not a pretty sight.

Concern: Talents

I like the new idea that you level your PvP level with v3.  As you level it gives you certain power boosts in PvP, increasing your abilities capability, your defensive capability and giving you new skills that can be used in only a PvP setting.

So if I like the idea why exactly is this a concern of mine?  Pretty simple actually.  They are adding PvP only abilities and that means the return of some abilities we lost (cool) and maybe the removal of some abilities we have now so they could become PvP only perks (not cool).

That is why this is a concern of mine.  I am a hunter and I love being a hunter.  I love having the toolbox I have.  Masters call, counter shot, ice trap, freezing trap, disengage, deterrence, concussive shot, distracting shot, and the list goes on and on, not to mention all the different things we can talent into like binding shot for example.  All awesome abilities that could be removed to become PvP only abilities and I am worried about that.

I am afraid I will lose some of these things so they can become PvP only abilities. I consider concussive shot to be at the top of the list of things they might remove to add to PvP only, followed closely by masters call.  I do not want to lose these abilities in PvE.  I use them and I use them often.  They have their purpose.  Sure they might be more suitable for the PvP environment, sure I might get even more use out of them in PvP, but I am concerned I might lose them just so they have talents to give us in our v3 tree.  I don't want to lose any of them.  I would cry and there is no crying in warcraft.  Unless your are Jaina of course, than you have to cry at least once per raid tier.

Excitement: No More PvP Gear (Part 2)

My luck is legend, or lack of luck if you will.  So much so that if they ever put an item in game for me it would probably be a book that rogues pickpocket called "The Unluckiest Elf on Azeroth".  It is so bad it is actually comical.

With that said, I am excited because with no more PvP gear that means that the gear you can get from doing PvP will be PvE gear, hopefully raid quality PvE gear.  Okay, okay, so I now have two chances to not get gear, but even a broken clock is right twice a day, so maybe with two different chances to get gear I might actually get some gear.

I am absolutely excited about the prospect that I could PvP to get another shot at gear.  Surely the gearing system from the PvP angle will not be as good as it used to be without conquest points and all, but it is a something right?  It just might be the motivation I needed to get into PvP, if the rewards are above what I am currently raiding that is, and if I get into PvP I will get better at it.  In theory anyway, and I would like to get better.

Concern: Talents (Part 2)

We do not know how match making will work when it comes to talents.  I am hopeful that if I do a random battleground as a level 1 PvPer that there are only level 1-5 PvPers there but you never know with blizzard.  In my opinion PvP levels should be used like character levels are.  You group people at the same level character so group people at the same PvP level.

If that turns out to be the case than that would be pretty cool.  But it is a concern of mine that it will not be handled correctly.  Being gear is not the huge obstacle that it used to be talents could easily take their place as what could keep lesser skilled people like myself from playing.

Before, as a lesser skilled player, I could get lucky against someone in all conquest gear.  Yes, it has been known to happen.  I could pull off a win here or there if the stars lined up right, or if I were fighting a retribution paladin.  But with skills I am worried that if I were a level 1 and ran into a level 50 I would get crushed.

Being the gear difference would be a 7% difference at most (using the guesstimate given by blizzard, again, subject to change) which means that PvP becomes more of a skill based game, which I love.  I always said PvP should be about skill, not what gear you wear.  So being it is a completely skill based game, someone that has a higher PvP level will have more skills to use against me.  So add their more skill playing their class to more skills available to them to use against me and more powerful nature of said skills thanks to skill levels and there is no getting lucky again like I used to from time to time.  They will completely WTF own me.

If blizzard handles the grouping correctly this is a non issue, if they don't this is a huge issue, and it is a major concern of mine because quite honestly I do not trust them to handle the grouping correctly.  I hope they will, I just do not trust they will.

Excitement & Concern:  World PvP

World PvP has always been my favorite part of PvP.  It was rare but it was also huge, spontaneous, and usually down right exciting at times.  Some of my favorite PvP moments would be world PvP moments.

I know they mentioned something about scaling and such in instanced content, but how will that work in world content.  If I am a level 50 will I be able to use all my PvP abilities in the world?  Even against a level 1?  There has always been a stronger or weaker person in world PvP, whomever has the most gear usually dictated that and maybe it will change to whomever has to highest PvP level now.  It is par for the course and there is nothing wrong with that is a world PvP setting.

But with less reliance on gear for PvP power and more on skills as their power base, will world PvP be more imbalanced than it currently is due to the skills higher level PvP players have?  Will it be better?  Will it be worse?

I have no clue, I can not even guess.  It is why it has both excited me and concerns me.  It could bring world PvP back, at least a little bit, which I find exciting and it could make it horrible if the skills someone has mean too much, which concerns me.

Even on characters that never stepped into one single instanced PvP environment I have always joined in whenever there was world PvP going on.  I love it and would love to see it more.  It makes the game feel alive.  But if I have to PvP to get the skills on character I never PvP on or I will get super owned by the people with skills, it is a concern, and could very well keep me from getting involved in a world battle situation.

End Note:

The announcement of the new honor system v3 has made me both excited to hear more and concerned with some of the things they already mentioned.  As someone that is not a PvP player, the fact that I have any excitement whatsoever about it is a positive step in the right direction for blizzard in my opinion.  Can't wait to see how this one takes off.  But be warned, if they try to take concussive shot from me I might be forced to make a post with a lot of curse words in it because homey don't play that.

What do you think about the little we know so far with honor system v3?

It's Not Easy Being Blue

I think I am getting soft in my old age.  Normally I like to jump on the blues when they make statements that are flat out false but I am starting to realize that perhaps it really is not that they are bad at their job or natural born dimwits but that blizzard keeps making weird changes that make no sense and it becomes hard for every blue to know everything that is going on.

It is more a case of the blue in question should have just said nothing than to try and address a concern.  This is actually bad for the game in my opinion.  When the people that keep us informed would be better not doing so, there are some deeper issue than someone just not keeping up on their job.

I am sure that many blues often are left having to defend the actions of blizzard when they personally disagree with it.  Look at someone like Bashiok who just left the company to go work for NC soft.  I used to always think of him as one of the better blues but the for the last year or so I started to blast him every chance I got. 

The guy went off the deep end, he left the reservation.  He was being rude to the players either straight out or with a snide remark.  He was blatantly disrespectful to the player base and did not even try to hide it.  He went from being one of the people that usually had some useful information and was a boon to the community to someone that you knew anything you read from him would feel as if he was speaking down to us.

After he left the company it occurred to me that perhaps he did not suddenly turn into the obnoxious idiot he had become but it was a slow transition where he was put in the unenviable position of having to defend blizzards decisions when he did not agree with them.  Now I do not know if this is the case, maybe the guy just became king the the jerks naturally, but it is entirely possible it was his working conditions that made him such.

So maybe if I was forced into the position of having to defend the no flying decision over and over when I disagreed with it I could see myself getting rude to people over it too.  I would not want to defend blizzard against people I agreed with.  I would not want to keep telling people they are wrong and this is better for the game when I do not believe that.  I would have to defend a move I did not believe in, defend a move I knew was bad for the game and that would make anyone angry and bitter, really fast too.

So maybe, just maybe I was too hard on Bashiok.  Maybe it wasn't the fact he had become a world class jerk, maybe he was just miserable working there having to defend bad decisions made by blizzard and we, the players, ended up getting abused by him in his responses because of it.

Yesterday I saw two blue remarks that were, in a word, wrong.  Normally I would jump on them for being idiots, today I am feeling a little bad for them instead because of the position that blizzard has put them into.  They throw so much junk at them and then ask them to defend the changes without them actually fully understanding the changes that were made.

I feel bad for the blues, but that does not change the fact that sometimes it might just be a better idea to say nothing than to say the wrong thing.  Lets take a peek at the examples from yesterday where two blues would have been better off not answering the questions at all instead of suffering from a major case of foot in mouth disease.

Our first unsuspecting blue was on a forum post.  Not only did he get one part of his reply wrong but he made two erroneous statements in one reply.  And I feel really bad for the guy.  After a post like the one he made, with two clear errors in it, I am sure he was sitting at his desk thinking "I should have just stayed home today".

Post Title was: Bliz Confirmed:best PvP gear from PvE in xpac

There was really nothing in the post except a link to the video of the interview.  The following was a response from Lore.

Misleading title is misleading.

What Tom said was that someone wearing the absolute best PvE gear in the game might have a 7% advantage over someone who had just hit level 100 -- and thus, had not collected any gear at all. There was nothing about his statement at all that could be taken as "the best gear for PvP comes from PvE." I have no idea how you could have gotten that from what he said, unless you're purposefully trying to stir up trouble.

Our intent -- as it has been for several expansions now, and as it is currently in Warlords -- is for PvP gear to be the best available in PvP. That has not changed in Legion.

Wrong point #1:

Even in his reply Lore said that someone in mythic gear would be better than someone in quest gear by 7% because mythic gear is the best gear you can get.  It stands to be believed that means someone in mythic gear would be some percentage better than someone in LFR gear, or normal gear or even heroic gear.  Even if the mythic geared player is only a slim 1% more powerful than a heroic geared player in PvP than what the guy posted as the title of his post, "Bliz Confirmed:best PvP gear from PvE in xpac" is absolutely 100% factually correct.  So how exactly is that misleading?  Stating facts is misleading?  That is news to me.

I know Lore was trying to settle down the PvP crowd from thinking they needed to PvE to get gear.  But this is one case he really should have just never answered this post.  Because, lets face it, the title of the post was correct, and in him trying to settle it down, he ended up proving what the person said in the title when he said that the best geared PvE character would have a 7% advantage over a fresh character.  Instead of proving the guy was wrong, he proved the guy was right.  I am sure that did not work as intended.

Wrong point #2:

Saying that PvP gear is intended to be best for PvP is correct, saying "that has not changed in legion" is wrong.  Sorry Lore, they are removing PvP gear from the game or so they told the world the other day.  I would think, as you work there, you might have heard of that.  So it would be impossible for that to be the same in legion.  How exactly can PvP gear be the best for PvP when there is no such thing as PvP gear in legion? 

Really should have not answered that post buddy.  You double whammied yourself.

The second case of "you would have been better not answering" came from the Yogcast with Tom Chilton.  The question and answer were as follows.

Q: "Demon Hunters only have two talent trees. Would you ever think of removing trees from other classes?"

A: "I think people would be pretty upset by that. I don't see us doing that. If I could warp back in time, maybe we would have not added some, but now it is too late, we will instead try and make them more distinct.
We are going class-by-class and trying to identify problem areas that have no distinct identity and trying to fix that."

"I don't see us doing that" is what he said.  This is someone really really high up in the food chain, at the top of the food chain and he says "I don't see us doing that"??? (yes three question marks on purpose because... really, did he just say that)

You are aware they are removing the ranged survival spec from the game right?  Sure it is being replaced by another spec with the name of survival but that spec plays a completely different role.  So you are removing a ranged spec from the game.  So how exactly can you say "I don't see us doing that" with a straight face when you are doing exactly that this expansion?  You are removing a spec from the game.

Another shining example of you were better off not saying anything, sorry Tom, but I can clearly see some egg on your face there.

BTW, if you also say "I think people would be pretty upset by that" why are you removing survival?  You acknowledge that people will be really upset by it, you say that you don't see yourself doing it, and yet you are still doing it.  Why?  I think that is a fair question.

Maybe he forgot about the ranged survival spec being removed from the game, maybe Lore forgot about PvP gear being removed from the game.

Maybe being a blue is a lot harder than anyone thinks when you have to keep track of all these changes blizzard makes.

Bottom line is, for all you blues out there, it is better to keep quiet and let the community think you are a moron than open your mouth and prove you are.  It's not easy being blue.

Monday Random Thoughts

- I was thinking about names that specs use and it occurred to me that retribution paladins make no sense, name wise.

- Retribution is sort of like revenge.

- Revenge does not really seem like the way of the light.

- What do you think would be a more suitable name for them?

- Did a fun run of BRF this weekend and actually got a heroic tier piece of maidens.

- Amazing that I can finally get a tier piece, off old content, and it still be a sweet upgrade.

- My luck with gear this expansion has been worse than usual.

- There are a lot of things people dislike about warlords but I think one of the reasons I hate this expansion is my luck seems worse than normal with it.

- I am sure I would be enjoying the expansion a lot more if I didn't always feel like I was playing for nothing.

- Winning gear once in a while, or gear you can use more accurately, is very important to enjoying the game.

- Even more so when gear means so much.

- Upgrading from a normal piece to a heroic piece was huge.

- Anyone else think that the stat inflation from one difficulty to the other is way to large?

- Blizzard gets so infatuated with things being major increases that they forgot the simple basics.

- People would be happy with something even if it had 2 agility and 2 of each secondary stat more than the previous tier.

- And upgrade is an upgrade.

- The huge jump from difficulty to difficulty is why we have such out of control stat inflation.

- Even more so with so many different tiers of raiding.

- They need to make the increase from one tier to the next smaller, much much smaller.

- Kill stat inflation and make play be more about what you do and less about what you wear all at the same time.

- Sounds good to be, but I know most people would hate that.

- Blizzard is right even if I hate to agree with it.

- People like seeing substantial upgrades.

- Me, I just like seeing an upgrade, 1 agility or 19 agility makes no difference to me.

- Better is better.

- Anyone watch the Q & A?

- Not a whole lot of Q's there and the A's were kind of just repeating themselves.

- Is this what blizzard thinks a Q & A is?

- Regurgitating what we already knew does not a Q & A make.

- Even more so when we know so little, how can you only repeat the tiny bits we knew already.

- There was only one Q asked that got an A which I would have wanted to see answered.

- And the A was not even a good answer.

- The beginning parts of getting flying will be added at release and they will see about when they will add it later.

- Excuse me?

- I thought blizzard already went through this.

- Don't they learn anything?

- You can not remove flying, and you can not be iffy about when it is going to come.

- None of this "lets see" bull shit.

- I wanted a definitive answer.

- Something like the achievement for flight will be added on release and flight will be added in 7.1.

- That is an answer, what they said is bull shit.

- Sorry, there is no other words for it.

- Will there be content at 110?

- Will there be daily hubs?

- Will there be valor gear?

- Will there be a reason to run dungeons after the first day of release?

- Will scenarios make a return so people that do not want to wait in queue forever can still have some nice quick fun?

- These are the questions that needed answering.

- These are the questions that were not asked.

- Well, what do you expect from a fluff piece.

- They should have never even advertised it as a Q & A, it was false advertising.

- You could have walked up to a homeless guy living in a box and asked him about the next warcraft expansion and probably gotten better answers.

- Surely not accurate ones, but better ones.

- Unless they start answering the real questions that matter I don't think I can get too hyped for the expansion.

- Sure I love we will dabble in a bunch of lore I want to see.

- How long have we asked for something regarding the emerald dream / nightmare?

- How long have we asked for more history on races like the val'kyr and others?

- How long have we wanted more information on the titans?

- There is a hell of a lot to get excited by with the story.

- Yeah I am digging that for sure.

- But bottom line for me has always been and will always be game play.

- I do not care where we play the game, I care what we do when we are there.

- I want to know game play answers.

- I like that Mangi is coming back from a story stand point, but if it means nothing to my game play.

- Lets face it, I do not play warcraft for its story, even if I do really like it and follow it, I play it because I like the game play.

- So game play trumps all else.

- I wanted some game play answers.

- We did not need a discussion on why demon hunters can only be elves.

- We did not need a discussion on what dance they do when they are alone in their office.

- No one cares what dance they do.

- Okay, maybe someone does, there are a lot of weird people out there, but I don't.

- Normally I would have been fine with the "wait and see" approach, but so often lately blizzard has let me down.

- Once bitten twice shy.

- I am no longer willing to wait and see.

- I want clear cut answers, absolutes.

- Not "we'll see"

- So far all I have taken, that matters to me, from the new expansion is that the only class I really enjoy playing is being changed in a way that could potentially ruin it.

- I've dealt with fundamental changes like  how pets work, ammo, happiness, as well as buffing and feeding our pets separately among many others.

- I was fine with it.

- I've dealt with a dead zone for many years even after they said it was gone but it wasn't.

- I was fine with it.

- I've dealt with resources changes from mana to focus.

- I adapted even if I resisted and was fine with it.

- I've dealt with skills being added.

- I was fine with it.

- I've dealt with skills being removed.

- I put up a fight sometimes but was fine with it.

- I've dealt with minor rotation changes and major rotation changes.

- I was fine with it.

- But now I have to deal with being switched to a melee class (in part).

- I am not fine with it.

- The reason I was fine with all the other changes was because I was still a ranged physical damage dealer.

- The concept of what my class was did not change.

- I can not accept survival being changed to melee.

- And I don't even like survival to begin with.

- So I can see how people that like it have to be fuming right now.

- I would have no issue with them adding a forth spec for melee.

- I am just not okay with them changing what is already in game.

- Weird I know, but it is how I feel and you can't help how you feel right?

- Still say the next hero class should have been a ranged / healer class.

- I do however really like the idea that demon hunters only have 2 specs, one for damage dealer and one for tank.

- Perhaps if they can change other classes, as they are with hunters, they can balance things easier, in time.

- So perhaps the hunters are the test subjects.

- Why do we always have to be the guinea pig?

- Need to walk around with placards saying "Save the hunters from inhumane testing".

- If they can get away with turning survival into melee this expansion maybe next expansion arms warriors will become ranged.

- There is some logic to the idea that each class only has one spec of each specific role.

- Sure it takes away choice but it would also be easier to balance.

- And blizzard has been in the practice of removing choice from the game systematically for years.

- So it only makes sense they would do something like this.

- I just thought of a fun post, how would I change all the classes so none had two specs to for the same role.

- One warrior and DK melee spec would need to be changed, one healing priest would not longer heal, things like that.

- I could have a lot of fun with a post like that.

- And piss off a bunch of people at the same time.

- Sound fun. lol

- I do wonder if survival is a test run for them trying to do something like that.

- They would have had to know changing what one spec of the most played class in the game would meet some resistance.

- I am torn on the next expansion.

- I am excited for it knowing it is something new and knowing warlords is over.

- But I am scared for the game I love knowing they could actually screw it up worse than they did with warlords.

- (added this to clear up confusion)  Based on an old comment they made in 2011 I do have hope for legion.

- Blizzard had said their teams rotation.

- If they do that means there is hope.

- Because one thing we would have going for us is that the team that is making legion is the team that made wrath and mists I believe.

- So it is their A team, if there is still one.

- And thank god it is not their B team that is responsible for cataclysm and warlords.

- Makes you wonder if those guys are double agents working for blizzard trying to destroy a great franchise.

- With cataclysm and warlords under their belt that is not something someone would want to put on their resume.

- "I helped design 2 expansions for the very successful world of warcraft franchise."...

- ... "Which one lost around 3 million subs and the other lost almost 5 million subs"

- Not exactly a stellar thing to put on your resume.

- I'd think putting you worked at mcdonalds during those years would be more impressive.

- Back to the topic of only elves being able to be demon hunters.

- It makes sense, why would anyone want any other class to be a demon hunter.

- Demon hunters are elves, there are not ifs, ands or buts about that.

- Outside of the fact that seeing a gnome with two glaives that are both larger than he is would be quite humorous, it really does not fit.

- I hope blizzard does stick to their guns on this one and leaves it so only elves can be demon hunters.

- At least for the first expansion.

- Maybe add more later on.

- But really no need to.

- I would want to see troll paladins before I see any other race being a demon hunter.

- I've wanted a troll paladin forever.

- Because?

- Troll paladins would be cool mon.

- You can't always get what you want.

- But sometimes... you get what you need.

- Right now I need some answers about the expansion that will help me with being excited about it.

- Have a great day.

Survival as Melee, Please Blizzard Don't

I've said on this very site at least a dozen times that I think survival should be a melee class.  Despite the title I actually still do believe that.  Survival should have been made as melee.  The issue I have is that should is past tense.  When they were first created if they were melee it would have been fine.  But you can not change them now, it is just not right.

I am not just saying this because I do not think survival should be changed without giving any reason.  While I do always voice my opinion I also always have a reason for my opinion and I am not shy about sharing it agree with me or not.

1) Too Late Blizzard:

Classes change, specs change, it is all part of the game but no class ever in the history of the game has ever had to change what the class actually does.  Except maybe the death knight that used to be able to tank on all three specs and DPS on all three.  But they do not count because no spec was ever fully declared a tank spec or a DPS spec, it was just a hero class that could do whatever it wanted.

Hunters have already been subjected to the largest change any class has had to go through when they changed from mana to focus.  So it is not like the hunter community is not capable to rolling with the punches, we have been doing it for the past 10 years.

A change like this however is much bigger than even changing the resources of the hunter.  No class ever in the history of the game has had to change like this and none should have to.  They have never changed a healing class into a DPS class, a tanking class into a healing class, a DPS class into tank or healer class, a melee class into a ranged class or a ranged class into a melee class.  That is because you just do not do things like that.

If you change something like this with a new class on the beta it would be fine but you can not change something that has been in game for 10+ years.

2) Taking Away Choice:

It might seem odd that I am saying that adding melee to the hunter class is actually taking away choice.  While it is true that they are actually adding the option to play melee at the same time they taking away the players choice.  Sometimes adding an option actually means they are taking away choice.  This is a case of that.

There are many players in the game that roll their class because they do not want to do something.  People that roll a class that can't heal so they can never be asked to heal.  People that roll a class that can't tank so they don't have to be asked to tank.  People that roll a class that can't play at range so they can't be asked to go to ranged.  And last but not least, people that roll a class that can't melee so they can't be asked to go into melee.

While it is true that there are two classes that already have both a melee and ranged specs, but these specs were like this from their first release, people that roll them roll them knowing that.  It is not changing thing so people that roll those classes know what they are in for from the beginning.

Bottom line is that there are a great many people that rolled hunters so they could never be asked to tank, heal, or be in melee.  If that is the reason someone rolled a hunter it is extremely wrong to take that choice away from them, to have their class not be asked to go into melee.

3) Adding is Better Than Taking Away:

I will start this by saying I feel bad for warlocks who lost a key abilities from one of their specs so that they could create an entire new class around that one ability.  It just feels wrong and it should never happen.

If blizzard really wanted to add a melee spec for hunters it should have been added as a forth spec.  Only earlier this week , before the announcement oddly enough, I wrote a post that I never liked survival and that was in part because it always felt like it should be a melee spec.  That is only one elves opinion however, there are a massive amount of people that play hunters out there that love survival.

Change happens, it will always happen, it is part of the game, but changing how a spec works is fine, changing what a spec is, is wrong.  When large changes like this are made they will always be met better if they were additions to the game, such as in a forth spec, than a removal from the game, which is removing ranged survival and replacing it with melee survival.  No one likes losing stuff, everyone likes getting stuff.  Hunter will lose survival, the ranged spec, and that sucks.

4) Balance:

Lets not worry about balance in PvP right now, lets talk about something a lot simpler.  What happens if survival becomes the best raiding spec?

Tens of thousands of hunters game wide will either be stuck trying to learn how to play in melee, and trust me it is a lot of learning because it is a completely different style of game play if someone has never done it before, or they can continue to play a sub par spec because they refuse to be in melee, or they could quit the class completely even if they did not want to do so because they would rather play at ranged.

People who roll hunters do so knowing they are a ranged class with pets.  People that do not like having pets do not roll hunters.  People that like being in melee do not roll hunters.  These are just the basics of the game.

If survival is ever the best spec for hunters to be you will surely see a lot of people quitting their hunter and leaving it to rot.  The hunter class is a great class, the hunter community is a great community, and people should never be put into the situation where they feel they have to learn a brand new play style this late in the game or quit their class and leave their community behind.

Better players will adjust and do it, but the vast majority of players will just quit playing a hunter or play a sub par spec.  They should never be put into that situation.

5) Clutter:

There are already too many melee classes, there is a new melee hero class being added that will have a lot of people playing it, and now survival is adding even more to that clutter in the melee pool.

Many fights are melee unfriendly.  While I am lucky in my guild were we have a boatload of hunters, mages and locks, many guilds get into trouble on some fights because they have too many melee and there are many melee unfriendly fights.  So why add more clutter to the already cluttered melee scene?

If, as in the above, survival becomes the best spec for hunters than that just adds more melee to the game.  Personally I think the next hero class should have been a healer / ranged class, but being it is going to be melee this is the worst time they should be considering changing one ranged spec into a melee one.  Not like I think any time would be a good one, but that is beside the point, this time is the worst time to do so when you are already adding a melee class you know everyone and their mother is going to want to play.  They are effectively adding two now classes of clutter to an already full zone, the melee zone.

6) Crossbow?

Every type of weapon in the game is getting the artifact treatment.  Beast mastery hunters are getting a gun and marksman hunters are getting a bow so it would only make sense for the survival hunter to get the crossbow.

Oddly enough, this should be a good reason alone to keep survival as a ranged.  They are the only other spec in the game that could use the crossbow and there is at least one of each type of weapon as an artifact, why now have one with a crossbow as well.

The gun fits well with the opening cinematic of the game in vanilla for beast mastery, that works perfectly.  A bow really fits the marksman feel, light, quiet, and deadly.  And the crossbow with its compact power can fit well as the survival toolbox of powerful traps and a powerful weapon.

Add the that, it fits with the fact they are the only spec that can use it and all other weapons are getting the artifact treatment, it just makes sense to let the survival stay at ranged and use it and maybe, just maybe, if they plan on changing survival, do it in another expansion.  Let them stay ranged for this class, let there be a crossbow artifact, and let hunters get another expansion as a pure ranged class.

I know these bullet points might not be the best, and will surely have absolutely zero impact on blizzard and will not change their opinion on changing the survival spec into melee, but maybe if we speak up, they might at least consider it.

Please blizzard, let survival stay ranged and give them a crossbow artifact.  It is the right thing to do.  If you really do desperately want hunters to have a melee spec, add a forth spec.  And I am saying this as someone that does not like survival, so I am sure that the people that do like do not want to see it changed either for a much better reason that the six I gave.  They like that spec and they like that spec being at ranged.  That is the best and biggest reason not to change it.

I Need to Take Cooking Classes

This post isn't so much about warcraft as it is a post about a blog about warcraft, this one.  Over the course of the years I have had a lot of rude replies from people who had a different opinion than I did about some subject or another.

Some of them I would rather not repeat.  Others were the simple "move out of the basement" insults that people often throw around to make themselves feel better about their own personal situations.  Then there is the "you don't understand because you are an elitist" while in the same post I had someone else tell me "you don't understand because you are a scrub".  How I can be both bad and good is interesting, but actually fits perfectly because I have always called myself the average player.

I've had a fair deal of disagreements over the years and usually they end up with a debate where I am too bullheaded to change my mind and the other person is just the same and we agree to disagree.  Sometimes I have been wrong and admitted it, sometimes I was right and did not gloat.  Either way, it is the conversation that always fueled my passion to respond to the people that post here.  For better or worse, this is a tiny little community of its own here in grumpyland.

Bottom line is that anyone who disagrees with your opinion and does not want to exchange intelligent conversation about it is going to come up with some sort of way to make themselves feel better and usually that is done with an insult.  Insults do not need to be true, they just need to be said in a way that the person intends for them to be hurtful to another.  They throw those insults because for some odd reason me stating an opinion that differs from their own is taken as an insult to them and they feel the need to fire back because my post insulted them by disagreeing with their opinion.

As I am the "grumpy" elf I make it a habit of writing posts that play to my character, grumpy, and as such a lot of those topics end up pissing in someones cheerios.  Like the topics with flying that had a lot of anger flowing in some replies.  So people disagreeing with my opinion is not anything out of the ordinary.

But in all my years of writing this blog, and the many years before it writing other things online, never has anyone said something that actually make me laugh that I am sure was intended to insult me.  I was told I need to take cooking classes because they disagreed with my opinion.  Not exactly sure how "you should take a cooking class" is an insult, but it was funny.

Now please tell me I am not the only one that finds that to be funny?

Why I Might Just Love Artifact Weapons

It is still early in development and there is a lot that can change and we do not know all the information about them yet but I can imagine based on what they did say and it makes me think that artifact weapons might be the biggest step in the right direction for warcraft and I really like it.

Now as I said, none of us are really sure how it works.  But if it works like I think they meant it to work I would not be adverse to seeing artifacts for every single gear slot.  Why?  Because artifacts, at least as it seems, completely remove RNG from the game.  I love that.

Excuse me while I step away from the keyboard and do a happy dance for a minute.

~dances the jig because elves do an awesome jig~

I am back and I will try to keep my excitement in check, but the idea that there is something in the game that actively removes RNG from the playing field is beyond exciting to me.  I've had dreams about this, I have written letters to santa asking for the removal of RNG for christmas, I have said here and everywhere over and over that I hate RNG and would love to see it removed.  So yeah, getting a weapon that is not RNG and then just making me have to work to empower it, I can really get down with that.  Its power becomes something I work for, not something I luck into.  That is awesome.

Depending on how it is designed that means that someone that never steps into a raid could have a weapon that is as powerful as someone that is in a world first guild.  Because artifacts, as they explained, get more powerful the more active you are doing anything from questing to raids to PvP that means everyone is on the same level playing field and the person who actually works the hardest earns the more powerful weapon.  You see that... Work... Earn.  That is how gear should have always been from the beginning. No RNG.  This is why I am excited.

Is this the future of warcraft where people have to work for gear?  Where people have to actually earn something?  It brings a tear to my eye.

No more will I hear people say things like "My DPS would be better if I had a decent wepaon" because everyone will have the same weapon.  Now if your weapon is poor, it is your own damn fault for not leveling it up.  You can no longer blame back RNG, you can only blame yourself.  I am so loving the ever living hell out of this.  If someone says that now I an say, "well maybe if you got off your ass and put some work into it you would have a better weapon."

I always hated seeing lazy players and poor players that have better gear because they are lucky.  This would correct one of those problems.  No more good weapons for lazy players.  Poor players could still end up with a good weapon by working hard and maybe, just maybe, by working hard to level their weapon they will become better players.  So this is win win if you ask me.

I do have some concerns about it however.  If it is a huge grind to level up your weapon how is that going to affect alts?  How is that going to affect someone that starts playing 6 months after the expansion came out?  How is that going to affect me if I switch from marksman to BM and now need to level my BM weapon?  This is a pretty big concern of mine personally.

If it is not handled correctly it could be an alt killer.  I do not know how they are planning on making them level but I do have a hope.  I hope that the power level of the weapon is on the character level, not the weapon.  So, for example, I have 6000 experience on my MM weapon and switch to BM that my BM weapon has 6000 experience even if I never used it.  Because lets face it, it is going to suck if you have to level up three different weapons for the three different specs.

For alts I would like to see them add a 200% boost or something, so if you have a character with a higher level weapon that character levels theirs faster, perhaps that might be nice. 

And for late comers like the person who joins the expansion six months after it came out, something like the conquest system is now. Where you can earn more than the set xxx per week if you are late to collecting.  So if you can only gain 1000 weapon experience per week and started 16 weeks late, you can actually gain 16,000 to catch up before you get locked to the 1000 a week like everyone else.  And perhaps a 150% boost to help them catch up as well.

But outside of alts, second specs and late comers, I don't really see many other issues I might have.

A weapon that is as strong as you are willing to wok for it to be?

No "welfare" here, no RNG here, no luck here, just work your ass off and get stronger.  I might just love artifact weapons.

There is only one thing blizzard can do that could really screw this up in epic proportions (which means I expect blizzard to do this).  If they put in mandatory requirements such as "you must do PvP for this", or "you must beat this boss on myhtic for this", or "you must do 250 daily quests for this".  That would completely destroy the awesomeness of an item like that.  Making anything mandatory would ruin it.  Even if it is something super simple, if anything is mandatory, it will completely screw this up.  Some people do not like to PvP, some people to not like to raid and some people do not like to quest.  As long as they keep to what they said, "anything you do" can increase its power, then blizzard might very well have a winner here.  But if they lick anything mandatory to it, they just ruined a great idea.

In truth, if it works the way it seems, I could see myself having a lot of fun with it.  Finally the game makes people work for their gear again instead of relying on RNG for it, or luck for it.  I have no issue with working to get power.... but I do have an issue with RNG, and that is why I might really love this idea.  I can't wait to find out more.

I Won't Pass Judgement Yet But...

I would like to hear more about the expansion when they do the interview this weekend and of course we will get a much clearer picture once blizzcon comes so I can't really pass judgement on the expansion announcement yet.  We do not have a full picture and this early in a lot can still change as we have learned in the past.  However I will give my first impressions of what we did see in the expansion reveal.

Remember, anything I say here is with no actually knowledge how anything will work in the expansion, so my impressions as I say them as based solely on the extremely limited amount of information we saw.

Level Cap Raised to 110:

Okay, lets face it, no one ever in the history of gaming ever got excited about a level cap increase.  It is the standard for any game of the type.  No surprise to be had here, no excitement to be had here either.

All New Dungeons and Raids:

Again, nothing to see here folks, move along.  Having new dungeons and raids when a new expansion comes out is about as much of a sure thing as getting wet if you stand in the rain with no umbrella.  Not really surprising.  Here is to hoping some of the lore that comes with them is exciting, which with the little we were told, could very well be the case, but them being added themselves is not really a surprise.  Every expansion needs new dungeons and raids.

New World Bosses:

World bosses seem to be the new standard instead of in raid world type bosses like wrath and cata had.  Mists had world bosses and so did warlords, so no real surprise here.  Here is to hoping they actually drop decent gear this time however.  Mists was great, warlords was useless.  The world bosses dropped crap gear and were basically useless within weeks after they came out.  Put two tier pieces back on them, and real tier not LFR tier, and we can start talking about if I am exited about this or not.  If world bosses go back to dropping tier color me excited, otherwise, blah.

Instant Character Boost:

After the instant level 90 with last expansion I had expected an instant level 100 to come with the next expansion.  Quite honestly, if it were not there I would have been surprised.  I was expecting this and when you expect something it is hard to get excited about it.

Improved Transmog System:

We do not know anything about it yet, but it is coming with the expansion.  If it is a skin system that saves all, at least, purple gear as skins so we do not need to save the gear itself, it would be a huge plus.  I would understand if they could not save every skin we run across as that would be too much, so I only expect it to save the purples, or maybe even blue or better, item skins.

As I am not much of a mog person myself and about half of the few things I do mog happen to be green, I don't expect this to change too much for me.  But one thing I can tell you for sure, if it saves skins, I could see me becoming a shield collector on my warrior and paladin.  I love shields.

Am I excited to hear this?  Not exactly, but I am happy to hear it.  Even if I do not use the mog system all that often I do dig quality of life updates like this.

New Continent: Broken Isles:

This was expected even if many people expected it as part of a south seas expansion but we all knew that the broken isles would be coming at some point in time.  The area does appear to be a lot larger than I had imagined it in my mind and the map does look strikingly similar to the pandaria map but it is what it is.  I personally do not care what land mass we play on, as long as it has compelling content well rendered in the standard warcraft art style which I do really like.

I can embrace the idea of the broken isles because where I play is not as important to me as what I do while I am playing there.  So my first impression was, "sounds good to me" even if I was neither surprised nor excited by the announcement.

New Zones:

The little bit we got to see seems like it could be interesting lore wise and I can really dig that.  I am one of those people that enjoys a decent story while questing.  Overall getting new zones is not actually surprising as, like with the new continent, we expect things like that.

However, with that said, having dalaran being a shared home city once again is something I am a little surprised with and very happy to hear.  Of all the cities we ever called home in every expansion that was my favorite.  It was a nicely designed, small, easy to get around city that had everything we wanted without wasting space.  I loved that and I think I will like it being our home city again.

New Class: Demon Hunter:

I had a post speculating about the shadow stalker when that rumor was going around.  I said that we really did not need a shadow stalker class, it would be better served as a new spec for another class instead of a class of its own.  The feeling I had about the shadow stalker is 10 fold with the demon hunter.  If I did not think we needed a shadow stalker I really think we do not need a demon hunter.  Seriously, basing an entire class around an ability warlocks already have seem silly.  They should have just made warlocks have a forth spec for a demon hunter and turned demonology into the tanking spec.  There was no need to add a new class.  (I have an article already written about this to elaborate on that feeling, I will post it at a later date)

I was most definitely not excited about the announcement of the demon hunter.  As a matter of fact it was quite the opposite.  Not only were they not needed as a new class, they were not needed as a hero class.  We already have a melee / tank hero class, what I would have liked to see is a ranged / healer hero class if they were going to add a new hero class.  More of the same just seems boring if you ask me.  This addition, while I admittedly will play one of course, was not needed in the game and I would have preferred they spent their time adding balance to the existing classes instead of trying to add a new one, or just adding it as a 4th spec to some other class.  I think it is wasteful design time spent on something the game did not need.

Artifact Weapons:

If you did not think that FF14 has something going right for it this should change your mind.  Blizzard has stolen the relic weapon ideas from FF14, at least in part, and made it their own.  Blizzard usually does a very good job of taking things from other games and making it their own.  I am hoping the same will come from this as they usually are capable of improving on what they took from other games, or they have in the past near consistently.

I did like the idea that the weapon grows with us but it leads me to question if this means that weapon drops this coming expansion will be useless.  Or maybe sometimes they will be better if your artifact is now powered up enough.  Or maybe the artifact weapon will only be best if you do not raid.  Or... well, you get the idea, still too many questions there.

But the main question is this, do you think this is what blizzard meant when they said that they would give dungeons a reason to be run over and over again?  Because as it seems, to level your artifact weapon you will need to be active.  Anything you do, questing, dungeons, raids, PvP, will give points to your artifact weapon.  So perhaps that is how they plan to make people run dungeons more, by having us spam them as the most effective way to level out weapon.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you do not like to grind, unsub now.  I am not kidding.  Even if we do not know anything sure sure yet and nothing is set in stone at this point it sure as heck seems like their intent is to keep us doing things, like dungeons, to make this artifact weapon stronger.  The artifact weapon is the proverbial carrot on the end of the stick and they want to have us grind day in and day out to level it up.  Is it a good idea?  Yes, I think so.  Will people like it if the grind is any more than it used to take to valor cap in the past?  No, they will hate it.

Was I surprised by this announcement, I guess I was and I wasn't at the same time, I knew that in time they would be adding artifact (red) weapons.  I even had a post about it three or so years ago.  But I really did not expect it to be like this were it would become a grind fest and then I would need to do it for each and every spec so I had an artifact weapon for each.  If this is not handled right this could end up being another nail in the coffin of players to like to play alts.  Can you just imagine if you need to grind your heart out to level all your alts weapons too, or be stuck with a crappy weapon.  This will not go over well with the alt community if that ends up being the case, mark my words.

It is still early, lets hope they do not turn this into something that will kill the alt game even more than it has been killed already.  I am looking forward to artifact weapons, but I am not sure what to expect from them yet, I could very well see myself hating them if blizzard does not handle it correctly just as much as I could see myself loving them because I never have to beg to the RNG gods for a weapon drop again.

Class Halls:

Not exactly sure how I feel about this yet and that probably has more to do with I am not exactly sure what the hell they are yet.  At the moment it seems like another piece of wasted development time, but who knows really.  Maybe the interview this weekend will give us more information about them but all it seems like to me is a place where all hunters meet, all druids meet, etc.  Not exactly something I am excited about but I guess it very well could be.  Time will tell but hearing the announcement did not give me the "this sounds cool" feeling.

Honor System (v3):

We all know there are some issues with PvP but after hearing this, while very interesting, I am left with more questions than I have answers.  This is not really all that unexpected.  It is something new so of course we have questions and I am not exactly what you would call a PvPer so I do not have a great deal of PvP experience so I do not know how gaining PvP abilities while leveling will impact the playing field.  But I can surely guess what happens when one person has more abilities and buffs than another because you do not need to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

However, with that said, I have worries about it and plan to make a post specifically to express my worries.  For here I will give my long story short version.  How is it going to work if me, as a level 1 PvPer if I run into a level 50 PvPer.  He would probably have more of an advantage than he did before as he would have a ton of PvP specific abilities and I would not.  Doesn't really fix the problem I had with PvP, not even remotely close, it makes it worse.

Time will clear it up more I am sure and answer a lot of the questions and perhaps address some of the worries I have but I was not surprised by this, as I knew something needed to be done with PvP, and I was not excited about this, because lets face it, I am not a PvPer.

I think I would have been excited by the changes if I felt "I want to try this" after seeing the announcement of the coming change but I did not.  That is okay, PvP is not my thing normally so I do not expect to be excited by PvP changes.

My Favorite Part of the Entire Announcement:

The fangs of the first nightstalker never made me wanted to play a feral druid more.  The only part of the entire presentation that actually had me saying "this looks cool" was the feral druid artifact weapon skins.

Not sure if that is a sad thing or not, but the only thing in the entire presentation I got excited about is something for a spec I don't even play.  Here is to hoping that this weekend they can actually address the things that matter to me.

What I Want to Know:

Will flight be available from release when we reach max level?  Will valor gear make a return?  Will scenarios come back for people that do not want to wait in queue for a tank or a healer?  Will there be daily hubs?  Will the reliance on RNG be reduced?  Basically, will there be stuff to do that is worth repeating at max level, or will we have another one and done expansion?  Will raids be scaled better for smaller groups?  Will there ever be a mythic option for smaller groups?  Those are the things that matter to me more than anything they mentioned at the announcement for the expansion.  Maybe we will find out the answer to some of these questions this weekend.