Thursday, January 24, 2013

WTB: Better Pellets

This article continues on what I wrote yesterday, so feel free to read that post first if you get lost with my babbling.

We all play the rat in the game pressing the button and picking up our reward.  Yesterday I mentioned how the daily quests tend to let us down in the reward for our effort department once you have done enough of them.  Once you are exalted, once you have enough lesser tokens to cover the next 24 weeks even if you did not do any dailies at all in that time, once you are valor capped, the dailies just do not seem worth doing.

The question is, what would satisfy our inner rat once we no longer need the pellet the quests offer.  What could they give us that would make us keep clicking on that button know as the daily?

If dailies offered more valor once we were exalted it would be worth it more in my opinion.  If it could let me cap faster I would be a happy camper and it would allow me to work on alts more. But then we move into another problem.  If I have clicked that button so often that I no longer need the pellets on my main I feel it is redundant to do it on my alts.

This is why they added the reputation boost, to make it easier on alts but personally that is not enough for me.  Once I did it on one character I got my fix, I no longer want to press that button any longer.  Been there, done that.  It almost feels like a penalty for my alts for being alts that I have to do this all over again, even if only half as long thanks to the reputation gain boost.

So we combine the two, to make pressing that button more attractive.  More valor once one character is exalted for all characters on that account.  Also, once one character is exalted it opens the faction store to all characters, which removes the need for grinding reputation. 

So your alts would now get more valor, and have a place to spend it without the need to worry about doing the reputation grind again, and that would make doing the quests on your alts a lot more enjoyable.  It now moves from the "you have to do it" category to the "you want to do it" category.  Do not discount that difference between the two when it comes to pressing the button for your pellet, you will always press the button you want to press a lot quicker than you would the one you feel like you have to press.

By making you want to press the button it keeps you pressing it longer.  Isn't that the whole idea blizzard was aiming for?  To keep us busy and make us have a lot of buttons to press.

But we would still run into the problem with valor capping removing the desire to do the dailies.  That too can be fixed.  If we doubled the valor once we reach exalted on one character that means all dailies offer 10 valor instead.  15 for alts thanks to the buff.  That will make capping a little easier for sure but what about making you still want to do something after you cap.  How do you manage that?

With justice points and creating something justice can buy.  At the moment justice can buy nothing of use for most players.  Add things justice can buy, even if only crafting materials, just like they had in cataclysm, and give another boost to collecting justice.  Make those dailies double up again on justice if capped on valor.  So 20 justice for each daily, 30 on alts, if capped on valor on that character.  Interestingly enough, the desire to do quests increases.

Same goes for dungeons, scenarios and raids.  When capped, give double justice.

But let me step back for a second and touch on those dungeons and raids and scenarios.

Right now the pellet we get for pressing that join queue for any of them is just not worth it.  80 valor for the first dungeon and 40 for each additional?  Not even close to worth it.  Even more so if you do not need anything from them.  When you need gear from the dungeons 80 is more than fair, it is great even, because you would be doing them anyway for gear.  Once that component of the button pressing is removed it effectively reduces the value of the pellet we receive.  So use that gear check function to check gear.  If you are over a 463 item level and queue for a dungeon it is 160 the first and 80 each additional.  That would make up for not having anything else to get in there.

As someone replied to the last one, the reward for the LFR is no longer worth it either.  So I think the same should be adopted there.  Once you exceed the item level of the raid, 476 and 483 respectively, you get double valor.  Increase the value of the pellet. 

As he mentioned, even if he does need something from there, it just does not feel worth it any more.  Running something 15 or so times and not seeing the item drop even when you use a coin every single time is the biggest let down in the game.  It comes back to the only reward you are getting is that pellet of minimal valor and the disappointment of once again not getting the single thing you do actually need.

Getting double valor is no real bonus, but at least it gives the illusion that it is.  Getting quadruple justice when capped on valor and giving us things to buy with it might not be a great bonus, but it gives us the illusion of one.  To keep us happily pressing that button it is important to make us feel like the reward we get for pressing that button is worth it.

For me at the moment I do not believe the reward for doing dailies is worth doing them.  I do not believe the reward for scenarios, which give less then dungeons but take longer, is worth it.  I do not believe the reward for dungeons is worth it.  And I do not believe the reward for raids is worth it.

My solution is not a good one really.  It is patch work.  Might solve the issue for some people for a limited time.  It will not give a good reason for people to keep pressing those buttons for very long at all.  That does not change the fact that the rewards that are offered just do not seem to be worth the effort and most definitely not after the first character has done them and that is why this expansion has already received the label as the most alt unfriendly expansion yet.  While I do think this is my favorite expansion so far, I do agree with the assessment.  From a multiple character standpoint, this expansion sucks, it is not alt friendly.  For the person that only has one character, or really only cares about gearing up one character, this expansion rocks.

The reason for that feeling from most people is that they do not feel the reward is worth pressing the button a second time on an alt.  What do you think would be ample reward for things that would keep people pressing the button?  More importantly, how would you make it more attractive to press those buttons over and over again even when you need nothing from them, or on alts?  As it is, the rewards for playing just do not seem worth it and absolutely not on alts.

WTB: Better pellets.

4 comments:

  1. Morning Grumpy-

    Here's a radical idea - why not do away with all valor, justice and what have you points. Just have one type of point - oh I don't know, lets call it Grumpy Points (or GPs) and no, I am not picking at ya. So there would be no justice gear or valor gear, just Grumpy gear. Dailies would give 50 gps, instances and LFR would give 80 gps 1st time and 40 each time. Killng bosses will drop gear for every one involved in the killing of it, but the gear will be specc'ed to the people - ie. hunters will get mail armor or range weapons, Druids would get leather armor or druid weapons, etc, etc, etc.

    Now Gp would allow people to buy better weapons, gear, rings, etc specc'ed to the buyer. Also, pets, mounts and other thingies like picnic baskets, fishing hats, fishing poles, 28 slot bags (take that you AH gougers!), maybe scrolls that lets one up a professional skill.

    There are probably flaws, but thats not what am doing here. I am only trying to put forth an idea where everyone, even those who don't LFR, instance, pvp, or HC raid can get something too.

    Also, gear that drops off of mobs needs to be specc'ed to the toon doing the killing. I am tried of getting plate and cloth off of rares or regular mobs.

    thats my 3 cents out of 2 cents. :P

    -roo "better living thru chemistry"

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    1. Getting non-spec appropriate gear would be fine if it were at least BoE. But I would like to see more stuff drop for me, sure.

      I had thought of the points for everything idea and agree it would be a much better way to do things.

      Make normal mode / battleground gear buyable with points, every single slot. Make heroic mode / arena gear only attainable by doing those high end things. Make everyone happy all at once. I would like it.

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  2. I like your reward ideas for dailies. The current 5vp/0rep is not enough.

    For LFR, I think they should just change loot in general. Those bags of gold we currently get should have 20vp + chance for flasks/food/pots instead. The queue should give 90vp + 50g everytime and not half vp for 2nd runs. The 50g is for repairs. For vp, you could get between 90vp+20vp/boss if you get no loot and 90vp+loot off every boss. Raid loot could be sold to a vendor for vp instead of g in case it was useless gear for you.

    For dungeons and scenarios, they should always give more vp (not just the first run per day) so always give 80 and 40 respectively.

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    Replies
    1. I do think something, anything that shows they are trying, needs to be added once we are no longer getting reputation.

      I agree with the other changes you suggest too. They would make for much better pellets.

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