Monday, January 27, 2014

Monday Random Thoughts

- Another monday so you know what time it is.

- Time to complain about the LFR.

- It almost seems like a habit.

- I would think that says something about the LFR.

- My new hunter should, unless he is extremely unlucky, finish collecting runestones this week.

- My monk, who was tied with him in stones last week only managed to get 2 this week.

- And that is what I want to complain about, not the people in the LFR like usual.

- Once my monk finishes it I will have done the ranged quest line, the melee quest line, the healer quest line and the tank quest line.

- It is exactly what I wanted to do, I wanted to do all of them.

- I wonder how many poeple can say they have all the cloaks, and I don't mean just "bought" them all but actually did them all on different characters.

- Did one on a ranged character, one on a melee character, one on a healer and one on a tank.

- Would be an interesting stat to see.

- So to my poor monks bad LFR luck this week.

- I logged on to my monk and queued up for the last 2 ToT and the first 2 SoO.

- SoO 1 pops, last boss.

- SoO 2 pops, second to last boss.

- ToT 3 pops, last boss.

- ToT 4 pops, last boss.

- You know, if I were just looking for valor that would have been awesome.

- Being I was looking for runestones, that means I have to start them all over again.

- I don't need any gear from them.

- I don't need the valor from them.

- I just need to kill those bosses.

- So while I "could" queue up again it is a complete waste of my time to do that.

- As it is an alt I have not been using a lot I really do not mind.

- But the idea is when I want a full run it loves to give me partial runs.

- But when I want a quick run it seems to always give me a fresh run.

- There needs to be an option or two added where you can put which you would rather.

- A check box for "I am willing to wait for a full run."

- A check box for "I am willing to take a partial run."

- Not checking either means you will take anything that comes.

- I actually think I have the ultimate solution for the partial runs.

- One that would not mean queuing up again and being forced to wait again.

- If you come in on a later boss, when you finish the run, you get any loot from the bosses you missed, even if it is just gold, and are allow to coin from those previous bosses as well.

- So joining an already in progress group does not feel like a penalty that makes you have to wait all over again, but a bonus for helping them finish because you still get loot (or gold) from all bosses.

- This would be the best solution in my mind.

- I want to tell a tale of bad queuing.

- Lets say you are just trying one LFR for an item and only want the last boss.

- Lets pretend you are hunter looking for the tier helm that never seems to drop from thok in flex or normal for you.

- I've been there so this story holds true, for me at least.

- You queue up for SoO 3 and get into a fresh run.

- After one hour and 24 minutes that is.

- You wipe 5 times on the first boss, which is amazing being it is probably the easiest boss in the entire raid.

- You get to the next boss and sit and wait for 45 minutes while they try to get some other tanks.

- Then you wait another 10 minutes while they work on making groups.

- Then you wipe less than 30 seconds after the fight starts because they put all the healers on the same side.

- Over all you spend another hour and a half on this fight while waiting for tanks, assembling groups, or wiping.

- Then you get to boss three and see your raid starts in 20 minutes because you have been trying to get this damn thing done for almost 5 hours.

- Please god let them get lucky and one shot this.

- They don't.

- You have to drop for your raid.

- Day two you queue up and get in on the first boss again.

- After another hour and a half waiting that is.

- Why can't you get in on the last boss this time being it is the only one you need.

- You had 4 hours before raid time, so you figured you would get it done today.

- This group can not be as bad as the one from yesterday.

- You are wrong.

- When raid time approaches, you still have not downed spoils.

- You drop group.

- Attempt 3, nearly 2 hour wait this time, it gets worse as the week goes on.

- You get a fresh run again.

- Hello, last boss please, I've already done this guy twice.

- After hours spent in there, hundreds spent in gold, you are forced to drop once again.

- Day 4, first boss again, two hours and ten minutes in queue this time.

- Fuck my life.

- You never make it past spoils again.

- Day 5, have to love weekend groups right?

- At least you got in faster, only an hour and ten minutes spent waiting this time.

- First boss, you begin to cry.

- You one shot first boss.

- OMG a weekend group and you one shot a boss a reset group could not.

- Usually groups right after reset are the best ones, maybe today is your lucky day.

- Spoils still takes a year and a day just to assemble groups for each side after each wipe.

- And there are plenty of wipes.

- A surprising amount of wipes.

- Each one taking lots and lots of time between them to get more tanks and work on grouping.

- When you finally down it you see a light at the end of the tunnel.

- It is the weekend, you have all the time in the world, now you just need to kill a dino and collect your helm token, you earned it more than anyone has ever earned anything in this game with what you have had to put up with.

- You wipe and wipe and wipe on thok.

- You just want him to die to use that shiny coin that has been burning a hole in your pocket.

- You want that four piece set.

- When it finally dies, approaching nearly 5 hours from queue to kill, you get gold.

- You roll the coin and wish for the best only to get another 18 gold.

- And there my friends is everything that is wrong with the LFR in one story.

- Bad groups.

- Bad people with bad attitudes.

- Wasted time.

- Queue times.

- Feelings of being let down after going through all that difficulty.

- Dealing with assholes, half wits, and people that have no business being there.

- Oh, and did I mention the nearly 24 hours, one full damn day, it took to complete one wing of the LFR?

- And this is supposed to be for the people that do not have time to raid?

- Who the fuck does blizzard think they are kidding.

- I have never in my entire life spent 24 hours raiding in an entire week even when I was raiding in 4 different raid groups and 2 different servers over the course of 7 days a week.

- This was one freaking wing of the LFR.

- So I started to gear up my paladin, being it was my only current 90 under item level 500.

- Got it up to 505, not having much luck with burdens on the island.

- The one I did have I used one a helm.

- It had one stat on it.

- Ever have that feeling like someone just kicked your dog?

- Yeah, that is what using the only burden your character has ever had on a piece and it having one stat.

- One bad stat too.

- No luck with celestial bosses each week either.

- I have not done ordos with it because I won't join a group.

- I am embarrassed by the item level, I'd rather just hit from outside.

- And ordos groups on my server are few and far between after tuesday.

- And as a low down the line alt it never seems to make its way up there on a tuesday.

- I should just go ret and do crappy DPS.

- Better than being a crappy geared tank.

- Funny part is my crappy geared tank, ungemmed and unenchanted had more life that most tanks I see in the LFR.

- I need a weapon, a shield, and some trinkets.

- I made a timeless trinket, purchased the shield and weapon off the timeless vendor this week, but still those are crappy and I could use a second trinket better than 437.

- Do you know how much work it was to save up enough for the timeless weapon and shield?

- On a paladin, in tank spec, with crappy gear?

- It took me what seemed like years to kill anything with my huge 22K DPS.

- At least I was rarely in danger of dying.

- It just took forever to kill stuff.

- Playing a little here and a little there, I finally got enough to get those things.

- Only because I refuse to spend 28K for a 502 weapon on the auction house.

- 502 people, try 6K and you would have had a sale.

- A friend said I should buy the shado pan trinket.

- I said, I refuse to spend full valor for a 489 trinket.

- He said, they reduced valor.

- Nope, only on shado-pan assault ones.

- He said, buy the shado-pan assault one.

- You need rep to buy that and even if blizzard loves to say there are choices this expansion there are none because I need to raid ToT to get that rep.

- He said, so tank ToT 1, with my skill even in crappy gear I would be better than 90% of the tanks in LFR.

- I said, you have a better chance of winning the lottery without buying a ticket than me tanking the LFR.

- Hey, at least the timeless weapon and shield are being upgraded to 489 soon, hopefully.

- Retroactively too.

- Which for those that do not understand what that means, it means if you already own it when they make the change it is upgraded automatically, you do not need to buy another one.

- That is the item level they should have been to start off with.

- Got to love blizzard and how fast they are to fix these things.

- It is only been how many months?

- They should have changed it week 1 once people complained about it.

- But no, they had more important thing to worry about, like selling us level 90s, instead of fixing their game.

- They are also changing the drops from the celestial bosses to drop 540 and 550 PvP gear.

- Oh joy, more people getting gear to get into the LFRs and flex runs that have no business being there.

- The PvP gear makes for a nice catch up mechanic for people that know how to play and I love it, don't get me wrong.

- But it also puts it in the hands of people that do not know how to play.

- So every good thing has a bad side.

- Soon you will be seeing people asking for 560+ for flex one, to try and weed out people that are in all 540 and 550 celestial gear.

- Sure, they might be able to play, but they might not, so better to weed them out completely most say.

- Sometimes I can't help but agree even if I think 560+ for flex one would be ridiculous.

- 510 with people that know how to play and you would have no problem at all, for flex one or two.

- PvP gear should not be better gear than you get in flex.

- People can just skip flex now too, item level wise.

- Not the brightest of moves blizzard, but I've learned to expect nothing less than doing the wrong things from you.

- As I love to say, give blizzard two options and you can be certain they will usually choose the wrong one.

- Tried to level one of my DKs this weekend.

- Did not go well.

- Picked up a few quests in zangermarsh and went to go do them.

- There was a level ?? camping the spawn point of the one water strider I needed to kill.

- He was killing it over and over the second it spawned.

- There is no doubt he was doing this to grief players trying to quest.

- I sometimes wonder how exactly some people find this fun.

- So that one is not going to happen.

- I passed by that one escort quest, figure it is always a good one to do, I get that quest done and kill the mobs while moving along that I need to kill for another quest anyway.

- I love killing two birds with one stone.

- Someone is already doing it and it seems there is a line of people hanging out there waiting for their turn.

- So that one is not going to happen.

- Go to kill the one big guy up at the top of the hut, because I know he is the one that will take time to respawn, before I go to kill the rest I need.

- If I can get him, I will do the rest of the quest mob kills but if I can not get him I am not going to waste my time killing the others when I won't be able to turn in the quest without him.

- There are 8 people standing there waiting for him.

- So that one is not going to happen.

- Screw this.

- I flew back and logged out, no leveling my DK for me today.

- CRZ was the absolute worst addition to the game ever.

- There is something I have not been my grumpy self about lately.

- When they added that piece of crap addition to the game the least they could have done is upped the spawn rate on things.

- BC zones are the worst, the absolute worst, and most serious offenders of this problem.

- Expect blizzard to handle this in their usual quick way to keep players happy.

- So in roughly 3 years the spawn rate will be increased to a more appropriate level to accommodate CRZ.

- I decided to pop on to a rogue on one server, after noticing a lot of my characters have lock boxes that need opening, so I need to level him up so I can open them.

- Don't know why but ever since worgen were added to the game I can not make a rogue that is not a male worgen.

- Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?

- That is all I can think about when I play him.

- I was 26 and ready to go to stranglethorn.

- How I LOVE the nessingwary quest lines on a skinner.

- I leveled until rested wore out at 29 and managed to gather enough leather to catch up my leather working almost to where it should be.

- As far behind as I was, that is quite an accomplishment.

- I then decided to pop around on that server and see what else I could do, profession wise.

- Worked on my DKs enchanting, 70 on that server.

- Maxed out my priest on that server, 35, in both tailoring and enchanting.

- Managed to have so much extra linen cloth to get all the others characters on that server at least up to 50 in first aid, so there is another quest they can do at darkmoon each month.

- Bought my monk to their daily quest again and have the buff up to 12 hours now should I ever decide to play it again.

- I noticed, I have a hell of a lot of fun micro managing an army and sending materials back and forth so they can get all their professions up.

- I enjoy building things, and building a team capable of doing everything is kind of fun.

- I played my hunter on that server and got it to northrend now.

- It should pass my DK soon being it is 69 and the DK 70 and of course I enjoy playing the hunter more.

- I am going to lock that hunter at 80, for a short time anyway, to get the herald achievement.

- I have this odd feeling that the achievement will be gone next expansion, which means so will the title.

- No proof of that, but better off getting it now.

- So what do I think of the 90s being for sale when the next patch comes out?

- Not sure if it will be active next patch, but I hate it, and I like it.

- Yes, I can take both sides of the argument, because there are solid points from both sides.

- One reason I hate it is I would be tempted to use it being I do have some disposable cash.

- I love leveling, but I do use what I can to make it faster sometimes.

- So adding that, if I am tempted to buy it, basically removes the part of the game I like the most, the quiet relaxing questing to level part.

- The building a character part.

- The actual feeling of advancing part.

- Instead of the end game where you bang your head against the wall all day every day trying to get little upgrades that never seem to drop.

- Or spending over 20 hours to finish one LFR.

- Or killing the same boss each week on flex and normal for months on end not seeing a drop.

- It is so much more satisfying to go ding from 38 to 39 because you can see our progress, feel your progress, know you are getting something done.

- Killing a boss 20 times and using a coin each time and still not getting a piece does not exactly feel like you are seeing your progress, feeling our progress, getting something done.

- It feels like you are wasting your time, plus wasting the time it takes to get the coins.

- Leveling is so much more rewarding than end game.

- And offering a instant 90 means people get into the instant feeling of never moving forward that the end game offers.

- And I would be tempted to buy 90s and skip the best part of the game.

- I don't like that.

- I know, personal issue, have to have some self control, but trust me, I am not alone with that feeling, I assure you.

- However, I do like that if I wanted to the option is there.

- If my friend needs a healer on his server I can just buy one and get it up to snuff to help him out.

- But can you imagine the gold sellers with all those instant 90s?

- Can someone say profession whoring?

- Buy 11 characters on one server, buy max alchemy on all of them, make them all trasnmute masters, collect gold hand over fist at the beginning of an expansion.

- Yeah, that is another huge bad of it.

- I think there should be some restrictions to the instant level 90 characters.

- One, you need to have a character of the same class at level 90 before you can buy a level 90 of that class.

- Seems fair enough, and for someone like me, not restrictive at all, I have every class at 90.

- Two, you can only purchase one 90 every month.

- No person be buying the game and having all 11 classes at 90 15 seconds after they put it on their computer.

- Lets get real here blizzard, people fell in love with the game while leveling.

- Letting new people skip leveling means they get into the LFR before the fall in love with the game.

- And would any of us still be playing this game if the first experience we ever had with it was an LFR group?

- I know I would have not lasted one day if that was my first experience in game.

- It would be good for some players that quit that want to come back but don't really feel like leveling up and feel as if it would be too much work, as they might remember it taking a long time.

- It is good to maybe get some new players into the game because lets face it from the outside looking in 90 seems like a daunting task and soon 100 seems even worse.

- So even if there are some good things and I can understand them and even relate to them I think I would still lean toward the end of disliking it.

- If they wanted to sell stuff, micro transaction like, then sell experience potions.

- 100%, 200%, 500% experience.

- It would allow people to catch up faster without allowing them to skip everything.

- Selling catch ups is fine, selling skip everything is not.

- This is also a slap in the face to the player base that got screwed out of content because they wasted so many resources redesigning the old world for cataclysm.

- They wasted resources on something no one will ever see now?

- Yeah, sounds about right for blizzard.

- And I really feel strange calling anything blizzard offers as a micro transaction.

- There is nothing micro about the prices blizzard charges.

- And buying professions?

- Please blizzard do not tell me you are really thinking of selling professions.

- How much did the gold sellers pay you to add this to make their lives easier?

- Don't, just don't.

- There is no need for discussion, selling professions should not even be a consideration.

- If people really want professions I've got an idea for them.

- Level them.

- Wow, that was hard.

- How dare I suggest people do something that hard.

- I am a bad bad elf for suggesting that, I shall go to my corner now.

- Have a great day.

26 comments:

  1. Professions can be annoying to level. Pre-CRZ, so back in Cata, I levelled a second alchemist and I did it in a day. I just flew around all day with my herbalist, collected what I needed and boom maxed.

    I wanted to do it again so I had one of each kind of alchemist and wow it took me about half an hour to get a handful of herbs in Elwynn. I thought that perhaps Elwynn is the most popular so I tried Dun Morogh, then I tried Teldrassi and all of them were barren of herbs. So I gave up. I would like to level alchemy twice again so I would get my 3 types, and be able to mothball my rogue for good. That's just not going to happen with the way it is currently. I think perhaps if I hadn't know how easy it was previously, I wouldn't mind so much but I begrudge it.

    So I think professions need an overhaul. Maybe if you already have the profession maxed, then you can buy for 10k gold or something, an 'heirloom' profession which will teach an alt up to the previous expansion max. So in Warlords if cap is 750, the heirloom would boost an alt to 600 skill.

    For people who don't have the profession they should streamline it and reduce the requirements a bit, make it more able to be caught up. Make people still collect mats from all expansions but double the number of skill points gained, or halve the mats required. Smooth out the bottlenecks at where it was the old expansion cap. Just make it a bit easier.

    Why do you think Herald will be gone? I mean that was a wrath achievement from 2 expansions ago. They aren't selling level 80 boosts so I can't think what's changed. If they haven't removed it yet with how the talent trees have changed, new class etc. then why now?

    That being said I am working on my level 80 for herald, it's level 50 right now, I loathe levelling in Warcraft but I have heirlooms, guild xp bonus and recruit a friend going, so I am doing about 5 levels a session before I get fed up. I know that levelling is so fast now anyway but I've said before how much I dislike levelling in Warcraft. In swtor it's all I do and I love it but in Warcraft it's a necessary evil. If I could buy a level 80 boost I would, so long as it wasn't ridiculously priced.

    As for the boosts gold sellers will find a way to abuse and cheat anything regardless. Even if they limited it per account, or the frequency, I can think of ways round it. If they made it so you had to have one 90 already, then that's easy for gold sellers. Really once the genie is out the bottle there's little that can be done.

    I don't disagree with boosts as they don't take you completely to cap. Crap players will be crap players regardless, levelling doesn't teach anything. I boosted my monk to level 80 with granted levels from RaF. I levelled 80-90 as windwalker. The little I've played it at cap has been Brewmaster, where I actually tanked T14, and Mistweaver which I just did dungeons with. I looked them up on resource sites, set my keybindings, practiced a bit, talked with a friend who'd swapped to monk, and then went for it. I also had to do that with my other 90's, which I levelled from level 1, the process was the same.

    Oh btw thank you. We now think we may have garrosh on farm. One tanking him works like a dream. He was 2 shot last night. I wouldn't have thought to suggest 1 tanking it if I hadn't read your comment so cheers :)

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    1. I usually like to have one of each as well on every server I plan to build a team on. Helps to have that. If you can only get two, do transmute and elixir. Potions you could live without if you have to, or unless you go through them like I do.

      I always complain about leveling professions in the CRZ world too but I still do not think selling them is a good idea. Fixing them would be better.

      I think it will be changed because of the squish. To make it right they would actually need to rework the fight so it is a "reasonable" fight at 80. It will either end up way to easy or way to hard and both cases will cause issues. Instead of going back and balancing it they will just remove it. That is my train of thought there.

      Things will be broken by the squish, you can quote me on that. It is a fact. I do not want to take the chance at losing my shot at the achievement and title.

      For every person like me that loves to level there is one like you that hates it. Sadly, for me, your type is winning. Seems as if leveling has no reason to even be in the game any longer.

      I agree people will be bad players regardless but many of those bad players give up when it takes them time to get to max level. We will not have the buffer keeping at least a few away from pissing in the pool.

      Congrats. One tanking does make it so much easier. It is still a rough fight and we still have a lot of issues with it, there is just one thing that always wipes us and it gets annoying when we should be one shotting it every week.

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    2. "there is one like you that hates it".

      That's just the thing. I don't hate levelling, I don't hate questing, I just hate it in Warcraft.

      I'll tell you why:
      - Way too many quests that are just kill x number of mobs.
      - Way too many quests that are collect x item like a brain which a lot of mobs seem without
      - Very few choices and no choices that matter. Some quests do ask you what to do, like that harpy quest "kill or spare" but there's no consequence for the choice. The follow up quests are the same, there's no mention of it later.
      - Very little continuity. There's a few references to "oh I've seen you before" but that's few and far between. It's also unintelligent so it says it even if they haven't.
      - The timeline issue. I just want one quest at the start of Outland and Northrend that says you are going back in time to train. Use the Caverns of Time for something. Without it, it bothers me.

      Then there's the big reason:
      - No difference depending what class/race you do the quests with. The experience is the same no matter what.

      There's also:
      - Levelling is all over the map. There are choices, which is good, but very few zones lead on to one another. The starting experience for Alliance does this quite well. You help in Westfall, then send you to Redridge, they send you to Duskwood. Normally though there's nothing that links the levelling experience together, no common thread to lead from one place to another.
      - Levelling is too fast. Sounds strange coming from me? Well I don't mind levelling taking ages if it's part of the game. I feel like levelling is treated as an after thought, something they include because they feel they have to and that's it. I know that sounds ridiculous given all the zones/quests/art etc. they have to create, but it feels like it's about railroading you to cap as fast as possible, it's not about the journey.

      Basically I don't like the levelling experience in Warcraft. I wish they'd fix it because they are ignoring (what should be) a huge part of the game. As it stands, for me at least, levelling doesn't have any reason to be in the game.

      Ah I'd forgotten about the squish. I best suck it up and finish levelling and get it then, as I suspect you are correct.

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    3. I can't really think of many other quest type options outside of "kill x mobs" or "collect x items". There is not a lot you could do otherwise.

      "oh I've seen you before"

      Might not be questing, but that is one of the things I loved about ulduar. And wrath in general. Lots of excellent connection where we knew what was happened, we were part of it, it was all tied together.

      So yes, I get what you mean, I too would love to see more of that in the game.

      The time issue would not have been a problem if they did not screw up time with cataclysm. It was a nice flow from past to present before, now you bounce around the time line thanks to bad bad bad design and choices made in cataclysm.

      That is the redesign of the old world, thanks to cata again, that funnels everyone into the same leveling path. You actually need to go off the path to get a different experience and only people like us that did it before know there is another way to level. Another zone to do. More reasons cataclysm destroyed the leveling.

      You do not need to preach to the choir. I have been saying leveling is out of control for a long time.

      I think leveling no longer has a place inside of the game outside of current content. Plan to make a post about it. Over all, they ruined the chance at leveling and older content meaning anything what so ever with the release of cataclysm.

      Good luck with herald. I hope I can get it. Like I said, they might not remove it, I just do not want to take the chance is all.

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  2. So, you spent 24 hours trying to run one LFR wing. Wouldn't your time be much better spent trying to find Flex runs for the same wings? I'm still waiting for one of you blogger types to try to coordinate a Flex run, you all have guild and maybe server runs but I don't think I've seen anyone try to leverage their readership directly or do a cross-blog run or anything like that (BBB has done it for retro raids but not sure about current content and WCB may have done one for Flex but it was horde-side and I'm not sure I ever heard how it went, or if it did). I think it's fair to assume that those who read about and discuss WoW outside of the game will either be above average performing &/or will be self-aware enough to know if they won't be good enough. Might be awkward if someone does have to get booted, though. :)

    I look at it this way, the shelf life of a non-MMO is, what, 2 months? 3 months, maybe? It's been 3 years since the Cataclysm revamp so to me, that content has already been fully depreciated, anyone who plays and enjoys it at this point is a bonus. Anyone who wants to run it will and, with paid 90s, those who don't can skip it for a relatively minor cost. I do think they could expand the level ranges for zones, though, as mentioned previously... it would be nice if a zone lasted, say, 10 levels instead of 5, so players could stick with story lines that they're interested in and still get benefit at the end of the zone. (this is also partly in response to the WoW Insider post about lore continuity, in case it isn't a perfect fit to what you were saying)

    We're far enough into the tier that boosting the iLvl of PvP gear (both Celestials and other) shouldn't be a major issue with PvE progression, I don't think. As always, I'd rather have a random person with i560 gear than a random person with i530 gear. :) Sure, there'll (still) be i560+ requirements for some Flex runs but that happens now, just like there are requirements for linking the normal achievement in order to do a Flex 1 run (me, I'd rather know they've actually done the first 4 bosses vs being willing to pay for a Garrosh kill, all things being equal). Some people will always have unrealistic requirements.

    My geared monk finally got into normal SoO for the first time (had done a few flex clears a while back but nothing recently), joined a pug... was bored and decided to roll the dice. Got a few bosses down and even came close to ranking on Norushen (95%). If it wasn't for Ordos and Celestials gear on that toon I wouldn't have had the chance to get into that run... so yeah, better gear off world bosses is an enabler for some people but not in every case. Plus, I kind of like that at one point, one of my L10 toons had 2 Ordos pieces sitting in the bank ready to go once he hit 90. :)

    (stealth ftw)

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    1. I was looking for one specific drop. There are three places to get it each week, LFR, flex and normal/heroic. If I do not do all I am not trying to be the best I can be. While I might not be the best player or anything I would not feel right if I did not try my best to be the best I can be and if that means trying every option to get that drop, so be it.

      So I did it on LFR, on flex and on normal. Just so happened I did not get it. Once I did get it, I never stepped into the LFR again with that character. If anything I would prefer the LFR were removed so I was not tempted to go in there. As long as there is an upgrade to be had, I always feel I have to do it.

      Don't expect 90s to be a "minor" cost. Blizzard has no clue what a minor cost is. I would not be surprised if it were in the 100 range even if I believe 30-40 would be more reasonable.

      The cata content, the remade stuff, was useless the second it was added. It was a waste of developer resources. It had no shelf life. Some people got something out of it and enjoyed it, sure, but most just blew through it without ever reading one line of text.

      Better gear for players like you that know how to use it is not the problem. The problem is giving better gear to people that don't so they can "sneak" into groups they have no business being in.

      Heck, my plate wearers, warriors, paladin, DK, would not have any gear if it were not for the world bosses. So I am not anti world boss gear. Not at all. But it should get you into the starter content in a good or great position, such as 2 553 and all 522 gear does, makes you very good for LFR, gear wise. It should not get you to starter gear for normal, or heroic if you are a good player, which is what 553 and 540/550 gear will be. There is a line, I think they passed it there. My opinion only of course.

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    2. Ah, I somehow missed that you were farming for a specific boss... thought you were just being stubborn. :)

      I hope they are $100 but I'd be shocked if they were even $50. My strong expectation is that they'll be in the $30-40 range and the other services will have a price decrease (server transfer, race change, etc) to about half what they are now.

      Ordos has been a bigger boon for my toons than Celestials, anyway... you can argue that only decent+ players would have access to Ordos (which may or may not be true at this point) but, really, the only two slots most of my toons would benefit from with higher-iLvl PvP gear are boots and one ring... just two slots. I think it'll have a much bigger impact in PvP than in PvE, which is the intent.

      Price is such a weird concept in an MMO... you see players bitching about the $15 subscription who'll pay $25 for a mount and to them, that makes perfect sense... to me, not so much. I'd like a paid 90 to be $100 but that's 7 months of subscription... that'd be crazy high in that context even though it sounds "right" to me, if not likely.

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    3. Nope, was trying to get the helm token. Normal did not drop it, flex did not drop it, so when the LFR first came out, I went there and spammed it trying to get it from there.

      Anyone, even if not what we would call "decent" that put in the effort to get the cape deserves the ordos loot. Even now it takes some time and a hell of a lot of stress (doing the LFR) involved in getting it done.

      I've had no luck on ordos.

      Main hunter, every week, 3 wins, bracers each time.

      Second hunter, every week, 1 win, waist I believe.

      Third hunter, every week, and it is still a baby really, 4 wins, 2 helms, 2 legs.

      At least a dozen other 90s as many other times I can get there.

      Druid, DK. monk, shaman, all won one piece. All others, nothing, not even with coins.

      Worst one, priest, every week, coin every week, nothing, ever. Ordos hates me.

      I think 60 would be more in line, price wise, even if I think that is still too high. Blizzard will try to get as much as possible, and you can not blame them. So I can see 100 and doing a half price sale every 3 months or so for some cash flow.

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    4. That's some uncommonly bad luck with Ordos drops... I think my worst 90 toon has gotten 2 useful pieces from Ordos and maybe one or two dupes and my lowbies all have at least 1 drop by now, I think. Most have 4-5 by now although I don't have all 6 on anyone yet. I've included a bit more detail on some toon results in a different response below.

      I have at least 5 toons with a full left side set (helm, neck, shoulders, chest, wrist), seems my toons either can't get belts or they mostly get belts. Those without Ordos belts are running crafted ones, though.

      My worst results are on toons where I can't pick a spec... mostly my pally (flips between holy and ret) and druid (flips between... oh, doesn't really matter, I'm equally crappy with all). Multiple drops but for different specs so not well enough geared in any one spec to be particularly useful. I have 3 non-raiding toons at 540+ just from world boss drops, really... crappy back, rings and trinkets and mixed weapons (I've actually run LFR for weapons a few times).

      I also have a bunch of Burdens that haven't been used yet, probably 20+ across toons... I'd rather not use one just to upgrade gear while other slots were available so if I have 3 on a toon, I wait until I have 3 inferior slots and then blow the Burdens all at once. Less chance of pain that way and it's nice to have some significant upgrades waiting that I can trigger when needed.

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  3. I've done all 4 legendary scenarios, but I don't have all all the legendary cloaks. I did the tank challenge on my warrior who is normally dps so he got the dps cloak, and I did the ranged challenge on my hunter so he ended up with the same cloak as my feral druid. No toons with the actual tank cloak or the caster dps cloak.

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    1. But you have actually done them all, which I would guess puts you in a very small minority. I asked on my server and no one, at least no one that said anything, said they did all 4 and have all 4 on different characters that use them.

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  4. I should do the last wing of SoO LFR for the achievement, but I just have no desire to torture myself...

    No loot off Ordos again. According to my Activity Feed, my last Ordos item drop was on 11/12/13... So much for losing streak protection with coins...

    With 550 drops, I'll have a reason to do Celestials again. I'd go for 550 wrists or rings over my 543 timeless pieces. That will get me a couple extra iLvLs from 554 to 556...

    489 for the weapons is still low. I don't understand why Blizz makes it so hard to get weapons.

    On a brighter note, I finally got It Was Worth Every Ritual Stone. I was stuck with Incomplete Drakkari Colossus and he was always a pain to solo. I was able to solo him this time thanks to better gear and the shortened revive pet CD. I think he killed my pet 3 or 4 times...

    Regarding the paid 90s, I agree that you should have to have a 90 already. I don't think it has to be the same class though. One per month is fine. They won't be able to limit it though, since people will just do it the other way (buy game, free 90, transfer). I also agree that Blizz will charge too much for it. It has to be less than what? $65 for the box and transfer? They'll probably make it $60 instead of the more reasonable $25-40 range.

    I think a good option for leveling would be that quests should never go gray. Let me finish the story of a zone instead of practically kicking me out after only doing 20-50% of it.

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    1. 489 is still much better than 476. It could translate into a nice DPS increase to all those timeless geared people in the LFR. Yes, still low, but much more in line with the 496 gear than a 476 piece was. Now if only they could be upgraded with burdens to be 522 or something. Now that would make them even better.

      Congrats on the achievement. I got it back when it was still kind of new in a group so I never attempted to solo them but I could surely see how he could be brutal.

      Never go gray, I like that idea. Let me finish a zone when I want to. I like it, but they would need to fix the mobs to not go gray too. That would be a much harder task.

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    2. I think roll protection is per toon, not per boss... so unless Ordos is the only boss you're using the rolls on, you likely reset the counter elsewhere. If you are only doing Ordos, you're just an unlucky bastard. :)

      Re: going gray, they could just change quests and mobs to work like gathering nodes... at max level you get a piddly little amount of XP from mining a copper node but you do get some. Why not do the same for mobs and quests? There's a massive mental difference between literally zero benefit and inconsequentially small benefit. People will do crazy things in-game for ridiculously small benefit (*glares at original MoP +300 stat food*).

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    3. I recall that a blue posted that it was per boss. So if you are using the coin to get a weapon off the 7th boss, for example, that each time you use a coin on that boss your chances to win on a coin increases. I am almost 100% certain I read that.

      I would love for zones to scale with the player. So as you go from 25 to 26 the mobs go from 25 to 26 with you.

      Effectively if you wanted to level to 90 in the classic world you could that way. Or if you wanted to go to northrend at 15 you can.

      I think that it would be lot better. It would be much more of a decision of the player. After all blizzard has all but abandoned the telling a story while leveling, or even leveling mattering, so might as well scale everything so we can do whatever we want where ever we want to do it.

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    4. The only official blue comment I can see says nothing about per-boss and I'm pretty sure I've never seen indication that it's per-boss. Wouldn't make much sense as a mechanic, really, it SHOULD be overall for bonus rolls, not just situational ones.

      "Protection for bad luck streaks have been added to bonus rolls. Each bonus roll that does not provide loot has a progressively better chance to award loot to the player."

      Your idea there is too broad, I think... I'd still want to stick within the general zone-to-zone progression, just with the option to stick around longer. Nothing would change just for you, it would be a change in the game mechanics in general (mobs and quests would go grey at a higher level is all). Instead of a L45 mob being grey to you at L52, it'd go grey at 58. It wouldn't provide any more challenge than it did before, it'll just give you XP for a longer level range.

      Scaling normal world mobs per player is something best left to single player games, not MMOs...

      @Jaeger - Regarding you being an unlucky bastard with Ordos, I've run so many toons through him weekly that I've had some pretty funny results. Haven't really seen a dry spell like that but frankly, I probably wouldn't have noticed even if I had.

      One toon has had 6 drops so far... 3 each of 2 items, none of the other 4. DPS-only toon, of course, so nothing to do but vendor the extras.

      One toon has 2 full sets of gear... minus belts for both. Other toons have gotten 4 belts.

      I have, I think, 3 toons with 2pc tier from Celesials for TWO different specs each (and one has a tier piece for a 3rd spec) but my primary raiding toon still doesn't have the primary set gloves (4 pants and counting, though, plus a nearly-complete set of PvP gear). That toon hasn't gotten tier gloves from flex or LFR yet, either.

      One lowbie toon who's only been out to the Island, I think, twice now, has 2pc tier and an Ordos piece... and lowbies don't have access to bonus rolls.

      I have 14 90s that I do the TI bosses on each week (so 56 chances at loot, with bonus rolls) and 6 sub-90s (so 12 chances, no bonus rolls)... I got almost twice as many drops (not upgrades, drops) on my lowbies than my 90s this week. That'd be a crazy result even if my 90s didn't have bonus roll protection.

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    5. Perhaps I just interpreted it wrong. The post, as I recall, said something along the lines of if you use a coin on a boss each week you will have an increased chance to get an item off that boss. So I read it as a per boss thing when perhaps it means coin as in over all. I still believe it is a per boss thing until told other wise.

      Concerning the reply to jaegar. You seem to be experiencing what a friend of mine has a theory about. The worse your gear the higher the likelihood of getting gear.

      He was on an amazingly bad streak and decided to take off half his gear when doing the celestial or ordos kills each week. He wins something off each one almost every week on 4 different characters. There might be something to that when you combine it with your low characters getting more gear. They have less item level, so they are given the gear because the system sees it as they need the gear.

      I wonder if there is anything to that theory.

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  5. hA! I still have ilvl 463 gun from the Klaxxi. Just like my beloved Corps, I make do.

    -roo

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    1. If you make your way to the timeless island you can get a 476 weapon. When the patch comes up they are going to upgrade it to a 489 weapon, even if you already purchased it. So might be worth collecting 20K coins for it.

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  6. ok, where is timeless island? is that dino island? I still havent made it there. : ( yes, behind the times.

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    1. TI is off the SE coast of Jade Forest... you can fly to it or follow the quest that you should pick up at the Vale city, it'll have you talk to Chromie (I think) who'll give you something to port you there once.

      Dino Island is a whole other thing and I don't think anything actually sends you there, nor are there really any quests... just grinding/collections and the Oondasta world boss that may or may not ever get killed on your server (some it does, some it doesn't).

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    2. Yeah, as I recall, if you did not know dino island was there you would never find it. Nothing ever sends you there.

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  7. Random Thu comment, Blizz is looking to add a "no PvP EVER" button for PvE-exclusive players to prevent accidental tagging. All positive, IMO, and I'm sure they'll handle edge cases (when you fly into an enemy city, etc) appropriately, even if it is to flag you in those specific cases or just prevent your entry entirely.

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    1. I saw that and would be glad to see it for patch day like things when the timeless island is added. Other times I do not mind some mindless world PvP but when a new patch comes out I just want to do it, not get into fights with other players. It would be a welcome addition in my opinion.

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    2. thank you for all the info R and GE. That would be a great for teh pve button. now to also have a "STOP BOTHERING ME WITH DUELING" button, things would be alright in the world.

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    3. I could swear there is a setting that declines duels but I have never enabled it. Only on low levels do I see to get that duel spam crap. Maybe I am thinking about a different game. If so, there should be an option.

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