Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Should Legendary Progress Be Account Wide?

With all the talk of 6.2 coming up and the additions and changes that are coming along with it we have seen little to no information on if there will be a catch up system for the legendary quest line like there was in mists, with the exception of the notice that garrison follower missions will be giving a few more stones and runes than they currently do when you get the quest.

Just like in mists the first time through the legendary quest line works out kind of smoothly if you are an active player.  Even the time sinks in mists, like the 6 weeks of collecting valor, were no big deal when it was current.  But once it is no longer current that 6 weeks of collecting valor was nothing but an arbitrary gate for no reason other than slowing you down without a real reason for doing so.  They lowered it to three later, but that was still an unnecessary gate for no reason other than to slow you down.

As I mentioned, if you were doing it while current as it came out, things like that are fine, it fits the times, but once something moves to the past it becomes an annoyance to anyone trying to catch up.  It is waiting for the sake of waiting be it six weeks or three, it is still nothing more than wasted time.

For the people that came along late to the legendary line they were forced to run old content to get drops and it was not until SoO came out that they decided to offer those previous drops in more than just their original locations.  This was a step in the right direction but still not perfect.  I still believe it would have been better if anything could drop from anywhere, but the past is the past, and we now wonder if blizzard has learned anything.

Currently there seems to be no indication that you will be able to get stones in BRF instead of just HM or runes in HM instead of just BRF and of course we do not know if they will be dropping either of them in the new raid, hellfire citadel.

The only note we have heard is that once you have completed a step of the legendary quest line the collection process will be sped up on your alts.  I have multiple alts doing it and personally have seen absolutely zero proof of that, but your mileage might vary, drops are still luck based and my luck is most definitely not representative of the entire player base.  All I am saying is to me I get the same amount of stones or runes I always did and see no marked increase in drops.

Reading on the forums I see many people changing mains and going back to get the legendary caught up on another character, or wanting to do it on an alt but not really in the mood to run HM when they are already BRF geared and raiding BRF, so they have no desire to move backwards to catch up. (this is why I think all pieces should drop from all raids, would fix everything if you ask me, no one like to raid old content for pieces they need for current content)

It got me wondering, just as a question, but what would people think of the idea that once you unlocked the legendary ring, at any stage, that the ring would be available for purchase on any of the characters on your account?

If you think about it, in theory at least, all the process of collecting pieces is nothing more than a time sink.  There is no inherent fun to the quest line, and whatever fun there might have been was lived through with the main character you did it on and doing it a second time is nothing more than a boring grind, an annoying grind, or a complete waste of time, depending on the type of player you are.  So maybe once you did it, it should count for all your characters?  What do you think?

My personal opinion is that would be pushing it a little too far.  What would I suggest as a catch up?  I am glad you asked, here goes.

First off, remove the apexis crystal requirements completely.

It served its purpose for those of us that where there on launch day and wanted to get it done as soon as possible.  I remember, fondly even, grinding my little heart out collecting them and getting my ring ASAP.  I know of others that waited the 5 days for 5 dailies before they got the crystals they needed.

In truth waiting 5 days was not so long of a wait at all.  In the grand scheme of things 5 days is nothing.  But that is why it should be removed.  It is nothing more than another arbitrary time sink for no real reason, equivalent to the valor collecting in last expansions quest line. 

Once that stage of the ring collection was outdated the need to have such an arbitrary collection process was also outdated and should have been removed.  Cutting the collection process shorter by 5 days will not kill blizzard, and for those people that do think it is a grind (not sure how any would but to each their own) removing it is a nice gesture for catching up.

Second, have all items drop from all raids.  Meaning that you can collect stones and runes in HM, BRF and HC.  Yes, have all bosses in all raids drop all the older items.  This would be a real boon to people catching up.

Third, increase the drop rate.  Not saying to give people everything in one week, but they can increase the drop rate of stones to be a minimum of 3 or 4 and the drop rate of runes to be a minimum of 15 instead of 9.  Just a little boost to speed it along some.

All in all it is still just nothing more than waste of time, in the minds of many, to redo what you have already done, but I am a believer that while things should be quicker on alts, I don't always believe they should be completely skipped.  So I think the three steps I mentioned would make the catch up for the legendary ring more than acceptable.

Yet it seems, from reading around, that many people in the community would be more than happy with just having to complete it on one character and then all your characters have access to it.  Is that an option you would embrace? 

Personally I would not say no to it if they offered it, but I do think even an alt should have to do something to get it beside just spending some gold to buy it.  What do you think?

25 comments:

  1. My shortcut would be to remove all of the collecting quests for alts completely but keep all the other quests.

    No Apexis collecting but you still have to do the heroic dungeon quests.
    No Abrogator stones collecting but you still need the specific item from Imperator Mar'gok.
    No Runes but you still need thingumajig no.2 from Blackhand etc etc..

    Basically, the alt would need to complete the content but not have to do all the repetition of that content.

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    1. That would make it one hell of a quick catch up. You could do, with appropriate time, the entire line in one day.

      Ditching all the repetition parts would most definitely please the masses.

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  2. I'm for anything that speeds up the collecting stages. Anything at all.

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    1. I am surprised that you can not get stones in BRF. That is the reason most of my alts are stalled completely now.

      It just does not seem worth it to do HM LFR when I need nothing from it and I am not going to pug a normal or even heroic with the "chance" at failure when I am just there to collect a few stones. Stones should have been dropped from BRF as well.

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  3. Yeah. I'm not above SOME grinding for a good reward, but this xpac seems excessive. I'm only still doing the quest to help my raid team. If I didn't have a regular team I'd have said screw it as soon as I saw 5-6 WEEKS of abrogator stones.

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    1. And then the end result is you do not even get something for "you" but a raid cooldown that is used when your raid needs it and not for you yourself really seems like they made the grind for a really crappy reward if you ask me.

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  4. I started so late in MOP on my main, that running through with my healer alt was painful. So much so that she never completed the first collecting quests.

    It didn't help at all that she was running around in Timeless Isles i496 gear at the time and it required that I run the first raids (Mogushun vaults and that spring) in order to collect the tokens. Basically, if no stones dropped off any boss, it was a waste of my time and mana. So I quit trying.

    A skip mechanism would have helped.

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    1. That is what I am getting at. Having to run the old stuff to "catch" up kind of sucks. Even more so if you do not get enough, or anything like in mists, then it feels like a complete waste of time.

      I hope they really do add a catch up. It already sucks we have to run H M if we want to start on any new characters and HM is old content now.

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    2. At least at this point in WoD, my 2 alts are both in fairly low level gear. I'll still need to run this old content in order to get upgrades. The Timeless Isle gear really made gearing up pointless in those early raids. My boosted druid and my healer were able to jump straight to Throne of Thunder without issue..

      I believe the legendary quest should be 'painful' and make it feel like "wow I got a legendary __". That was an aweseome DPS cloak, in fact, Mr Robot still suggests I equip that old cloak on my warlock over the 640 "Cloak of Overflowing Energies" from HM I have..

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    3. You can realistically hit 100 and never need to step into HM. You can go from ding to BRF instantly, having people have to stop at HM is like making them go back to do something they should not longer need to.

      Admittedly, if you do not have some crafted pieces and AH pieces HM is still a very attractive raid even in LFR. But for my when I am gearing up and I looking to do so most efficiently, and doing content for lesser gear is not very efficient.

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  5. There are a few things I would consider, first after you have the ring on your main and only after you have the actual legendary one, then being able to purchase the runes and stones either with gold or profession mats or whatever then you can start building the ring. Of course you have to get the other quest items that drop as those shouldn't be purchased just to show blizzard your willing to play along. You could also make the runes and stones BOA. We are running raids already so why not continue to get the goods. What I have found is that LFR drops more of the goods than running regular or heroic. I was able to get the last 80 or so by running all the BRF LFRs one after the other. I did not think I would get that many so I was surprised when I was able to get it all in a few hours. LFR queues suck on my realm average wait time is at least an hour but at least I got it done.

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    1. It did not make sense to get sigils in ToT or sigils and runes in SoO. It is a catch up mechanic, game play always trumps lore. So you can not now or ever use the excuse it would not make sense to get orge items in BRF. Because lets face it, 99.9% of the player base would never get to max level because it does not make sense to get up after dying. So throw out that idea. I do know what you mean and I agree 100%, but it is not an argument as why not to do it. Lore does not matter in this case at all.

      I do think the BoA idea would be interesting, but only see one problem with it. What of the person that does not need anything or want anything? Just more junk to clutter up their bags in an expansion that has so much bag cluttering junk already. Give them all pieces a 1 gold sell price and then maybe that would be a good way. No one would get rich off it and then people that want to stockpile them can and people that don't can make some gold. So not a bad idea.

      LFR is how I do it on my alts mostly, or did last time around, and those waits are why I say we need to speed things up. In the grand scheme of things it would take more time "waiting" to get the legendary than "killing" to get the legendary. And that is just not acceptable. For me at least.

      I do not want it instantly given to alts but I would like to see it sped up considerably.

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  6. You do realize they have already made the collection quests easier for alts after you complete that portion of the quest on your main. here's a link http://www.wowhead.com/news=246706/patch-6-1-hotfixes-for-march-11th-recent-blue-tweets-legendary-questline-boost-f#recent-blue-tweets

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    1. You do realize that just because blizzard says they did something doesn't make it true?

      Like, the check is in the mail. That is always true right?

      It is still luck based. Two of my characters have gotten no bonus. A friend that is running three said 2 of the three seem to get the bonus and one does not. He put in a ticket and they said, it is just luck.

      So, they might have "increased" the drop rate but it is still luck based which means it is absolutely not an increase UNLESS you are lucky.

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    2. your friends are probably getting confused with the "bonus" luck based where you can get like 27 you should be getting plus 4 Elemental Rune's I am and its not luck based.

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    3. I do not have any on the rune phase, getting stones, did not see any difference, stopped.

      Did not really stop because I was not getting the bonus, stopped because I really need nothing from HM. I wish the stones dropped in BRF. I hate having to go back and do something that serves no purpose to me. Heck, even LFR serves no purpose to me, but at least it is current and not old content like HM is now.

      And yes, you can still only get 1 or 2 stones from HM even after they "boosted" things. I was getting at most 1 cluster per run. They should have increased it to 1 cluster per boss in my opinion.

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  7. Apexis crystals can be done in a single day. By purchasing the various quests off your Garrison vendor. 200 resources a pop iirc. Plus the garrison quest itself will open up another 800 crystals zone. Went from ~2200 to the 5k needed just this Sunday gone on one toon, and thence into HM-lfr for stones.

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    1. Apexis crystals were capable of being done in one day on the day of release, me and someone else in guild did it that first day hitting 100. They just added a way to speed it up some, but it was always there. It is nice they added a speed up there. But it is still a complete waste of time.

      For alts, at least for me on alts, I would not "rush" it. I would do 5 dailies over 5 days. I am sure most people would do that.

      Heck, some of my alts that are not even 100 are already approaching 5K just from work orders. lol

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  8. The thing is, I've run out of things to do except raids. Well, I didn't do all "daily" and reputation achievements, but they're no more than grind for achievement.

    Raiding CD at least keep my toons in game, and the epic ring quest is a carrot.

    I disagree with the idea that you have to get Ogre stones from BRF. And it's not only not fitting lore. Imagine you have to run all the same BRF first for Ogre stones, then for runes - one and the same raid! With my toons dressed up circa 645-650 (I'm LFR only), I was glad to take this step back and return to Highmaul for stones, because I began to get sick of BRF.

    Now it's my 10 toons going for Highmaul and 1 main raiding BRF.

    I won't remove this collecting quests, because it gives you both the feeling of progress and effort. I like how it drops from EVERY boss killed, but I would also increase this drop number of course. To complete 1 step in 2-3 weeks.

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    1. That is the problem for me. I don't want to raid all the time on alts. Not with hour wait times, toxic groups, and nothing else to do in the meantime while waiting like flying around doing arch, pet battles, or doing daily.

      Add flying so I can fly around while in queue and the LFR would not be the hell to wait on as it is now. That is what kills it for me.

      I do not have the time to wait hours on end on multiple characters. I want it sped up to the point I have to do all the clears maybe twice at most to get everything and then "maybe" it will be worth it, for me at least.

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  9. During wotlk people also ran 2 tier old content for their healing mace. However, I remember that many people just didn't do it because it wasn't really needed unless your bleeding edge (in which case you already had a couple in your guild). So for this expansion, does it matter if you dont have the ring?

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    1. " So for this expansion, does it matter if you dont have the ring?"

      Yes, when the fights are designed around people having the ring it really helps to have the ring.

      Now, to the wotlk part.

      Apples and oranges my friend. Can't compare them. In wrath skill mattered a lot.

      I could (and did) join a ICC 25 man heroic pug and put on full ulduar gear and destroyed every DPS in the group because skill mattered more than gear. Gear upped potential, but skill mattered a lot.

      Now, not so much. I could join a heroic BRF group in full normal HM gear (think that difference would be comparable to what I mentioned for wrath) and I could perform with absolute perfection and would be beat by anyone that didn't fall asleep during the fight. The potential of gear now is so huge and so important and even if you are a piss poor player the gear can make so much of a difference.

      With that said, and knowing that gear makes a huge difference, even for a poor player. The ring matters, it really matters.

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  10. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

    Well you may not have noticed, but I signed up for a raid this week. I meet your ilevel specification, plus a few points and while I do not know that my DPS will be consistent on it, I have both met and exceeded your minimal DPS standard on occasion. That will likely be my biggest problem, being consistent on my DPS, which is compounded by the fact that I play a ret paladin. As I understand it, rets are not highly regarded as a source of DPS, though I have read of exceptions to that (and lord knows, I hope I can be exceptional...).

    At any rate, with regards to the ring (soooooo tempted to hiss my precious), I have not done any of the quests aside from getting the initial quest for the ring into my log. I do not anticipate becoming a starting player on our progression team but I would like to be able to participate as a fill in if needed, but if the ring is a mandatory (as many already seem to think it will be) thing, then would that even be a possibility?

    I know my wanting to return to raiding may surprise you as I have not been a raider since the end of Cata. More surprisingly is the reason why. I can play my ret pally well enough to be able to beat most mobs and rares with little to no trouble, but there are some that I simply will need to out-gear to defeat. I ain't no hunter with my own portable tank, after all. So some gear to play with on my own out in the wild is what I am seeking and raiding sounds like (as is usual per Blizzard) the only viable option for getting any gear of consequence.

    I know that sounds almost hypocritical coming from someone who hates the Blizzard ilevel progression system as the post level-cap progression method. It isn't really. It is just an acceptance of the fact that while I dislike the system and wish a better progression model was used, it was the method that Blizzard chose and if I want to be able to beat those mobs that I want to beat, gearing up is what I have to do.

    Also there is simply the fact that I miss the group play and team effort we always have had as a guild. It is the same thing that keeps you logging in to raid in that respect I suppose. We have good folks to play with, even if all of us are not perfect machines of destruction like a certain cat druid or a hunter or two that I could name.

    Anyway I hope to see you in High Maul Saturday, unless something in real life intervenes.

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    1. Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:

      I went and got my silver proving ground last night or rather early this morning, just as an added insurance that I should be able to do a minimal amount of damage. Not sure how well the Proving Ground represents a raid environment, but what ever, I got the silver done after using my usual see it one time to die, one time to win and advance formula. LOL, that takes a while, especially as I had one streak where nothing would proc. For a ret that can get old real quick. In the end, round 8 followed my first success on round 7 with another success and I finished the Proving Ground Silver.

      I did not try for gold as I had not studied it at all.

      Silver I did study up on and it went about like I guessed it would when I tried it, based on watching a Tauren paladin blow through it. All I had to do was watch my timing, move when I needed to and move in the right directions and figure out when and where to use my cool downs. After that, it was simply learning the fight dance needed and the barest amount of luck on procs. To be honest, even though I finished all the rounds eventually with time to spare on every round the last time, my DPS sucked for the fight, ending at 10,606. And yes, I know it is normalized for 615 ilevel (I think that is correct), so that still is not as good as I remember doing when my ilevel was actually around 615 (which weren't all that long ago, lol). Current ilevel as of this writing is 634 and hopefully a point or two more by Saturday.

      Been thinking about the ring. I really don't want to get so heavily involved but it seems like I am destined to do so anyway or at least make the beginning effort to see if I truly want to become a raider again. I may ask you to log in sometime soon and spam run some dungeons with me, just to knock out some quests (and also because I want that guild vendor in my garrison to do more than just stand there).

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    2. Look forward to seeing you. We will probably be doing BRF however, not HM. I only put the lesser raid on the calender in case we have a weak group that day so we could do that instead. Better to bump people up and do a better raid when putting HM on the calender than to put BRF on the calender and have to lower down to HM as it would upset people. ;)

      The proving grounds are more about positioning and how you handle things like interrupts and the freezing amber than DPS. Heck I even managed it as DPS on my rogue, my shadow priest and elemental shaman, all three specs I am poor on. Not to mention I managed it on my druid in bear spec because I do not have a DPS spec. I did the tank one, the healer one, and then the DPS one as a tank just so I could have them all done. It is more about execution than DPS. And as you are a smart person and a long time player, I am sure you handled the execution well pretty quickly.

      I'd say at least get the ring to 680. All it requires are dungeons and there are many in the guild that have alts that need it that would gladly be willing to do it with you. I know I would.

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