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Friday, March 28, 2008
Welfare Blues
I can't remember when I've been so angry the last time about a minor design decision by Blizzard. I was shaking my fist with rage at an NPC vendor, of all people; fortunately he didn't appear to have suffered lasting emotional damage from that. I was angry at him for a strange reason: he wanted to sell me dps gear which was better than what I had for a very low price. Blizzard in patch 2.4 introduced what I can only call "welfare blues": a set of excellent blue dps gear, great stats, set bonus, gem slots, and you only need to be level 70 and honored with some common factions to get it. The whole set costs only about 100 gold for all 5 pieces together, and can be gotten from the quartermasters of Thrallmar, Cenarion Expedition, Lower City, Sha'tar, and Keepers of Time at honored reputation, for all classes.
The purpose of the welfare blues set is easy to see: if you just leveled up a new character to level 70, you probably already got most of the rep you need for this, and you can buy this set of blue armor to be well equipped for your first PvP battles. In fact only the legs from the Keepers of Time will require you to visit a dungeon. If you skip those, there is no reason whatsoever to ever visit a normal 5-man dungeon again, unless you need gear for tanking. You just do one evening of daily quests, and you have enough cash to buy a complete set of blue gear that is better than most of items you could hope to find in a normal mode dungeon. With one stroke Blizzard made most normal dungeons completely obsolete. What the heck were they thinking?
I can only assume that Blizzard feels somewhat threatened by the PvP MMORPGs coming out this year, and are moving World of Warcraft towards being a game that is completely about soloing and PvP in response. What they fail to see is that the PvP fans will switch to AoC or WAR anyway, and that the changes do more harm to group PvE than they help PvP. Group PvE by definition is a group activity, and thus has strong network effects. By removing the incentives to go to dungeons for many classes and specs, it gets even harder to find groups for those who love dungeons.
And it would be so easy to give PvP players good gear that doesn't make dungeon PvE loot obsolete: Simply hand out stuff that has low stats when used in PvE, but gains bonuses whenever the user is in an arena or battleground. We already have potions and stuff that only works in battlegrounds, why not PvP gear that only works in PvP? Making welfare blues that make PvE less attractive is a really, really bad idea!
- posted by Tobold @ 8:20 AM Permanent Link
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"Simply hand out stuff that has low stats when used in PvE" - I can't speak for other classes, but for a holy paladin (and the DPS paladin set seems to be the same) this is exactly what these sets seem to be all about.
The lack of +healing, intellect and mana restore make these a very poor choice for PvE healing over dungeon blues. A large part of the item "budget" is spent on survival stats like stamina and resilience which is not really needed for early end-game PvE.
The lack of +healing, intellect and mana restore make these a very poor choice for PvE healing over dungeon blues. A large part of the item "budget" is spent on survival stats like stamina and resilience which is not really needed for early end-game PvE.
# posted by 
: 28/3/08 10:16
: 28/3/08 10:16
Yes, as I said, it is dps gear. A few pieces I've seen for priest have some minor healing bonuses, but in general this set of gear is not useful for tanks and healers. But as somebody recently commented, only 7 out of 27 existing talent trees are healer or tank, so anyone on the remaining 20 talent trees will be able to use this gear for both PvP and PvE.
I got 4 of my set recently. Priced too low IMHO. I spent much more on the gems than the pieces. I'm pretty happy since my greens were not even good enough for normal mode dungeons.
As DPS pieces I don't think they are that great. Too much stamina & resilience compared to PvE blues so no one is going to be blitzing through any dungeons with these. You're still better off running instances to get better PvE blues.
You're making too big a deal out of it in my opinion.
As DPS pieces I don't think they are that great. Too much stamina & resilience compared to PvE blues so no one is going to be blitzing through any dungeons with these. You're still better off running instances to get better PvE blues.
You're making too big a deal out of it in my opinion.
its their way of dumbing down the game. And you are right, it will make some people just pvp. However, those guys would only be in new dungeons anyway that many by now have already skipped. And the alts coming up can just go get geared from their guilds. However, new solo players looking to get better may end up pvp'ing because of the difficulty in finding people to do instances with, hard to tell.
# posted by : 28/3/08 11:30
: 28/3/08 11:30
Hi,
I tend to disagree with you here.
First, these 0.5 sets are exactly the old grand marshall/high warlord stuff : pure PVP gear. They are here to help new 70 characters or alts starting BG/arena without being totally overgeared by veterans. Thus, they lack PVE stats like +Hit for melee and cannot totally replace dungeon gear.
Second, you think (and I agree) raid content should be made more accessible. By filling gear holes, these items have the potential to help casual guilds discover the raid content. What's not to like ?
I tend to disagree with you here.
First, these 0.5 sets are exactly the old grand marshall/high warlord stuff : pure PVP gear. They are here to help new 70 characters or alts starting BG/arena without being totally overgeared by veterans. Thus, they lack PVE stats like +Hit for melee and cannot totally replace dungeon gear.
Second, you think (and I agree) raid content should be made more accessible. By filling gear holes, these items have the potential to help casual guilds discover the raid content. What's not to like ?
# posted by : 28/3/08 12:23
: 28/3/08 12:23
From a Feral Druid perspective those Blues are complete and utter crap. They all add +healing/+spell dmg...well whoopity fekkin doo thanks for not making anything useful. Nothing for DPS Feral, or Tanking Feral, the cobbled together stuff I grabbed from quests (with maybe 2 drops out of dungeons) is better than that crap. If you are going to invalidate the gear from Dungeons at least do it for all specs.
# posted by : 28/3/08 13:14
: 28/3/08 13:14
An extension of this problem is that because Blizzard seems to be discouraging people from running all regular 5 man dungeons in the game, people want to jump right into raiding, without having any idea how to play their character in a group. This results in repeated wipes on seemingly easy fights, like Moroes, because players can't shackle, trap, kick, or stun properly.
Sadly, it's not necessarily that they are bad players, it's just that they have no experience with groups, or with fighting mobs that require more than the repeated pressing of 2 buttons or less.
Sadly, it's not necessarily that they are bad players, it's just that they have no experience with groups, or with fighting mobs that require more than the repeated pressing of 2 buttons or less.
Are they better than the loot you'd get running instances on normal or heroics? If so, then it's a poor choice, because there's little reason to run the instances, except if you have a quest in which case it'd be harder to find a group.
But I'm not sure they replace heroics as a source of gear. This is PvP gear and subpar for PvE and entry-level raiding. I think they are at most a gap-filler.
My mage is probably in the target audience for those. In PvP I suffer because I have very little resilience, but now I get a decent start with those. In PvE I have a mix of heroics blues but some greens here and there. I replaced 2 greens with this set, but I will still run heroics to upgrade them. They are not a replacement of heroic gear. They are just a reasonable substitute that will make it easier to get those upgrades than it would be with my green quest gear.
At this point, late in the expansion, you have many people like me who somehow missed the original push through the content but would love to make some progress even if late. Gear hand-outs like these enable this group of casual players to quickly fill some gaps, be on par in heroics and even try out some Kara with a solid guild group without being too much of a deadweight.
For your argument about reducing the incentive to do heroics, I would note the following. There are two kinds of people running heroics:
1. People like me who just got to this stage of the game. These pieces of gear just help them progress through heroics faster, but do not replace the need.
2. People who have better gear and are only after the new badge rewards. These people are unaffected by this change. They have better gear and they run heroics as a filler of their time to improve their badge/week output.
Overall I don't think it's as big of a problem as you mention.
But I'm not sure they replace heroics as a source of gear. This is PvP gear and subpar for PvE and entry-level raiding. I think they are at most a gap-filler.
My mage is probably in the target audience for those. In PvP I suffer because I have very little resilience, but now I get a decent start with those. In PvE I have a mix of heroics blues but some greens here and there. I replaced 2 greens with this set, but I will still run heroics to upgrade them. They are not a replacement of heroic gear. They are just a reasonable substitute that will make it easier to get those upgrades than it would be with my green quest gear.
At this point, late in the expansion, you have many people like me who somehow missed the original push through the content but would love to make some progress even if late. Gear hand-outs like these enable this group of casual players to quickly fill some gaps, be on par in heroics and even try out some Kara with a solid guild group without being too much of a deadweight.
For your argument about reducing the incentive to do heroics, I would note the following. There are two kinds of people running heroics:
1. People like me who just got to this stage of the game. These pieces of gear just help them progress through heroics faster, but do not replace the need.
2. People who have better gear and are only after the new badge rewards. These people are unaffected by this change. They have better gear and they run heroics as a filler of their time to improve their badge/week output.
Overall I don't think it's as big of a problem as you mention.
But I'm not sure they replace heroics as a source of gear.
I was talking about normal mode dungeons, not heroics. The epics and badge loot you can get from running heroics is significantly better than the welfare blues.
If you are going to invalidate the gear from Dungeons at least do it for all specs.
Welcome to my world. Because that what you observe for the welfare blues is true even more for welfare epics: for my protection warrior for example there is very little gear that can be gotten from PvP rewards. I bought the complete welfare blues set for my warrior, but strictly as a dps set, not for tanking.
I was talking about normal mode dungeons, not heroics. The epics and badge loot you can get from running heroics is significantly better than the welfare blues.
If you are going to invalidate the gear from Dungeons at least do it for all specs.
Welcome to my world. Because that what you observe for the welfare blues is true even more for welfare epics: for my protection warrior for example there is very little gear that can be gotten from PvP rewards. I bought the complete welfare blues set for my warrior, but strictly as a dps set, not for tanking.
Well, I'd say that from a game design point of view...
At least they could have added a PvP vendor instead of offering the items for sale from PvE faction vendors!
But as I mentioned before, this is simply Blizzard's concession that Patch 2.4 is it. TBC is done. Next up is the 3.0 WotLK compatibility patch.
PvP worked as a 'bridge' in 2.0 to TBC release transition. Why not again? And this time, facilitate it with easy PvP gear for the newer 70's, since when the 3.0 compatibility patch comes down raiding will likely die out quickly.
At least they could have added a PvP vendor instead of offering the items for sale from PvE faction vendors!
But as I mentioned before, this is simply Blizzard's concession that Patch 2.4 is it. TBC is done. Next up is the 3.0 WotLK compatibility patch.
PvP worked as a 'bridge' in 2.0 to TBC release transition. Why not again? And this time, facilitate it with easy PvP gear for the newer 70's, since when the 3.0 compatibility patch comes down raiding will likely die out quickly.
# posted by : 28/3/08 14:10
: 28/3/08 14:10
Oddly enough, shaman's get three sets of .5 gear, one for each spec. And I fully agree, since I've found out about this set, I'm just getting my shaman to 70 asap without actually caring about gear. I know at 70 I will instantly be in good gear thanks to all the handouts.
I will say this though, while the .5 set clearly ruins motivation for PvE, it does eliminate the horribly undergeared players in PvP, which would be a great fix if PvP was worthwhile in WoW for something other than easy gear. Sadly it does little to actually raise the level of play, people still chase after the flag in EoTS and such...
I will say this though, while the .5 set clearly ruins motivation for PvE, it does eliminate the horribly undergeared players in PvP, which would be a great fix if PvP was worthwhile in WoW for something other than easy gear. Sadly it does little to actually raise the level of play, people still chase after the flag in EoTS and such...
# posted by : 28/3/08 14:12
: 28/3/08 14:12
At the end of the day they only fill 5 slots, and if i go pvp for the other pieces and apply to a pve guild, they'd probably tell me to stop relying on welfare.
I was very happy about the S0.5 stuff. It is excruciatingly painful to BG a new 70 in quest stuff. You are typcailly fighting players with twice your HP and tons of resilience. I had not thought about what it does to instance groups and my guess is that neither did Blizz. On the one hand, you can tell that it was not intended for PvE although dps specs can benefit. On the other, if it helps gear players faster, then this will push them to raids and heroics faster. So even though not intended, it does help PvE, just not regular 5 man runs. The point that it leaves tanks and PvE healers out is unarguable. Hard to please everyone, but as your recent posts have covered...they tend to get the short end of the stick all too frequently.
My Rogue hasn't set foot in a Heroic but I have done several of the 70 Instances on Normal. I'm also a 375 Leatherworker who has the full Primalstrike Set (thanks to 2.4 and AH BOE Nethers). I bought four pieces of the Opportunist's Battlegear (couldn't get the Keepers of Time piece), along with PvP-appropriate Gems and in equipping my new PvP Gear my MH DPS dropped from ~175 to ~150, while my Hit Rating dropped from ~190 to ~45.
On the plus side my Health increased by 2500pts, from ~7000 to ~9500, and my Resilience increased from ~10 to ~150. While more Health is great for PvE, a 15% reduction in DPS and a substantially reduced Hit Rating is not worth 2500 more Health. Sure my survivability has gone up, but now I can't hit those 70+ Mobs, and when I do hit them I might as well be using Captain Feathersword's blades.
Tobold said, "We already have potions and stuff that only works in battlegrounds, why not PvP gear that only works in PvP?"
My Rogue now carries around two sets of gear, because as far as I'm concerned this PvP gear only works for PvP. It might work in PvE, but it doesn't work as well as my current PvE set.
On the plus side my Health increased by 2500pts, from ~7000 to ~9500, and my Resilience increased from ~10 to ~150. While more Health is great for PvE, a 15% reduction in DPS and a substantially reduced Hit Rating is not worth 2500 more Health. Sure my survivability has gone up, but now I can't hit those 70+ Mobs, and when I do hit them I might as well be using Captain Feathersword's blades.
Tobold said, "We already have potions and stuff that only works in battlegrounds, why not PvP gear that only works in PvP?"
My Rogue now carries around two sets of gear, because as far as I'm concerned this PvP gear only works for PvP. It might work in PvE, but it doesn't work as well as my current PvE set.
# posted by : 28/3/08 14:55
: 28/3/08 14:55
I'm with the cap'n, my rogue has a motley assortment of bits from normal 5-mans and crafting, never touched a heroic or raid, and this new PvP stuff would significantly reduce his DPS (if I resubbed and actually bought all of it). More stamina and resilience, might be handy for battlegrounds, but it no way makes existing loot obsolete. Unless I took up rogue tanking.
Blizzard just tacks on more and more band aids without fixing the core problems. And the bandaids all have unintended consequences.
Raiding costs too much? Players need to buy money from farmers? Add daily quests, which cause inflation, raising prices of consumables and gems, and raiding again costs too much and new players are priced out of the market trying to gear up their new character. And again players feel they need to buy money.
Too hard to pvp against fully geared players? Instead of introducing tiered competition or fixing their broken arena match system, just hand out more gear. What unintended consequence will this bring? Less incentive to run 5 man?
People taking too long to level alts? Let's make everything non elite and give extra xp to just skip the leveling game. The great leveling game that attracted millions of players is now gone and you can forget about grouping for any dungeon pre 70. What unintended consequence will that bring? Is WoW only about keeping lvl 70s in the game and not about attracting new players?
The removing attunements and more badge gear, while it helped fix some problems with raiding, is also a bandaid. The problems were core to the raid dungeons and attunements.
I wonder if they'll get it right with WOTLK. I don't think they can. Everything is so completely out of balance. It seems like we almost need a do-over.
Raiding costs too much? Players need to buy money from farmers? Add daily quests, which cause inflation, raising prices of consumables and gems, and raiding again costs too much and new players are priced out of the market trying to gear up their new character. And again players feel they need to buy money.
Too hard to pvp against fully geared players? Instead of introducing tiered competition or fixing their broken arena match system, just hand out more gear. What unintended consequence will this bring? Less incentive to run 5 man?
People taking too long to level alts? Let's make everything non elite and give extra xp to just skip the leveling game. The great leveling game that attracted millions of players is now gone and you can forget about grouping for any dungeon pre 70. What unintended consequence will that bring? Is WoW only about keeping lvl 70s in the game and not about attracting new players?
The removing attunements and more badge gear, while it helped fix some problems with raiding, is also a bandaid. The problems were core to the raid dungeons and attunements.
I wonder if they'll get it right with WOTLK. I don't think they can. Everything is so completely out of balance. It seems like we almost need a do-over.
1) I'm glad these sets are available. A fresh level 70 was nothing but a target in BGs (and lets not even talk about Arenas). This set at least gives them a shot.
2) I'm not happy that the items were simply given away for effectively pocket change. They should have cost 3 of each of the BG marks or something equally cheap. 60 PvP marks for 5 pieces of PvP gear seems to make more sense than 100g and PvE rep for PvP gear.
3) These sets are not OPTIMAL for instances, but they are GOOD ENOUGH. If you ignore the socket bonuses and go for +hit / +spellhit gems, you're actually in good shape for most instances. Tanks are screwed, as usual.
4) For a farming alt, these sets are a godsend. My warrior went from 7k to 9k health, but only lost 200AP and 1-2% crit chance. This means I can go out into my PvP server, hunt down some mining nodes, and not worry about some level 66 mage destroying me in 2 shots.
2) I'm not happy that the items were simply given away for effectively pocket change. They should have cost 3 of each of the BG marks or something equally cheap. 60 PvP marks for 5 pieces of PvP gear seems to make more sense than 100g and PvE rep for PvP gear.
3) These sets are not OPTIMAL for instances, but they are GOOD ENOUGH. If you ignore the socket bonuses and go for +hit / +spellhit gems, you're actually in good shape for most instances. Tanks are screwed, as usual.
4) For a farming alt, these sets are a godsend. My warrior went from 7k to 9k health, but only lost 200AP and 1-2% crit chance. This means I can go out into my PvP server, hunt down some mining nodes, and not worry about some level 66 mage destroying me in 2 shots.
You still have to get honored with all of the factions. By the time you do that you have all the pve dungeon blues anyways. Or at least most of them. They just decided to match the amount of rep it takes to get to heroic. When it was still revered I was running those instances for nothing but rep because I already had the gear.
I actually think this was a great move by Blizz. During Season 2 my shaman went enhance for ahwile with only 23 res, I still could get in bgs and kill other players. In Season 3 with all the added gear I tried to do it again (having switched again from resto to enhance), I was just a easy KB target. It was not fun at all, too many people with high resilience. Now if I ever try to go back to enhancement or if I was a new 70, I will actually have a chance again.
I actually think this was a great move by Blizz. During Season 2 my shaman went enhance for ahwile with only 23 res, I still could get in bgs and kill other players. In Season 3 with all the added gear I tried to do it again (having switched again from resto to enhance), I was just a easy KB target. It was not fun at all, too many people with high resilience. Now if I ever try to go back to enhancement or if I was a new 70, I will actually have a chance again.
I was talking about normal mode dungeons, not heroics
This set is the PVP equivalent of the first “Dungeon” set that you can acquire in the Normal mode dungeons. On rogues for example, this normal dungeon set will net you ~20% more DPS than the PVP set that is now purchasable from the reputation vendors. Of course, on my last two 70s, I just skipped this progression step anyway with craftable and S1 PVP gear that is significantly better anyway. I don’t disagree that this encourages people to skip “normal mode” dungeons, but that was already a growing problem.
This set is the PVP equivalent of the first “Dungeon” set that you can acquire in the Normal mode dungeons. On rogues for example, this normal dungeon set will net you ~20% more DPS than the PVP set that is now purchasable from the reputation vendors. Of course, on my last two 70s, I just skipped this progression step anyway with craftable and S1 PVP gear that is significantly better anyway. I don’t disagree that this encourages people to skip “normal mode” dungeons, but that was already a growing problem.
RE: Skipping dungeons...
Well, isn't that what people are already doing in WoW 1.0 content?
And what they'll be doing in Outland once WotLK is released?
Those instances are over a year old now. There is little incentive to do them unless you're a relatively new 70 and haven't done them yet. With many factions you'll hit honored without setting foot in an instance.
And of what value will Outland rep be once WotLK hits the shelves? Nostalgia...
It's another aspect of the solofication of WoW, this time beginning to bleed into TBC content because, as I pointed out before, this is it. TBC is done with patch 2.4.
Well, isn't that what people are already doing in WoW 1.0 content?
And what they'll be doing in Outland once WotLK is released?
Those instances are over a year old now. There is little incentive to do them unless you're a relatively new 70 and haven't done them yet. With many factions you'll hit honored without setting foot in an instance.
And of what value will Outland rep be once WotLK hits the shelves? Nostalgia...
It's another aspect of the solofication of WoW, this time beginning to bleed into TBC content because, as I pointed out before, this is it. TBC is done with patch 2.4.
# posted by : 28/3/08 16:59
: 28/3/08 16:59
No one has mentioned how this might effect the player economy.
As these items are so cheap - will the demand for equivalent crafted gear evaporate?
Will equivalent BOE drops that would have appeared on the AH now wind up getting DEed? Will enchant availability be greater due to lower prices for DEed components?
As these items are gem slotted, will demand for gems skyrocket. Will gem prices increase?
I wonder if Blizzard could have planned a more interesting economic experiment :)
As these items are so cheap - will the demand for equivalent crafted gear evaporate?
Will equivalent BOE drops that would have appeared on the AH now wind up getting DEed? Will enchant availability be greater due to lower prices for DEed components?
As these items are gem slotted, will demand for gems skyrocket. Will gem prices increase?
I wonder if Blizzard could have planned a more interesting economic experiment :)
# posted by : 28/3/08 17:00
: 28/3/08 17:00
world of solocraft continues to grow. Imagine what your average group at level 90 will be like? the Deathknight who never stepped foot in an instance tanking your guilds first raid........
The really bad thing about this is it removes the reason for DPS classes to do the 5 mans that the tanks need for gear. Priests and clothies can craft gear. But with less people to run instances you'll have even less healers and tanks who generally are people that like group play.
oh my god
you are the ones always laughing and fingerpointing at raiders who complain when everyone gets welfare epics handed for free.
now the border was lowered again and now suddenly you are on the fence and start posts like this ?
noone needed anything from 5 man already so giving it away for free is exactly what happens with raid/pvp epics since 3 years.
you are the ones always laughing and fingerpointing at raiders who complain when everyone gets welfare epics handed for free.
now the border was lowered again and now suddenly you are on the fence and start posts like this ?
noone needed anything from 5 man already so giving it away for free is exactly what happens with raid/pvp epics since 3 years.
# posted by : 28/3/08 19:01
: 28/3/08 19:01
No, for PvP epics you at least need to do a good number of hours of PvP. The welfare blues you get for the pocket change and rep you have gotten anyway when questing up to level 70. I want *more* people in dungeons and raids, not less, like the raiders do.
For whatever reason, Blizzard has chosen to re-focus the game heavily on PvP/Arena recently. Hence the much-needed booster PvP blues for fresh level 70's. Perhaps Blizzard has greater plans for world PvP in the upcoming expansion and is using the Arena as a contorlled environment in which to test and balance the classes and items?
In resonse to Yunkndatwunk:
It atcually DOES seem like Blizzard is operating WoW in 'sustaining mode', where the company is focused on retaining the existing customers (who overwhelmingly play level 70 characters), rather than caputuring new ones. Hence the focus on the endgame play and the simplification of the leveling 'grind'.
In resonse to Yunkndatwunk:
It atcually DOES seem like Blizzard is operating WoW in 'sustaining mode', where the company is focused on retaining the existing customers (who overwhelmingly play level 70 characters), rather than caputuring new ones. Hence the focus on the endgame play and the simplification of the leveling 'grind'.
# posted by : 28/3/08 20:17
: 28/3/08 20:17
"We’ve all heard grumbling here and there about the latest WoW patch’s new high-end loot. The new loot can be obtained much more easily than before the patch, when you had to complete high-end raids to get gear of this caliber. The grumbling generally revolves around the idea that it’s unfair and demoralizing to raiders who obtained similar gear when it was more difficult to do so.
My feeling on this is, so what? The change is not massive, and there are good reasons for it — it will help more people see high-end content before the expansion comes out. But more importantly, there’s more to WoW than gear. What about the experience of learning to work as a team? What about the satisfaction of overcoming a really tough boss fight? What about the aesthetic beauty of seeing a new dungeon? What about meeting new people and making new friends as you play together?
Being overly-focused on gear is simply materialism brought to the virtual world. It’s not a very fulfilling path. I’m not saying gear is bad, or material goods are bad, just that treating them with the proper priority is an important part of having a fulfilling life in a virtual world as well as the physical one." - James @ Kill Ten Rats
My feeling on this is, so what? The change is not massive, and there are good reasons for it — it will help more people see high-end content before the expansion comes out. But more importantly, there’s more to WoW than gear. What about the experience of learning to work as a team? What about the satisfaction of overcoming a really tough boss fight? What about the aesthetic beauty of seeing a new dungeon? What about meeting new people and making new friends as you play together?
Being overly-focused on gear is simply materialism brought to the virtual world. It’s not a very fulfilling path. I’m not saying gear is bad, or material goods are bad, just that treating them with the proper priority is an important part of having a fulfilling life in a virtual world as well as the physical one." - James @ Kill Ten Rats
# posted by : 28/3/08 21:03
: 28/3/08 21:03
There's only 5 items in each set out of a total of 18 different item slots to fill out with dungeon gear.
It makes it slightly less useful to run dungeons for those 5 slots, but that's ok because... guess what?
The people who get the 'welfare' blues will still need weapons, necklaces, trinkets, rings, belts, bracers, boots and shields that are (still) obtained from pvp, dungeoneering or raiding.
It isn't really that big a deal. It just gives people leveling up a somewhat reasonable baseline to work from when they reach level 70 for both pvp and pve.
--Rawr
It makes it slightly less useful to run dungeons for those 5 slots, but that's ok because... guess what?
The people who get the 'welfare' blues will still need weapons, necklaces, trinkets, rings, belts, bracers, boots and shields that are (still) obtained from pvp, dungeoneering or raiding.
It isn't really that big a deal. It just gives people leveling up a somewhat reasonable baseline to work from when they reach level 70 for both pvp and pve.
--Rawr
# posted by : 28/3/08 21:43
: 28/3/08 21:43
I don't really see the problem here. Is anyone actually still running normal L70 instances that has the rep to buy these items? If you have honored rep you could be running heroics. If you don't have the gear to run heroics you . . . pvp for epics. You don't run the normal 70s to get to heroics anymore, there's no point.
If anything, the PvE effect of this change will be to INCREASE the number of people running L70 heroics, since instead of hitting the BGs for 27 weeks to replace your greens with pvp epics, you can spend 15 minutes visiting vendors to replace your greens with pvp blues, and have enough hit points to maybe not be one-shotted by the mobs in a heroic.
I just don't see how giving new 70s a leg up is going to hurt anything, since you can't obsolete content that nobody was doing anyway.
If anything, the PvE effect of this change will be to INCREASE the number of people running L70 heroics, since instead of hitting the BGs for 27 weeks to replace your greens with pvp epics, you can spend 15 minutes visiting vendors to replace your greens with pvp blues, and have enough hit points to maybe not be one-shotted by the mobs in a heroic.
I just don't see how giving new 70s a leg up is going to hurt anything, since you can't obsolete content that nobody was doing anyway.
# posted by : 29/3/08 00:30
: 29/3/08 00:30
I agree with your sentiments to a degree, and have had this problem even before these blue pvp items were handed out.
Ok, so the arena/honor gear isn't exactly a hand out as these blues are, and neither are the badge items, but I think when an alt goes into Karazhan for the first time and realizes all he needs from there are 2 drops from Prince and badges, there's a problem with item distribution.
The problem is, I think Blizzard considers a lot of people to be on par with the raid content they release, and try to match PvP gear accordingly, as not to repeat the pre-TBC mistake where raiders had a huge advantage over PvP'ers. But I don't think they got the rate to roll out PvP seasons down very well, and the same is happening in reverse. I have better PvE gear from doing PvP than the people in my raid,
Ok, so the arena/honor gear isn't exactly a hand out as these blues are, and neither are the badge items, but I think when an alt goes into Karazhan for the first time and realizes all he needs from there are 2 drops from Prince and badges, there's a problem with item distribution.
The problem is, I think Blizzard considers a lot of people to be on par with the raid content they release, and try to match PvP gear accordingly, as not to repeat the pre-TBC mistake where raiders had a huge advantage over PvP'ers. But I don't think they got the rate to roll out PvP seasons down very well, and the same is happening in reverse. I have better PvE gear from doing PvP than the people in my raid,
# posted by : 29/3/08 11:19
: 29/3/08 11:19
I can't tell if this post is satirical or not. This is the exact same argument that the raiders make against Badge loot.
Also, for the record, this is just entry level PvP gear. Dungeon gear is terrible for PvP, but good for PvE. There's already no point in running dungeons if you want to PvP. You're better off AFKing in AV until you get some honor for Season 1 gear.
This stuff just lets you be somewhat effective while getting your Season 1 gear, increasing the incentive to actually try to win.
Also, for the record, this is just entry level PvP gear. Dungeon gear is terrible for PvP, but good for PvE. There's already no point in running dungeons if you want to PvP. You're better off AFKing in AV until you get some honor for Season 1 gear.
This stuff just lets you be somewhat effective while getting your Season 1 gear, increasing the incentive to actually try to win.
This is the exact same argument that the raiders make against Badge loot.
No, just the opposite. Raiders do not want other players to have easy access to badge loot because it would make other people's progress through raids faster. With badge loot players will get to see content that they wouldn't see without it.
With welfare blues players are going to see LESS content, not more, because they will simply skip a number of 5-man dungeons. If Blizzard had added this PvP blue loot as added bonus gotten from a token dropping from every last 5-man instance boss, everything would have been fine with me. Instead they offered people a "skip content" button.
No, just the opposite. Raiders do not want other players to have easy access to badge loot because it would make other people's progress through raids faster. With badge loot players will get to see content that they wouldn't see without it.
With welfare blues players are going to see LESS content, not more, because they will simply skip a number of 5-man dungeons. If Blizzard had added this PvP blue loot as added bonus gotten from a token dropping from every last 5-man instance boss, everything would have been fine with me. Instead they offered people a "skip content" button.
No, just the opposite. Raiders do not want other players to have easy access to badge loot because it would make other people's progress through raids faster. With badge loot players will get to see content that they wouldn't see without it.
No, the raider argument is that people will stop doing the early and mid-tier raid content (SSC/TK) in favor of farming Karazhan for Badges, because Badge gear is superior to the gear obtained at those levels.
Again, it comes down to challenge vs quality of reward. If the only way to get better rewards is to defeat more challenging content, people will try the challenging content. And they will surprise themselves and succeed.
With welfare blues players are going to see LESS content, not more, because they will simply skip a number of 5-man dungeons. If Blizzard had added this PvP blue loot as added bonus gotten from a token dropping from every last 5-man instance boss, everything would have been fine with me. Instead they offered people a "skip content" button.
People who will buy and use this gear were never going to run 5-man dungeons, though.
They will be running Battlegrounds for Season 1 PvP gear, instead. You can't do both at the same time, and Battlegrounds are a far more effective use of your time.
People who are interested in PvE will continue to run dungeons because this gear is *terrible* for PvE. People who are interested in PvP aren't running dungeons in the first place, so the point is moot.
No, the raider argument is that people will stop doing the early and mid-tier raid content (SSC/TK) in favor of farming Karazhan for Badges, because Badge gear is superior to the gear obtained at those levels.
Again, it comes down to challenge vs quality of reward. If the only way to get better rewards is to defeat more challenging content, people will try the challenging content. And they will surprise themselves and succeed.
With welfare blues players are going to see LESS content, not more, because they will simply skip a number of 5-man dungeons. If Blizzard had added this PvP blue loot as added bonus gotten from a token dropping from every last 5-man instance boss, everything would have been fine with me. Instead they offered people a "skip content" button.
People who will buy and use this gear were never going to run 5-man dungeons, though.
They will be running Battlegrounds for Season 1 PvP gear, instead. You can't do both at the same time, and Battlegrounds are a far more effective use of your time.
People who are interested in PvE will continue to run dungeons because this gear is *terrible* for PvE. People who are interested in PvP aren't running dungeons in the first place, so the point is moot.
You mentioned that your wife never groups or PVP's. Just as do I. Isn't this the only way for such as us to get this kind of gear?
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