The gear gap is there to funnel people into raiding, and when it's gone people are naturally not going to want to raid as much. When your end game is as dependent on raiding as WoW (because let's face it, the smattering of 70 instances currently in tbc is no more than what was offered in old WoW), that'd be a bad thing, not a good thing. Hue and cry QQers are really irrelevant (and often clueless about why raids are easier to make than five-mans, all things considered), because the truly casual players who actually matter aren't going to run out of content any time soon. It's the hardcores that you need to cater to, and these hardcores consume content fast enough such that raiding is the only option for keeping them happy.
You're going back to the "this is my playstyle and you should cater to me, because I pay them money to do it, and they should ignore the other playstyles for whatever flimsy reason." You're also equating 'hardcore' with 'raider' which is also flawed in concept. There are plenty of hardcore small group players (the ones who have been farming heroics for many moons), as well as hardcore pvpers, and hardcore soloers (the ones who run around soloing instances because they can). Hardcore content in general is good, because it always lasts longer than casual content. This doesn't necessarily have to equate hardcore content to raid content, though.
Forcing people into a particular playstyle to progress is bad. It is very, very bad. This is what Blizzard tried to do in wow 1.0, and it didn't do very well. They *tried* to funnel everyone into raiding, and if there's one thing that players don't like, it's having the gameplay change on them. They went from open-ended go-where-you-like, do-what-you-like gameplay to 'raid or die', and that is very user unfriendly.
Raids aren't easier to make than small group content. It doesn't cost more to create more bosses, or make a mob have 200,000 hp instead of 50,000. Raid content takes longer to consume than small group content does, and so it is more efficient to create a raid, since it will "last longer". That doesn't mean that they cannot create meaningful small-group or solo content, but it does mean that it may not necessarily "last" as long. It won't be the most efficient route to do so.
But then, if efficiency was what they were after, they'd never have implemented things like the rest system. The rest system is inherently opposed to the 'make content last as long as possible' paradigm.
Honestly, it really isn't all that different. In fact, that could just be one of the deciding factors here... create a tough raid instance, and make it so tough that it's next to impossible to complete. Let the raiders work on it, while they create less effiicient content. Cycle through 'efficient' content and 'inefficient' content, making up the slack on each cycle. Then drop another expansion pack out.
I personally think the heroic dungeons are an excellent way to go. All they really need to do beyond heroics is to continue the forward progression, rather than hit another glass ceiling like they did in wow 1.0.
For sake of reference, some of the best DAOC pvp teams consisted of 50% or more healing, allowing them to take absolutely uncanny damage and grind down enemy groups that often outnumbered them 2 or 3 to 1. Obviously not an issue in the arena, but something to think about.
I would say that the best DAoC RvR teams were made or broken on CC more than the healing, although of course the two are interrelated. I had an absolute blast PvPing in DAoC but it is certainly not the model that would play well in WoW if for no other reason than the top teams would stomp even serious zergs. That made for one hell of a lot of angry Timmys for every chortling powergamer. Hey I've still got lots of raw fraps of the FreeRP 8-man rolling over 30 or 40 people at times. Not always by any stretch but don't try and tell me the victims were having fun.
For WoW though I'll agree that healing and survivability (by which I mean paladins for the most part) is king in PvP. We shall see how that all pans out but I still maintain that seperate rulesets and ideally a second spec set is the way to go.
No, I dont say that at all. As for other things. Again, my original reply.
Blizzard has stated that the loot is being looked at and will be upgraded.
No one is in the Naxx equivalent in TBC as yet.
Gruul and Mag are likely to be nerfed
Consumables are also being looked at.
This is all true, I know. However, there ARE people in the equivalent of MC gear running around, and I remember my MC gear being a significant upgrade from UBRS gear when I first got it. The jump was significant, and you really felt like the items you were getting were truely epic and deserving of a spot as a set piece. I know, the gear out right now is about on par with BWL in terms of progression (sorta) but none of the gear really wows you like BWL stuff did. Hell, I'm going to continue using at least 2 pieces of BWL gear because I never got lucky enough to replace them and still haven't seen stuff on any loot table in TBC to replace at least one (nobody's making Girdle of Ruination on my server yet).
Now, it's true that nobody is in Naxx-equivalent TBC gear ATM. But, wasn't there an obvious difference in power level between those in UBRS/Strat/Scholo gear and those in Tier 1? Or those in MC/ZG/AQ20 and those in BWL/AQ40? I sure remember a big difference. And it's just not being reflected here. The stuff out of TK, Mt. Hyjal, and Black Citadel had better be absolutely amazing, or it just doesn't feel the same.
PvP rewards are changed seasonally to keep in check with PvE.
PvP rewards are changed seasonally to keep in check with PvE.
PvP rewards are changed seasonally to keep in check with PvE.
Hooray, bilinear gear scaling! Let me ask you this though: if the PvE gear continues on this somewhat flat power curve, do you really think there will be a NEED to improve PvP gear, if it's just about on par right now, and will continue to be so at it's current iteration? Which is easier from a development point of view: making a new set of gear every 4 or so months to keep up on a similar but divergant power curve, or just have to rehash the same shit you put out last quarter with a couple of point tewaks and maybe a different 4 piece bonus?
:edit:
Christ, I missed a lot. Sorry if I went over anything already said.
I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should chellenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.--Mark Twain
I think a fundamental problem with balancing playstyles is that raiding gear necessarily comes into direct competition with non-raiding gear in PvP. That was a huge complaint of casual players in vanilla WoW, that they couldn't hope to compete with raiders in BGs. That's a valid complaint, honestly...why should somebody devoted to one playstyle receive rewards that allow him to excel in ALL playstyles? For some classes (rogues and dps warriors in particular) PvP gear allowed you to excel in raiding...to a point. But essentially, raiding created a gear gap for ALL playstyles. I'll concede that it's undesirable.
The thing is this...the gear requirements for PvP aren't static. In PvP you need to have gear that roughly matches your competition's...obviously you want the best gear possible, but for success (especially in arenas where consumables are outlawed) your level of gear needs to simply be competitive with the other guys'. In PvE however, the numbers are absolute. You need a certain threshold of gear to defeat Gruul (once again, ignoring consumables), based on HP and damage capability. That level of gear does not currently exist in the game, and CERTAINLY doesn't exist prior to Gruul in progression.
So, PvPers concern: they want gear such that they will not be unable to compete with anyone. This includes raiders. Second, they want gear that will allow them to be able to pull their own weight in instances, whether they be 5-man heroics or Kharazan.
PvErs concern: they want gear such that they are able to defeat raid encounters. By and large they don't object to "stapling on" extra gear with consumables, but expect their gear to eventually reach the point where consumables are no longer necessary. Second, they want to be able to PvP/arena and not be completely dominated.
Raiders aren't upset that the gear gap is being removed. Raiders are upset that they're not being given the gear needed to progress in their chosen path of advancement, and have to compensate with massive consumable use.
Blizzard did 2 things really well at lvl 70: first, they created a stat (resilience) that has high PvP utility but minimal PvE utility. Second, they outlawed consumables in Arenas...meaning that the competition was restricted to available gear. They gave themselves plenty of room to itemize for PvP. For PvE, the encounters are designed and tuned such that the ONLY way a gear gap can be avoided is requiring widespread consumable use to defeat the content. Raiders and PvPers have roughly equal gear, but raiders have to drink 30 item-levels worth of potions to defeat the content.
Can you link me to the webpage for your MMO, because I don't consider 6million+ subscribers to be not doing something very well.
Those who stand on the shoulders of giants should not consider themselves giant.
The game that drew people in was not the raid game. You can pretty much tell by comparing the north american churn numbers. Blizzard's growth in North America isn't anywhere near where it's been. World of Warcraft did not even register on the top 100 selling games of 2006. The expansion will certainly show up on the 2007 list, and I know a lot of people who renewed their accounts and came back, hoping that the new game would be significantly different than before.
I can't link a page to my MMO, since I don't work on MMOs. I am a game developer, however. My company's website is http://www.treyarch.com
See, this is where opinions differ. My small, family guild started Karazhan 2 weeks ago. There aren't many of us, 9 level 70 characters when everyone shows up. We've gotten Curator down to 2% on our first weekend there, and last night we 8-manned Moroes. A mediocre raider will have a group of 10, and will be able to get loot. It isn't hard at all.
You say 'trivially replaced', but is it really? You're assuming that it is trivial to do this, but it isn't. Not to most people, anyway.
How is going to the auction house, spending 800g, and buying your Spellstrike Hat that's better than T5 once you socket it not trivial? Or the Cobrascale Hood that I spent maybe 2-3 evenings worth of playtime on but will now last me though SSC/BT? Relative to putting together a group of 25 people for multiple hours and spending more gold in consumables than my hat cost on each attempt, you're damn straight I'm going to call making the hat trivial. If you took the 25 people in that raid and released them on the world to make craftable armor instead you'd generate a much higher volume of epic gear much faster than any raid zone could dream of doing.
You may consider this trivial, but I do not. You suffer no drawbacks to obtaining your loot, minus some gold spent farming for consumables, and time spent learning the encounter. In the grand scheme of things, I could just as easily say that the trivial part is the learning of the raids. It's an initial cost to get to the point of farming loot forever. A specialist tailor will always have to be a tailor to use his gear, and he will never have an option to change it.
If professions only allowed you to produce the epic gear, I'd agree with your point. But they allow you to produce salable commodities that are guaranteed to be in demand - by skilling that profession, you're creating an additional guaranteed money source for yourself. The fact that it allows you to cook up tons of epic armor is a nice byproduct.
The other point is that until you completely outgear the current raid encounters you're going to have to keep coughing up the cash every week because the gear you're getting isn't fixing the fact that you still need the consumables week after week.
As for arena loot... maybe you should consider it a bit. Arena gear is not trivial to get. If it were, there would be a lot more people with it right now.
Spend 200g to make a team, stand in place /dancing for half an hour once a week. Walk away with fifteen pieces of armor better than T5 at the end of the season. That's three pieces of guaranteed top tier raid loot per person or a weapon + one piece for doing absolutely nothing but standing there with your dick in your hand. That's as trivial as you can possibly make an experience in WoW. Getting arena gear fast is hard, and I've never denied that. But you don't need to be fast to get it.
Raiders aren't upset that the gear gap is being removed. Raiders are upset that they're not being given the gear needed to progress in their chosen path of advancement, and have to compensate with massive consumable use.
There is a lot of talk on this thread and elsewhere about resilience, and how it's such an amazing PvP stat, and allows PvE and PvP gear to go off in different directions. However, there is much debate over whether resilience is really that cost effective for the amount of item budget it eats up. It's not that resilience is "bad", it's just very expensive.
Currently it's a moot point because you don't really have a choice; the PvP gear (gladiator or battleground) has extremely high stamina, as well as other good PvP stats appropriate to whatever class it was designed for. The fact that it also has resilience on it is really just a small bonus. It would be interesting to see what PvP teams would wear if they also had the choice of gladiator gear with no resilience, and those item points spent on stats (or gem slots) instead.
How is going to the auction house, spending 800g, and buying your Spellstrike Hat that's better than T5 once you socket it not trivial? Or the Cobrascale Hood that I spent maybe 2-3 evenings worth of playtime on but will now last me though SSC/BT? Relative to putting together a group of 25 people for multiple hours and spending more gold in consumables than my hat cost on each attempt, you're damn straight I'm going to call making the hat trivial. If you took the 25 people in that raid and released them on the world to make craftable armor instead you'd generate a much higher volume of epic gear much faster than any raid zone could dream of doing.
The itemization is still being looked at. T5 has 15 item levels over spellstrike and cobrafang. Wait till next patch. Yes, things are wacky now. That's been acknowledged, and will be undergoing revision in the next patch. If you seriously don't believe it will be fixed, then why are you still playing this game?
If professions only allowed you to produce the epic gear, I'd agree with your point. But they allow you to produce salable commodities that are guaranteed to be in demand - by skilling that profession, you're creating an additional guaranteed money source for yourself. The fact that it allows you to cook up tons of epic armor is a nice byproduct.
... Are you serious? Like... really really serious? Craft professions have *almost never* been much for producing salable commodities. Some of the exquisitely rare blacksmithing recipes from wow 1.0 may have been useful. What tailoring recipes pre-TBC were good? What leatherworking recipes? They've actually, finally decided to give players the option of crafting something that doesn't suck (or isn't resist gear for raid content), and now you say it's trivial to do so, and that the efforts to do this can be completely discounted because the crafter are making money hand over fist.
Somehow I find this strikingly funny, because there are exceptionally few professions that don't bleed money like a leaky sieve. The real money-making professions are, were and likely always will be the gathering and production professions. The opportunity cost for the actual crafting professions is far too high for them to be useful for cash generation.
The other point is that until you completely outgear the current raid encounters you're going to have to keep coughing up the cash every week because the gear you're getting isn't fixing the fact that you still need the consumables week after week.
... which, again, is being looked at in the very next patch, along with a nice infusion of new content for you to spend hours and hours on.
Spend 200g to make a team, stand in place /dancing for half an hour once a week. Walk away with fifteen pieces of armor better than T5 at the end of the season. That's three pieces of guaranteed top tier raid loot per person or a weapon + one piece for doing absolutely nothing but standing there with your dick in your hand. That's as trivial as you can possibly make an experience in WoW. Getting arena gear fast is hard, and I've never denied that. But you don't need to be fast to get it.
I'm not against raiders getting any sort of progression at all. I fully believe that after the next patch, the progression will be much better than it was previously.
Last edited by Sillia : 03/21/07 at 8:12 PM.
Reason: I spel gud
The game that drew people in was not the raid game. You can pretty much tell by comparing the north american churn numbers. Blizzard's growth in North America isn't anywhere near where it's been. World of Warcraft did not even register on the top 100 selling games of 2006. The expansion will certainly show up on the 2007 list, and I know a lot of people who renewed their accounts and came back, hoping that the new game would be significantly different than before.
And the raid game kept how many people. Or did 6 million people spend 2 years leveling to 60 over and over again.
As for your idiotic comment about TBC being on the top 100 list. Blizzard could've released a blank CD as an expansion and cracked that with a built-in consumer base of 6 million people.
90% of the problem that exist with the current raid game could have been solved if progression started with Naxx. It's the casual raid zone for 70. If you had to have Naxx gear to do Gruul, then legitimate item progression, etc could exist. Also you'd have extended the lifetime of content for years.
Throw in season based arena pvp rewards, with them starting at Naxx level the first season, and you've fixed most of the things wrong with the game.
And the raid game kept how many people. Or did 6 million people spend 2 years leveling to 60 over and over again.
2 million in North America. 1.5 in Europe. 3.5 in Asia. Get the numbers straight. There is churn. They did not have 6 million people at the outset. If there were really all about the raid game, why would the numbers the devs gave at Blizzcon be so low in comparison to their subscriber numbers? Look at the advertisements for wow. Do they push raiding as the foremost reason to play?
As for your idiotic comment about TBC being on the top 100 list. Blizzard could've released a blank CD as an expansion and cracked that with a built-in consumer base of 6 million people.
This is a business in an industry that focuses on sales. WoW itself was not gaining large numbers of customers in North America in 2006. They sold less than 200,000 copies in 2006, despite the game being reduced in price. They were not growing. How many people do you know that have picked up the game in the 6 months before the expansion? I can tell you I know of many people who have quit in that time.
TBC will be in the top 100 of 2007. WoW was not in the top 100 for 2006. Get your facts straight.
And the raid game kept how many people. Or did 6 million people spend 2 years leveling to 60 over and over again.
I can't speak for anyone other than those I know personally, and obviously your guild is different, but in my friends-and-family guild, about half of the dozen of us never raided at all, and 2 more nothing higher than ZG. Three quit because of the nothing-but-raids issue (and one came back for TBC). I think if level 70 was again funnel-into-raiding, about three more would be quitting now.
90% of the problem that exist with the current raid game could have been solved if progression started with Naxx. It's the casual raid zone for 70. If you had to have Naxx gear to do Gruul, then legitimate item progression, etc could exist. Also you'd have extended the lifetime of content for years.
Throw in season based arena pvp rewards, with them starting at Naxx level the first season, and you've fixed most of the things wrong with the game.
If the main selling point of TBC for the nonraiders is "hey, now you can go to Naxxramas", and there's a whole-expansion-sized gear gap between TBC raid content and TBC non-raid content, well, it sound like you're pushing the "this is my playstyle and you should cater to me" argument pretty hard.
2 million in North America. 1.5 in Europe. 3.5 in Asia. Get the numbers straight. There is churn. They did not have 6 million people at the outset. If there were really all about the raid game, why would the numbers the devs gave at Blizzcon be so low in comparison to their subscriber numbers? Look at the advertisements for wow. Do they push raiding as the foremost reason to play?
There's churn in everything. What's your point. Since WoW's inception I don't think I ever saw a point in time where the sub numbers went down.
This is a business in an industry that focuses on sales. WoW itself was not gaining large numbers of customers in North America in 2006. They sold less than 200,000 copies in 2006, despite the game being reduced in price. They were not growing. How many people do you know that have picked up the game in the 6 months before the expansion? I can tell you I know of many people who have quit in that time.
TBC will be in the top 100 of 2007. WoW was not in the top 100 for 2006. Get your facts straight.
1. WoW came out in 2004. So by 2006, it was over a year old. How many games of any time are in the top 100 box copies sold over a year after they're relased?
2. I wasn't aware that $40, was more than $180. Silly me.
There's churn in everything. What's your point. Since WoW's inception I don't think I ever saw a point in time where the sub numbers went down.
You still haven't answered my question. Where are the advertisements trying to get people to come and raid in wow? Where is the proof that the game that attracts people is the raiding game?
The itemization is still being looked at. T5 has 15 item levels over spellstrike and cobrafang. Wait till next patch. Yes, things are wacky now. That's been acknowledged, and will be undergoing revision in the next patch. If you seriously don't believe it will be fixed, then why are you still playing this game?
Because I actively enjoy raiding, even with all the bullshit. I like solving the puzzles, I like optimizing my own actions to do the most damage I possibly can. I enjoy bullshitting with buddies during trash pulls and baiting more inflammable members with a straight-man schtick. I don't enjoy running from herb node to herb node like a lemming, and I certainly don't enjoy
... Are you serious? Like... really really serious? Craft professions have *almost never* been much for producing salable commodities. Some of the exquisitely rare blacksmithing recipes from wow 1.0 may have been useful. What tailoring recipes pre-TBC were good? What leatherworking recipes? They've actually, finally decided to give players the option of crafting something that doesn't suck (or isn't resist gear for raid content), and now you say it's trivial to do so, and that the efforts to do this can be completely discounted because the crafter are making money hand over fist.
Somehow I find this strikingly funny, because there are exceptionally few professions that don't bleed money like a leaky sieve. The real money-making professions are, were and likely always will be the gathering and production professions. The opportunity cost for the actual crafting professions is far too high for them to be useful for cash generation.
You're completely eliding transmutes, which is where the money came in. People leveled characters solely to transmute things. Tailoring made me about 2000g in the old world simply because every 4 days I clicked a button and out popped a Mooncloth. Leatherworking bled like a sieve because it was horrible, and even back in the day it had Molten leather that MC raiders used quite a bit. Blacksmithing had Arcanite Reapers(though admittedly Armorsmiths got hosed). Engineering had tons of quest turnins, and later Repair Bots. Enchanters make money hand over fist, as do Alchemists.
... which, again, is being looked at in the very next patch, along with a nice infusion of new content for you to spend hours and hours on.
Yes, but it's not in any way, shape, or form easier than the other means of progression. That's my point. Raiders are choosing by far the hardest path to the loot, and the rewards should be commensurate.
I'm not against raiders getting any sort of progression at all. I fully believe that after the next patch, the progression will be much better than it was previously.
That doesn't really answer my point there, though - PvP is a trivial means to get gear, and will remain trivial. I happen to enjoy it, but I know multiple people who despise doing it who are simply because it's the fastest way to loot that will greatly increase their ability to do the things they like doing(raiding).
You're completely eliding transmutes, which is where the money came in. People leveled characters solely to transmute things. Tailoring made me about 2000g in the old world simply because every 4 days I clicked a button and out popped a Mooncloth. Leatherworking bled like a sieve because it was horrible, and even back in the day it had Molten leather that MC raiders used quite a bit. Blacksmithing had Arcanite Reapers(though admittedly Armorsmiths got hosed). Engineering had tons of quest turnins, and later Repair Bots. Enchanters make money hand over fist, as do Alchemists.
Yet the amount of money you earn from crafting pales in comparison to what a straight miner/skinner, or herbalist/skinner would make, on top of having a huge opportunity cost to even get to the point people would want to get stuff from you. Transmutes were good for 5g every day or two. Mining was good for 5g every 20 minutes.
Yes, but it's not in any way, shape, or form easier than the other means of progression. That's my point. Raiders are choosing by far the hardest path to the loot, and the rewards should be commensurate.
If the difficulty was tuned down (which in all likelihood, it will), would you be happier with the loot provided?
That doesn't really answer my point there, though - PvP is a trivial means to get gear, and will remain trivial. I happen to enjoy it, but I know multiple people who despise doing it who are simply because it's the fastest way to loot that will greatly increase their ability to do the things they like doing(raiding).
Trivial meaning it doesn't require as much effort or coordination... perhaps. But it still isn't trivial in terms of time. You can eventually get great gear through pvp regardless of skill, if you stick to it and do it long enough. In wow 1.0, you could eventually get great gear by hanging on to the coattails of raid-farming guilds as well. That's just as trivial as it is here. How is this significantly different?
You still haven't answered my question. Where are the advertisements trying to get people to come and raid in wow? Where is the proof that the game that attracts people is the raiding game?
Where are the advertisements to get people to farm reputation in WoW, to come run 5 mans every day from now until eternity, to go PvP all the time. You see, there aren't any. The ads are all about leveling, and new features like flying mounts. Eventually that ends and there must be something else to do. Raiding kept a lot of people in the game for a VERY LONG time. Blizzard got over 2 years of use out of 5 instances, and people were still doing them every single day in droves.
Trivial meaning it doesn't require as much effort or coordination... perhaps. But it still isn't trivial in terms of time. You can eventually get great gear through pvp regardless of skill, if you stick to it and do it long enough. In wow 1.0, you could eventually get great gear by hanging on to the coattails of raid-farming guilds as well. That's just as trivial as it is here. How is this significantly different?
Because losing 10 games in the arena, which was Wodin's example, takes more than 1 hour a week. Hmm, no it doesn't.
a Naxx-geared player who wasn't a healer could effectively disenchant or vendor every single quest reward or instance drop from the expansion until at least level 67 with little to no adverse effects.
Do you think that is a *good* thing or a *bad* thing?
Quoting from a ways back.
I would say its an alright thing. After all player clearing naxx basically had beaten the game. Seems fair that in beating one game, you get an advantage going into the next
You can't call a planet Bob!
.
You were missing the () at the end of Feral Charge (Bear), this is necessary otherwise WoW thinks you're trying to cast Feral Charge Rank Bear.
This is what Blizzard tried to do in wow 1.0, and it didn't do very well.
People have already beat you up on this but let me just emphasize how wrong this is. WoW raiding was/is successful, even when the game stagnated for a year or so on other fronts. Now, you might argue that WoW could do even better if they had not tried to emphasize raiding, but don't try to pass a hypothetical improvement off as an indication that the original failed. WoW 1.0 did not fail, and an increasing number of people raided all the way till, near the end, it became obvious 1) that TBC leveling gear was going to replace much of raiding gear and 2) PvP went ezmode and everyone could get GM/HWL gear.
Raids aren't easier to make than small group content. It doesn't cost more to create more bosses, or make a mob have 200,000 hp instead of 50,000. Raid content takes longer to consume than small group content does, and so it is more efficient to create a raid, since it will "last longer". That doesn't mean that they cannot create meaningful small-group or solo content, but it does mean that it may not necessarily "last" as long. It won't be the most efficient route to do so.
Yeah, that's my point. Perhaps "easier" was the wrong word to use - though it's also easier in the sense that the variations in raid composition make slight errors in design a bit more forgiving. Regardless, it's more efficient (significantly so, really) to make content for raiders because raiding content can be made extremely time-consuming while retaining a considerable amount of excitement and fun. You can't do that with rep farming or questing or even five-mans (though they're trying with heroics). It's not a matter of what Blizzard should do but what they *can* do given their development time and resources. Again, you should know this since you're in the game industry.
Now, I said before that I agree with you in principle, and so I'm not going to lay a smack-down on your basic premise. I do think that Blizzard could do more for other play styles, but I don't think that the answer to this is to penalize raiding. If they want so badly to offer an alternative play style, here's my suggestion: buff heroic rewards. Currently they suck, and so for the same reason people stop raiding, people stop doing heroics.
In the end, it is about the phat lewts, not so much because raiding shouldn't be about fun, but because raiding the same instance over a period of several months *cannot* be fun. So you need an alternative to hold player interest when raids are not longer as cool as they were the first twelve times you did them. The answer is phat lewts - and phat lewts it must be.
I do not see where the scare of casuals getting pvp gear comes from.
It would take random rogue #65467471 something like seven weeks to get a pvp mainhand dagger by just losing 10 games a week (Or going even, actually). He could get a bigger net upgrade running random five mans and picking up dps blues.
Can... anyone point out a team to me that is top rated and is not part of a prominant raiding guild?
From what I've seen (we finished a dissapointing #9, down from position #4~ this week) every top pvp team has geared themselves in high sta pve epics, marshal pvp epic purchasable gear, and is now patching holes with 3-4 pieces of gladiator gear.
The only alternative to this was to put down 150k~ honor on pvp blues, and or craft 3-4k gold worth of high sta craftable armor.
Oh, and deep thunder/moon cleavers.
So, again, while concerns that pvp balance changes pve class performance is a very viable point, the danger of pvp gearing people up for PvE is certainly moot.
03/21/07, 7:20 PM
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