Ja7us

Not as much as you'd think, really. Resilience already works this way; it gives certain bonuses at one conversion rate, and other bonuses at a separate one. If the tooltip just reads "Increases your chance to hit with melee attacks by %m, and your chance to hit with spells by %s," I don't see anything wrong with that - and it makes much more sense than changing the itemization weights of the stats.

 

Siddown

You've taken what little we know about the loot changes and used it as a platform to complain about the Paladin class and to put out your wish list. Again, for the last time then I'm done with this thread since it's no longer about what it should be, 1) We haven't seen Paladin talents, 2) we haven't seen new Paladin Abilities, 3) we don't know what End Game loot will look like, 4) We don't know how said loot will be distributed and 5) For some reason you are 100% positive that no tree of DK will use Spell Damage, yet you haven't played one.

At least when new talents get leaked, we can say "Oh, this might cause this or that...but it's alpha, so that might change". You've taken nothing but an itemization change to consolidate Heal + Spell Damage into one stat and somehow turned it into "This is how they should have done Paladins". Even so much as saying (paraphrasing here) DKs are what Paladins should have been without ever playing the class.

EDIT: Removed unnecessary bitching

There's no rule that says a thread has to stay on the top of the page, when we see this thread up top, it should be because there is new discussion or information. Letting a thread settle for a while until new information comes out isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

Bismar

1. Prot paladins and Prot warriors can largely wear the same gear as is. Plate armor and shields with lots of stamina, armor, and avoidance stats. Besides weapon (which paladins share with casters), the other differences are marginal. Yes they exist, but no one has to gear around them.

2. Since when is homogenization aimed at reducing the number of sets you carry around? If you don't want to be a hybrid, then don't. No one's forcing these 6 eventual hybrid classes to be able to do two rolls, it's a perk and a choice. Homogenization is (theoretically, in my considered opinion) at causing less gear to be sharded.


3. I think the +healing/+dmg homogenization is the mostly likely change to continue to, err, change. The spirit/crit changes seem effortless, but this is more radical. This is something Blizzard has been toying with for a while (2.3 change) and experimented with 2 different styles on the alpha (+healing to +dmg talents, and now this) already. There will almost certainly be more tweaks.

This doesn't mean we should ignore the change as irrelevant. Quite the opposite, people should probably speak up most because it's the thing they are most influenced on.

 

Ralnar

How many slots are we talking max here that we should be concerned about sharing gear on?

At the very least, I'd expect to have Tier sets consist of five slots (helm, chest, legs, gloves, shoulders), if not eight slots for final tier with how Sunwell was handled. All of those pieces are on the token system so they are "shared" just fine.

Let's go with a five piece for the majority of sets, that's already a third of the item gear slots, after that there are the universal item slots: Neck, Cloak, Ringx2, Trinketx2, weapon, offhand. All of these slots are generic due to no "armor type" and already get shared quite easily. Paladins and Shaman already wear similar items in these slots just like Priests and Druids, and all of them can wear the other pairs items in a pinch. Of course, not all classes can use all weapon types, but thankfully we don't see many healer swords.

Next would ranged/relic slot which is unfortunately very class specific, the priest wands may be mitigated a bit if shared with DPS casters, ideally there would be a "relic token" for the Shaman, Druids, and Paladins to share.

That brings us back to bracer/belt/boots as the last remaining slots that are armor specific and could easily be handled by either a Sunmote type exchange or other system (possibly blacksmithing) to raise or lower the armor type.

 

Fiola

Or the relative values could stay the same.


Agility gives different amounts of +crit/dodge/etc for each class. Given X agility, some classes get equal amounts of crit/dodge. Other classes get more crit than dodge, and some get more dodge than crit. Making hit affect both spell hit/melee hit, and making spell hit require less hit per %, is quite doable with the current system.


ie:
Paladins require 25 Agi per 1 dodge% and 1% crit.
checking on my warrior, it's around 33 agi per 1% crit and 30 agi per 1% dodge

I don't know the exact values for other classes, but I know druids, hunters, and rogues have a different value on Agi for both dodge and crit.


So it's perfectly feasible that 12(?) hit rating == 1% spell hit and 16(?) hit rating == 1% melee hit. If you need hit rating, you need hit rating, and if you're not a hybrid, you could care less about the secondary effect. (minus "pure" classes with the odd ability, like rogue poisons and warrior shouts. Then there's the hilarity of a fire mage having decent hit/crit rating for using his staff for melee)

 

mclem

Bismar:

I think you may not have realised the context for my comment; my comment was in response to a suggestion a few pages back that holy paladins could be encouraged to use +heal mail and keep all plate gear as either tank or dps, along with a thought for how to encourage holy paladins to do so:

My statements about percieved problems were entirely in the context of that.

 

flyingtoastr

On the topic of relics;

I think relics would do much better as badge/turn in style items than actual drops. Relics are so specific (each one caters to only one spec of one class) so it can be incredibly painful to get certain relic drops repeatedly (Mother libram anyone?) and equally as painful when it doesn't drop (Lurker libram anyone?).

The question would come up as to whether they are better as a token (Relic of the Forgotten Conqueror heh) or just badge turn-ins. I actually liked how the current Heroic Badge librams were, 3 very nicely itemized librams for each spec for a somewhat minimal investment that weren't eating any of the drop locations. Tigole did mention that they are looking into using a different system of badges for each tier so it would be possible to even get some relic progression instead of a single (Kara) relic being best through the entire expansion.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Ralnar

Who says that relics have to only fit one spec?

Relics could easily be made in the same style as the Ashtongue trinkets were.
[Ashtongue Talisman of Equilibrium][Ashtongue Talisman of Vision][Ashtongue Talisman of Zeal]
All three specs got a different boost from the same item.

I think a lot of the wishful thinking that is going on with the itemization discussion here is glossing over the fact that the quicker people gear up the quicker they move on. I'm not arguing that running farm content over and over is enjoyable, but in a MMO you have to keep the players coming back, even if it's out of frustration sometimes.

 

Pounce

There may be a realistic limit to how much "clutter" Blizzard can take out of the loot table. As much as we dislike seeing loot discarded, it will always be a factor. I can't count the number of times I've heard someone refer to dropped loot as "useless" because they couldn't use it. This attitude may not be as common amongst those with an eye to progress as everyone needs better gear for the guild to get ahead.

Even if the loot tables are tightened up, I think people should prepare themselves for the possibility that loot they can't use will still drop. They will still visit the same instance over and over to feel the sting of the RNG. The problem isn't so much that Boomkin gear drops, it's that there aren't Boomkins to make use of it. Theoretically, consolidating plate tanking gear means that warriors, death knights and paladins can all share a common set of loot, but after three drops, that gear will be sharded or go to offspec and people will complain nonetheless. People still complain when an armor token drops that isn't usable by their class. In other words, is the goal to streamline the loot system or give people usable loot every boss kill? They aren't the same thing, and while similar, they differ by degree and by intention.

On another note: with a topic as broad as the expansion, you're going to see conversations arise that don't interest you or your class. When, say, rogue talents are released we might get a 5 page run on that depending on how strongly people feel about the subject. While we should avoid a lengthy back-and-forth that contributes little, that's different then a conversation that discusses the implications of a change in game mechanics that affects everyone. Leatherworking changes don't affect me personally (I'm a bad raider and haven't taken it up), but they affect my guild and raid. Even with that being the case I have little to contribute on the subject that hasn't already been said, so I read and wait. Conversations will take as long as they take.

 

rhea

What we're discussing here is Blizzards intentions on changing how stats work in general. We've seen obvious hints about changing +dmg/healing and merging crit, hit and haste. We're speculating and solving the best solution for this, maybe even for Blizzard incase they didn't have any idea. The main example is of course paladin because they are in the most unique situation here. We are not talking about paladins exclusively.
This thread in my opinion is perfectly on topic, the topic is the changes Blizzard are making to itemisation and stats in WOTLK.

If you don't like reading this speculation (because everything on this thread is pure speculation), then I suggest you read the various WOTLK wikis instead. This thread is not only to inform about latest info but speculate and discuss about latest info.

 

Bismar

That can be solved by decreasing the raid drops (note how Blizzard has had to inflate the number of drops a boss gives lately).

It's much better for a boss to drop 2 items that will be used, than 4 items that have a 50% chance of being used. Especially because several nights all of those items will get sharded.

Also I think people are too hung up on the raid drops aspect of gear homogenization. People get gear from all different sources (crafting, quests, pvp, 5 mans) and the uselessness of much of the gear is a problem there too.

 

Denogran

While I get your point that it shows that it's possible for Blizzard to do something like this, I will point out that those trinkets sucked. And it's not entirely clear to me that they sucked by mistake, and not because Blizzard for whatever reason was wary of making a best-in-slot trinket for all specs of a class.

 

Jone

As a druid, the items like [Ashtongue Talisman of Equilibrium] and [Living Root of the Wildheart] made for all specs tend to be a huge failure for each. [Idol of the Raven Goddess] may be the exception, as the extra crit can be acceptable rDPS when you're put in a stacked melee DPS group, but I suspect using a blue quested item for endgame DPS was not actually Blizzard's plan for that item either.

I like paladins -- I wouldn't wish libram hybridization on them.

 

gnoop

While people do get gear from many different areas, I think most people here are specifically talking about those that are raiding, hence the focus on raid drops. The other options will do well in raids up to a certain point, but most will be replaced by raid gear and badge gear (there are always exceptions to this).

What I do find promising is that Blizzard has realized that gear in heroics and rep reward gear need a buffing. They also seem to be boosting profession gear a bit, which will be nice. Of course, it would be even better of they could work on some more recipes for specs that were a bit neglected.

 

Cube

Honestly, except for Heroics, Blizzard has done a pretty good job at making gear useful in TBC for pre-raid instances and players. You have to remember that while the gear you get from the level 80 5-man instances might be worse than level 70 epics, new characters, alts, and casuals will probably see those items as pretty nice upgrades. Also, the uselessness of a lot of gear is more because of boneheaded itemization than anything else.

Heroics are a special problem because of their difficulty relative to the rewards that you got. Since quite a few instances required the group to basically outgear the place by a Tier to be really successful, the rewards are extremely underwhelming for the effort required. I really do hope that Blizzard has learned from that, and won't repeat that mistake.

 

◊ Regen

They will, I would really check out the latest blizzcast, has me even more excited.

Here is to hoping they go through with tiered Badges of Justice.

 

Pounce

I wonder if that's true, statistically or psychologically speaking.

In the first scenario you have 2 items dropping that will be 100% useful to someone in the raid (so 2*1.0/25 = 2 looters of 25), whereas in the second scenario you have more, 4 items, each with a 50% chance of being useful to someone in the raid (2*0.5/25 = 2 looters of 25)? Perhaps I haven't fully understood what you mean by "50% chance of being used" or maybe my math is wrong (entirely possible).

There's also no way to guarantee that the 2 items in the 100% scenario will be able to maintain their 100% useful status over time (unless it's a token system in which case 4 items would be better). All loot is shard bait on a long enough timeline. Increasing the number of people that can use it simply extends that item's period of usefulness, in a sense. Keep in mind too that "less useful" drops might still be useful to someone at some point, so in reality they aren't intrinsically "less useful" they just have a shorter run on the useful scale (this might be a semantic distinction, but I think it's an important one).

Moreover, having 4 possible drops would seem to imply that on some occasions, however rarely, a group might get 3 or 4 useful drops, whereas that's never possible in the 2 loot situation. The 2/25 probability in the second scenario is an average, not a maximum like it is in the first. Even if the time spent in the dungeon is equal for both systems, wouldn't people rather roll the dice each time for the chance of greater reward? How frustrating would it be to get the same 2 "useful" drops over and over, well past the point they became useless? By filling the loot table with "less useful" drops Blizzard can extend the life of the dungeon while giving people the impression they have a chance of better loot.

Token + non-token item + badges seem to be the "best of all worlds" solution, since they make a boss kill useful for everyone. Although items are bound to be sharded at some point, people can still expect to extract some tangible value from the kill.

 

Cranberry

Reputation works as well, assuming real useful rewards at the end (ala Hyjal) and not poorly-itemized crap (ala BT). Imagine if SWP patterns came from a reputation gained in SWP.

 

PSGarak

Same mean, larger variance. While it's possible to win bigger, it's also possible to lose bigger. Also keep in mind that The Law Of Averages does NOT mean that it will even out over time. The Law Of Averages actually says that eventually there will be enough samples that those few hiccups at the beginning won't be significant anymore, not that they will be made up for by later compensating results. The events are independent, and if you get three weeks of one useful loot, your average for the next week is still probably two, not three to make it up. A year later you probably won't notice the three missing loots... some consolation, right?
Basically, a more dependable lower-variance system means that progression is less in the hands of the RNG. One guild could get 12 more drops in three weeks, and while I'm fully aware this is not an insurmountable advantage that turns nubs to smart people, it's also a non-negligable increase that's basically not fair.

So you are right that the statistical mean is equivalent in both situations. The difference is in the variance, and it leads to problems. As far as non-useful loot still getting used by offspec... this situation can still be generalized by setting an objective function of how "good," so that the four drops sum up to the equivalent of two good pieces, even if that's distributed 90, 85, 15, 10 rather than 100, 100, 0, 0. The result is similar: while the variance is slightly smaller it's still much higher than the tighter, optimized loot table and creates the same problems with only marginally less frequency.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Garak.png

 

Pounce

This is the type of response I was looking for, I think.

While statistically one might be more beneficial to the raid and to progress, people don't always prefer the statistical optimum. Even though "it's possible to win bigger, [and] possible to lose bigger", people might not be naturally risk averse or even aware of the risk involved. Without derailing the thread into an debate about loot and decision theory, I'm not sure people would favor a system where they couldn't, potentially, win big. In other words, more loot dropping seems like it gives the player an increased chance to get what they want, even if statistically speaking this isn't true.

The problem they might run into with reputation is that it's a finite and predictable system of advancement. At a certain point, based on a certain number of raids, everyone can be expected to get something. There needs to be a balance between the speed at which reputation is gained and the power of the items involved. The Hyjal rings were an example of reputation rewards done well, but I can't see the system being expanded to include too many more items of that level.

Having a system of tokens + items + badges + reputation looks like the direction Blizzard might take things, with the possibility of combining any of those in interesting ways to cater to casual and hardcore alike.

 

Douglas

The big problems I have with reputation right now are: alts, and people who don't ride the crest of any new progression wave.

These are to some extent basically the same problem -- a lot of rep is much harder to earn when there aren't enough other people working on that same rep.

So, in raiding and with gear, we've seen systematic increases in accessibility as content has gotten older. I'd love to see the same thing with reputations. My druid is very very old, 70 now, hit 60 back when reputation cascading had much lower cutoffs. So he's not even revered with all thet alliance factions yet. Meanwhile, my draenei priestess who is currently level 61 is already exalted with three of them. Is there really a reason my druid should be forced to farm a metric buttload of runecloth if he wants a horse?

Similarly, older reputations are hard to get now, even if someone is reasonably but not insanely motivated. I'd love to see more linkages between reputations. Like, I completely get why Cenarion Circle rep does not spill over to Cenarion Expedition rep. Makes complete sense, I'm on board with it. But why doesn't Cenarion Expedition rep spill over to Cenarion Circle rep? My warlock tailor never got the rep for the CC herb bag, the big one. He'd like it. Not enough to go farm the bejezis out of Silithus, however. What would the disadvantage be if he could farm CE rep instead, and got the mostly-outdated CC rep as a side effect?

 

flyingtoastr

I think he means more of the "raiding rep" stuff.

Take for instance BT rep (Ashtongue Deathsworn). If instead of just using these reps for resist set patterns they could make some of the RNG less random by putting certain items available via rep. This would work especially well for the "exotic" drops like Relics and Trinkets which have always caused a problem (either too many of them or too few respectively).

So we can take Pretend Instance A with the Super-Special-Panda-Brigade rep attached to it. As I run the instance I get more and more rep and I can eventually buy my Libram of Leetcake Buffs and my Uber Trinket of Restoration. It would make things like farming Gruul a year and a half after release extinct as well as reduce RNG loottables further to the more conventional armor.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Douglas

Wouldn't even that have a problem with alts and with gearing up new members? Though it could work if people who were Exalted with a faction could give an ally some kind of boost to rep gain rate -- maybe something vaguely "Proxy of Nozdormu"-ish?

Edit: might also work if each instance in a progression gave rep for it's tier and all the previous tiers. So if an alt jumps in to a group that's at tier C, they'll quickly get rep for tiers A, B, and C, and can then fill in the gaps from the previous tiers. That'd work.

 

flyingtoastr

There are a variety of ways they could do it. They could bring back the scroll idea from early TK/SSC (dropping off the final boss) that gives you a buff that increases rep gain in a certain instance. They could still put in decent relics on Badge Vendors, 5-mans, heroics, etc. to hold people over until they got the new ones.

Even for new recruits it wouldn't be difficult. Say we recruit John McHolyshawk who has almost no rep with the Super-Special Panda Brigade and we're not running Imaginary Instance A anymore in favor of clearing Imaginary Instance B. Would John be stuck without a libram? No! The rep vendor for the Gnome Battle Squad (the rep for Imaginary Instance B) sells a different libram, Libram of Super-Leetcake Buffs, that is even a mild upgrade from the first one. So yes, he would be stuck using a heroic/badge/5-man libram for a little while, but soon enough he would be running around with a libram that is equal in power to all the other raiding members.

This would also fix a minor issue for relic using classes, namely relic scaling. Relics are naturally very rare because they are so specialized on the loot table (at the moment there is 1 per class per tier level). With 9 specs that all require different relics this can make them difficult to get and lead to major itemization holes (for example, the best Blood Elf Ret Pally libram is [Libram of Avengement] from Heroic Blood Furnace because there is simply nothing else to use). Putting these exotic goods on a rep vendor would make things much easier for everyone involved.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Anaram

4 drops instead of 2 does help the weaker offspecs a bit. That piece of spell damage leather might not be useful, but at least gearing a moonkin will be a bit smaller drain on the loot pool than gearing another mage. Of course, moonkins use cloth also because of attrocious leather itemization. More drops favours larger guilds because they need numerically more loot to gear up all their guys.

It's not necessarily a bad thing that the game "forces" extra protection paladin loot on your holy paladins, for example. It's quite difficult to say where the sweet spot is, of course.