Order Halls = Garrisons

[Deleted]

I warned you! I warned you all!

HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa

[Stellan]

Here is a Blue Post from Watcher going into a little detail about their plans for Class Hall's in Legion: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/17610511407#13

"I completely understand the concerns. What you're currently seeing in Alpha are bits and pieces of a system that is still coming together, untuned and often even inconsistent between classes, without additional context. And as a result, there's also a fair bit of misinformation floating around (for example, the cap on active champions/followers is 6, not 20). We haven't published a full explanation of the system, because we're still working out a few of the details - that's the nature of Alpha. And of course in the absence of information, seeing an interface that looks a lot like a reskinned version of what you're used to in Draenor garrisons (followers -> champions, garrison resources -> order resources, etc.), it's easy to assume that this is just a continuation of the old system.

I'd like to at least shed light on some of our goals and philosophies, and the core ways in which Class Order missions in Legion are going to be very different from garrison missions in Warlords. The mission system in Warlords was conceived as a core part of the garrison experience, and a self-contained progression that offered rewards that competed with other traditional content.

We approached Legion unsure whether there would even be any continuation of mission game play at all. We focused instead on the artifact and class order systems, creating traditional content to provide the experience of forming a band of the greatest champions of your class to combat the Legion, with an eye towards class identity and replayability. We want your journey through the Broken Isles to feel meaningfully different in at least a few key ways depending on whether you are a mage, a warrior, a demon hunter, etc.

Once we had the backbone of our order systems in place - a campaign quest arc wherein you recruit champions to aid your cause, and an order hall tech tree where you research upgrades - we saw what seemed like a good fit for a version of the old mission game play to provide another outlet for leading the champions you've gathered, and spending the order resources you've earned out in the world. But it is far more limited in scope, and designed to be a much smaller piece of Legion than missions were in Warlords - it's serving a larger system, rather than trying to stand alone as a system in and of itself.

There are fewer followers (champions), fewer and less frequent missions; but more importantly, the system is more closely tied to the game world itself. Order resources come from playing the game normally, and will come primarily from doing World Quests at max level. If you get a "raid mission," it won't give you a piece of raid loot directly; it will give you a quest to kill a specific boss in that zone, in exchange for a bonus piece of loot. In general, from the ground up, missions in Legion are not intended to be an alternate progression path, or a self-contained activity. We don't think of them as "content." But they are a useful additional outlet to complement core traditional content, such as dungeons, outdoor questing, and raids.

We'll have more details to share in the future, but hopefully this helps clarify some of our broader goals and provides some context to what you may be seeing in game."

Well that is somewhat reassuring but then, they're this long into the Alpha and they still haven't figured this all out? Geesh.

[huth]

Third relic slot is gated behind order hall resources.

GG.

Which you can only get by leaving your Order Hall and questing outside. So what exactly is your point?

[Deleted]

Oh well.. just watched Azs video. While he sometimes is a little bit too emotional, he is right about all his worries.

I will give feedback to the features if i play legion. I have no alpha, so that will still take some time.

[Slirith]

All I'm hearing is "WAH WAH WAH I DON'T LIKE THIS EVEN THOUGH I'M PART OF A VOCAL MINORITY CHANGE IT!"

[Justpassing]

Well that is somewhat reassuring but then, they're this long into the Alpha and they still have figured this all out? Geesh.

They also did say looong ago that WoD garrisons would be "optional". Yeah real optional now isn't it?

I just wouldn't believe a thing they say at this point and expect the worst, at least then your disappointment will be lower. I'm pretty sure Blizzard won't send a guy to barge in & punch you in the nutsack every time you start a mission, so.


Also yes I'm buying Legion and I didn't want to come off as a miser, I just literally burned all my trust out in what they say beacuse of what they actually end up doing, that's all.

All I'm hearing is "WAH WAH WAH I DON'T LIKE THIS EVEN THOUGH I'M PART OF A VOCAL MINORITY CHANGE IT!"

Isn't that what the private server thing? 500+ pages of it and counting...

[Kryos]

"If you get a "raid mission," it won't give you a piece of raid loot directly; it will give you a quest to kill a specific boss in that zone, in exchange for a bonus piece of loot."

So we kill a rare mob and then get raid loot? WHY? WHY DO YOU GET RAID LOOT OUTSIDE OF A RAID? Fuck everything about that.

[Deleted]

So we kill a rare mob and then get raid loot? WHY? WHY DO YOU GET RAID LOOT OUTSIDE OF A RAID? Fuck everything about that.

Reminds me to the faked stage crier at blizzcon, where Hazzikostas had to tell a "worried" player that people only get loot when they play one difficulty higher.

At the end blizzcon is nothing but a show.

[Justpassing]

So we kill a rare mob and then get raid loot? WHY? WHY DO YOU GET RAID LOOT OUTSIDE OF A RAID? Fuck everything about that.

Err I think "in that zone" means in the raid zone, as in a raid boss. Might be wrong, but that's how it comes off as and not how you think.

[Kryos]

Which you can only get by leaving your Order Hall and questing outside. So what exactly is your point?

That there shouldn't be a damn table where you get freeloot and send followers off to do adventures. The whole concept of this table is fundamentally WRONG.
We don't need a damn table to explore the world and find and do quests and other activities. Why this table? It's not social, even if you do it in the same room with others. It's a waste of time.

[SoLoR1]

Well that is somewhat reassuring but then, they're this long into the Alpha and they still have figured this all out? Geesh.

This is just PR trying to calm people down, it wont change drastically from here on.

[Darkhallows]

Oh boy, doomsaying!

As long as the Order Halls don't:

1. Allow you to make millions of easy gold
2. Do the work for you by giving you rewards after clicking one button and waiting (From the sound of it, you select missions and physically go to them, so...)
3. Don't have a million stupid buildings and followers to manage
4. Take up 75% of the expansion by themselves
5. Evolve into an even more barebones version of itself two patches later
6. Take so much away from the rest of the experience

They'll be fine. Because it sounds like all of these things won't apply. There's no sack of shit Herb Garden or Mine either, full of ore you compulsively mine. The followers are a much smaller number, and they help you out in the world rather than play Facebook games with you.

Honestly aside from using a similar interface (I have a theory that most of WoD existed as a beta-ground for Legion systems and models) they're nothing alike.

Stop.

[Kryos]

Err I think "in that zone" means in the raid zone, as in a raid boss. Might be wrong, but that's how it comes off as and not how you think.

An outworld raid boss will already drop epics. No need for a quest. That's like having a quest to kill Archimonde to get raid loot... loot the boss already drops.

[Twilight Cultist]

An outworld raid boss will already drop epics. No need for a quest. That's like having a quest to kill Archimonde to get raid loot... loot the boss already drops.

It's extra loot. It's like say there was no point in having the daily Heroics in Wrath. You get emblems from the dungeons, why make a quest to give you more emblems? It just gives you extra.

[Armourboy]

My worry isn't about the most recent statement, I think that is their design intent right now. The problem is when things get tight and they run out of time and start cutting things and it ends up getting reduced to recruit a follower, send follower on mission, get loot.

Part of the issue with Garrisons wasn't the idea itself, it's that they ran out of time and shoved every damn thing into the garrison. That's what worries me more than their concepts.

[Sentynel]

Actually, people *think* they want to play vanilla, TBC, Wotlk, Cata or MoP, but really don't. Buy Legion and don't be a freeloading thief! /s

Seriously though, how many times do they have to lie before people wise up? This is just going to be Garrisons part 2. Everyone saw this coming, but some perhaps didn't want to admit it. Facebook game garbage keeps people subbed.

You think you do, but you don't. Oh wait... You actually do!

[callipygoustp]

The whole concept of this table is fundamentally WRONG.
We don't need a damn table to explore the world and find and do quests and other activities. Why this table? It's not social, even if you do it in the same room with others. It's a waste of time.

Couldn't agree more. About as anti mmorpg as you can get.

[Dhrizzle]

Oh dear me. If I can't make you understand what a skinner box is, how could I make you understand the differences and importance between design choices? Skinner box is where you are CONDITIONED to perform actions. Buying a stack of cloth from the ah to craft something is NOT that. And again the problem is not with how skinner box techniques are used in a game, it is HOW they are being used. I suggest you to work on your I don't even know, comprehensive reading skills? Or is this matter of intelligence? No idea. But I'm done.

I think you're leaning too heavily on the skinner box analogy, and possibly have it backwards. Games don't condition people into liking repetitive tasks with variable rewards. People come pre-packaged with a tendency to like them. Games like WoW simply make systems that people enjoy.

Secondly, I was really addressing your complaint that you don't want to play a game where you click on a menu to get "yums." The AH and Crafting have been exactly that since WoW's inception. So have vendors for that matter. What we've seen is a reduction in how often the pre-existing systems are being used by players. We get a lot less trash to vend when out in the world or instances and less need to stock up on ammo, reagents, food and drink etc. Crafting is taking less and less to level since they introduced recipes that grant multiple ranks. The AH is less and less necessary as a source of gold for most players, and there is less reliance on consumables such as glyphs, gems, flasks and enchants. To me the mission table and other garrison features are just new, slightly more interesting systems that replace the reliance on the older ones. Whilst WoW has lost a lot of "RPG elements" I appreciate it still has little things to do in your "down time" when you're not actively killing stuff to gain power.

Oh, no, one more thing: I really hope this game is designed for people who actually want to play the game in continuation, for it's mmorpg elements, explore things in it, and then play the fuck out of the part they like, not fot those who are like you, who play it, then quit for 1-2 year, then come back for 1-2 months, then they quit again. For YOU the game is perfect, because you don't even want to put meaningful effort in it. But can we just agree on that, that an mmo is not (should not be) designed for people who play like you?

As WoW goes on it is going to have more and more players who no longer want it to be long-term activity. It's difficult making satisfying content for us that the more hardcore won't either blast through quickly or repeat ad nauseum and complain about. The degree to which Blizz cater to each crowd, and the success with which they do so, means there'll always be some people happy and some disappointed.

Edit: I still find it fascinating that I'm arguing with someone who told himself that he got bored very fast of the system I criticize, and who basically doesn't want to do anything that is core element in an mmo. Like why the fuck are you defending something that even you got bored of pretty quickly, and even you acknowledge that there is no replaybility in it?

I didn't say I got bored very fast, I said I stopped using the system when it stopped being interesting. I played with the table for a few months at launch, then came back after 6.1 when all of LFR BRF had unlocked and kept playing with the followers until I had a full set of the blue gear from the salvage yard.

I'll admit that, the way I play these days, I don't go for what could be considered the core MMO experience, but I still want to have the core WoW experience I've enjoyed over the last decade. This means I want open world exploration, leveling through quests, group instancing and a scattering of other systems like crafting, trading and in the case of WoD garrisons, to figure out and play with. I'm not so much interested in gaining player power but I do like to collect nice looking gear. For me the reward mostly comes through the experience, so with repetitive content such as daily quest, instances and the follower table it's ideal that I finish collecting rewards shortly before my interest in the activity wanes, and in this regard WoD has served me quite well.

[Scrotles]

Honestly, i think the system works perfect. Personally i love it its been awesome. The one thing in the current build that is a tad annoying and makes the garrisons/class hall make people salty is the that to get the third artifact for your weapon you need to go through an entire list of work orders, which span to about a month again at current build those are the days that are given. But, i dont think its that bad how many people in WoD built up garrison toons just to spam gold making. Im assuming it will be the same concept for people who want to play alts. Just really need to log in and do it. But again, it adds the whole issue of okay we NEED to do it. Because without that last artifact slot, you're going to be useless. It just adds a "legendary questing" feel. And with the past two expansions nobody wants to do mindless quests for something that we NEED to have.

With that bring me to what i love about the garrison/order hall. I love the fact its more interactive, that you go out on quests specific to your garrison/hall. It makes you go back and farm NPCs in dungeons where your characters lore is. I think thats awesome. Dont get me wrong to a certain point it will get to the "hey i have an addon let me just click n go." But if they keep rewards interesting by doing the quests, people will do them. I just hate the uproar the garrison/order hall has created, and people dont take the time to actually do research on what they have changed. People want more content and we are getting that. +1 For the current build of garrisons, i hope they dont change it to feed the people with no brains

[Mafic]

Which you can only get by leaving your Order Hall and questing outside. So what exactly is your point?

Order hall resources and artifact power that can be farmed via dungeon queue..you literally never have to leave the order hall lol.