"Test of Skill" attunement

[draticus]

Imagine a place like the argent tournament where players come to compete and prove their skills. You can select different challenges (tank, dps, or healing) and then you have to prove your ability in combat. You're placed in a phased arena with NPC teammates and you have to win against the other team. PVE style combat, not pvp. If you select the tank challenge then you have to aquire the aggro of the enemies, hold aggro while your team dps's and survive the encounter. The dps challenge would simply require you to do enough dps to take the other team down before yours goes down with some mobs becoming immune to force you to switch targets. And there would of course be fire you have to move out of. The healer challenge would consist of you keeping the NPC tank and dps alive.

Completing the quest would award you with the "Beginner tank/healer/dps of Northrend" achievement and lead to a second quest where you have to do pretty much the same thing but its harder. There could be multiple levels of quests resulting in achievements such as "Grand Master tank of Northrend" or whatever you want to call it.

These tests of skill could be used as an attunement process to any given raiding tier of current expansion or just as a way to prove your skill to someone looking for more(if they fix achievement faking). This would prevent pugs from failing when the healer in decent gear turns out to be a completely and totally worthless 10 year old kid who has been carried through a couple of raids and gotten some gear. Its a better alternative than gearscore checking don't you think?

The players achievement title could even be automatically displayed after their name in lfg.

[Tenken]

I like it. Especially with the Blizz's new attitude of wanting everything to be pugable. Two thumbs up.

[Tisiphone1]

It's a good concept, but impractical I think. This would involve them creating separate instanced encounters for each class/spec if it was to truly be a good tool, which I don't see happening.

[rat]

I like, but it'd only be a matter of time before there's a bunch of exploits, guides, videos and addons to guide you through it, just entirely defeating the purpose.

Sigh.

Good idea, though.

[Mr_Bojangles]

IMO it should also strip you of your gear, and give you a basic set, so that you can't out gear it. But as another poster said, a guide/exploit/friend playing could easily bypass it, then your back to square one

[stonedviper]

Maybe just skip the whole Multiplayer game and go play a game alone if you want to group with NPC's.

[Weckerkind]

best idea i have ever seen on this forum. please post on blizzard forum too!

to people who complain about outgearing this quest:

no problem imo. if he has the gear to outgear the quest, he propably will outgear the instance / raid as well

[draticus]

It's a good concept, but impractical I think. This would involve them creating separate instanced encounters for each class/spec if it was to truly be a good tool, which I don't see happening.

I considered having one for each class/spec but I think bliz would do a bad job of balancing them and you'd end up with a super easy one for boomkins and an impossible one for locks or some such nonsense. I was thinking a setup like several mobs that come out at once that can be AoE'd down quickly, followed by a couple of spread out mobs that trade off being immune so that you have to know how to switch targets, all the while avoiding fire and void zones.

It wouldn't be perfect but it would be better than nothing. Some classes might have a slight advantage but it would be a little easier than the dungeon it attunes you for so as long as you know your class and have the right gear it would be doable. Its just about weeding out all the people who're trying to get into ToC that have no idea what they're doing.

[draticus]

I like, but it'd only be a matter of time before there's a bunch of exploits, guides, videos and addons to guide you through it, just entirely defeating the purpose.

Sigh.

Good idea, though.

If the person is capable of finding how-to videos on the web and following them and defeating the encounter then thats good enough for me. They'd actually learn something in the process. If they can learn how to use their class effectively in one encounter they can learn more. We're still excluding the hopeless people and those whose gear simply can't handle that level of content.

[draticus]

Basically this sounds to be like you just want to introduce artificial barriers to exclude people from playing.

And hat does it affect? PuGs! PUGS!

Hint, hint: No heroic 5 man is so hard that you should fail it in a PuG and if you pug raids, well that is just your own damn problem Get some excitement and adventure in your life^^ If you are so scared of endig up with randoms that might foul up your game experience, here is a thought:

Join a guild

This isn't a thread about whether or not pugs should exist. That's another topic. Since Blizzard is trying to support pug raiding and make it as convenient as possible through the new cross server lfg I'm trying to help make sure their own system does not destroy itself by making it impossible to pug because its TOO easy to get the gear and not have any skill and you can't get enough skilled players to clear the content.

And unless you're in a hard core raiding guild there will always be somebodies friend who joins the guild and wants to tag along and it would be nice to be able to say "Sorry, you dont have the attunement for that" rather than "sorry, we know you're not good enough to tank that."

[mackmustard]

The problem with it is that 75% of the player base wouldnt be able to make it past the first two tiers of this tournament and would end up getting nerfed to hell anyway.

[Izenhart]

Test of Skill'd be needed just for "link skill achi plz" in pugs, since I doubt in any hardcore/semi hardcore guilds someone'll ever need that

[Sakuratei]

In difference to most of the repies, I think this idea is utterly stupid. There are so many different things that can define a good player, not just simply HPS, DPS, TPS and positional awareness. How would you measure reaction time, having knowledge of most of your class' potential and abilities, handling unexpected situations on the fly, specific healer assignments such as Anub'arak or dpsing the right target in multitarget fights?

If anything, this would only pigeonhole new players into the same knowledge base and it would inhibit players from actively seeking to become better players. They will just think "Oh so I've passed the test of skill, now I'm good enough for all the content available".

And how would you tune such a test anyway, with increasingly difficult content and more complex fights? "Test of mad skill", "Test of insanity"?

I understand where you come from with the idea but it's not going to solve any opf the stupidity going around with "link achievements and stats". The only correct way to judge a player is to observe him play, and it should remain that way.

[Zao]

WTB PVE Arenas with random challenges and just simple rewards, like gold, random crafting mats and what not. Something worthwhile to fight for yet not a great advantage over other players that can't complete it.

Single player or Multi player, I'm quite certain it's feasible.

Add quests and titles or whatever and make it hard as a way to truly test people and there you are, skill ranking system.

Many people miss the class quests Hunters and Priests were given back in Vanilla. They were challenges for them. But I, as a mage, never got to experience this.

but...but we had the water quest!

BTT: I like the general idea of you...but I'd rather have something like a "player rating". Sure, it could get screwed up by people hating you but in general it would turn out pretty good...I suppose.

[draticus]

[quote=Sakuratei ]
In difference to most of the repies, I think this idea is utterly stupid. There are so many different things that can define a good player, not just simply HPS, DPS, TPS and positional awareness. How would you measure reaction time, having knowledge of most of your class' potential and abilities, handling unexpected situations on the fly, specific healer assignments such as Anub'arak or dpsing the right target in multitarget fights?
[quote]

I didn't describe a simple test. I mentioned testing most of the things you mention there. They could all be tested quite easily. Reread my examples about multiple targets with rotating immunities, multiple targets to heal, etc. It wouldn't be hard to set up or to tune. This will never prove that they know how to do every fight out there but its not supposed to be proof that they're awesome, its proof that they aren't retarded.

If anything, this would only pigeonhole new players into the same knowledge base and it would inhibit players from actively seeking to become better players. They will just think "Oh so I've passed the test of skill, now I'm good enough for all the content available".

Must of the fail players out there don't realize how bad they are. This would make them aware that they suck and force them to get better before they're able to do content. Attunements FORCE players to get better, how could that ever discourage them from getting better?

And how would you tune such a test anyway, with increasingly difficult content and more complex fights? "Test of mad skill", "Test of insanity"?

Novice/advanced/master/champion/etc/etc tank of northerend (or of the faction people that test you)

And then the continent or faction people that make up the end of the title would change with each expansion. Its quite simple actually.

I understand where you come from with the idea but it's not going to solve any opf the stupidity going around with "link achievements and stats". The only correct way to judge a player is to observe him play, and it should remain that way.

Can't make people immortal so we shouldn't bother trying to cure cancer cause they're just going to die anyway?

[draticus]

Hm..."Sorry you are not good enough to tank this" is the honest answer. I prefer honesty more than dancing around the issue.

And you DID say it should help prevent PuGs from failing. Well...not sure if there is a law in the game that should prevent ppl from unpleasent experiences. In fact I think: Failings teach you somthing. They teach you how do do it better next time. I mean...our raids fail every week...we fail with 5 wipes on a hardmode and we pick ourselves up...learn from mistakes.

By your logic you should invite a bunch of horrible players so your raid can fail more and become better. Pugs failling doesn't accomplish anything. Nobody wants people who can't contribute. If you dont want to pug thats fine but then why are you against a feature that would help people judge skill in people they haven't met. It sounds to me like this thread should be of no concern to you since you'd never group with someone not in your guild.

...and just passing this attunment that you suggested will never gurantee that you do not end up with a group that still wipes....

/sigh This logic hurts. Its not about guaranteeing. Why must everything be black or white, all or nothing. Just because you as a player have been good in the past there's no "guarantee" that you wont suck in your raid tonight so your raid leader might as well bring someone else right? Nothing can guarantee success, but us logical people can look for ways to increase success. Having gear is one small indication of their skill, after all, my dog wouldn't be smart enough to gear properly even if he did get carried through heroics. A single player quest of comparable difficulty to a given tier of content with a battle consisting of many of the elements of a raid encounter such as needing to know your class to maximize output, needing to be aware of your surrounding, needing to switch targets quickly, etc would be a MUCH better test than gearscore or raid achievements because you can't be carried through. You can watch videos and research your class and learn the fight but thats exactly the same thing you need to do for raids. THOSE ARE the skills we're looking for.

[draticus]

Does it hurt more than the desperate attempt to include attunements and tests and whatnot to make a GAME look even more like RL or a JOB? Don't you have enough selection there?

It is a damn game where ppl relax, who needs more checks. Fact of the matter is, achievements and gearscore that by all good intentions could have served to help check out players "readyness", yet as any other tool it has been exploited and twisted and all the negativity is ofc broadcasted to forums and QQed about.

I have no idea what you just said. I get the part where you say gearscore was misused so everyone complains about it on the forums but what does that have to do with attunements preventing bad people from doing raids they can't handle? In the first part are you saying attunements would make the game too hard? If the attunement is too hard than the raid is too hard and you shouldn't be doing it. If you're doing content that is too hard for you and just hoping people will carry you through it then you are exactly the kind of person I'm trying to keep out of my raid. Go learn how to fulfill the basic requirements of your class or stick to lower tier content where you dont have to be decent to win.

[Gigajot]

I like it. Especially with the Blizz's new attitude of wanting everything to be pugable. Two thumbs up.

[Bellentino]

What OP is trying to say is that teaching fresh max-level toons how to use their abilities and tools through the use of specialized class-specific quests WOULD help somewhat in teaching them how to perform well in the endgame.

Even though it is a game, we could be done with it FASTER if you moved through things quickly. No one wants to spend an eternity fighting the same boss fight over and over again only to fail because one or two people aren't pulling their weight.

A nice example would be for a DPS class:

Destroy the target in XX seconds!
Added twists could be avoiding environmental hazards/lots of movement/incoming damage

There's a reason you pick a main tank out of your normal selection of tanks in a guild, there's a reason why you select certain damage dealers in a raid to DPS a selected target, there's a reason as to why you choose certain healers (this still depends on classes somewhat) to heal certain targets in a raid, some people do things better than others.

[Eire]

I'm not really feeling this idea. There are far too many ways for this to fail.

I strongly dislike an attunement that restricts you to a level of content. It sounds as this can't be bypassed by summoning or "holding the door" for someone. I like being able to carry alts for good players through content that my guild overgears and helping the player and the guild out.

In the end, this sounds like a system meant to benefit those too lazy to know their server, the guilds, and the players. Sure, you'll never know all of them, but it shouldn't be too difficult to get an idea of who is likely to be good and who is likely to be bad. Doing your homework is probably going to be a better system than an easily circumvented scripted event that provides you withs some passive attunement.