Build of the Month
Recent Blue Posts
Hunter adjustments -- April 23
Crests in Season 4
Recent Forum Posts
What would you expect the AVERAGE wow player clear in a raid for a season?
Using Banners As Town Portals, Diablo II Ladder Reset, Blue Posts, Diablo CollectiblesPatch 5.1 - Brawler's Guild Invites
The new Brawler's Guild being added Patch 5.1 will require you to purchase an invite from the Black Market Auction House. If you aren't able to purchase an invite, someone else who is already in the Brawler's Guild can invite you. On the PTR there are currently 10 invites with a starting bid of a few thousand gold.
Why put Brawler's Guild pass on the BMAH? Now I'll just never see it because I hate the BMAH.
The experience won't be good if 1000 players hit the brawls when the patch drops. We need to ramp up slowly, but we'll ramp up.
From what I have seen its not instanced. You literally have to wait in line for your turn.Hope I'm wrong
It is not instanced. We have plenty of instanced content. We want these to have spectators.
Seems like a design failure. Shouldn't have to bow and scrape to the 1% in game to see content. Not a good feels.
I expect everyone who wants to brawl will be able to. Just not the day the patch goes live. Slow down, as the Pandaren say.
The experience won't be good if 1000 players hit the brawls when the patch drops. We need to ramp up slowly, but we'll ramp up.
From what I have seen its not instanced. You literally have to wait in line for your turn.Hope I'm wrong
It is not instanced. We have plenty of instanced content. We want these to have spectators.
Seems like a design failure. Shouldn't have to bow and scrape to the 1% in game to see content. Not a good feels.
I expect everyone who wants to brawl will be able to. Just not the day the patch goes live. Slow down, as the Pandaren say.
Reminder: Heroic and Raid Finder Difficulty Heart of Fear Opens This Week
Don't forget that Heroic and Raid Finder (part 1) difficulty Heart of Fear is opening this week! The second half of Raid Finder difficulty and Normal difficulty Terrace of Endless Spring will open next week.
So far 555 guilds, or 2.08% of the guilds tracked by WoWProgress have completed normal difficulty.
Conquest Point Cap Increase
To help everyone keep up with the upcoming system in 5.1 that will allow you to upgrade your Conquest gear with Conquest Points, a hotfix is being implemented very soon that will raise the Conquest Point caps:
At 1500 rating, the Arena Conquest Cap will now be 1800 (up from 1350), while the Rated Battleground Conquest cap will be 2200 (up from 1650). As always, when your rating increases, so will your cap.
Plan accordingly! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
At 1500 rating, the Arena Conquest Cap will now be 1800 (up from 1350), while the Rated Battleground Conquest cap will be 2200 (up from 1650). As always, when your rating increases, so will your cap.
Plan accordingly! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
The BMAH is boring
The Black Market Auction House features a wide variety of items. One week it might have something like an Enchanted Broom, the next week Ashes of Al'ar. It's completely random, and varies per realm. Certainly there have been items up on a few realms that people hit the bid cap on.
Just keep watching, it's bound to have something you want sooner or later. Only trick is, it'll probably be desirable to other people too. Good luck! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Daily Quests and the Grind
Is the only way to get the Elder Charm Coins is by doing dailys by getting 90 of the good coins and turning them into 3 elder...? that sort of forces u into dailys if so.. because u know people want that extra chance in Raid to get the gear so your know there going do dailys to get a silly coin that doesnt even help one bit gg..
"Gear drops in raids like it always has."
"I like gear like I always have."
"But I want bonus chances at that gear."
"I have to do something to earn bonus chances at that gear?!"
"I don't want to do something to earn bonus chances at that gear!"
"That thing I don't want to do that would earn me bonus chances at that gear, doesn't earn me bonus chances at that gear!"
Let me know if that's an accurate summary, as well as what you're talking about. o.O
Lol ok the point is everyone dont wanna do dailys all day every dam day : ) kk thanks. i dont mind grinding rep dont get me wrong gives me something to do... but having to do dailys to gain the rep is load of crap. tabard ftw.. gg.
Sounds good. I suggest not doing dailies all day everyday if you don't want to, then. I don't want to either. If I want to have additional pulls of the slot machine when I'm in a raid though, I'll decide if the cost is worth it, or if I'll just take my standard one shot at a boss's loot table per week.
Do I want a tabard that allows me to get credit for doing one type of content, while actually doing another (which, by itself, earns me gold and chances at loot)? It'd save me time, sure. There are so many things about endgame progression that could be changed to save me time, enough so that I wouldn't have to worry about enjoying actually playing the game to improve my character and earn things.
"Sounds good. I suggest not doing dailies all day everyday if you don't want to, then. I don't want to either."
Zarhym admits he/she doesn't want to do dailies. What can we infer out of this? Devs admit they aren't fun. Which they aren't. Maybe once. Maybe twice. Heck, I'll even go three times. But past that? Pfffffft.
I don't like it when my words are twisted. I put sentences together to convey a cohesive thought, so I'd prefer if you read them in context.
I said I don't want to do dailies all day everyday either. I do dailies. I enjoy being able to earn my reputation. I appreciate that the system is designed to allow me to do a little bit of whatever I want to do each week without feeling overwhelmed. As soon as I capped Valor this week, I stopped running dailies and focused on other things. I'll wait until the weekly reset to pick up where I left off to get the full reward of completing each daily. Those factions aren't going anywhere. I log into the game everyday, and I never log out feeling like I made no progress. I can't say the same about my time in Cataclysm.
"I appreciate that the system is designed to allow me to do a little bit of whatever I want to do each week without feeling overwhelmed"
Except it is overwhelming. Every day I don't finish all of my dailies, I feel like I've missed out. That I'm now behind where I could be. And how do I catch up? I don't. I'll never catch up, I'll always be behind. This puts an overwhelming burden on completing every daily every day. And each day I don't meet these goals set by the game, it's demotivating. Why keep trying since I'll never catch up?
My valor is capped for the week, my charms are capped for the next several weeks, and every post I make or read I'm feeling more and more behind schedule. But I've fallen so far behind now, that I don't want to try and catch up.
Just like with all other games I play, I don't choose to measure how my time is spent in the game -- or whether or not I'm enjoying it -- against the players in STARS, Vodka, Blood Legion, or any of the other hardcore guilds out there, or the people who can devote hours upon hours more time to this game than me.
I don't think you should either. Sure, I know people have commitments to friends and guilds. There are social expectations and demands put on players to be at a certain progression point, or completing X/Y/Z every week in order to be included in raids.
If the goal is to be entertained by playing a game and you're not meeting that goal, it's totally fair to reassess things -- whether that means looking at what kind of stresses you impose on yourself, who you're playing with, what you're doing with your time in the game, and maybe even your time spent with the game itself.
But, from your post, it sounds like the pressure you feel comes from within. And I honestly have to wonder why. I don't mean to be a downer, but you'll likely never be on the cutting edge of clearing content as soon as it's possible to do so. And by the way, these endgame progression systems weren't modeled around that being the assumed standard way the general population plays the game. Spoiler: It's not how the general population plays the game.
Leading up to Mists, we talked a lot about having as many options as possible for players to play how they want to. That means you have a lot of choices, and some of them will provide you with extra advantages in other pieces of content (bonus rolls, VP loot from factions, etc.). Regardless of your opinion on our delivery, I think it's fair to say we really did give people a lot of choices. But if the standard mentality is, "I must do ALL THE THINGS if I can," rather than, "I must do all the things I find fun that will progress my character, time permitting" you'll surely feel overwhelmed.
The whole "coin" thing is fine but I know have 274 lesser charm of good fortune and 9 elder charm of good fortune! WTH am I gonna do with all these lesser ones? Can't trade them in, not yet geared enough for raids(spending way too much time doing dailies with no time left for heroics!)!!!! So what good are they other then taking up space(2slots) in my bag?!?!?!
Lesser Charms are being moved out of your bags and turned into a currency in 5.1. Think a little further down the road when you're not doing dailies as often and you're raiding more. A stockpile of Lesser Charms is absolutely what you'll want. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
LFR Feedback
So then, please answer this for me. Lets say everyone else in my raidteam makes the choice to do LFR, because better gear obviously helps progression. I choose not to do LFR, simply because i do not want to do it. Now can you honestly with a straight face tell me that i am not holding my teams progress back? Thats right, you cant.
I can. Your kill will be slowed by a fraction of time (seconds). But by no stretch of the imagination your team will be meeting enrage timers unless you're just undergeared. Once you're at the point to which the content is tuned for, the only thing preventing your raid from killing the boss is perfecting the execution. The very tight dps races are on Heroic (Gara'jal Heroic comes to mind as an example) and in that setting unless you're at the very top of progression, LFR gear will do you no good (it's very likely you'll need a fair amount of normal gear to take him down).
You don't need to use LFR to clear normal (this is evident). However to say that LFR wasn't required to clear heroic (all of the top guilds ran LFR as a group for in-guild drops) is a bit ridiculous. It might not be needed when everyone is decked in 489 gear, but when the gear inflation between heroic blues (463) and the first tier (489) is so large because of LFR (476) there is an obvious problem. This wasn't a problem that existed in Cataclysm.
And it's a problem that won't happen past Mogu'shan Vaults Raid Finder. Heroic Gear from this tier will be higher item level than gear from the Raid Finder of the next tier, therefore heroic raiders won't feel obligated to enter it for gearing purposes.
We aren't supposed to, Yet the majority of players do. It's badly designed imo, and I was hoping to see it rectified in early MoP. Are players supposed to be able to clear normal in a week before LFR is released?
Players have certainly cleared MV before LFR was opened. Of course, that takes a level of skill and coordination that not necessarily all raid groups have.
So there's why doing LFR - or dailies - isn't a choice. We've got the option of better gear, then we'll do it. We need it. I was in big need for a weapon until yesterday, so I'd run every opportunity to get one (Gate of the Setting Sun and LFR). I needed the upgrades certain factions offered on hitting exalted, so I did the dailies. The only choice involved here is my choice for raiding, and this includes pressure to not waste the time of my fellow raiders by not pulling the maximum of my char. We raid because we want to progress, not because we like to wipe to enrage timers and gear dependent mechanics. Of course competition is part of raiding, even on server level, but this isn't the sole reason why a raid wants to advance quickly. So yes - almost anything that improves performance will be felt mandatory not only by hardcore, but also semi hardcore raider folks.
And that's part of what implies picking that particular play style. If you aim to be hardcore/semi hardcore, of course, you'll need (and want) every possible gear upgrade you can get. Because that's what you've chosen to do. You want to be at the top of your game. So it makes sense you'll go out of your way to pick every possible upgrade lying ahead in hopes of edging your competition.
That's precisely what competition is about. Getting the upper hand over everyone else. And for that, I'd argue it's just logical you'll go and do everything that's available. For Heroic raiders, though, LFR will slowly fade away as you replace your gear with Heroic gear. Because come the next tier, you won't have a reason to go there. On this tier you'll experience the same already with Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring LFRs. For those slots you've got gear from normal Mogu'shan Vaults, there'll be no reason to go and visit HoF and TES LFRs (when those are open), since it'll still be higher item level than that of LFR.
I find it rather mind-boggling that the idea of competitiveness coming from blue posts can't get beyond getting realm/world firsts. For one thing, there are lots of things people would probably consider as 'realm firsts' that aren't recognised as such. For example, the vast majority of world/realm first kills are going to come from hardcore guilds running 16-20+ hours per week. Guilds running 2 or 3 3-4 hour raids per week may well consider themselves in a separate bracket with others with similar time limits.
By this definition, I should be able to walk up to Lionel Messi, Kobe Bryant, Sebastian Vettel, Roger Federer... (you get the idea, I guess) and tell them I'm being super competitive in their respective sports because I'm competing in a local league putting a fraction of the time they are. The thing is, when looking at the grand scheme, I'm not. Not even close. There's a reason why the world first quality guilds usually get world firsts, and it's not just skill, there's also commitment, coordination and a myriad of factors.
Of course, if we start removing factors that we can't or don't want to meet, even playing rock-paper-scissors with your friend on the middle of Times Square is competitive, but the moment the discussion goes down that path, it's very unlikely we'll reach any kind of agreement on what's being discussed.
However, for people with less ability to perform DPS/other roles, it makes no doubt to me that they are indeed having trouble on enrage timers and such, or at the very least be close enough that they'll absolutely want any possible upgrade.
When we raided during the first week with raids full of 463~ ilvl geared characters enrage timers felt quite tight, and we're a world-class guild. I can safely assume that a raid of players that perform sub-par, despite their much higher ilvl, will not be dishing out much more DPS/healing than our raids back in 463 gear, and will probably encounter a lot of trouble with enrage timers or other numbers-related issues rather than mechanics issues.
Isn't this another reason why it'd do good to those players that feel they need the gear to instead improve their dps rotations, talents, gearing choices, etc, so that they can make the most benefit of their class rather than relying on getting higher gear? (I'm talking about those encounters that aren't dps checks, of course, at some point the developers expect the raid to be at a certain treshold of gear, and if that's not the case it's very likely you just won't be able to move forward until you get more upgrades)
Of course, not everyone can play at the 100% of their spec, but the jump those players may see from wearing all 463 to 476 compared to the jump from perfecting their rotations (working on them, or whichever area they might be failing in) would probably yield a greater result, and one that will outlast gear replacements in the long run; you're not likely to lose skill once you've acquired it after all. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The Black Market Auction House features a wide variety of items. One week it might have something like an Enchanted Broom, the next week Ashes of Al'ar. It's completely random, and varies per realm. Certainly there have been items up on a few realms that people hit the bid cap on.
Just keep watching, it's bound to have something you want sooner or later. Only trick is, it'll probably be desirable to other people too. Good luck! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Daily Quests and the Grind
Is the only way to get the Elder Charm Coins is by doing dailys by getting 90 of the good coins and turning them into 3 elder...? that sort of forces u into dailys if so.. because u know people want that extra chance in Raid to get the gear so your know there going do dailys to get a silly coin that doesnt even help one bit gg..
"Gear drops in raids like it always has."
"I like gear like I always have."
"But I want bonus chances at that gear."
"I have to do something to earn bonus chances at that gear?!"
"I don't want to do something to earn bonus chances at that gear!"
"That thing I don't want to do that would earn me bonus chances at that gear, doesn't earn me bonus chances at that gear!"
Let me know if that's an accurate summary, as well as what you're talking about. o.O
Lol ok the point is everyone dont wanna do dailys all day every dam day : ) kk thanks. i dont mind grinding rep dont get me wrong gives me something to do... but having to do dailys to gain the rep is load of crap. tabard ftw.. gg.
Sounds good. I suggest not doing dailies all day everyday if you don't want to, then. I don't want to either. If I want to have additional pulls of the slot machine when I'm in a raid though, I'll decide if the cost is worth it, or if I'll just take my standard one shot at a boss's loot table per week.
Do I want a tabard that allows me to get credit for doing one type of content, while actually doing another (which, by itself, earns me gold and chances at loot)? It'd save me time, sure. There are so many things about endgame progression that could be changed to save me time, enough so that I wouldn't have to worry about enjoying actually playing the game to improve my character and earn things.
"Sounds good. I suggest not doing dailies all day everyday if you don't want to, then. I don't want to either."
Zarhym admits he/she doesn't want to do dailies. What can we infer out of this? Devs admit they aren't fun. Which they aren't. Maybe once. Maybe twice. Heck, I'll even go three times. But past that? Pfffffft.
I don't like it when my words are twisted. I put sentences together to convey a cohesive thought, so I'd prefer if you read them in context.
I said I don't want to do dailies all day everyday either. I do dailies. I enjoy being able to earn my reputation. I appreciate that the system is designed to allow me to do a little bit of whatever I want to do each week without feeling overwhelmed. As soon as I capped Valor this week, I stopped running dailies and focused on other things. I'll wait until the weekly reset to pick up where I left off to get the full reward of completing each daily. Those factions aren't going anywhere. I log into the game everyday, and I never log out feeling like I made no progress. I can't say the same about my time in Cataclysm.
"I appreciate that the system is designed to allow me to do a little bit of whatever I want to do each week without feeling overwhelmed"
Except it is overwhelming. Every day I don't finish all of my dailies, I feel like I've missed out. That I'm now behind where I could be. And how do I catch up? I don't. I'll never catch up, I'll always be behind. This puts an overwhelming burden on completing every daily every day. And each day I don't meet these goals set by the game, it's demotivating. Why keep trying since I'll never catch up?
My valor is capped for the week, my charms are capped for the next several weeks, and every post I make or read I'm feeling more and more behind schedule. But I've fallen so far behind now, that I don't want to try and catch up.
Just like with all other games I play, I don't choose to measure how my time is spent in the game -- or whether or not I'm enjoying it -- against the players in STARS, Vodka, Blood Legion, or any of the other hardcore guilds out there, or the people who can devote hours upon hours more time to this game than me.
I don't think you should either. Sure, I know people have commitments to friends and guilds. There are social expectations and demands put on players to be at a certain progression point, or completing X/Y/Z every week in order to be included in raids.
If the goal is to be entertained by playing a game and you're not meeting that goal, it's totally fair to reassess things -- whether that means looking at what kind of stresses you impose on yourself, who you're playing with, what you're doing with your time in the game, and maybe even your time spent with the game itself.
But, from your post, it sounds like the pressure you feel comes from within. And I honestly have to wonder why. I don't mean to be a downer, but you'll likely never be on the cutting edge of clearing content as soon as it's possible to do so. And by the way, these endgame progression systems weren't modeled around that being the assumed standard way the general population plays the game. Spoiler: It's not how the general population plays the game.
Leading up to Mists, we talked a lot about having as many options as possible for players to play how they want to. That means you have a lot of choices, and some of them will provide you with extra advantages in other pieces of content (bonus rolls, VP loot from factions, etc.). Regardless of your opinion on our delivery, I think it's fair to say we really did give people a lot of choices. But if the standard mentality is, "I must do ALL THE THINGS if I can," rather than, "I must do all the things I find fun that will progress my character, time permitting" you'll surely feel overwhelmed.
The whole "coin" thing is fine but I know have 274 lesser charm of good fortune and 9 elder charm of good fortune! WTH am I gonna do with all these lesser ones? Can't trade them in, not yet geared enough for raids(spending way too much time doing dailies with no time left for heroics!)!!!! So what good are they other then taking up space(2slots) in my bag?!?!?!
Lesser Charms are being moved out of your bags and turned into a currency in 5.1. Think a little further down the road when you're not doing dailies as often and you're raiding more. A stockpile of Lesser Charms is absolutely what you'll want. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
LFR Feedback
So then, please answer this for me. Lets say everyone else in my raidteam makes the choice to do LFR, because better gear obviously helps progression. I choose not to do LFR, simply because i do not want to do it. Now can you honestly with a straight face tell me that i am not holding my teams progress back? Thats right, you cant.
I can. Your kill will be slowed by a fraction of time (seconds). But by no stretch of the imagination your team will be meeting enrage timers unless you're just undergeared. Once you're at the point to which the content is tuned for, the only thing preventing your raid from killing the boss is perfecting the execution. The very tight dps races are on Heroic (Gara'jal Heroic comes to mind as an example) and in that setting unless you're at the very top of progression, LFR gear will do you no good (it's very likely you'll need a fair amount of normal gear to take him down).
You don't need to use LFR to clear normal (this is evident). However to say that LFR wasn't required to clear heroic (all of the top guilds ran LFR as a group for in-guild drops) is a bit ridiculous. It might not be needed when everyone is decked in 489 gear, but when the gear inflation between heroic blues (463) and the first tier (489) is so large because of LFR (476) there is an obvious problem. This wasn't a problem that existed in Cataclysm.
And it's a problem that won't happen past Mogu'shan Vaults Raid Finder. Heroic Gear from this tier will be higher item level than gear from the Raid Finder of the next tier, therefore heroic raiders won't feel obligated to enter it for gearing purposes.
We aren't supposed to, Yet the majority of players do. It's badly designed imo, and I was hoping to see it rectified in early MoP. Are players supposed to be able to clear normal in a week before LFR is released?
Players have certainly cleared MV before LFR was opened. Of course, that takes a level of skill and coordination that not necessarily all raid groups have.
So there's why doing LFR - or dailies - isn't a choice. We've got the option of better gear, then we'll do it. We need it. I was in big need for a weapon until yesterday, so I'd run every opportunity to get one (Gate of the Setting Sun and LFR). I needed the upgrades certain factions offered on hitting exalted, so I did the dailies. The only choice involved here is my choice for raiding, and this includes pressure to not waste the time of my fellow raiders by not pulling the maximum of my char. We raid because we want to progress, not because we like to wipe to enrage timers and gear dependent mechanics. Of course competition is part of raiding, even on server level, but this isn't the sole reason why a raid wants to advance quickly. So yes - almost anything that improves performance will be felt mandatory not only by hardcore, but also semi hardcore raider folks.
And that's part of what implies picking that particular play style. If you aim to be hardcore/semi hardcore, of course, you'll need (and want) every possible gear upgrade you can get. Because that's what you've chosen to do. You want to be at the top of your game. So it makes sense you'll go out of your way to pick every possible upgrade lying ahead in hopes of edging your competition.
That's precisely what competition is about. Getting the upper hand over everyone else. And for that, I'd argue it's just logical you'll go and do everything that's available. For Heroic raiders, though, LFR will slowly fade away as you replace your gear with Heroic gear. Because come the next tier, you won't have a reason to go there. On this tier you'll experience the same already with Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring LFRs. For those slots you've got gear from normal Mogu'shan Vaults, there'll be no reason to go and visit HoF and TES LFRs (when those are open), since it'll still be higher item level than that of LFR.
I find it rather mind-boggling that the idea of competitiveness coming from blue posts can't get beyond getting realm/world firsts. For one thing, there are lots of things people would probably consider as 'realm firsts' that aren't recognised as such. For example, the vast majority of world/realm first kills are going to come from hardcore guilds running 16-20+ hours per week. Guilds running 2 or 3 3-4 hour raids per week may well consider themselves in a separate bracket with others with similar time limits.
By this definition, I should be able to walk up to Lionel Messi, Kobe Bryant, Sebastian Vettel, Roger Federer... (you get the idea, I guess) and tell them I'm being super competitive in their respective sports because I'm competing in a local league putting a fraction of the time they are. The thing is, when looking at the grand scheme, I'm not. Not even close. There's a reason why the world first quality guilds usually get world firsts, and it's not just skill, there's also commitment, coordination and a myriad of factors.
Of course, if we start removing factors that we can't or don't want to meet, even playing rock-paper-scissors with your friend on the middle of Times Square is competitive, but the moment the discussion goes down that path, it's very unlikely we'll reach any kind of agreement on what's being discussed.
However, for people with less ability to perform DPS/other roles, it makes no doubt to me that they are indeed having trouble on enrage timers and such, or at the very least be close enough that they'll absolutely want any possible upgrade.
When we raided during the first week with raids full of 463~ ilvl geared characters enrage timers felt quite tight, and we're a world-class guild. I can safely assume that a raid of players that perform sub-par, despite their much higher ilvl, will not be dishing out much more DPS/healing than our raids back in 463 gear, and will probably encounter a lot of trouble with enrage timers or other numbers-related issues rather than mechanics issues.
Isn't this another reason why it'd do good to those players that feel they need the gear to instead improve their dps rotations, talents, gearing choices, etc, so that they can make the most benefit of their class rather than relying on getting higher gear? (I'm talking about those encounters that aren't dps checks, of course, at some point the developers expect the raid to be at a certain treshold of gear, and if that's not the case it's very likely you just won't be able to move forward until you get more upgrades)
Of course, not everyone can play at the 100% of their spec, but the jump those players may see from wearing all 463 to 476 compared to the jump from perfecting their rotations (working on them, or whichever area they might be failing in) would probably yield a greater result, and one that will outlast gear replacements in the long run; you're not likely to lose skill once you've acquired it after all. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
TCG Art Update
Blizzard has updated the Trading Card Game art gallery to feature ten new pieces.
Site Navigation
vBulletin Message