World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

PvP
if we level in legion through BGs or skirms, will we work towards the honor to prestige early or does that start at 110?
Starts at 110 (holinka)

Rewards
Hmm, people hated ridiculous RNG with regards to X. Maybe they'll like it if it's ridiculous RNG on Y instead!
RNG Realtalk: it's been a staple of RPGs for years, it exists and can even be exciting (see: Ashes of Al'ar), is it good? (Muffinus)
sure, but there's a diff between a rare drop of loot, and an item with a low-single-digits drop chance once per year.
Some players have tweeted that they like the rarity, appreciate the social value of showing off their rare loot. Valid? (Muffinus)
Not trying to sound like a jerk, just putting this towards you as a developer on twitter, and what you do! (Muffinus)
Is it the majority, or even a significant minority? I know I personally see more RNG hate than rarity love 1/2
Does it matter? When is the minority right? When is the majority? (Muffinus)
"Right" is subjective here. Very subjective. Majority tends to win in subjective matters, particularly in regards to product prefs
I think if the majority of players feel a negative feeling towards something, there is something wrong, even if it's not that. (Muffinus)
But that might be confirmation bias. Still, strikes me as something that might be a bit TOO rare. Ashes et al is 52/year.
I think there is an intrinsic "effort value" that goes into rewards that can be obtained multiple times. (Muffinus)
Once/year/character feels like luck, one/day/character feels like effort. The latter is more satisfying, even if you don't win? (Muffinus)
Rewards from effort/repetition are almost always more rewarding, long-term, then rewards from strike-of-lightning luck.
Yet we've had a resurgence in the requests for random Legendaries, recalling HOR, TF, glaives, etc. Different? Same? (Muffinus)
Or just nostalgia? (Muffinus)
Casinos don't have machines that only give one try per visit/day. No one plays them. People play repetitive luck games, rabidly.
(FWIW it will be moved to the Stolen Present next year, same with all of the new-per-year gifts) (Muffinus)
Casinos don't have machines that only give one try per visit/day. No one plays them. People play repetitive luck games, rabidly.
I don't know if you, ethically, want to model your system after casinos. Where's the line? (Muffinus)
Example, if bonus roll tokens were a 1% chance instead of the ~20% chance they are now, how many people do you think would bother?
Related: the droprates for Pandaren rares were 10-30%. Timeless Isle they were much less, but lasted for longer. Which was better (Muffinus)
And Huolon was the big one. Low droprate, but he could be farmed every ~45m. Not once per year.
I still can't believe people figured out that you could albatross troll and pull from atop the bridge, emergent gameplay++ (Muffinus)
Poor comparison, since timeless isle was a lot of "well, there's nothing else to do".
Prefer Tanaan? Cata endgame? WOTLK? (Muffinus)
So ya, Tanaan washed not because of design (which was REALLY good for dailies), but lack of long-term rewards.
Maybe day-to-day variance in the events in each area? Let predictability not just in which area, but what you do while there?
We had a lot of this in MOPs endgame, how did that feel? (Muffinus)
.I personally *much* preferred the MoP endgame, in 5.0-5.2, TI/apexis/tanaan, had no story, and are boring IMO :/
To me, Story is the main thing we need to learn from this. Please check out World Quests/reps in Legion (Muffinus)
World needs to feel "alive".
Yep (Muffinus)
.tanaan was just apexis dailies, nothing fun in regards to mechanics, again, IMO.
I agree with you both, btw Please check out the World Quests system in Legion (Muffinus)

Raiding
Some interesting comments in your alts though - why can you do nothing with them but LFR? (Muffinus)
Well, if they are geared enough to do normal+, they don't need upgrade tokens. If they need tokens, can't get into normal.
If you could make one change to make normal PUGs a reality, what would you change? (Muffinus)
So getting runs on alts that are actually at appropriate itemlevel for the difficulty is frustrating, especially as DPS.
True, ilvl is a shortcut to dps, but isn't 100% accurate. If you could replace the ilvl system, what would you do? (Muffinus)
But how do you grade that? Lots of mechanics were some people standing in bad is good, or required, but many isn't
Standing in Fire has also gotten a lot more complex over time. Compare Patchwerk to Blackfuse. (Muffinus)
Mr. Feasel, with all due respect you surely see that Ilvl is the new GS?
Yep, and there needs to be ways to combat this. (Muffinus)
Covered that. But community wants their yard stick. Take away one, they'll make another. AotC already that way.
The design goal is thus: what is the most effective unit of measurement, if there is one? (Muffinus)
Loath to add more queues. I *LIKE* the new Group Finder tool. Still, begs the question with the community grades off meters.
Yeah the "I can't apply for a job because I haven't had a job because I can't apply for a job" problem is alive and well in MMOs (Muffinus)
*Maybe* have the system, when queued for raids, show tooltip info on your experience in that raid (account wide, all difficulties)
Maybe have a Normal queueing system that operates like HOTS, matching players of lower skill with higher to average into a win? (Muffinus)
But then those players are admonished by the better players for having low DPS, and quit (Muffinus)
Have quarter-baked idea where loot drop add per player being higher for lower-geared chars. Needs checks, but could work.
This was kind of the idea behind Flex, the difficulty didn't really increase, while the players did. (Muffinus)
(c) increase mechanics, with an ilvl-based break point where a raid could still over-gear a fight (c)
Increasing mechanics is scary. When you leave a mechanic out of LFR, a PUG dies to it in normal, and is kick (Muffinus)
I think for mythic you need to have one-shot and "single player can make a wipe" mechanics
Definitely do need them for Mythic. Norm/Hero, if you screw up, you might die. In Mythic, you wipe the raid.
On every fight? Or can some be "tank can relax" fights? Or healer, dps? (Muffinus)
Forgiveness fluctuates per role per fight, certainly. DPS low responsibility on Iskar. Tanks low on Council.
TBH, back in the day, I really appreciated the contrast (as a dps) of Patchwerk vs. Loatheb (1.0, fire mage) (Muffinus)
even if that person is normally very good, with 20 players, high % chance someone can have an off moment
Alex Afrasiabi introduced me to this concept of "skill entropy," smart dude (Muffinus)

Or did you mean an automated SimC-type thing in-game. Isn't that reinforcing DPS-output = worth?
Perhaps there's a way to gauge performance and apply a value that more accurately reflects it... (Muffinus)
Maybe there's even a way to incorporate a positive outlook into it? And/or a leadership quality? (Muffinus)
Sounds like a Karma system. Which *could* work, but requires player engagement, which typically requires rewards.
Has it worked for LoL? Good case study on cutting-edge social engineering. (Muffinus)