Timeless isle: Are these droprates accurate?

[ablib]

i wonder what the design intention is?

That in Cataclysm players were bored with nothing to do. So in MoP instead of fixing that problem by actually creating more content, they created a thousand different ways to drag stuff out -- giving the illusion that there is actually more content.

In the case of gearing. Instead of offering ways to get easily get the previous tier, they have you hop, skip, and jump all over the world, for minor upgrades that will ONLY get you up to the previous LFR tier, to where then you have to sit in queues for hours, hoping the RNG god's don't screw you.

Because of this failed design in MoP. We had a whole expansion where Justice points were worthless (still are in 5.4). The only use was for PvE players to convert them to honor, to buy PvP gear > to play PvE. Also valor will be largely worthless in 5.4, due to having no 5.4 valor vendor.

They have been making mistake after mistake since Cataclysm ended, and frankly it's astonishing.

[judgementofantonidas]

Oondasta is rather obnoxious to get a kill on.

lul wut? is this post dated?

[SodiumChloride]

Nice to know Blizzard is willing to accept losing more subs in 5.4 with them continuing the ridiculous catch up mechanisms that MoP has given us.

In Cataclysm, and Wrath, by the last raid tier, I would have DE'd gear that had the same item level as the first tier of the expansion. In 5.4, Blizzard has managed to make the sheep excited to get it.

I'm normally a Blizzard fan boy, but the catch up mechanisms for new players, and alts has been nothing but fail this expansion. This has been the #1 reason that I have personally seen people leave the game for in this expansion.

Sorry.

People's ability to play with friends > your epeen

[Sul]

as good a time as ever).



The maximum ilvl you can realistically get without stepping into Normal or Heroic raids is ~533. This includes getting extremely lucky with 535's on the BMAH, 522's from world bosses and crafting, and 2/2 upgrades on every slot -- oh, and the 600 cloak upgraded to 608, which as we all know is completely reliant on RNG. This, though, isn't something the majority can do. The majority, especially right now, won't be buying items for 20K, and the BMAH is extremely RNG-based.

As you can imagine, the average LFR raider who's been in TOT since release will be around 510-513. This alone still takes a massive amount of time (unless you're the only person in the entire game who managed to get 502's for every slot within the first few weeks of LFR, as opposed to duplicate items or multiple items for each slot) but it's entirely possible.

.

I have been in ToT LFR since its been out and I am 525 , could be higher except I wont replace my 3 502 teir pieces with the 522 valor equivalents . I can go a bit higher when I finally get the ring to drop from Oon and pants from Nalak ( already have the hands ). I have been sitting on this level for quite a while , its not hard to do -do lfr each week ,
do Oon And Nal each week , cap valor each week, all can be done in 6 hours game time each week.

Here is a hint for DPS - queues for LFR are shorter and the players better if you do them first or second day after reset

[nightfalls]

Here is a hint for DPS - queues for LFR are shorter and the players better if you do them first or second day after reset

What if players don't have time to play until the weekend?

[Floopa]

it is a bit odd isn't it. remember the hour of twilight had pretty good epics for catch up players.

i wonder what the design intention is?

The idea is striking a balance between fairness and catch up mechanics. Is it fair that someone who's been playing since T14 doesn't get benefits over people who subbed 1 week before 5.4 is released? This is basically what happened in Cataclysm. Hour of Twilight epics were equal, and in some cases better than, Firelands normal gear. This created a problem where no-one ran old raids at all and all people did was farm those dungeons to gear up. Blizzard wanted to change this.

People who have been playing since T14 now have an advantage over people who sub in and out of the game. There are catch up mechanics available (and I think giving away 535 epics to people who grind a whole lot is a bit too much, but there we go) for those who need it. They shouldn't be complaining. What can their complaint even be? "Why does this person who has farmed ToT for 7 months have better gear than me when I rejoined the game 3 weeks ago?"

Hopefully this clears it up.

[nightfalls]

I think Blizzard fucked it over majorly. The problem with no catch up mechanics is that when people quit the game (a massive amount), a lack of catch up mechanics will ensure that they "stay quit" for good.

Players quit the game because back in T14 they had to do serious amounts of grind to even keep up (deny it or not, that was the major driving force behind subscription losses back then). Now they can stay quit because Blizzard is too afraid of not "rewarding" people for having stayed the entire time.

Hint: A far, far, better reward system would be titles/mount rewards tied to Cutting Edge achievements (which is better than Realm First simply as the latter encourages poaching and pretty bad behavior in general, as it has in the past) and made unobtainable after the next content patch. If you want the T15 rewards, play T15. If you missed T15, at least you can catch up for T16 to get a fair shot at the rewards there.

As is, Blizzard (and a few others) I think need to wake up that their "attunement" style system is an absolute failed model at this point. Blizzard might have to a degree (and even then it's too little), and I'm worried they will regress back to 5.0 style grind in 6.0.

[Kraftwerk]

Can't wait for the Isle personally, recently re-subbed about 2 weeks ago, managed to take my iLvl to 490 give or take after starting doing dailies and LFR. Had bad luck with LFR really though to be honest, using tokens but getting gold.

But I think the gear catch-up is personally rubbish at the minute. It'll be much better with the isle and the fact that rep-requirements are gone and you can buy stuff for JP. I remember re-subbing in Cata, and gearing up to the top gear from JP in a week give or take. I know that makes me a super-casual, but hey, it's what I like, and the proper raiders will always have better gear than me. But it's nice to have gear as a casual too. I used to be hardcore in TBC but I don't have time for that anymore, 4 or 5 raiding nights a week, each 4 hours long. It was fun in TBC, and I was the best of the best, but now I can be pretty good and still play casually.

Reading this topic, the character transfer debate annoys me slightly. It's annoying to be told to transfer your toons to a different server if yours is dead; you've bought the game, you pay a sub, you shouldn't be expected to fork out multiple sums of £15 for your toons. I'd be really stubborn and want all my toons transferring or nothing; I like to have everything on one server. I shouldn't be expected to transfer toons for copious amounts of money just to gear up. But the Isle sort of fixes this, well, slightly. As will crossed realms too I guess.

And I have also read people saying "it's not expensive blablabla"; yeah, it's not too expensive, but as people have said, as a student with no side job, that money DOES come out of the food and beer pot. I accept that, but I will still complain. I've paid for the game and the subscription which I budget for, but I'm not gonna budget for moving toons to gear them up when I shouldn't have too, in my personal opinion. I want money so I can go enjoy myself with my Uni friends etc. WoW is simply the game to play when hungover / no work to do. Or when I'm procrastinating.. haha!

Just my 2 cents, I really am not that bothered though. I am happy that gearing up will be easier in 5.4. And when I'm in LFR with my current piss-poor gear pulling only 70k dps in ToT and the stuck-up morons are complaining saying "dps sucks" but the bosses still die, I'll just continue to ignore them. Why should I care what my DPS is in LFR? It's not like the same standard of raid etiquette applies to LFR as it does to actual raiding; yes, there is some level of it, but it's mainly faceroll & hit the boss until it dies. Simple! Why people get stressed in LFR is beyond me!

Cheers

[nightfalls]

Just my 2 cents, I really am not that bothered though. I am happy that gearing up will be easier in 5.4. And when I'm in LFR with my current piss-poor gear pulling only 70k dps in ToT and the stuck-up morons are complaining saying "dps sucks" but the bosses still die, I'll just continue to ignore them. Why should I care what my DPS is in LFR? It's not like the same standard of raid etiquette applies to LFR as it does to actual raiding; yes, there is some level of it, but it's mainly faceroll & hit the boss until it dies. Simple! Why people get stressed in LFR is beyond me!

LFR would be the subject of another entire thesis, but the big thing is that trash HP needs to be cut by at least half if not more. That would allow the runs to go much quicker while still maintaining all of the focus on the boss encounters (so not nerfing boss HP). Trash is boring as fuck especially when it takes forever, and more smaller-HP mobs to AoE are more fun than a few large mobs.

If you start an LFR and don't expect it to take a fucking hour long (just for the run, not counting the queue) people would be way more relaxed and less stressed.

[Lovestar]

I think Blizzard fucked it over majorly. The problem with no catch up mechanics is that when people quit the game (a massive amount), a lack of catch up mechanics will ensure that they "stay quit" for good.

This is the case for me. I like the game and I'm interested in playing again, I follow the news and expansion clues because it's just a fun game and fun to stay up-to-date with. But I haven't played since 5.0 was fresh. I think about all the tedious hoops I'd have to jump through just to be able to see ToT or SoO...

... And then I go, "Eh, forget it." and I go out dancing, or draw, or do my hair, or... wash dishes... instead. I just do not care about the "reward" of vomiting time into an MMO any more, there's too much else in life. "Worked hard in WoW" doesn't mean anything to anyone outside these forums.

And! I fully admit this view is potentially skewed / stupid. It may not be nearly as bad as I'm imagining. But my perception of the "grind" is enough to make me not even bother trying it. That's something I think Blizz needs to wake up to; that if unsubbed players perceive the game as a chore or a job or a schedule, they're not liable to want to come back. Or stay back.

In other words, maybe I'm exaggerating the grind in my head, but I see my quest-green/heroic-blues geared alts as hopelessly behind the content and that I would log in, and basically be told: "Sorry, you're not going to be doing any content with us for oh... 3-4 weeks. May we interest you in LFR Stone Guardians?"

And it's like... ugh. Let's go dancing. I'd rather play Angry Birds half-drunk in the back of a club than be glued to a chair in a stuffy room for hours "working hard" for the opportunity to have fun with my friends.

[Retron]

So, assuming you get all the valor gear you can (lets say you get 7 -- say you skip on hands, chest, and legs so you can get your 4 piece set bonus) and the rest of your slots are filled with LFR gear (that would be 10 slots) your gear level would be

(7*530 + 9 * 510) / 16

or 518 as an average item level, assuming you upgraded every piece twice. Granted it is not 530, but it is not quite a bleak as you make it out. If you don't care about set bonuses you can easily break 520.

Exactly right - I was at 518 for a few weeks after gearing up with (upgraded) SPA and LFR gear, using LFR gear for the 4-piece bonus.

I got my ilvl 600 cloak yesterday and that took me to 522, once upgraded I went to 523.

If I wasn't too stingy to spend that much close to a patch, I could have 530 (upgraded 522) boots via tradeskills. A 530 helm would be available too, but that means breaking the set bonus. The heroic scenario bags plus Nalak / Oondasta would in theory give even higher boosts but I've not invested the time to get those done.

[Deja Thoris]

Most of the posts in this thread from the "financial advisors" are arrogant and pretty stupid. Theres a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that people who couldn't gear alts with the current progression paths left the game. The (ex)subscribers are in control of their own finances and its up to them to choose how to spend their money and if they want to spend it on a product Blizz supplies.

It's not incumbent on them to pay to transfer, possibly multiple alt because the system is sub-standard for their needs. Blizz changing to connected realms is evidence of this, although its likely a little too little and a little too late. MoP is very alt unfriendly compared to some previous expansions and such people probably have a right to be aggrieved with how it changed their playstyle. I don't know of anybody that doesn't play alts and the time invested to progress them is out of kilter with the rewards from doing so. The progression path is also not fun. I'm 12/13HC, last thing I want to do is drag alts through looking for retard on a regular basis etcetc.

This new catchup is a good thing and to bring it somewhat back on topic I have no idea how easy it will be to upgrade the 496 pieces to higher ilevels :P

[Glorious Leader]

That in Cataclysm players were bored with nothing to do. So in MoP instead of fixing that problem by actually creating more content, they created a thousand different ways to drag stuff out -- giving the illusion that there is actually more content.

In the case of gearing. Instead of offering ways to get easily get the previous tier, they have you hop, skip, and jump all over the world, for minor upgrades that will ONLY get you up to the previous LFR tier, to where then you have to sit in queues for hours, hoping the RNG god's don't screw you.

Because of this failed design in MoP. We had a whole expansion where Justice points were worthless (still are in 5.4). The only use was for PvE players to convert them to honor, to buy PvP gear > to play PvE. Also valor will be largely worthless in 5.4, due to having no 5.4 valor vendor.

They have been making mistake after mistake since Cataclysm ended, and frankly it's astonishing.

It should be noted that the experience of cataclysm players being bored WAS NOT UNIVERSAL by any means. It was maybe concentrated feedback they thought they could act on but lot's of folks weren't bored in cataclysm. Guys playing maybe more than 20 hours a week were but catering to them isn't sustainable anyway. They butchered the gearing system (leaving casuals and anyboyd trying to catch up out in the cold) and well people still sub and unsub around patches.

No god damn valor vendor in 5.4 absolutely sealed the fucking deal for me. They neutered the alternative to raiding and they neutered catch up and now they've finall drowned it out completely. I hope they lose millions more subs for this. I'm sorry it's a terrible decision and the only way it will be reversed is when subs drop like rocks (even more than already) and somebody gets moved off to another project.

[Sul]

What if players don't have time to play until the weekend?

Then it will take you about 8 hours to do what I said rather then 6 ( extra queue time and extra wipes time ) - to some the extra 2 hours that wouldn't be a problem - to others It may

[Enan1981]

You can also see chests in the minimap as well where you can open for some loot!

[Osmeric]

Because of this failed design in MoP. We had a whole expansion where Justice points were worthless (still are in 5.4). The only use was for PvE players to convert them to honor, to buy PvP gear > to play PvE. Also valor will be largely worthless in 5.4, due to having no 5.4 valor vendor.

They were briefly useful for upgrading heroic 5 man drops, and have been useful for buying/upgrading heirlooms.