No more Heart of the Valorous - what's next?

[brothernads]

Lol so naive. Of course it was targeted for Wildstar's launch. They could have done it any other week, it just happened to be that one?

Plus there doesn't appear to be any planned follow-up. It was just, "Here's a buff to VP for 10 days that neatly fits around Wildstar launch window" then...nothing. I'd be less suspicious if they introduced the Gaze of the Black Prince buff starting today for a few weeks.

[Adramalech]

At the point we're at in the expansion, this shouldn't have been temporary.

Maybe they'll pull a Diablo III and reintroduce it until 6.0 releases, but I'm not counting on it.

[Daez]

I would love to seem them buff the cap on Valor to make it at least 3000 a week.

[Frozenbeef]

I don't think it had anything to do with Wildstar. It was just a way to get people into upgrading their gear and moving faster in SoO.

I think it had everything to do with wildstar...how many times in the past 10 years have they just randomly given us a temporary buff? >.<

[ablib]

It still never ceases to amaze me that people think Blizzard cares about Wildstar.

Ok, tin-foil hat, pseudo intellects...what game was Blizzard trying to counter act when they introduced similar buffs for Diablo 3? Over and over again since February to now?

They experimented with this in Diablo 3, saw it was a big hit, and decided to bring it to WoW. Nothing more. If Diablo 3 is any indicator, the buff will be back soon, with a possibility of a raised weekly Valor cap.

[brothernads]

It still never ceases to amaze me that people think Blizzard cares about Wildstar.

Ok, tin-foil hat, pseudo intellects...what game was Blizzard trying to counter act when they introduced similar buffs for Diablo 3? Over and over again since February to now?

They experimented with this in Diablo 3, saw it was a big hit, and decided to bring it to WoW. Nothing more. If Diablo 3 is any indicator, the buff will be back soon, with a possibility of a raised weekly Valor cap.

Blizzard is certainly aware of the MMO landscape, and cares about potentially competitive games (as much as they want to deny it). They have (for many years now) put out WoW news/content around major releases of other MMOs. Recent examples: announcing "alpha" begins a day before ESO went live, starting F&F alpha for WoD a day after Wildstar went live. It's just something they do.

D3 has nothing to do with this situation.

[affinity]

Ok, tin-foil hat, pseudo intellects...

Bash people for making wild, baseless claims

with a possibility of a raised weekly Valor cap.

Then makes a wild, baseless claim

[Farabee]

If Gaze Of The Black Prince is temporary, I'll punch a goat.

[Shockeye]

With the weekly cap in place all it meant you capped maybe an hour or two faster than normally. Hell with the coins in TI it took only 10 seconds.

Exactly. The cap was still 1000VP, so all the buff did was save a bit of time and irritation (which was nice). I could see removing the weekly cap for a week and providing a gain buff as a catch up mechanism, that would have made sense for a limited time buff.

I'm just irritated that I have to run content I've run a hojillion times already for another few weeks. A new dungeon or something (like Cata's reworks of ZA and ZG) would break the tedium a bit.

[Darsithis]

Maybe it wasn't "because" of WS, but I think it's a bit naive to think the timing of it at least had nothing to do with WS. I'm not even saying it was meant to take attention away from WS. I know former WoW devs work(ed) on WS - maybe it was a professional courtesy: let folks get their vp farming done faster so they have more time for the shiny new MMO made by former colleagues. Or, yes, maybe they wanted people who'd stopped logging in to have a reason to get back on, and get a headstart on upgrading all their gear from 2/4 to 4/4, rather than jumping ship to WS.

Lol so naive. Of course it was targeted for Wildstar's launch. They could have done it any other week, it just happened to be that one?

I think it had everything to do with wildstar...how many times in the past 10 years have they just randomly given us a temporary buff? >.<

Guys, are you serious? What would a valor buff do? All it did was mean you could get your valor a little faster. If they wanted to compete with Wildstar's launch they would have done something much more drastic.

If anything this is a D3 > WoW thing.

[Osmeric]

If they wanted to compete with Wildstar's launch they would have done something much more drastic.

I suspect, in regard to Wildstar, they are following Napoleon's dictum: "Never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake."

[Pony Soldier]

I don't understand why they had the buff for only one week. The VP weekly cap was left at 1000 so all a week's worth of that buff did was let people get to cap quicker, which isn't really any particular advantage, other than saving people maybe a couple of hours.

Really weird.

Yeah, this is exactly how I felt. If they weren't going to get rid of the weekly limit or at least raise it, what was the point? 1000 VP isn't even that much for people who use it on upgrades AND gear. You go through all your VP like nothing. It get's you 1 necklace or a bunch of upgrades to your gear which isn't necessary until you have the best gear you can get. It's pointless to upgrade say 460 or 480 or even 490 gear because you're eventually going to get better gear from SoO.

This was a very weird and random decision by Blizzard.

[Alvito]

With the weekly cap in place all it meant you capped maybe an hour or two faster than normally. Hell with the coins in TI it took only 10 seconds.

The buff was active for the last part of now 3 weeks ago as far as the reset goes and for the first part of today. So you had 500 extra valor you could have gotten from it over 3 weeks worth of caps so 1500 valor or letting you get that 3000 twice as fast.

[Bullettime]

The buff was active for the last part of now 3 weeks ago as far as the reset goes and for the first part of today. So you had 500 extra valor you could have gotten from it over 3 weeks worth of caps so 1500 valor or letting you get that 3000 twice as fast.

The problem is that the speed in which you gain Valor was never the issue to begin with. The buff was overall unimpactful and really random. It was something that looked neat but in practice, accomplished basically nothing.

[Darsithis]

Weird but my Valor of the Ancients is still active. I'm getting 150 per Deeds of Valor.

[JemiS]

It stays until you zone. You can use it to get extra valor on banked quests in the next week if you don't zone to turn them in.

[Alvito]

The problem is that the speed in which you gain Valor was never the issue to begin with. The buff was overall unimpactful and really random. It was something that looked neat but in practice, accomplished basically nothing.

For people with multiple toons they raid with they were behind the 8 ball on getting upgraded. Believe me I don't think the buff was needed, it was however very nice. I for one capped 5 toons 2 weeks in a row because of it I hadn't done that prior to the buff.

[Count Zero]

Guys, are you serious? What would a valor buff do? All it did was mean you could get your valor a little faster. If they wanted to compete with Wildstar's launch they would have done something much more drastic.

If anything this is a D3 > WoW thing.

That something more drastic may have been F&F Alpha finally going up. Again, as I said in my initial post you quoted, I'm not saying it necessarily was fully based on WS, or even that it was necessarily designed to draw attention from WS. I just think that of the two possibilities (it had "something" to do with WS, it had "nothing" to do with WS), that the timing of it makes it more likely that it had "something" to do with WS.

And to answer your other question: maybe it would give people who hadn't bothered to start upgrading from 2/4 to 4/4 because they weren't playing SoO anymore anyway a slight extra impetus to go ahead and go for it. If you read any of the posts where people talked about the 4/4 upgrades, surely you saw the several people who complained about having to upgrade all their gear even though they already had SoO h on farm, or weren't even raiders - there are some folks who simply are completionists, and whether they're in full SoO h gear or full LFR or Flex or even just Timeless Isle gear, they're wanting to max out what they can of the gear they have.

Or, also as I said before, maybe they weren't trying to hurt but rather help WS. There must be lots of folks playing both, including some who want to continue making the best of their WoW character but devoting more/most of their time to the shiny new game - and as a professional courtesy among former colleagues they gave us a buff that reduces how much time we spend in WoW to max out our characters.

If it had absolutely nothing to do with WS, why this week of all weeks in the year ? The patch that put it in the game was before WS release - why did they wait nearly two weeks ? Or, why didn't they wait another week ?

Of course none of this is proof. But waiting nearly two weeks rather than having it immediately, and rather than waiting another week ... I think that suggests that it had "something" to do with WS.

[emmert]

I would love more buffs like Heart of the Valorous. I remember GW1 had weekend events. They were a nice treat.

[MatadorMedia]

Why was this removed? Stupid.