TwentyFifthNovember and Professional Gaming

As of last night(ish) all of the current content is cleared for WotLK. Assuming that all of the members leveled in 36 hours, that's one raid tier cleared fully in less than 8 days of progression attempts. To me, this highlights the cutthroat capitalism that permeates people everywhere. No matter what the activity is, someone will turn it into a business.

Part of me is saddened by this, since it's a game and should be fun. But most of me is just jealous. If I could describe my perfect day, it would be just sitting around gaming. Not just WoW, but all kinds of RTS, RPG, FPS, TCG (and other TLAs), puzzle, and board games. While my education (for the most part) has been in mechanical engineering, my passion (somewhat obviously) is for playing games. Sometimes I even dabble in the underlying mechanincs of what makes great games great. Dabble. Dabble. I'll try not to splash too much.

But even with all this, I'm not being paid for it. The players of TwentyFifthNovember, from what I understand, are. They get equipment and salaries for being the best gamers out there - at least at WoW. I guess the next best thing to simply playing games all day is to design and build them. Maybe once I'm 80 and raiding I can pull back the throttle on the playtime and shift more towards thinktime.

So while I'm entirely too jealous of their ability to do this with their lives, I still have a great amount of respect for their gaming prowess. Grats on the world first clear of content, TwentyFifthNovember!

A Summary of Suggested Paladin Stat Change

I've been running some numbers to determine how to homogenize the plate armor for paladins - specifically holy paladins - so that spellpower plate is phased out, much like feral attack power is being worked towards. With the conversions I've worked out, the combination of a spellpower 1h and shield will still be superior, but trinkets, rings, and necks will be a toss-up between strength and spellpower. So without further ado, here are the conversions:

1 str -> 2 SP, 1 int
4 stam -> 1 mp5

With these conversions (at 70, at least), a retribution pally with 1800 attack power and ~10k health will have (when specced holy) about 1200 spellpower, ~10k mana, and 175 mp5. I haven't looked at the conversion for prot yet, but without real numbers I think that the current talent can be reduced to 10% of stamina from 30% so that the str -> SP can be baseline. The str -> int and stam -> mp5 can be deep holy - at least 30 points. Sheath of Light could probably be done away with, or simply reduced to the HoT portion.

This opens up a door to new healing styles, since holy will have a significant amount of attack power. Healing spells based on damage done to an enemy, or similar engaging mechanics. Also a big bonus is that ret/arms gear now becomes ret/arms/holy gear. The dependece on spellpower doesn't make me too uncomfortable, since the weapons/shields will still be shared by elemental/locks/mages/priests. The same goes for jewelry and trinkets.

Of course, there's nothing inflexible about these numbers, and I haven't thought of every possible combination of gear that might make either ret or holy completely overpowered. I'd like to get this posted to the healing forums and get some feedback on it, but I think I'll need some more number crunching first.

The Big Ten

In just a few short days, 10-man raids will no longer be the place that "real raiders" get stuck before getting the gear to allow them into the "real raids." This is a huge boost for my guild - a purely 10-man guild who managed 3 timed chests in ZA before 3.0.2 after only about 2 months of raiding. By the end of next week, saying things like this won't get you looked down on by 25-man raiders.

I'm very excited to see how our little guild progresses. In the last month, we've jumped from 134th(ish) to 43rd ranked guild on our server according to WoWjutsu. To me, this change really allows people to show off their skill instead of just seeing who can gather up enough people to tromp around endgame. Homoginization of both gear and roles encourages the acquisition of skill over gear as well, and encourages more small runs in addition to the raids that currently happen.

I'd like to see this trend continue and have more questlines like the ones for the level 60 warlock and paladin mounts, and the druid swift flight form. Epic, single person quests that can rank you on your skill if they get progressively harder - like the racing quests on Netherwing Ledge. If the quests are restricted to a single player, even with some group parts, then you can't "fake" your way through by buying a group of people to carry you.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves in WoW. I hate seeing people who have either eBayed their account and so have no idea how to play, or who have PvPed their way to ZOMG EPIXX0RZ and think that qualifies them to raid endgame. So implementing a system that combats this would be a dream come true.

At any rate, smaller groups put more dependence on the individual raider which in turn shows off skill more than larger groups. Hooray for expansions!

Quick Note About a Pally Change I Came Up With

I had an idea last night about how to keep holy paladins able to solo while allowing ret to have seals and judgments nerfed for whatever reason.

1. Put two talents of however many points into holy. One that has some conversion of strength->spellpower and the other that converts stamina->mana/5. Exact conversion rates can be determined later.

2. Scrap all plate spellpower gear.

3. Profit!

The basic idea here is twofold. First, holy paladins are the only spec in the game now that has a set of gear all their own. Second, it's very flavorful to have a "holy warrior" type character that can heal more the stronger he is, and can last longer healing if he has more stamina.

Using str/stam/crit plate dps gear, the holy pally would have spellpower/mp5/crit which is exactly what they're after. If they stack too much tank gear, then they can heal forever, but they lose spellpower. This may not be a complete fix for the entire class, but I think it's a step in the right direction.

What the PuG!?

In the last couple weeks, I've been in PuGs for just about every raid, except Sunwell. Some have been successful, some haven't. But it's still amazing to me that they exist. On a server where the top Alliance guild was selling chances at tier pieces mere weeks after first downing the bosses themselves, and most of the inhabitants are just looking to get "epicced out" - regardless of the stats on the gear, it's somewhat refreshing to see people have complete PuG runs where rolls are simply mainspec first, then offspec.

All this freely available gear has set rumblings in the foundations of some guilds. I've seen a few 25-mans break into 10-mans, 10-man guilds split into arena teams, and arena teams disintegrate into individual battlegrounders. Of course, this might just be the result of pre-expansion restlessness spreading wanderlust that makes people test the waters of what they can accomplish on their own.

I have some very mixed feelings about these PuGs. On one hand, they get the bosses down (sometimes), and that's where the phat lootz come from. On the other hand, they're terrible players who are so sub-optimal at their roles that even after the patch boss nerfs, wipes are vastly more common than boss kills. So while I enjoy reaping the benefits of killing bosses in Black Temple, it helps to have a movie to watch during downtime, and maybe a game of solitaire going to keep my clicking finger from locking up.

On the whole, I think that more PuGs can only be good. They stimulate the interest in raids and heroics, and keep the game from becoming stale. But I'd like to see a return of attunements with the increase in PuGs. As easy as this game is, some people just aren't good enough at it to perform at the level required to do high-level content. To me, this is the challenge of game design: invent a natural content progression that cultivates building skills that will help you later in the game. Of course, this would effectively "lock out" some people from the end of progression, but I'm conceited enough to believe that I can perform well enough to make it to the "end."

This ties in to how I think that progression should depend on skill intead of raid size, but that's a whole different post. Perhaps later this week.

In the mean time, enjoy the free PHAT EPIXX L00TZ0RZ flowing out of PuGs.

Weaksauce!? No, Just Equilibrium

I see a lot of people complaining on forums about their class being too underpowered with the release of the 3.0.x patch. The weird thing to me is that every class is saying this. And no class is getting weaker than they are now. So people are assuming that other classes are getting more buffs than their own class is. How paranoid can you get?

Having never been forced to sit out due to min-maxing, it's a lot easier for me to see the buffs at face value. I can understand how people would be worried that they will get side-lined, but if Blizzard's statement about role equity is taken as true no class will be sidelined. Only certain players will be sidelined. I support this change.

As I understand it (and have seen for myself), there will still be "specialization" among roles for each class, but these abilities won't be head and shoulders above the other classes in those areas. Since tanking is my "forte," I'll give some examples of that.

• AOE tanking - Thunderclap and swipe will now hit all targets, but consecration will still be more threat per target.

• Off tanking - Druids will still have a "larger-than-average" health pool, but paladins and warriors scale with stamina exceptionally well compared to non-tanks.

• Main tanking - Every boss will be tankable by every class. Warrriors still have the most tricks up their sleeves, but that gap is narrowing fast.

I haven't mentioned death knights in these comparisons because I don't have a 70, and haven't done enough playing on one to know exactly where they fit. But everything I've read indicates that they will be a high avoidance/low(ish) health tank class. Threat won't be different to any significant degree on a single target, and will only slightly vary on AOE targets, between all classes.

I can't see any reason for anyone to worry about their class not being wanted by a raid. Except perhaps healers, but that would be a rare case indeed and would require serious construing of raid makeup.

I admit that the ones hit hardest by the changes are dps players. With healers and tanks able to do some notable damage, dps have to bring some truly remarkable damage to be beneficial to the raid. But I think this is a great change. One of my biggest pet peeves is a dps class who can't do more damage (or dps) than my tank. Having a reason to push those players to do even halfway decent damage can be nothing but good.

So to all the people who think that they won't be able to get a spot in a raid after the changes, maybe you should consider whether the problem is your class, or your ability.

To Raid or Not To Raid

One of my very few regrets with WoW is never having been in the "endgame." I went into Naxx yesterday for the first time and stealthed around as much as I could and it really hit me that I wanted the legendary [Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian]. I probably could have worked through Burning Crusade and picked up my 40 splinters, but I was getting my T4 and leveling my warrior and shaman.

With the reduction in raid size in Burning Crusade from 40 to 25, I was able to get into raiding. But this only garnered me one tier of gear before I gave up on the "hardcore" raiding in favor of hanging out with my friends. I briefly took my shaman into T5/T6 and was able to at least see the instances, but I hated the huge amounts of downtime and incompetence of the other raiders.

As WotLK advents, I think Blizzard is showing that they understand these frustrations, but also those of the extremely hardcore raiders by having dual-size raids. The hard jump from 40 to 25 man raids caused an almost universal wipe of guilds, with a few exceptions. By offering the option to continue on the 25 man path, these established raiding guilds aren't hurt. By dropping better gear than the 10 man versions, these guilds aren't trivialized. But by implementing these 10 man versions, just about everyone can venture into "engame" and complete the story arc of the expansion.

The only thing that is still up in the air is ZOMG LEGENDARIES!! In classic WoW, there were huge quest chains leading up to obtaining obscene amounts of materials to craft your own legendary weapons. In Burning Crusade, these weapons were just drops from the "end" bosses of the game in their respective patches. If this trend continues, the legendaries in WotLK will be kill-quest rewards. I don't think this will happen, but I am concerned that they will be 25 man only drops. While this is very fair, it puts me back in the same position that I'm in now. We all know that Frostmourne will make an appearance, but most likely only from hard mode Arthas 25.

Also of concern to me is the class restriction on these items. The huge uproar caused by the [Star's Fury] being given to a rogue over two hunters is well known. While I know this won't be a problem in my guild, I don't want Blizzard to react by restricting Frostmourne to Death Knight only.

I'm sure BlizzCon will shed lots of light on the situation, but until then, I'm on the edge of my plush gaming chair.

[Enhancement Shaman Semi-Spoiler]

Since my last statement that enhancement shaman wouldn't make the exceptional list, I've played a bit on the beta with mine. He hasn't suddenly become über-awesome, but I think I missed a couple things, or they have been added.

There's a huge synergy between melee and spell damage now. Maelstrom Weapons encourages the use of heals when needed and offensive spells otherwise by making them instant. The new Flametongue Weapon gives bonus spell damage in addition to the on hit effect of fire damage each swing, and using Flametongue on your offhand weapon is hugely encouraged by a new spell (Lava Burst? I can't recall at the moment, and the realm is down) that deals instant offhand weapon damage as fire, and deals 25% more if the weapon is enchanted with Flametongue.

Couple this with the new Stormstrike that is only useable by the shaman who put it there, but also increases frost and fire damage in addition to nature, and suddenly my want to not be able to afk through a fight is fulfilled. I have totems every 5 minutes to place, and Stormstirke, Lava offhand, and Shocks every 8, 15?, and 6 seconds respectively.

A side benefit (or maybe hugely intentional) is that if you're using Flametongue on your offhand and Windfury on your mainhand, then you can follow the fury warrior/rogue model of having as slow of mainhand as you can get and as fast of offhand as you can get, which in turn reduces the number of weapon sets that have to drop, so everyone can get their gear faster.

As a side note, I think that having fewer pieces of gear drop, while hugely beneficial to raid progression, is a bad thing. No, I don't like waiting in Kara 8 months to get my last two enchants. But I think that it takes the uniqueness away from your character. There's no way to differentiate between Paladin and Warrior tanks just by seeing them from across the field, except if they have tier sets on. Rogues and feral Druids are the same, as well as enhancement Shaman and Hunters; Mages and Warlocks. Of course, resto and balance Druids get leather, resto Shaman and holy Paladins get mail and plate respectively, and holy Priests get cloth. So at least the healing classes will have different armor models. Maybe.

The collapsing of damage and healing to spellpower means that resto and balance Druids get basically the same stats. This goes for holy and shadow Priests, and elemental and resto Shaman. So now you won't be able to tell what spec someone is, either. I know that it's a small thing, but I liked being recognizable by what I was wearing. I like having [The Sun Eater] on my Warrior. I like having antlers and a [Squid Stick] on my Druid. (I have the [Wildlife Royalty Staff] now, but I'm trying to make a point ;))

Anyway, I think the change is good (for now). We'll see how it plays out on the live servers, and with raids and WotLK endgame.

Hopeful UI Changes

Blizzard is promising a lot with the coming expansion, and it seems to be the big thing everyone wants to know about. What kind of raids, what kind of zomg purplez, what kind of monsters. . .

The thing that I don't hear anything about (possibly with good reason) is the UI. I've heard about a built-in threat meter, but no other real changes to the interface. Is it because they don't want to increase the requirements on the system any more than they have to with the new content? I'm not sure, but from what I understand unless you have hundreds of addons, or a really old computer, the load on the system isn't that big.

If they're trying to keep the UI open for 3rd party developing, what's stopping that if additional functionality is incorporated in the base UI? I would love to see some kind of action bar flexibility and more mobile frames. (In addition to the promised threat meter) Other than these, what kind of UI mods are there? Sure, some mail things and specialized things for inventory and auctions, but all-in-all I think the most pervasive ones are covered under frames and bars.

At any rate, I'm really hoping they imbed some of these. I would also like to see a default "DKP" system that could be overridden if your guild chose to. I just don't think that many guilds I've been in have been "fair" with loot, instead favoring the guild master/officers/friends. It sounds (from what I've heard) like Warhammer is instituting something like this with their public quests, so that whoever contributes the most gets the most out of the reward.

We'll see how it all shakes out, but here's hoping!

Holding Pattern

In talking with my brother about the coming expansion and what we want from WoW, it came up that once we get to see end-game (with the new 10-man raids) there really isn't a reason to keep playing. Sure, we could join a larger guild and do the same raids for better gear, but it loses it's charm after a while. I know that doing Kara for the last year solid has sort of burned me out, but I still enjoy going in with friends.

I think that this ties in with my dislike for PuGs. I just came out of a Kara PuG tonight that took 6! hours. . . and we didn't even kill Prince or Netherspite. I don't like grouping up with people who really don't care about doing well themselves, as long as the group is good enough to get them their l33t 3p1x that they can show off.

I like the trend that Blizzard is heading toward with the 10-man raids. It means that every person's contribution matters four times as much as when Molten Core and Onyxia (and the old, er, current Naxx!) were the big things to be doing. But while my contribution is more than it used to be in a raid, that also means that the guy who's in full S3 but can still only put out 400 dps also has his contribution amplified by 4 times what it used to be.

I would very much like to play a game with my friends and family that is like World of Warcraft, without having to deal with all the idiots who populate its servers. The appeal of "private" servers is becoming greater every time I have to deal with some moron who either can't communicate in my language, or can't communicate well enough to assure me that they understand what I want them to do in a particular fight.

I know that this is supposed to be a Massively Multiplayer RPG, but sometimes more just isn't better. What I would like to see from a game is something where individual ability is appreciated more than the ability to wrangle a mass of people together and have them sit through something for 20-40 hours per week. My view of raiding might be severely skewed, but the only "raiding" guild I was in required 4 hours a night, 4 nights a week of raiding, and that you bring all your buff items with you (food, flasks, elixirs, potions, etc.). This meant that if I wanted to see endgame content, I had to first go out and farm for things that I wouldn't otherwise use and then I had to endure hours of what passed for progression that mostly consisted of everyone complaining about how so-and-so took too long, or was afk for something, or whatever. I only got about 3 or 4 hours of actual boss-killing and raiding out of the 16 that were required, and spend another 3 or 4 preparing myself for those. So 20 hours a week spent just to boast(?) that I had seen MH and BT.

In a sense, I like the approach that Blizzard had when World of Warcraft was first released and only 5% (or whatever) of the population of the server saw the inside of Naxxramas. Make the encounters difficult. Make the skill of the player count. Make it even more worth it to hone your tradeskills to max level, and get the rare plans/schematics/recipes/formulas/designs/patterns. That way, when someone says "I have full T9" it actually means that they're good, not that they got into a good guild.

Unfortunately, this is a two-edged sword. It means that to get these awesome items that I want, I have to be good at what I do. Not only do I have to be good, but the friends and family that I play with (who range from the equivalent of a 10-year-old girl gamer to the really cool father of a friend who really doesn't know that much about gaming) also have to be good. And for them, being that good at a game just isn't fun; it's work.

Anyway, maybe I'll put down the keyboard (for gaming! I still need it to publish my inner secrets about life, the universe, and everything) and take up cribbage instead. At the very least it'll help me build tighter relationships with people that I currently forsake to kill demons and alien orcs.