World of Warcraft: Current Year

Khane said:

I don't think they fucked up with the AP grind at all. If the system they are proposing for 7.2 had been in place at release the situation would have been exponentially worse because then you literally would be locked into a character. Could you imagine going through an exponentially increasing grind and getting close to cap only to have your current spec get fucking wrecked by the nerf train?

This longstanding idea that Blizzard holds about power difference needs to die. In that blue post they are literally saying "It's not fair that someone who plays twice as much is 10% more powerful". Enough with that shit already, they are NEVER going to be able to keep people who play 5 hours a week from falling behind people who play 50 hours a week. It's absurd that they think they can or that they think it's good practice. The linear progression of the 4th golden trait was nice. It gave us all something to work towards without feeling like insurmountable.

The AP rewards based on dungeon timers is a nice change though. Definitely should get more AP for completing a HoV than a Maw.

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You should see the people trying to ask for a weekly cap.... because that was fun

Dandai said:

I feel like you're glossing over the fact that points 35-54 are roughly equal on a cost-per-point basis.

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That's the main point they want to address. It should be an exponential growth in terms of cost according to them.

Btw I'm the 5 hour a week dude and I try my damndest but still only 42 points in. I don't complain though. Someone doing that much work should be more poweful

Dandai said:

That's the thing, a .5-1% upgrade in health and damage per week is really awesome for everyone. They'll no longer need to put out hamfisted 20-30% nerfs at the end of a tier so more players (read: casuals) can experience it. The linear progression (with a hard cap) of points 35-54 was flawed because hardcores like they aren't competitive unless they reach any given hard cap. Of course the 7.2 AP system won't dissuade hardcore groups from establishing a point "minimum" to receive a raid invite. However, when the next point is literally impossible to reach due to time-gated AK scaling, the likelihood that they'll settle on a more "reasonable" time investment is greatly increased.

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On the surface that may seem to be the case but it never actually works that way. What inevitably happens instead is the hardcore people slog through the grind anyway without regard for what's reasonable or not and the folks who weren't able to devote the time in the first place still fall just as far behind. The major difference is with an exponential system the majority of the playerbase who doesn't devote much time can't reasonably catch up. They see the next point is going to cost twice as much as the last and say "fuck that, it's only .5% anyway".

When players hit cap they have nowhere else to go, all the players who weren't devoting as much time are now catching up. With the proposed system all I see happening is people actually giving up on it entirely when they realize what it's going to take to get their next point. It's not like it was the same amount of AP every level.

53-54 is 4.6M. 35-36 is something like 2.2M. It goes up ~210k per level or something like that.

xzi said:

everyone misses my cute ass don't deny it

also cup adding you on bnet

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I meant khane misses booze but I'll never turn down your cute ass

This sounds like another edition of THE S CREW

Dandai said:

I'm too lazy to math, but couldn't the system be such that the AK increase:: AP required ratio makes it so that everyone is within a few points of each other as long as they've collected SOME AP week-to-week (as the current catch up mechanic somewhat demonstrates)? I remember when EN first released everyone in my raid was between like 19 and 22 points; ToV everyone was between 31-35 points. Another example is that it took me MONTHS to get 35 points on my main but DAYS to get 35 points on my alt. It was trivial. If AK kept scaling instead of hard capping at 25, it would currently be trivial to get 54 points.

If you expand that out infinitely, I *think* it would result in Blizzard's stated goals for AP and player power growth in 7.2. Hopefully someone more math-friendly can assist in my explanation (or debunk my napkin math).

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It's fine in theory. The issue is that they are trying to close the gap between the haves and have nots by making something harder to attain. I can't think of a single example in my entire gaming career where a system like that worked to keep player power close in line.

The only way I could think of them possibly achieving what it is they are trying to achieve is to increase the amount of AP you get from each task based on how much AP you've already gotten within a certain timeframe. Haven't logged in for a week? You get a 1000% exp bonus to AP for X amount of time. Basically exactly the way rested exp works. This does not inhibit active players but does help less active players. This new 7.2 golden trait system isn't going to solve the issue at all and I think it will make it worse frankly. I mean... how many people do you know that hit level 54 before AK25? I don't know any and I was at 53 points when AK 25 hit I think. And that was with playing a fuck ton. And since they aren't changing how AK scales up I don't get how they can even pretend this solves the issue (which isn't an issue at all if you ask me).

BoozeCube said:

It's baffling to me since we have people in the guild who seem to revel in the idea of an infinite grind. They also seem the like the idea that the grind is longer and less meaningful but I don't see how that is a positive. Maybe I am crazy but I would like to have a reachable goal where you are done. Six to Seven months of grinding one spec in an expansion to finish it seemed reasonable enough in my eyes but who knows.

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I feel the same.

Grind out your weapon then upgrade it with relics

Give your artifact rested xp. 100% bonus for 0-50%, 200% bonus for 50-100%, 300% bonus for 101+%. Let it save up 1 level per week unplayed.

I'm enjoying the game (haven't played since MoP). But I hate the community, it's the absolute worst of any MMO I've ever played. I block one person a day for being an imbecile.

Shonuff said:

I'm enjoying the game (haven't played since MoP). But I hate the community, it's the absolute worst of any MMO I've ever played. I block one person a day for being an imbecile.

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Yea, x realm nonsense has made everything like a CoD game because there's no community cohesiveness or reputation to maintain. Need a decent guild even for basic group stuff to not want to kill yourself or others constantly.

X Realm has no bearing or effect on reputation or community. The sheer size of the population in this game does in some ways I suppose.

I pug 10+ Mythics without much issue most days. And I have a decent sized friends list of people to play with as well. Community in this game is fine. People pretending they're too good to PUG on the other hand...

Lol the community is good. Oooookay bro.

Even excluding player quality, the entire game is built around "group once with this dude" xrealm group finders. That creates a very casual and flippant community without the sort of reputation or communication required.

That doesn't mean there aren't "nice people" or "good pugs", but they're like cool dudes you meet on a plane and never hear from again.

I think you're missing the point. X realm is not the reason you're just a drop in the sea in WoW. The size of the population is. This isn't new. It's been that way since vanilla, long before xrealm was a thing.

The only reason people had a reputation and you knew of them in EQ was because there was like 2000 people per server. Not because you had to use channels to shout for groups

EDIT: And yes, I do think the community is fine.

Khane said:

I think you're missing the point. X realm is not the reason you're just a drop in the sea in WoW. The size of the population is. This isn't new. It's been that way since vanilla, long before xrealm was a thing.

The only reason people had a reputation and you knew of them in EQ was because there was like 2000 people per server. Not because you had to use channels to shout for groups

EDIT: And yes, I do think the community is fine.

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No, that's not at all the case. There was a lot more player and guild recognition and fixed grouping done in classic and TBC. You can't even argue that this is not the case. X realm increases the population. You're defeating your own point.

Well I guess being able to group with people within a specific battlegroup increases the pool of players but you know you can ignore that feature entirely if you feel it ruins your immersion. LFG and General chat still exists and people do still use it to create groups and raids. I know the names of people who I see spamming it for weekly raid PUG groups constantly.

More player and guild recognition in Vanilla than now? How so? Do people not know who Method or Serenity or Limit are? Do people not know who Sco or RogerBrown are? Cross Realm hasn't affected that in any way, shape or form. I still know who the top guilds on my server are and even top guilds from other servers and Europe and Asia, are you saying you don't? I can quite easily argue that is not the case because it isn't the case. There isn't less recognition now than there was back in the day.

It's likely that the reason you think there is no "community" or that nobody is recognizable anymore is due to the fact that you won't group outside of you're guild and are treating the Dungeon and Raid Finders as nothing more than a means to an end. Have you ever actually tried adding someone you've grouped with to your friends list? Funny thing about that... you regularly find people who are friendly and good to group with in the future.

Tools like the dungeon finder haven't ruined anything in these games. Seems to me it's just pining for the glory days when people knew who YOU were because you were in a top guild. There is nothing stopping you from making your own friends and groups the "old fashioned" way. Unless you have WoW Agoraphobia or something.