Post by OvakPost by Nate EngleAgreed, although I'd also note that the average casual player
isn't likely to have a completed tier 0 set anyway. Blizzard
does not set aside any special rewards for people who play a
few hours a week and then have a real life outside the game.
About the only concession that's given to the casual player
is rest XP bonus.
I'm sorry but a few hours a week? Are we to assume you want
epic items simply by playing 3-4 hours a week? Why for god's
sake would you be entitled to epics with so little online time?
I played the game for more than a year playing a lot more than
3-4 hours a week before I got my first epic. I wouldn't say that
people who play 3-4 hours a week should be decked out in purples,
but I DO think that the tier 0.5 gear has been falsely advertised
as a way "casual" players can get some purples without raiding
40 hours a week.
The fact of the matter is really just the opposite. The instances
where tier 0 source items drop are now a lot harder for casual
players to be able to get anything out of. Personally I think
that even more than before, this "improvement" is just going to
push the non-raiders into farming Dire Maul where they can get
similarly powered (sometimes even superior) blues, and leave
the tier 0 route to people in guilds who can pull together teams
with a proper balance of people. A DM east boss run takes as
little as 20 minutes, and there's some incredible stuff that
drops in there.
A couple of months ago I got talked into attempting a 5-man
scholo with my druid - other party members being a rogue, a
warlock, and 2 hunters. We might have done something with a
sap/sheep/ice trap combo, but absolutely no attempt made at
crowd control. One of the hunters who had never stepped foot
in the instance before insisted on being in command and calling
the shots. I gave it about 10 minutes and then excused myself.
Groups of casual amateurs like that have no place in Scholo,
but they know that's where Blizz has put some of their items
so I expect they'll go back and try it again, probably with
the same results and the same lack of tactical acumen.
Post by OvakNow if you were to say that you could put in 3-4 hours on say
a saturday, with scattered hour here hour there during the week
then I say you'd be able to get a full set of tier zero gear easily.
Not so. It depends largely on luck. I've run Scholo with my mage
more times than I can count - no shoulders. I've run Strat UD
even more - no leggings either. I do have the head piece, and
the robes, but not the boots since few people ever seemed to
want to run the postman when it was 10 man. Maybe I'll have
a chance at those now that the boots have been moved to the
Hearthsinger. But I wouldn't expect to get those from just
a few hours a week, and I wouldn't expect it to come together
"easily". That part is going to be the same tedious grind,
which maybe bothers me less than most because I have several
60s to swap around and I'm not stuck trying to eek out a last
couple of percent of armor or damage.
Blizz has taken a system where people ran tedious repetitions
of 10 man zergs, and they have turned it into a system where
people will run repeated grueling repetitions of 5 man teams,
and the only reason I have any hope of success there is that
I'm in a raiding guild where we have a good mix of characters
of the right classes to get into these instances with crowd
control appropriate to the types of mobs we'll find there -
priests for Strat and Scholo, 'locks for Dire Maul, etc.
Post by OvakMake some friends, group with people who, like yourself, can only
play a 'few hours' a week. Soon the gear will start rotting and
you'll be ready to go onto the next phase.
We have some people in our guild who are in the "few hours a
week" category. I like them and respect them enough not to
mislead them that their gear is going to come "rolling in",
because it's still all at the whim of the random number
generator.
Post by OvakIf not please don't come here and say that Blizzard doesn't set
aside any special rewards for casuals. This game is centered
around casual play.
That isn't true at all. Practically ALL of the additions that
have happened in the last 2 patches have been directed at adding
content for hardcore raiders that casual players are unlikely
to see soon (if ever). Casual players can step in and get
characters to 60 fairly easily, but that's not the same thing
as being "centered around casual play".
Post by OvakAfter all how hard is it to make 4 other friends
and set aside a set time each week to run an instance? BRD,
STRAT, SCHOLO are now all 5 man max instances. How can that
not be easy to work into? This game is so easy if you stub your
toe you level. Or at least get half way through a level. I say don't
try to level so fast and work through the instances and get the
better gear as you go.
As of this morning I hit 60 on my 5th character. Getting to
60 is trivial. By contrast getting a full set of tier 0 items
is tedious and frustrating beyond words. We've got a lot of
rogues in my guild and all but 2 of them are shit-out-of-luck
on tier 0.5 because the drop rate for shadowcraft bracers has
been low and they haven't gotten the lucky rolls.
Post by OvakWill you be able to get MC, BWL, AQ gear? Probably not but
those 3 instances require more dedication and time then a
casual would be willing or rather could be able to put into. That
is THREE areas in the whole wide World of Warcraft. That sure
leaves alot of other stuff for casuals to work on.
Oh well sorry for going on and no this post was NOT directed
at Nate but a general ranting:)
Not directed at me, but I really feel for the casual crowd
because as I've said we have a lot of them in my guild and
I really feel their frustration. The upside of this tier 0.5
situation is that we have goblin engineers in-house who
make arcanite converters and alchemists who've stockpiled
rocket fuel (to be honest I had no idea that it would ever
come in handy but I made a bunch of it and it's turned out
to be handy). We also have many accomplished fishermen and
alchemists who know the flask recipes, and we have the
organization/people that we need to get into the lab in
scholo.
Tier 0.5 is fairly cool. I'll be doing the quests (at least
the first 3) for my lock and my druid. I probably won't be
doing them for my mage since there are better purple tailored
items that I can get made for less trouble, especially now
that so many people are scrambling to do this other crap
and the price on golden pearls has taken a dive. We'll just
have to see how it goes.
I expect I'll be helping people who are trying to run the
45 minute Strat UD, and to be honest I'm not looking forward
to it that much because I think it's going to lead to many
expeditions that wipe because they get in too much of a
hurry as the time runs out. Blizz might think that's funny
that people are going to have to jump through that hoop,
but personally I don't. I'd rather that people focused
on learning how to play their classes for optimized control
of the situation - timing pulls just right, instead of
hasty sloppy pulls that are done by people who are on
the clock and desperate. But this game is from the people
who brought us Starcraft, not Civ. Giving people time to
think of the best strategies is contrary to the design
philosophy of RTS. Too bad really.