We all know Uncle Ben's dictum: With great power comes great responsibility.
But what about the converse? Does great responsibility require great power?
In my previous post, I suggested that a Trinity game might be better off by sharing the responsibility of tanking between two people.
But perhaps we should go in the other direction and embrace the responsibility. For example, in the description of tanks, emphasize that they are the leader of the group. In a random, rather than having a separate leadership checkbox, have the tank automatically be the party leader in a random dungeon.
And give the tank's greater control over the group. As Dinaer suggests, give the tanks two votes in the vote-kick, with three votes kicking someone. Make it a little easier than the other roles for tanks to initiate vote-kicks.
Maybe there are other powers we could give the tank to help ensure a smooth run.
Having the responsibility without having the power to carry out that responsibility is a hard thing to bear. If we cannot do anything about the responsibility, maybe we can give them enough power to make it easier to shoulder that responsibility.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Flying Mounts
Sometimes I wonder if flying mounts were a good idea.
The thing about flying mounts is that flying mounts basically obsoleted geography. You fly up, then fly directly to your destination in the air. There's just air around you, a blank emptiness.
Whereas for ground mounts, where you are matters. Sometimes you cut across country, sometimes you follow the road. You're "in" the scenery.
Not to mention that when you see people on the roads, they're much closer to you. They're sharing the road. When flying, it's basically seeing someone pass you at a great distance. Another airplane, or ship on the horizon.
Flying mounts are cool, no doubt. But I think in a lot of ways, they started the trend of separating players from the game world. I wonder if the novelty of those mounts was really worth it.
The thing about flying mounts is that flying mounts basically obsoleted geography. You fly up, then fly directly to your destination in the air. There's just air around you, a blank emptiness.
Whereas for ground mounts, where you are matters. Sometimes you cut across country, sometimes you follow the road. You're "in" the scenery.
Not to mention that when you see people on the roads, they're much closer to you. They're sharing the road. When flying, it's basically seeing someone pass you at a great distance. Another airplane, or ship on the horizon.
Flying mounts are cool, no doubt. But I think in a lot of ways, they started the trend of separating players from the game world. I wonder if the novelty of those mounts was really worth it.
Saturday, April 09, 2011
Vampires
Apropos of nothing, I came across a F2P game today called Forsaken World. Looks like a pretty standard Eastern-ish MMO, but one of the classes available is Vampire. That sounded kind of interesting, so I took a look at it.
Apparently Vampires in this game are healers.
That just blew my mind. Vampire tanks, sure. Vampire DPS, definitely. Vampire healers...uh what?
Also, they seem to shape-shifters, which actually makes a lot of sense given the mythos, and is a pretty cool spin on the class.
And according to Melmoth at Killed in a Smiling Accident, the vampires barely wear clothes and wield giant crucifixes as weapons.
Shape-shifting vampire healers in skimpy outfits who wield giant crucifixes. The mind staggers at the design process which came up with that.
Apparently Vampires in this game are healers.
That just blew my mind. Vampire tanks, sure. Vampire DPS, definitely. Vampire healers...uh what?
Also, they seem to shape-shifters, which actually makes a lot of sense given the mythos, and is a pretty cool spin on the class.
And according to Melmoth at Killed in a Smiling Accident, the vampires barely wear clothes and wield giant crucifixes as weapons.
Shape-shifting vampire healers in skimpy outfits who wield giant crucifixes. The mind staggers at the design process which came up with that.
Friday, April 08, 2011
More Thoughts on Call To Arms
After reading comments and assorted blog posts about Call to Arms, here are some more thoughts.
Tanking isn't Quantum Mechanics
Gevlon thinks that tanking is too difficult. Difficult enough that offering an incentive won't improve things.
On the other hand, he's offering 1000 gold to everyone present at a guild-first kill of Nefarian, which seems to imply that you can motivate people to complete difficult tasks with rewards. On the scale of things, killing Nef is much more difficult than tanking.
First off, tanking isn't that hard. It looks hard at first, but practice improves everything. Personally, I think that if more people step up and try to tank, more people will find that it really isn't as bad as they thought it would be.
(Except for Ozruk. You're on your own there.)
Second, the reward is also aimed at experienced tanks who have finished gearing up in heroics. If the reward pushes those tanks to do just two daily heroics instead of one, it's a major win.
Tanking Shortage Is Not Caused By Raid Slots
I used to think that part of the reason tanks are rare is because 25-man raids require fewer than 20% tanks.
But the truth is that 25-man raids are dying (a topic for another time), and the vast majority of raiders are in 10-mans. And 10-mans have the same 20% tank ratio as a 5-man group.
So I'm not really sure this reason is valid anymore, if it ever was.
Social Cohesion
The thing about PvE in WoW is that it tends to be very egalitarian once you're in a group. There's a sense that everyone is part of the group, and everyone is contributing more or less equally, and thus everyone has more or less the same shot at the rewards. This may not be strictly true, but that's how the default loot systems work. Even Need before Greed is strictly based on armor-type, rather than any performance-based quality.
This Call To Arms explicitly breaks that illusion. Now, though the group completes the task together, one member of the group gets singled out for an extra reward. And going against that egalitarian grain often rubs people wrong.
For example, a lot of the high-end guilds give loot priority to their tanks and healers. This is deliberately unfair to the DPS, but the DPS accept it because it helps the group progress faster. The DPS sacrifice for the group, and that can restore the cohesion.
But in Call to Arms, there is no external group for the DPS to invest in. I think this will be the biggest challenge for Call to Arms. Tanks often feel "abused" by the dps and healers. Will it get worse if the game deliberately sets them apart and gives them extra rewards?
Envy is a deadly sin, but it still causes damage.
The Value of Experimentation
I may have mentioned this before, but I think our society is becoming too risk-averse in many ways. What's wrong with running experiments, with trying something new?
Honestly, if Blizzard had floated the idea of the Dungeon Finder before it was available, I think everyone would have enumerated all the things that could possibly go wrong and insisted that the Dungeon Finder would be a failure.
And a lot of those negative effects did happen. But they were greatly outweighed by the benefits, and the most negative behaviors corrected where they could be.
Doing something, seeing what happens, and fixing the problems as they emerge is far more likely to produce advances than trying to theoretically construct the "perfect" system beforehand.
Tanking isn't Quantum Mechanics
Gevlon thinks that tanking is too difficult. Difficult enough that offering an incentive won't improve things.
On the other hand, he's offering 1000 gold to everyone present at a guild-first kill of Nefarian, which seems to imply that you can motivate people to complete difficult tasks with rewards. On the scale of things, killing Nef is much more difficult than tanking.
First off, tanking isn't that hard. It looks hard at first, but practice improves everything. Personally, I think that if more people step up and try to tank, more people will find that it really isn't as bad as they thought it would be.
(Except for Ozruk. You're on your own there.)
Second, the reward is also aimed at experienced tanks who have finished gearing up in heroics. If the reward pushes those tanks to do just two daily heroics instead of one, it's a major win.
Tanking Shortage Is Not Caused By Raid Slots
I used to think that part of the reason tanks are rare is because 25-man raids require fewer than 20% tanks.
But the truth is that 25-man raids are dying (a topic for another time), and the vast majority of raiders are in 10-mans. And 10-mans have the same 20% tank ratio as a 5-man group.
So I'm not really sure this reason is valid anymore, if it ever was.
Social Cohesion
The thing about PvE in WoW is that it tends to be very egalitarian once you're in a group. There's a sense that everyone is part of the group, and everyone is contributing more or less equally, and thus everyone has more or less the same shot at the rewards. This may not be strictly true, but that's how the default loot systems work. Even Need before Greed is strictly based on armor-type, rather than any performance-based quality.
This Call To Arms explicitly breaks that illusion. Now, though the group completes the task together, one member of the group gets singled out for an extra reward. And going against that egalitarian grain often rubs people wrong.
For example, a lot of the high-end guilds give loot priority to their tanks and healers. This is deliberately unfair to the DPS, but the DPS accept it because it helps the group progress faster. The DPS sacrifice for the group, and that can restore the cohesion.
But in Call to Arms, there is no external group for the DPS to invest in. I think this will be the biggest challenge for Call to Arms. Tanks often feel "abused" by the dps and healers. Will it get worse if the game deliberately sets them apart and gives them extra rewards?
Envy is a deadly sin, but it still causes damage.
The Value of Experimentation
I may have mentioned this before, but I think our society is becoming too risk-averse in many ways. What's wrong with running experiments, with trying something new?
Honestly, if Blizzard had floated the idea of the Dungeon Finder before it was available, I think everyone would have enumerated all the things that could possibly go wrong and insisted that the Dungeon Finder would be a failure.
And a lot of those negative effects did happen. But they were greatly outweighed by the benefits, and the most negative behaviors corrected where they could be.
Doing something, seeing what happens, and fixing the problems as they emerge is far more likely to produce advances than trying to theoretically construct the "perfect" system beforehand.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Carrying a Tank
Tobold asks a question: How do you Carry a Tank?
It's pretty rare, but I've seen a group carry a tank before.
I define "carrying" as when a character performs significantly below normal, to such an extent that it requires other characters to perform significantly above normal in order for the group to be successful.
I was once put into a Dungeon Finder group with three DPS and a bear tank, all from the same guild. The bear tank had a 150k health, so I thought all was good.
As we progressed through the instance I noticed two things. First, the DPS was very good, all pushing 10k. Second, the bear was taking a ton of damage. I was having to chain Divine Lights and pop cooldowns to keep him up. I found this amazingly odd, given that the tank came from the same guild as three top-notch DPS.
Mid-way through the run, I inspected the tank. The tank was in full PvP gear. So he had a lot of health, but was missing all the avoidance and mastery that would have significantly reduced his damage taken. He was also missing the talent Natural Reaction.
The tank had enough health so that he wasn't one-shot, but he took damage at a rate that required me to burn mana at a much higher rate than normal. However, the DPS performed at such a high level that they were able to end the fights before I ran out of mana, in addition to requiring the barest minimum of healing themselves.
It's fairly obvious that the group decided to have their druid respec and wear PvP gear, and let the DPS carry him through the instance, rather than face 45 minute queue times. I think the Natural Reaction thing was just a mistake, as the druid spec looked good otherwise.
The point is that because the tank performed at such a low level, the DPS had to perform at a much higher level so that the run was successful. The performance of the DPS effectively carried the performance of the tank in that run.
The moral of the story is that very high DPS forgives a lot of sins.
It's pretty rare, but I've seen a group carry a tank before.
I define "carrying" as when a character performs significantly below normal, to such an extent that it requires other characters to perform significantly above normal in order for the group to be successful.
I was once put into a Dungeon Finder group with three DPS and a bear tank, all from the same guild. The bear tank had a 150k health, so I thought all was good.
As we progressed through the instance I noticed two things. First, the DPS was very good, all pushing 10k. Second, the bear was taking a ton of damage. I was having to chain Divine Lights and pop cooldowns to keep him up. I found this amazingly odd, given that the tank came from the same guild as three top-notch DPS.
Mid-way through the run, I inspected the tank. The tank was in full PvP gear. So he had a lot of health, but was missing all the avoidance and mastery that would have significantly reduced his damage taken. He was also missing the talent Natural Reaction.
The tank had enough health so that he wasn't one-shot, but he took damage at a rate that required me to burn mana at a much higher rate than normal. However, the DPS performed at such a high level that they were able to end the fights before I ran out of mana, in addition to requiring the barest minimum of healing themselves.
It's fairly obvious that the group decided to have their druid respec and wear PvP gear, and let the DPS carry him through the instance, rather than face 45 minute queue times. I think the Natural Reaction thing was just a mistake, as the druid spec looked good otherwise.
The point is that because the tank performed at such a low level, the DPS had to perform at a much higher level so that the run was successful. The performance of the DPS effectively carried the performance of the tank in that run.
The moral of the story is that very high DPS forgives a lot of sins.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Solving the Tank Problem
Blizzard unveiled a new system to bribe incentivize tanks to run random heroics.
Everyone else will probably be commenting on it in greater detail. My take is that it is a reasonable experiment. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. Also, the single best comment on this system comes from Martinel, posted on WoW Insider:
But seriously, how would you solve the tank problem for real? The truth is that, in every trinity MMO I've played, save one, the tank has been the limiting factor.
Maybe it would be instructive to look at the one game that was different: Age of Conan. To me, Age of Conan tanking seemed pretty hard, so it was quite surprising that you could find tanks.
After ruminating on it, I've come to the conclusion that the key difference was that Age of Conan required two tanks. At first this seems counter-intuitive, how can requiring more tanks for a harder job make it easier to find tanks?
But players have always cited the responsibility of tanking as a key factor in keeping people from tanking. Perhaps people are more willing to tank if they know that the responsibility will be shared, that there will be another tank in the group to help you.
And it's not really that hard to have another tank in the mix. You tank X, I tank Skull. You get the boss, I get the adds. I have better gear, so I'll tank the boss and you can watch and learn from me and do a little DPS. It's easier in instances than raids, because it's really not worth wasting time swapping out a tank for a single fight if you will just need to get them back again.
Healing could also benefit from having two healers, depending on how you heal. If healing is a little more passive, so the healers aren't constantly stepping on each others toes. I'm less sure of this, because AoC required two healers, but healers were pretty rare.
So maybe the proper group would be 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 2 DPS. Or maybe instead of DPS, have 2 Crowd Control, and have all three roles put out roughly equivalent damage. And design the class system to match that ratio, rather than having 50%+ DPS classes/specs.
Everyone else will probably be commenting on it in greater detail. My take is that it is a reasonable experiment. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. Also, the single best comment on this system comes from Martinel, posted on WoW Insider:
Well. Rogues, mages, warlocks, and hunters...being pure DPS classes, they won't really be eligible for this, will they?
I guess you could call this a hybrid tax...
*sunglasses*
..refund.
But seriously, how would you solve the tank problem for real? The truth is that, in every trinity MMO I've played, save one, the tank has been the limiting factor.
Maybe it would be instructive to look at the one game that was different: Age of Conan. To me, Age of Conan tanking seemed pretty hard, so it was quite surprising that you could find tanks.
After ruminating on it, I've come to the conclusion that the key difference was that Age of Conan required two tanks. At first this seems counter-intuitive, how can requiring more tanks for a harder job make it easier to find tanks?
But players have always cited the responsibility of tanking as a key factor in keeping people from tanking. Perhaps people are more willing to tank if they know that the responsibility will be shared, that there will be another tank in the group to help you.
And it's not really that hard to have another tank in the mix. You tank X, I tank Skull. You get the boss, I get the adds. I have better gear, so I'll tank the boss and you can watch and learn from me and do a little DPS. It's easier in instances than raids, because it's really not worth wasting time swapping out a tank for a single fight if you will just need to get them back again.
Healing could also benefit from having two healers, depending on how you heal. If healing is a little more passive, so the healers aren't constantly stepping on each others toes. I'm less sure of this, because AoC required two healers, but healers were pretty rare.
So maybe the proper group would be 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 2 DPS. Or maybe instead of DPS, have 2 Crowd Control, and have all three roles put out roughly equivalent damage. And design the class system to match that ratio, rather than having 50%+ DPS classes/specs.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Intellect Plate
Ghostcrawler, in his post on Stats on Gear, talks a bit about holy paladins:
Heh. I'm pretty sure we're all down with this. Ghostcrawler goes on to say:
I like Intellect plate. I'm really happy that the devs have refrained from expecting Holy paladins to wear mail. To me, it's one of the iconic elements of the class. Paladins wear plate. I played through the times where Holy Paladins would dress in cloth, and they were terrible.
As for wearing Strength plate, in my mind the real problem with that solution is the non-armor item slots like rings and weapons. Right now, holy paladins have their own armor and share the non-armor slots with the other healers. If we were expected to wear Strength plate, would we also wear Strength rings and use DPS weapons? Or would we wear Strength plate but Intellect rings? Or would we become the new hunters, and simply roll on everything.
It sounds a loot more complicated than the current system. The current system is simple. You're a paladin so you wear plate. You're a healer so you go for Intellect and Spirit. That's pretty much all you need to know to get a good start gearing your Holy paladin.
Intellect plate isn't ideal. But I think it's the most workable solution. Between the larger amounts of loot dropping from bosses, tier tokens, and vendor items, I think that having Intellect plate isn't too much of an inconvenience.
Now, if only Blizz would make a two-handed healing mace with Intellect and Spirit.
I mentioned two out of three paladin specs above. That third spec has been a thorn in our side for a long time. Paladins in general have a knack for that. I kid. (Mostly.)
Heh. I'm pretty sure we're all down with this. Ghostcrawler goes on to say:
I'm talking about Intellect plate. We don't like Intellect plate, but we haven’t come up with a good alternative for it. The pitches we hear most often have downsides we don't like. Yes, a Holy paladin could wear mail… at which point their silhouette would look a lot like a shaman instead of a paladin. Yes, Holy paladins could derive their spell power from Strength… at which point they also hit with their weapons nearly as hard as Ret paladins. Yes, we could convert all that Strength to spell power, and convert the Hit to Spirit and the Expertise to Mastery or whatever. The Spirit to Hit conversion does the job, but it's not super elegant or intuitive. I’m not sure we want to pile more onto that design.
I like Intellect plate. I'm really happy that the devs have refrained from expecting Holy paladins to wear mail. To me, it's one of the iconic elements of the class. Paladins wear plate. I played through the times where Holy Paladins would dress in cloth, and they were terrible.
As for wearing Strength plate, in my mind the real problem with that solution is the non-armor item slots like rings and weapons. Right now, holy paladins have their own armor and share the non-armor slots with the other healers. If we were expected to wear Strength plate, would we also wear Strength rings and use DPS weapons? Or would we wear Strength plate but Intellect rings? Or would we become the new hunters, and simply roll on everything.
It sounds a loot more complicated than the current system. The current system is simple. You're a paladin so you wear plate. You're a healer so you go for Intellect and Spirit. That's pretty much all you need to know to get a good start gearing your Holy paladin.
Intellect plate isn't ideal. But I think it's the most workable solution. Between the larger amounts of loot dropping from bosses, tier tokens, and vendor items, I think that having Intellect plate isn't too much of an inconvenience.
Now, if only Blizz would make a two-handed healing mace with Intellect and Spirit.
Monday, April 04, 2011
Progress Updates
My guild is chugging along, moving into heroics. We're currently 4/13 with Halfus, Magmaw, Atramedes, and Chimeron dead. We're working on Maloriak at the moment. Of those listed, I've seen all but Magmaw.
The heroic fights are okay. They're like ICC heroics, just the normal versions with 1 extra mechanic and the damage dealt and dps required dialed up.
Truth be told, when WoW is over, I think we'll look back at Ulduar as the high point of raiding over the game's lifetime.
Loot-wise, I think Blizzard needs to pay a little more attention to where stuff drops. There are five different epic plate healing belts, including one from reputation and one from crafting. Yet there is only one epic plate healing bracer, and it drops from an end-boss.
Or healing weapons. Putting the two healing weapons paladins can use on the end-bosses was not a good choice. I think some care should be taken that end-bosses don't share item slots or types in their loot tables.
(I guess you can tell which two items I'm missing to finish i359.)
It would have worked if people cleared Blackwing Descent before starting on Bastion of Twilight. But sadly, people don't approach bosses in that manner when multiple raids are available. They bounce around in order of difficulty, and you can almost guarantee that all the end-bosses will be killed at the very end.
The heroic fights are okay. They're like ICC heroics, just the normal versions with 1 extra mechanic and the damage dealt and dps required dialed up.
Truth be told, when WoW is over, I think we'll look back at Ulduar as the high point of raiding over the game's lifetime.
Loot-wise, I think Blizzard needs to pay a little more attention to where stuff drops. There are five different epic plate healing belts, including one from reputation and one from crafting. Yet there is only one epic plate healing bracer, and it drops from an end-boss.
Or healing weapons. Putting the two healing weapons paladins can use on the end-bosses was not a good choice. I think some care should be taken that end-bosses don't share item slots or types in their loot tables.
(I guess you can tell which two items I'm missing to finish i359.)
It would have worked if people cleared Blackwing Descent before starting on Bastion of Twilight. But sadly, people don't approach bosses in that manner when multiple raids are available. They bounce around in order of difficulty, and you can almost guarantee that all the end-bosses will be killed at the very end.
Sunday, April 03, 2011
Learning Programming Using WoW
Ian Lamont sent me the following:
Now, I'm a software dev by trade, so this was pretty interesting. Games have traditionally been a path into programming, and WoW does have some interesting features for aspiring devs.
One thing about WoW is that it is an "information-rich" environment. There's all sorts of API calls you can make to get information about different parts of the game world. Then you can easily change things, and make the same calls and get different data.
In the link above, this is illustrated with simple calls like "IsOutdoors()". You can move your character in and out of buildings to get different results.
That's something which is actually somewhat hard to set up from scratch at the beginner level. You have to set up a datasource, and then connect to it, then learn how to query it and interpret the results.
As well, it's easy to move into simple, useful mods in WoW. Sometimes it seems like it is pretty hard to make a simple app these days. Making a small mod is a lower bar.
On the other hand, WoW does have one huge philosophical negative as an environment to learn to program in. Programming is more than just processing data and displaying it. The other half of programming is automation. Not just slicing and dicing information, but "doing" multiple actions.
And here WoW goes to great lengths to prevent the user-programmer from being able to automate actions. You'd have to make clear the idea of what is theoretically possible to automate, like moving your character in a pattern, but is prevented by the game company.
Either way, it's an interesting idea. Learning to program can be challenging at first, because it often seems like there's this entire framework that needs to be set up before you can accomplish anything. But in WoW, that framework already exists and has useful data. And mods and the mod community provides a ready path for the new programmer to make small apps that may even be useful to other people.
But in the long run, I wonder how a programmer who doesn't grasp the concept of automation is going to fare.
Thought you might be interested in an MIT class project: Developing a basic computer science curriculum around Lua scripting in WoW. We published it earlier this month at the following location:
http://www.ilamont.com/2012/02/teaching-computer-science-through-wow.html
Now, I'm a software dev by trade, so this was pretty interesting. Games have traditionally been a path into programming, and WoW does have some interesting features for aspiring devs.
One thing about WoW is that it is an "information-rich" environment. There's all sorts of API calls you can make to get information about different parts of the game world. Then you can easily change things, and make the same calls and get different data.
In the link above, this is illustrated with simple calls like "IsOutdoors()". You can move your character in and out of buildings to get different results.
That's something which is actually somewhat hard to set up from scratch at the beginner level. You have to set up a datasource, and then connect to it, then learn how to query it and interpret the results.
As well, it's easy to move into simple, useful mods in WoW. Sometimes it seems like it is pretty hard to make a simple app these days. Making a small mod is a lower bar.
On the other hand, WoW does have one huge philosophical negative as an environment to learn to program in. Programming is more than just processing data and displaying it. The other half of programming is automation. Not just slicing and dicing information, but "doing" multiple actions.
And here WoW goes to great lengths to prevent the user-programmer from being able to automate actions. You'd have to make clear the idea of what is theoretically possible to automate, like moving your character in a pattern, but is prevented by the game company.
Either way, it's an interesting idea. Learning to program can be challenging at first, because it often seems like there's this entire framework that needs to be set up before you can accomplish anything. But in WoW, that framework already exists and has useful data. And mods and the mod community provides a ready path for the new programmer to make small apps that may even be useful to other people.
But in the long run, I wonder how a programmer who doesn't grasp the concept of automation is going to fare.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Ask Mr. Robot
Here's a nice website I used the other day: Ask Mr. Robot
It allows you to load your character from the Armory, and then you hit an Optimize button and it tells you the best way to gem, enchant, and most importantly, reforge your gear. There's options to not use Maelstrom Crystals, etc.
I tried it out for my Retribution spec, because it was a big mess. Then I executed all the suggestions for reforging and regemming. Surprising, I could actually feel the difference when I went to do dailies in Tol Barad. Mobs were dying faster.
It managed to pretty much nail the hit cap with 8.01% hit (cap is 8.00%).
The defaults look pretty decent. They're taken from theorycraft sites like Elitist Jerks. But there's also the option to change the default stat weights to whatever you prefer.
So, Ask Mr. Robot. Very easy to use, and a very nice site to help optimize your character.
It allows you to load your character from the Armory, and then you hit an Optimize button and it tells you the best way to gem, enchant, and most importantly, reforge your gear. There's options to not use Maelstrom Crystals, etc.
I tried it out for my Retribution spec, because it was a big mess. Then I executed all the suggestions for reforging and regemming. Surprising, I could actually feel the difference when I went to do dailies in Tol Barad. Mobs were dying faster.
It managed to pretty much nail the hit cap with 8.01% hit (cap is 8.00%).
The defaults look pretty decent. They're taken from theorycraft sites like Elitist Jerks. But there's also the option to change the default stat weights to whatever you prefer.
So, Ask Mr. Robot. Very easy to use, and a very nice site to help optimize your character.
Friday, April 01, 2011
Alternative Holy Paladin Masteries?
Continuing on from the last post, let's say that this whole shield mastery just didn't work out. What would be an interesting ability to replace it?
So far, Masteries should not apply all the time, and they should be somewhat unique. So what's interesting about holy paladins? In the past we've been known for our single-target healing, but directly increasing those is pretty boring. We have Hand spells, but they're used too infrequently to really be a useful mastery.
Beacon of Light is another iconic spell. But the last time Beacon got too strong, it got overpowered, and ended up pigeon-holing us. As well, it's actually possible that a Holy paladin might not have Beacon in her spec. It's unlikely, but possible. Having a mastery tie into a technically optional ability is probably not the best of ideas.
My thought is that there are four possibilities.
1. Judgement
Judgement is a signature paladin spell. It's also something that we cast a lot. (You should be Judging on cooldown for the mana return.) So maybe something that triggers off Judgment would be interesting. Some ideas:
"After casting Judgement, the effectiveness of your next 3 healing spells is increased by X%."
"Casting Judgement causes 5 players with 5 yards of the target to be healed for X% of the damage done."
"Casting Judgement places a debuff on the target that lasts for 15 seconds. The effectiveness of your heals on the target of the debuffed target is increased by X%."
(The third is a bit awkward, and possibly overpowered, but it's a nod to our tank healing days.)
2. The Holy Power system
The Holy Power system is fairly unique among healers. Playing off this might be interesting:
"Increases the effectiveness of Word of Glory and Light of Dawn by X%."
"Your direct heals have a X% chance to generate a point of Holy Power."
The problem with the Holy Power system is that too much HP generation causes us to have excess mana, and that always leads to trouble.
3. Criticals
In the past, paladins have always cared about critical heals, mostly because of Illumination. Tying crits to mana is a bad idea, but there are other options:
"Increases the bonus healing done by critical heals by X%."
"Your critical heals heal the target for an additional X% over 6 seconds."
This might even make critical strike rating a more attractive stat.
4. Instant spells
This is new to Cataclysm, but we actually have a significant chunk of instant spells: Holy Shock, Holy Radiance, Word of Glory, and Light of Dawn. Maybe:
"Increases the effectiveness of your instant cast healing and damage spells by X%."
(Damage spells just for fun and flavor.)
The problem with this would be PvP as instants are very powerful there.
Conclusion
That's just some brainstorming over possible replacement Masteries for Holy Paladins. Any other ideas?
So far, Masteries should not apply all the time, and they should be somewhat unique. So what's interesting about holy paladins? In the past we've been known for our single-target healing, but directly increasing those is pretty boring. We have Hand spells, but they're used too infrequently to really be a useful mastery.
Beacon of Light is another iconic spell. But the last time Beacon got too strong, it got overpowered, and ended up pigeon-holing us. As well, it's actually possible that a Holy paladin might not have Beacon in her spec. It's unlikely, but possible. Having a mastery tie into a technically optional ability is probably not the best of ideas.
My thought is that there are four possibilities.
1. Judgement
Judgement is a signature paladin spell. It's also something that we cast a lot. (You should be Judging on cooldown for the mana return.) So maybe something that triggers off Judgment would be interesting. Some ideas:
"After casting Judgement, the effectiveness of your next 3 healing spells is increased by X%."
"Casting Judgement causes 5 players with 5 yards of the target to be healed for X% of the damage done."
"Casting Judgement places a debuff on the target that lasts for 15 seconds. The effectiveness of your heals on the target of the debuffed target is increased by X%."
(The third is a bit awkward, and possibly overpowered, but it's a nod to our tank healing days.)
2. The Holy Power system
The Holy Power system is fairly unique among healers. Playing off this might be interesting:
"Increases the effectiveness of Word of Glory and Light of Dawn by X%."
"Your direct heals have a X% chance to generate a point of Holy Power."
The problem with the Holy Power system is that too much HP generation causes us to have excess mana, and that always leads to trouble.
3. Criticals
In the past, paladins have always cared about critical heals, mostly because of Illumination. Tying crits to mana is a bad idea, but there are other options:
"Increases the bonus healing done by critical heals by X%."
"Your critical heals heal the target for an additional X% over 6 seconds."
This might even make critical strike rating a more attractive stat.
4. Instant spells
This is new to Cataclysm, but we actually have a significant chunk of instant spells: Holy Shock, Holy Radiance, Word of Glory, and Light of Dawn. Maybe:
"Increases the effectiveness of your instant cast healing and damage spells by X%."
(Damage spells just for fun and flavor.)
The problem with this would be PvP as instants are very powerful there.
Conclusion
That's just some brainstorming over possible replacement Masteries for Holy Paladins. Any other ideas?
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Ask Coriel: Holy Paladin Mastery?
Jeremy asks:
Even with the changes coming in 4.1, most theorycrafters seem to agree that the holy paladin mastery (Illuminated Healing) will not be as good as haste. Mastery rating might end up slightly better than crit rating, but will probably be more or less at the same level, and still below haste rating (and definitely below Spirit).
The problem with our mastery is two-fold. First, Protector of the Innocent, Holy Radiance, and Beacon of Light heals do not trigger it. And those three abilities comprise a significant portion of our total healing.
The second problem is that our mastery does not stack. Let's say you cast a heal on a target with a mastery shield already on it. If the new shield is larger than the remaining shield, the new shield replaces the old one. If the new shield is smaller than the old shield, the duration of the old shield is refreshed. Either way, you end up with less absorption than you would expect.
In my experience, Illuminated Healing accounts for a bit less than half of the number stated in the description. That is, if the description states that the shield is 10% of your healing, you can expect it to absorb 4-5%.
Now, I don't think Blizzard is entirely happy with our Mastery. I think they like the general idea of Illuminated Healing. To be honest, I like the general idea too. In theory, it's a nice complement to our direct healing style, providing a small buffer for the next bit of damage, and as a nod to our previous history of tank healing.
What I believe is happening is that Blizzard is trying to avoid an exploit with our Mastery. Let's say that the shields stacked. The obvious exploit is to cast a ton of heals on the tanks before the fight starts, or during lulls in the fight, and build up a giant shield. We would be spamming heals on the tank even if she was at full health, and that's not a healthy or desired play-style.
Ideally, shields would "roll" like Ignite does. The shields would stack, but 8 seconds after a shield is cast, whatever remains of that particular shield disappears. So the shield can't hang around forever, but they don't get wasted before their lifespan expires. However, there might be technical issues with this. I remember it took a long time for Ignite to roll correctly. Even recently Blizzard removed Ignite triggering on periodic spell ticks in order to keep it working properly. And Illuminated Healing is actually more complicated than Ignite, because the shield is reduced by damage in an unpredictable manner.
There are other options, including allowing the shields to stack but having a maximum shield size (maybe dependent on how much Mastery one has). But that still gets into the whole pre-healing in order to get a max shield up scenario.
Another alternative is having the shield only count on actual healing done, not over-healing. But we all remember how dicey that was when Beacon worked that way. It might work out better now, with the larger health bars, but it might not.
Or maybe have the shield stack, but lose 20% of its current value every second. Actually, this probably a bad idea, I think the math on it looks weird, and it's still vulnerable to pre-healing.
So as you can see, there's really no "nice" solution for our Mastery. Blizzard's current solution is as good--or as bad--as anything I can think of. In the end, eventually raising the value of mastery will get it to a point where we will use it.
Maybe I am missing something but I feel like the way the game works right now, the designers intended Mastery to be a super great stat for Holy Pallies. However, as it’s been, stacking haste seems much more effective (maybe I am wrong on this). As I am sure you know, the next patch is (slightly?) increasing the effect of mastery for holy paladins. In your opinion is this going to mean we should start mastery instead of haste, or was mastery never something the game intended us to persue?
Even with the changes coming in 4.1, most theorycrafters seem to agree that the holy paladin mastery (Illuminated Healing) will not be as good as haste. Mastery rating might end up slightly better than crit rating, but will probably be more or less at the same level, and still below haste rating (and definitely below Spirit).
The problem with our mastery is two-fold. First, Protector of the Innocent, Holy Radiance, and Beacon of Light heals do not trigger it. And those three abilities comprise a significant portion of our total healing.
The second problem is that our mastery does not stack. Let's say you cast a heal on a target with a mastery shield already on it. If the new shield is larger than the remaining shield, the new shield replaces the old one. If the new shield is smaller than the old shield, the duration of the old shield is refreshed. Either way, you end up with less absorption than you would expect.
In my experience, Illuminated Healing accounts for a bit less than half of the number stated in the description. That is, if the description states that the shield is 10% of your healing, you can expect it to absorb 4-5%.
Now, I don't think Blizzard is entirely happy with our Mastery. I think they like the general idea of Illuminated Healing. To be honest, I like the general idea too. In theory, it's a nice complement to our direct healing style, providing a small buffer for the next bit of damage, and as a nod to our previous history of tank healing.
What I believe is happening is that Blizzard is trying to avoid an exploit with our Mastery. Let's say that the shields stacked. The obvious exploit is to cast a ton of heals on the tanks before the fight starts, or during lulls in the fight, and build up a giant shield. We would be spamming heals on the tank even if she was at full health, and that's not a healthy or desired play-style.
Ideally, shields would "roll" like Ignite does. The shields would stack, but 8 seconds after a shield is cast, whatever remains of that particular shield disappears. So the shield can't hang around forever, but they don't get wasted before their lifespan expires. However, there might be technical issues with this. I remember it took a long time for Ignite to roll correctly. Even recently Blizzard removed Ignite triggering on periodic spell ticks in order to keep it working properly. And Illuminated Healing is actually more complicated than Ignite, because the shield is reduced by damage in an unpredictable manner.
There are other options, including allowing the shields to stack but having a maximum shield size (maybe dependent on how much Mastery one has). But that still gets into the whole pre-healing in order to get a max shield up scenario.
Another alternative is having the shield only count on actual healing done, not over-healing. But we all remember how dicey that was when Beacon worked that way. It might work out better now, with the larger health bars, but it might not.
Or maybe have the shield stack, but lose 20% of its current value every second. Actually, this probably a bad idea, I think the math on it looks weird, and it's still vulnerable to pre-healing.
So as you can see, there's really no "nice" solution for our Mastery. Blizzard's current solution is as good--or as bad--as anything I can think of. In the end, eventually raising the value of mastery will get it to a point where we will use it.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Automatically Measuring Contribution
Lately, more and more games with group activities have been trying to hand out rewards based on the individual's contribution to group's success. The latest example is rewards for defeating rifts in RIFT. The problem with all these systems is that contribution is very hard to measure automatically. It's bounded by role, by level, and by strategy. Trying to say that Joe contributed more than Randolph, and thus deserves more reward, is a very hard problem.
It's even harder once players start trying to game the system. For example, RIFT apparently used the rate at which you used abilities to determine contribution. Which sounds pretty reasonable at first. If you constantly attacking, or constantly healing, you're probably contributing a lot. But players then started spamming buffs, or spamming abilities like "Track Minerals" to get to the top of the contribution meter. Obviously, Trion will fix this, but it illustrates how hard measuring contribution is.
I wonder if the better tactic would be to change the question. Instead of How much did the player contribute?, maybe the game should just ask: Did the player contribute? Instead of trying to quantify contribution, just make the question binary. And then just more or less equally reward everyone who did contribute.
I think the binary question is much easier to answer. For a game without defense, I would just use the damage done, healing or damage taken meters. If you are above a certain threshold of the top value on at least one meter, you probably did contribute to the group's success. It would be a low threshold, like say 20%. If you did more than 20% of the top damage dealer, you'd count as a contributing dps.
That's enough to give you a shot at the rewards, in my opinion. It may not be perfectly fair, but it's "fair enough", and all the other systems seem be able to be exploited more easily.
Now defense is much harder to measure. Let's say you're defending the mine in Arathi Basin, and no enemies attack you. You're still contributing to the group's success, but you don't show up on any of the meters. Maybe one solution would have the defending point give out a buff in a certain radius, and then have a meter count the time spent with that buff. A "time defending" meter. And then use the same threshold system as for the other meters.
So to conclude, quantifying contribution automatically is hard and vulnerable to exploitation. Reducing the question to a binary "Did the player contribute?" might be easier and fair enough to satisfy the player base.
It's even harder once players start trying to game the system. For example, RIFT apparently used the rate at which you used abilities to determine contribution. Which sounds pretty reasonable at first. If you constantly attacking, or constantly healing, you're probably contributing a lot. But players then started spamming buffs, or spamming abilities like "Track Minerals" to get to the top of the contribution meter. Obviously, Trion will fix this, but it illustrates how hard measuring contribution is.
I wonder if the better tactic would be to change the question. Instead of How much did the player contribute?, maybe the game should just ask: Did the player contribute? Instead of trying to quantify contribution, just make the question binary. And then just more or less equally reward everyone who did contribute.
I think the binary question is much easier to answer. For a game without defense, I would just use the damage done, healing or damage taken meters. If you are above a certain threshold of the top value on at least one meter, you probably did contribute to the group's success. It would be a low threshold, like say 20%. If you did more than 20% of the top damage dealer, you'd count as a contributing dps.
That's enough to give you a shot at the rewards, in my opinion. It may not be perfectly fair, but it's "fair enough", and all the other systems seem be able to be exploited more easily.
Now defense is much harder to measure. Let's say you're defending the mine in Arathi Basin, and no enemies attack you. You're still contributing to the group's success, but you don't show up on any of the meters. Maybe one solution would have the defending point give out a buff in a certain radius, and then have a meter count the time spent with that buff. A "time defending" meter. And then use the same threshold system as for the other meters.
So to conclude, quantifying contribution automatically is hard and vulnerable to exploitation. Reducing the question to a binary "Did the player contribute?" might be easier and fair enough to satisfy the player base.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Interrupts
Lots of people, including Ghostcrawler, are talking about interrupts lately. So I'll throw in my two cents. Again, I play mostly PvE, so I'm pretty much ignoring the PvP aspects.
Back in Wrath, a lot of us healers complained that healing was too unforgiving and stressful. Sometimes it felt like you'd miss a heal, and the tank would die. I think Blizzard agreed with that perspective, and changed the balance between healing and tank health for Cataclysm.
But in some respects, it seems like that "unforgiving" element of fights has moved to interrupts. A lot of fights seem to follow the pattern: going fine, going fine, missed interrupt, raid wipes. It's very frustrating for the interrupter, and it's very frustrating for the rest of the raid.
And even the cast times seem to be excessively fast. It seems like the standard interruptible boss spell cast time is 1.5 seconds. That's a really short window. I'm actually rather impressed with our interrupters to be able to hit that small window each time, especially with lag and latency and Halfus knockdowns.1
The other thing that annoys me about interrupts is that Curse of Tongues does not seem to work on most bosses. I mean, here we have a spell that's tailor-made to make interrupting easier, and it's completely useless most of the time. It feels "right" that Blizzard would expect us to use Curse of Tongues to help out the interrupters. The perfect time to use a rarely used skill. And yet, no dice.
If I was to fix anything about interrupts, it would be to make Curse of Tongues and similar debuffs usable in Normal modes, at the very least. That would bring the 1.5 second cast time up to ~2 seconds for Normal modes. I think this would make the interrupts more forgiving, and be more balanced for that level of raiding. Heroic bosses can remain immune to Curse of Tongues, upping the challenge for interrupters playing at the higher level.
1. Honestly, WTF is this? Rotating mages ice-blocking and stun-break CDs through the last knockdown so we can interrupt? Did this not strike anyone at Blizzard as slightly excessive?
Back in Wrath, a lot of us healers complained that healing was too unforgiving and stressful. Sometimes it felt like you'd miss a heal, and the tank would die. I think Blizzard agreed with that perspective, and changed the balance between healing and tank health for Cataclysm.
But in some respects, it seems like that "unforgiving" element of fights has moved to interrupts. A lot of fights seem to follow the pattern: going fine, going fine, missed interrupt, raid wipes. It's very frustrating for the interrupter, and it's very frustrating for the rest of the raid.
And even the cast times seem to be excessively fast. It seems like the standard interruptible boss spell cast time is 1.5 seconds. That's a really short window. I'm actually rather impressed with our interrupters to be able to hit that small window each time, especially with lag and latency and Halfus knockdowns.1
The other thing that annoys me about interrupts is that Curse of Tongues does not seem to work on most bosses. I mean, here we have a spell that's tailor-made to make interrupting easier, and it's completely useless most of the time. It feels "right" that Blizzard would expect us to use Curse of Tongues to help out the interrupters. The perfect time to use a rarely used skill. And yet, no dice.
If I was to fix anything about interrupts, it would be to make Curse of Tongues and similar debuffs usable in Normal modes, at the very least. That would bring the 1.5 second cast time up to ~2 seconds for Normal modes. I think this would make the interrupts more forgiving, and be more balanced for that level of raiding. Heroic bosses can remain immune to Curse of Tongues, upping the challenge for interrupters playing at the higher level.
1. Honestly, WTF is this? Rotating mages ice-blocking and stun-break CDs through the last knockdown so we can interrupt? Did this not strike anyone at Blizzard as slightly excessive?
Monday, March 28, 2011
Trading Time for Money
Brian Green posted an interesting comparison of the online stores of Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online. He also posts a look at the F2P shop of Puzzle Pirates, which he sees as close to the "ideal" cash shop. I just want to examine one element of that shop:
I don't think this sort of trade is a good idea. To me, it seems like the people who are "good" at the game will end up playing for free with all the perks, explicitly subsidized by those players who are not good.
Second, from the companies point of view, the people who are "hardcore" about your game are also more likely to spend money on your game. But now they're not spending money on the game, but they are spending more time in the game. It feels like you are unnecessarily cutting yourself off from your greatest source of support.
Like, if you look at WoW, this kind of setup would probably mean that all the raiders would sell gold to the lower-end people. Raiders would be the ones playing for free while the casuals subsidized them to an even greater extent. That doesn't really seem either fair or wise to me.
I think my aversion to these schemes started because I used to play Magic Online. You had to buy packs of cards to enter tournaments. But if you won the tournaments, you won packs of cards. So the good players would "go infinite" where they never actually had to pay for the game, while the losers did all the paying. It struck me as pretty distasteful, and rather disheartening.
Now admittedly, most MMOs don't have that level of competition built in. The competition is more indirect. But it still strikes me as unfair to let the strong get a free ride at the expense of the weak.
3. A market for exchanging microcurrency and in-game currency. To me, this is the brilliant part. Love playing the game, but don't have cash to fork out? You can go to the market and put an offer in to buy doubloons (the microcurrency) with your pieces o' eight (Po8). Have some disposable income, but not a lot of time to go farm Po8? Go to the market and put in an offer to sell doubloons for a certain amount of Po8. The players set the market so this isn't just about dumping currency into the game, and the doubloons still have to be bought from someone, so this is something more games should pick up on.
I don't think this sort of trade is a good idea. To me, it seems like the people who are "good" at the game will end up playing for free with all the perks, explicitly subsidized by those players who are not good.
Second, from the companies point of view, the people who are "hardcore" about your game are also more likely to spend money on your game. But now they're not spending money on the game, but they are spending more time in the game. It feels like you are unnecessarily cutting yourself off from your greatest source of support.
Like, if you look at WoW, this kind of setup would probably mean that all the raiders would sell gold to the lower-end people. Raiders would be the ones playing for free while the casuals subsidized them to an even greater extent. That doesn't really seem either fair or wise to me.
I think my aversion to these schemes started because I used to play Magic Online. You had to buy packs of cards to enter tournaments. But if you won the tournaments, you won packs of cards. So the good players would "go infinite" where they never actually had to pay for the game, while the losers did all the paying. It struck me as pretty distasteful, and rather disheartening.
Now admittedly, most MMOs don't have that level of competition built in. The competition is more indirect. But it still strikes me as unfair to let the strong get a free ride at the expense of the weak.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Alts and Raids
Gevlon is debating weakening his guild's "no-alt" rule in order to make it easier to create raids.
In my personal opinion, I don't think that alts really help a lot with raiding. Raiders much prefer to play their main character. The alt is invariably geared at a much lower level than the rest of the raid. Consistent raiding gears a character up, and improves their skills. If you're consistently raiding on an alt, you have question whether that's really an alt.
It also breeds a little bit of resentment among the people who don't bring their alts. Everyone has alts, but why is Jane allowed to get gear and improve her alt, while Vanessa (who doesn't need anything from the raid) has to carry her?
The only situations where I would use alts in a raid is if the fight absolutely depended on one class ability (Mind Control on Instructor Razuvious) or you're a Royalty guild raid-stacking for the cutting edge of content.
For everyone else, it's extra complexity that doesn't really add anything. Indeed I think it weakens the raid if you get into the habit of bringing in alts. The best progression comes with a stable core of characters, and bringing in alts cuts against that.
The only real solution is to recruit for the roles you are missing, including bench or reserve slots and rotating people. Perhaps try a system like Pods to guide your efforts.
Note: I do think the no-alt rule in general is excessive. After a while, you generally "finish" a character, and can only improve them through raiding. A lot of people like spending the free time on playing a new character. I'm not really sure what keeping those secondary characters out of the guild actually accomplishes. But I stand by my rule of "no alts in the primary raid."
In my personal opinion, I don't think that alts really help a lot with raiding. Raiders much prefer to play their main character. The alt is invariably geared at a much lower level than the rest of the raid. Consistent raiding gears a character up, and improves their skills. If you're consistently raiding on an alt, you have question whether that's really an alt.
It also breeds a little bit of resentment among the people who don't bring their alts. Everyone has alts, but why is Jane allowed to get gear and improve her alt, while Vanessa (who doesn't need anything from the raid) has to carry her?
The only situations where I would use alts in a raid is if the fight absolutely depended on one class ability (Mind Control on Instructor Razuvious) or you're a Royalty guild raid-stacking for the cutting edge of content.
For everyone else, it's extra complexity that doesn't really add anything. Indeed I think it weakens the raid if you get into the habit of bringing in alts. The best progression comes with a stable core of characters, and bringing in alts cuts against that.
The only real solution is to recruit for the roles you are missing, including bench or reserve slots and rotating people. Perhaps try a system like Pods to guide your efforts.
Note: I do think the no-alt rule in general is excessive. After a while, you generally "finish" a character, and can only improve them through raiding. A lot of people like spending the free time on playing a new character. I'm not really sure what keeping those secondary characters out of the guild actually accomplishes. But I stand by my rule of "no alts in the primary raid."
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Dungeon Finder Thoughts
Sometimes I wonder if I use a different Dungeon Finder than all the other bloggers and commenters. The vast majority of my groups are quick, clean, polite, competent and successful. Now, maybe it's because I'm a super-duper awesome healer and am busy carrying my groups to victory, but I don't really think that's the case.
Another alternative is that it's the healers who are the divas and cause the majority of issues in PuGs. Since I'm a healer, I never see them when I use the Dungeon Finder, and thus have better groups. But somehow I don't think that's the case either.
I've played several games without a Dungeon Finder, and I've never found random groups in those games to be better behaved or more competent. If anything, I've found them to be worse, because everyone seems to feel free to go AFK randomly, confident that the group won't kick them because it's so hard to find a replacement.
I mean, take yesterday for example. I ran a Heroic Vortex Pinnacle and then switched to my lowbie 28 rogue and ran a Gnomergan. Both runs were successful. There were no wipes and no drama. And that took less time and effort than setting up any of instance runs I tried in Rift.
To me, that experience is not unusual. It is what I expect from Dungeon Finder groups.1 And I really do not see how anyone can prefer the alternative to this.
To be fair though, I was never very good at creating or maintaining the network of friends that might have made running dungeons pre-LFD easier. I didn't have an extensive rolodex of tanks and healers. For the few I did have, I was never really comfortable whispering someone out of the blue and asking them to tank or heal. I always felt bad about turning people who asked me to heal down. So I stuck with scanning or spamming the various chat channels, with relatively low degrees of success.2
But maybe if you were a more social person than I was, or played more often, and built that extensive rolodex of tanks and healers, I can see how losing your network would hurt. And since you would repeatedly group with people in your network, I can see how it would forge stronger bonds than the impersonal runs of the Dungeon Finder.
However, for me, the Dungeon Finder is light-years ahead of my prior experience.
So that's my take on the Dungeon Finder. I think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. And I'm at a bit of a loss to understand why it seems that so many other people have such a negative impression of it.
Why are my random groups consistently better than everyone else's? Both are purely random, as I don't often run randoms with guildies. Both use the exact same system, and pretty much the same player pool. I'm a decent player, but I'm not that good.
There is one thing I do that might make a difference. I make a point of saying "hiya" in party chat when I join the group. Often other people say "hi" back. Maybe that's enough to get everyone into a positive frame of mind, and remind everyone that we're all friendly people rather than NPCs, and that's enough to carry the group through most things. It seems like such a small thing, but it's the only thing I can think of that might be different from any other random Dungeon Finder group.
1. Well, I was a little bit surprised by Gnomergan. But that's mostly because it's Gnomergan.
2. Especially for low-level dungeons. If there's one thing I absolutely adore about the Dungeon Finder, it's the fact that doing low-level dungeons in a level-appropriate group went from impossible to relatively common.
Another alternative is that it's the healers who are the divas and cause the majority of issues in PuGs. Since I'm a healer, I never see them when I use the Dungeon Finder, and thus have better groups. But somehow I don't think that's the case either.
I've played several games without a Dungeon Finder, and I've never found random groups in those games to be better behaved or more competent. If anything, I've found them to be worse, because everyone seems to feel free to go AFK randomly, confident that the group won't kick them because it's so hard to find a replacement.
I mean, take yesterday for example. I ran a Heroic Vortex Pinnacle and then switched to my lowbie 28 rogue and ran a Gnomergan. Both runs were successful. There were no wipes and no drama. And that took less time and effort than setting up any of instance runs I tried in Rift.
To me, that experience is not unusual. It is what I expect from Dungeon Finder groups.1 And I really do not see how anyone can prefer the alternative to this.
To be fair though, I was never very good at creating or maintaining the network of friends that might have made running dungeons pre-LFD easier. I didn't have an extensive rolodex of tanks and healers. For the few I did have, I was never really comfortable whispering someone out of the blue and asking them to tank or heal. I always felt bad about turning people who asked me to heal down. So I stuck with scanning or spamming the various chat channels, with relatively low degrees of success.2
But maybe if you were a more social person than I was, or played more often, and built that extensive rolodex of tanks and healers, I can see how losing your network would hurt. And since you would repeatedly group with people in your network, I can see how it would forge stronger bonds than the impersonal runs of the Dungeon Finder.
However, for me, the Dungeon Finder is light-years ahead of my prior experience.
So that's my take on the Dungeon Finder. I think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. And I'm at a bit of a loss to understand why it seems that so many other people have such a negative impression of it.
Why are my random groups consistently better than everyone else's? Both are purely random, as I don't often run randoms with guildies. Both use the exact same system, and pretty much the same player pool. I'm a decent player, but I'm not that good.
There is one thing I do that might make a difference. I make a point of saying "hiya" in party chat when I join the group. Often other people say "hi" back. Maybe that's enough to get everyone into a positive frame of mind, and remind everyone that we're all friendly people rather than NPCs, and that's enough to carry the group through most things. It seems like such a small thing, but it's the only thing I can think of that might be different from any other random Dungeon Finder group.
1. Well, I was a little bit surprised by Gnomergan. But that's mostly because it's Gnomergan.
2. Especially for low-level dungeons. If there's one thing I absolutely adore about the Dungeon Finder, it's the fact that doing low-level dungeons in a level-appropriate group went from impossible to relatively common.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Rift: Final Thoughts
I've decided that Rift is not for me, and have cancelled and uninstalled it. Here are my reasons. Please note that Rift is still a good game, and if you are enjoying it, more power to you. It just wasn't for me.
Anyways, those are the main reasons I'm just not feeling the love for Rift. But Rift is a good, well-polished game that a lot of people are having fun with, and it is well worth playing for a month or two to see if you like it.
- No Dungeon Finder. I don't think I can play an MMO without automatic group creation for PvE anymore. I just can't take having a half-formed group spamming the chat channels with "LF Tank" or "LF Healer", hoping that someone takes pity on you. Group PvE content (real content, not rift zergs) is my favorite part of these games, and I find it just too hard to start up. To be fair, this is not just a Rift thing. The last time I played Age of Conan, I gave up on that because it was too hard for me to form groups for the group quests and dungeons.
- Terrible armor design. Yeah, this is pretty shallow of me. And maybe it's my fault for rolling a female warrior instead of some other gender/class combination. But in 25 levels or so, my character has looked worse and worse with each new piece of armor. And that in turn has made me less and less interested in playing Rift.
- Excessive macro system. The Rift macro system is excessive. For all that various people are crowing that Rift is "no-mods", their macro system does way more than any mod. What happens in a Rift macro is that if the first spell cannot be cast, the macro attempts to cast the second spell and so far down the list. So if your class mainly uses cooldown or reactive spells, as is the case for most non-casters, you can pretty much reduce your entire class down to one or two buttons. For example, my warrior's combo-point builder macro looks like:
cast Reactive Ability 1
cast Reactive Ability 2
cast range-dependant Charge
cast cooldown Debuff
cast cooldown Attack Ability 1
cast cooldown Attack Ability 2
cast default Attack Ability
Then you just spam that one button until you get to 3 combo points, and then spam a different macro for finishers. This just seems excessive to me. - Spell ranks. Spell ranks just don't work with the free-form soul design. You gain 3 levels using one spec, then switch to a different spec to tank something, and all your abilities are a few ranks behind. Or you put a new point in your second soul, gain a new ability, and have to train 5 or 6 ranks to get it up to par. Combine this with the fact that you have to ride a fair distance to get back to town to train, and it's just an all-around annoyance.
- Vestigial tertiary soul. There's something about that third soul that just doesn't feel right to me. It's mostly useless, but somehow manages to make builds feel less "crisp" than they should be. I can't shake the suspicion that Rift builds would be far more interesting and defined if they only had two souls.
Anyways, those are the main reasons I'm just not feeling the love for Rift. But Rift is a good, well-polished game that a lot of people are having fun with, and it is well worth playing for a month or two to see if you like it.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Hunter Pets
From the latest patch notes:
I was rather dismayed when I saw these patch notes.
One of the things that Vanilla WoW did really well was emphasize the idea that a hunter pet was a separate entity from the hunter. You had to go out into the world and tame your pet from the wild, even the very first pet. The pet had it's own experience bar, and leveled separately. You had to keep your pet happy and feed it with the appropriate food. If your pet grew too unhappy, it would actually run away from you. The pet had a "loyalty" statistic that measured how attached it was to you.1 You had to train your pet with new skills that you learned by taming other beasts.
There was this whole "tamagotchi"/virtual pet aspect to hunter pets at the start of WoW that was very attractive. It was a small mini-game within the class that didn't really have anything to do with combat or raiding or pvp. In many ways, that mini-game has been bled out from the class in the name of streamlining, and I think that is a real shame. The hunter pet has, more and more, become a mere extension of the hunter, rather than something with its own personality.
Obviously, some parts of the old system, particularly training new skills, were a little excessive. The pet talent trees are much better. And your pet running away from you was harsh, because feeding your pet wasn't exactly intuitive at level 10. But I think that rather than going in the current direction with pets, Blizzard should reconsider, and go in the opposite direction and play up the virtual pet aspect more.
If it was up to me, I would keep pet happiness in the game. Indeed, I would remove pet happiness from the talent trees, so your pet wouldn't automatically stay happy. Instead there would be more emphasis on feeding your pet and using the Mend Pet glyph to keep it happy. The hunter should actively control her pet's happiness.
I would also keep the 3 level difference on taming, to emphasize the separate personalities.
I would also not have the hunter start with a pet. Instead, the level 3 hunter class quest should be to tame your first pet from the wild. Though it would still be a guardian, like it is now.
I think Blizzard needs to slow down with its streamlining of classes. Not all inconveniences need to be eliminated. Sometimes the inconvenience adds something. Having to deal with pet happiness is sometimes an inconvenience, but in the long run it makes the hunter class more interesting.
1. Infamously captured in the Loyalty Level 6 controversy. For those who weren't around at the time, Loyalty Level 6 was the highest rank of loyalty your pet could attain. It was also the name of a piece of fan art that depicted a scantily-clad female tauren hunter hugging her pet lion. The WoW community--never high-minded at the best of times--immediately jumped to the most salacious conclusion.
- Tame Beast now tames pets to match the hunter's level, rather than 3 levels below.
- Bloodthirsty no longer generates Happiness.
- Carrion Feeder no longer restores Happiness.
- The Feed Pet ability now instantly heals 50% of the pet's health. Cannot be used in combat. Requires diet-appropriate food.
Guard Dog no longer causes Growl to generate additional Happiness.- The Happiness/Pet Loyalty System has been removed. Hunters will no longer have to manage Happiness for their pets, and the previous damage bonus for pets being happy will now be baseline for all tamed pets.
I was rather dismayed when I saw these patch notes.
One of the things that Vanilla WoW did really well was emphasize the idea that a hunter pet was a separate entity from the hunter. You had to go out into the world and tame your pet from the wild, even the very first pet. The pet had it's own experience bar, and leveled separately. You had to keep your pet happy and feed it with the appropriate food. If your pet grew too unhappy, it would actually run away from you. The pet had a "loyalty" statistic that measured how attached it was to you.1 You had to train your pet with new skills that you learned by taming other beasts.
There was this whole "tamagotchi"/virtual pet aspect to hunter pets at the start of WoW that was very attractive. It was a small mini-game within the class that didn't really have anything to do with combat or raiding or pvp. In many ways, that mini-game has been bled out from the class in the name of streamlining, and I think that is a real shame. The hunter pet has, more and more, become a mere extension of the hunter, rather than something with its own personality.
Obviously, some parts of the old system, particularly training new skills, were a little excessive. The pet talent trees are much better. And your pet running away from you was harsh, because feeding your pet wasn't exactly intuitive at level 10. But I think that rather than going in the current direction with pets, Blizzard should reconsider, and go in the opposite direction and play up the virtual pet aspect more.
If it was up to me, I would keep pet happiness in the game. Indeed, I would remove pet happiness from the talent trees, so your pet wouldn't automatically stay happy. Instead there would be more emphasis on feeding your pet and using the Mend Pet glyph to keep it happy. The hunter should actively control her pet's happiness.
I would also keep the 3 level difference on taming, to emphasize the separate personalities.
I would also not have the hunter start with a pet. Instead, the level 3 hunter class quest should be to tame your first pet from the wild. Though it would still be a guardian, like it is now.
I think Blizzard needs to slow down with its streamlining of classes. Not all inconveniences need to be eliminated. Sometimes the inconvenience adds something. Having to deal with pet happiness is sometimes an inconvenience, but in the long run it makes the hunter class more interesting.
1. Infamously captured in the Loyalty Level 6 controversy. For those who weren't around at the time, Loyalty Level 6 was the highest rank of loyalty your pet could attain. It was also the name of a piece of fan art that depicted a scantily-clad female tauren hunter hugging her pet lion. The WoW community--never high-minded at the best of times--immediately jumped to the most salacious conclusion.
Friday, March 11, 2011
A Clarification
I think Gevlon and Larisa may have read too much into my last post on RIFTS.
There are two different things: RIFTS the game; and rifts the mechanic. Unfortunately, they're named the same, which makes things a bit confusing.
When I said that "rifts are like popcorn", I was specifically referring to the mechanic, and not the game as a whole. You should not take that statement as an comment on the full game.
There are two different things: RIFTS the game; and rifts the mechanic. Unfortunately, they're named the same, which makes things a bit confusing.
When I said that "rifts are like popcorn", I was specifically referring to the mechanic, and not the game as a whole. You should not take that statement as an comment on the full game.
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