Super WOW Guide

Archive for the ‘Blessing of Kings’ Category

There are four aspects involved in crafting:

1. Gathering knowledge – This is learning how to craft items. It can be finding recipes, or trial and error, or even random chance.
2. Gathering raw materials – This is getting the ingredients necessary to make the final item.
3. Transmutation – this is the specific process of converting the raw materials to the finished product.
4. Using the created item – Using the item for it’s intended (and maybe unintended) function.

Different games emphasise different aspects. For example, in A Tale in the Desert, Transmutation is a complicated process, essentially a mini-game within the game. In contrast, WoW abstracts Transmutation to a single press of a button. In WoW, the game associated with crafting is primarily focused on the first two aspects of acquiring knowledge and raw materials.

A lot of people dislike this choice, and feel that Transmutation should be more involved. I am not so sure that this is the case. An interesting mini-game is fun the first time you make the item, but it what about the tenth or hundredth time? Not to mention that it is inconvenient for potential customers. If I get some new gear and need 5 gems cut, I don’t really want to wait for my jewelcrafter guildie to struggle through 5 games of a Bejeweled clone, maybe even failing some of them. I much prefer getting the raw materials, giving them to her, and getting cut gems almost immediately.

I think where WoW’s crafting really falls down is actually Aspect 4: Using the Item.

Initially, WoW is character progression through level. But at the level cap, it switches to character progression through gear. But that progression is controlled through the Bind-on-Pickup mechanism. Bind-on-Pickup ensures that a player needs to actually complete content to have their character improve. While there is a smattering of items you can buy, or alternate ways to earn gear like daily heroics, the vast majority of good gear can only be gained by going out and defeating content.

The problem is that currently crafting cannot partake of the bind-on-pickup mechanism. As I’ve mentioned before, WoW crafting is missing an action: a crafter cannot create a Bind-on-Pickup item for another character using Bind-On-Pickup raw materials that the other character has acquired.

Crucially, an NPC can do this. That’s why crafting is sidelined in end-game, and NPCs hand out emblem gear. Crafting is missing that crucial verb that would allow it to be used in the endgame content.

If a crafter could make Bind-On-Pickup items for another player, that would open the door to a lot of possibilities. For example, Tier armor could be crafted entirely, given that it is already tokenized. Raid bosses could drop recipes, and players would gather raw materials along with special boss drops and take them to a crafter to get their tier gear. You could even restrict recipes to specific classes. Imagine if you had to find a paladin blacksmith to forge Lightsworn Battlegear.

Such a scheme would make crafting armor–not just consumables–an integral part of endgame once again. I think it would also feel better. To see what I mean, compare turning tokens to a vendor to gathering raw materials (could have a field day with what you need to collect) and getting armor forged by a blacksmith who learned the forgotten recipes deep inside the epic dungeon. On one level, both methods are really the same thing, but on another level, the latter would be so much more stylish.

Much better than getting to play a random Tetris-clone every time you want to cut a gem.

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Hopefully, roleplayers won’t feel too insulted by this post.

Kill Ten Rats has an article up asking why there isn’t more role-playing in Dungeons and Dragons Online? We can extend the question to ask why–since MMOs stem from pen-and-paper (PnP) roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons–relatively few people roleplay in MMOs?

I’m going to say that it is because roleplaying in an MMO is fundamentally different than roleplaying in a PnP game. And the difference is significant enough that the majority playerbase sees MMO roleplaying as mere affectation, irrelevant window dressing that kind of misses the point of the underlying game.

The thing is that the point of pen-and-paper roleplaying is “conflict resolution in character”. You play a character, you are presented with conflicts, and you resolve them in character. It’s sometimes hard to see this in D&D because so much of the rulesbase concerns itself with combat. But if you look at indie PnP games such as Dogs in the Vineyard, where conflict resolution is more abstract, it becomes really obvious.

But in an MMO, you can be in-character all you want, but you cannot resolve conflicts in character. You are limited to the options provided to you and the need to share the same world with other players. You can try and spin “extra” conflicts between other players, but those do not have same weight as the conflicts the game itself provides. It’s not “roleplaying” per se, it’s just amateur theatrics.

(As normal, we pause to insert the standard EvE Online disclaimer. This is mostly because EvE Online gives players the tools to resolve said conflicts: ship-to-ship missiles.)

So I think that role-playing is not really relevant to MMOs, and isn’t really something that should be expected from the players, regardless of the lineage of the genre. If players want to indulge in RP, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t think it is something that game developers need to spend time worrying about. And I don’t think that the presence or absence of a roleplaying community has any bearing whatsoever on the quality of an MMO.

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My guild, Ad Infinitum, is trying to make a last push for Heroic Lich King before Cataclysm comes. We’re looking for some people to fill out our raid.

Specifically, we’re looking for priests and mages, but we’re always willing to talk to good players of any class.

We’re 11/12 Heroic ICC. We’re a Pacific Standard Time guild on US-Lethon, which is a low-pop PvP realm. We raid 25-mans 3 days a week (Wednesday, Sunday, Monday) from 7pm – 11pm PST.

There’s also several 10-mans throughout the week and an alt 25-man on Fridays.

If you’re at all interested, please take a look at our website and apply. If you have any questions, feel free to email me or comment on this post.

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You know, I really like the way the warrior tank plays in Wrath. At least at level 66, which is where my lowbie tank has gotten to.

There are two major things I like about warrior tanking. First is Charge. Warbringer is one of the best talents in the game. Charging into combat is fun. Charging around during combat is fun. Charging into the next pack when the current pack is almost dead is extremely fun.

The second thing is Thunderclap and Shockwave. The thing about these skills that I like is that they very much reward you for timing things well. There’s a satisfaction from Thunderclapping at the exact right time to get every mob in the group. Or lining up the perfect Shockwave and stunning everything just right.

It’s not like Thunderclap and Shockwave are hard to use. But you can make mistakes with them. And that makes using them correctly valuable.

All in all, I really like the way the warrior tank plays in Wrath. I hope it doesn’t change too much in Cataclysm.

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I came across a couple of interesting articles by Megan McArdle of The Atlantic where she talks about a new trend of employers using FICO (credit) scores to weed out job candidates.

This situation immediately reminded me of Gearscore, and the way the WoW PuG community often uses Gearscore to determine who gets into raids.

(For those who don’t know, Gearscore is a mod which examines a character’s gear and gives a single value score that represents the quality of the gear. The higher ilevel, the higher your Gearscore.

FICO is a credit score that represents your credit-worthiness. It’s the main score used in the United State. It is generally used when people are deciding if they should lend you money. Low scores generally mean that you have trouble paying back loans, or have declared bankruptcy, and are likely to be a bigger risk for a loan.)

In the articles, employers are using these credit scores as a general proxy for your overall trustworthiness, just like raid leaders use Gearscore as a general proxy for your skill as a raider.

In both situations, the measurement is a weak proxy for what the evaluators really want. It’s easy to imagine that someone with a poor credit score might still be a good employee, or someone with a lower Gearscore might still know how to play.

But there are reasons that these scores are used. It’s too easy to say that using Gearscore or FICO score is wrong, and so raid leaders or employers should be forbidden from using it.

First, it’s fast and obvious. A FICO score of 300 is worse than one of 800. GS 4k is worse than GS 5k.

Second, the best method to determine competence is unfeasible. The best method is by giving the potential employee or raider a trial. But this is just not possible due to logistical constraints. Even the second or third-best methods are not viable. For raiding, high end raid guilds often require proof in the form of logs, or will ask the candidate questions in an interview process. You just don’t have time to do this when making a PuG.

Third, you cannot trust the potential employee or raider. People lie on their resumes all the time, and due to litigation concerns, most previous employers won’t do much more than confirm employment dates. Similarly, all raiders say they know the fights and will do top DPS.

Finally, it is better to be wrong in one direction than to be wrong in the other. For example, when picking up a PuG raider, there are two different ways a raid leader can be wrong. He can turn down a good player, or he can pick up a bad players. The consequences for picking up a bad raider are much higher, and so the raider leader will pick a method that minimizes the chances of that outcome, even if it increases the chances of the other wrong outcome.

The same thing happens with employment. It is generally considered better to turn down a good employee than hire a poor one.

I find the two parallel situations to be very intriguing. It’s always interesting when a real world issue comes up independently in a controlled game world.

Note that I don’t actually use Gearscore. It’s a chatty mod, and I dislike taking a chance of being disconnected in raids. But I still understand why people do use Gearscore.

If I had to make a Gearscore-like mod, what I would actually do is evaluate gems/enchants against spec. The more optimal your gems/enchants for your spec, the higher your score. In my experience, people who care enough to keep their gear in good condition, regardless of the underlying ilevel, are more likely to be successful raiders.

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I figured out what was bothering me about Cataclysm tree design.

If you look at the first row of talents, Blizzard usually has 2x 3pt talents and a 2pt talent. That means that if you want to only spend 5 points in the first row to get to the second, you get the 2pt and one of the 3pts.

However, in a lot of cases, the 2pt talent is “more optional” than the 3pt talents. If you look at the current paladin trees, Ret has Eye for an Eye at 2pts, and Prot has Imp Hammer of Justice. Both of those are more PvP talents, and somewhat less attractive to other specs.

Because of this, you tend to be pushed towards taking both 3pts in the first row, leaving you with only 4 points for the second row. So you can take a 3 or 2pt talent, and then you’re left with 1 or 2 points and very few options to cap out. No matter what, if you are subspeccing, you cannot take 2 3pt talents in the second row.

I think talent trees would flow a little better if the 2pt talent was “less optional” than the 3pt talents. That way, you’d grab the 2pt and choose which 3pt you liked, making the next tier easier to finish. And you’d less likely to have 1 point left dangling in a standard 31/10 build.

For example, in Retribution, I think that tree would flow better if Crusade was 2pts and Eye for an Eye was 3pts. Then PvP/Prot would take Eye for an Eye and Crusade, and Holy and Ret would take Rule of Law and Crusade, and that would give everyone 5 points for the second row of Ret or for the first row in Prot.

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The Dev chat on Friday revealed the new paladin mechanic for Cataclysm, Holy Power:

All of the paladin specializations will make use of a new resource called Holy Power. Holy Power accumulates from using Crusader Strike, Holy Shock, and some other talents. Holy Power can be consumed to augment a variety of abilities, including:
An instant mana-free heal: Word of Glory
A buff to increase holy damage done: Inquisition
A massive physical melee attack for Retribution paladins: Templar’s Verdict
Holy Shield’s duration is now extended by Holy Power
Divine Storm’s damage is now increased by Holy Power

Templar’s Verdict: An instant weapon attack that causes a percentage of weapon damage. Consumes all applications of Holy Power to increase damage dealt:
1 Holy Power: 55% Weapon Damage
2 Holy Power: 125% Weapon Damage
3 Holy Power: 225% Weapon Damage

Word of Glory: Consumes all Holy Power to heal a friendly target for a specific amount per application of Holy Power (0 mana cost, 0 cooldown, instant cast).

It looks like the closest mechanic to this is rogue combo points. Certain of our abilities generate Holy Power, and other abilities will consume all of it, and have an effect proportional to the number of points consumed.

However, where the rogue is focused on combo points, and most GCDs are used either generating or consuming combo points, Holy Power looks to be layered over top of our regular abilities. Paladins look to generate a point of Holy Power every 4-6 seconds using our normal rotation, and use a Holy Power finisher roughly every 12-18 seconds.

I guess that this is intended to make paladin gameplay a little more dynamic, and we weave in Holy Power finishers every so often, or maybe even save them for times when we need burst.

On paper, this seems pretty good. We’ll have to see how this plays out. There is always the possibility that tactics getting a 3-stack of Holy Power, then running to a new PVP target and unloading a full-power Templar’s Verdict will be deemed overpowered. (And naturally, hotfixed 24 hours after Cataclysm’s release.)

The other thing I like are the new paladin ability names. Word of Glory, Inquistion, Templar’s Verdict, and Light of Dawn (new cone healing spell mentioned in the Dev chat) are very nice paladin names that avoid resorting to the words Holy, Judgment, Light, Righteousness, and Divine.

On the other hand, “Holy Power” is a rather bland name, and could stand to be spiced up. I suggest using a name that paladins have been waiting to see in WoW since Diablo 2: Zeal.

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There are beta talent trees up at WoWTal.

Honestly, the trees are still a great state of flux, so it’s really too early to comment on them. In general, I like the paladin trees so far.

The only comment I have is that I keep making builds for many different classes and specs, and I always seem to have 1 talent point left over, and 2/3-point talents to use it in. So I have to partially fill a talent, which I’ve never really liked doing.

Maybe it’s just a general problem with the numbers used to make the talent trees, but it seems kind of odd to be happening so often.

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Extensive talent tree changes coming in Cataclysm.

I’m not really sure what to think of these changes. In general, I like the smaller trees. I’m just not sure about the forced specialization.

It means that there is much less potential builds out there. No 30/11, or 21/20 builds will be possible. But on the other hand, such builds tend to be rare anyways. Sometimes choice is an illusion, and in reality there are only a handful of viable builds. So the end result might be the same now and in Cataclysm, but it will just be more obvious.

As well, right now the 11 and 21 point talents tend to be a little weak, just to keep other-spec builds in check. This is especially true when leveling. Take paladin trees for example. Aura Mastery, Divine Favor, Divine Sacrifice, Blessing of Sacrifice, and Sanctified Retribution are good abilities, but they are a little boring.

Compare them to the 31 point talents of Holy Shock, Holy Shield, and Repentance. Those talents are “fun” talents, but they come so late, and you get them at a much higher level, just to prevent off-talent builds from picking them up. Wouldn’t Protection leveling be much more fun if you could get Holy Shield at level 20?

The one “fun” early ability, Seal of Command, is perfect to get at level 20. Unfortunately, it’s quite arguable that Seal of Command has made Protection overpowered at producing AoE threat. Because it is available so early, Protection can pick up Seal of Command, forcing a choice between leaving Protection slightly overpowered, or weakening Retribution.

The enforced specialization does away with those concerns. You could move more interesting abilities earlier in the tree, confident that you won’t accidentally overpower one of the other two trees.

The current trees are a little top-heavy. Sometimes it’s hard to be enthusiastic about pushing through those rather boring mid-tier talents, and then you want to get all the juicy, game-changing top-tier talents.

It probably will be easier to balance PvP as well. PvP builds often forwent the deep damage increasing talents in favor of mid-tier utility and survival talents.

So on the whole it’s probably a good change that strengthens the game mechanically. I guess I mourn the illusion of a potential vast amount of builds. An mirage of possibilities. But that was just a dream, and high-end group play rudely awakens you to the fact that only a few builds are ever truly viable.

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Recently there has been some commentary about death penalties. There are some people who feel that the current penalties are too low.

My question is:

Why is it so important to punish failure?

I mean, you shouldn’t reward failure, but I don’t really see the need to punish failure either.

No one really wants to fail. And failure is often obvious. Your character is dead on the ground and you have a corpse run. You can’t really miss the fact that you failed.

Do high death penalties really make players better, or do they just make players more cautious? It’s arguable that one of flaws of lower tier raid guilds is that they don’t fail enough. They’ll wipe 5 times and then call it, or move on to something easier. While a high end guild might wipe 200+ times when learning a really hard fight. I don’t think that an even greater death penalty would help these guilds, and it might actively hurt them.

What you do want to keep in check is the ability to fail with partial success, so that several failures add up to a success. The ability to zerg something needs to be carefully watched. But that can be done without harsh death penalties. Quest timers, group respawns, instances that prevent you from zoning in while a fight is in progress, requirements that you do X without dying, etc.

Of course, you do have to be careful with this. If quest progress was wiped on death, and you had a quest to kill 100 boars, it would really, really suck if you died on the 99th boar.

Of course, some people insist that punishing failure in raid groups is the appropriate way to go, like docking DKP for making mistakes. But is the punishment the key driver of improvement, or is it the fact that the mistake was specifically identified and called out, giving the player the feedback necessary to improve?

I don’t think that actively punishing failure works when the player wants to succeed. So I don’t think that death penalties need to be harsher, and if anything, they could stand to be easier.

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