Monday, July 14, 2008

Some Rambling and Complaining

This is when I'm supposed to make a bunch of posts about what I did over the last week. You know, try to remember that Kara run on Tuesday, then talk about how I killed noobs in battlegrounds, and then I could talk about my adventures in arenas with Honors. I'm not feeling it though, I haven't done much QQing lately with people in my guild actually reading this I haven't wanted to so much. Enough of that.

Ok, first I don't pve anymore, and while I really enjoy my new ganking/killing machine I'M NOT DONE WITH ZA, but the guild is. I don't see any Heroes on Bear mounts, I'm not sure what the Hex Lord's corpse looks like and I don't like it. It seems like the only raiding people want to do is badge farming, for level 80 I guess. I could try to start a group or something like that, but I always fail.

I really don't see how to transition smoothly to my next thought, I guess I won't worry about it. I do enjoy both pve and pvp in WOW, more so pve but maybe my rogue will tip the scales a bit. The one thing I hate about both is the randomness that happens with both.

Pve encounters are scripted, you basically know what's going to happen and you prepare for it. The reward is random though, there are several possibilities. We have all had the boss who has a 15% chance to drop what we want and have to kill him 20 times to get it. When you do battle grounds and arenas you know what the reward for your success (hopefully) will be. You have no idea however who you are going to face, you could lose 20 points to a full season 3 team or get 25 from some guys who are bought there team.

Could you imagine the opposite? You save up 3000 or so arena points and you have 15% chance to get the weapon you want. That would go over well, you spend your honor to improve your pvp gear and get something you can't even equip. That's blizzard's pve loot system, how many times we downed a newish boss to see him drop nothing the group needed. Of course these guys drop badges now so they fixed that a bit. How is that different than winning a premade battleground to have a chance at getting honor and marks?

Wouldn't be fun if you went into Gruul's lair for the first time and Archimonde was there instead of HKM? You head back in then face Alar and wipe again. Next up is The Black Stalker from heroic Underbog and own him. You clear the next trash then you face Vashj twice then Archimonde again the finish it up with Attumen and Maiden. How is this different then queuing up for the arenas? Well, there is no trash in arenas.

If you queued up for a raid and had no idea what you were going to do which may include an encounter you can't possibly win people wouldn't do it. If your 4 hours in AV gave you a chance at gear you could use no one would bother. Looks like there dong some major work on fixing the pve loot situation for Wotlk, I haven't heard what if anything they have planned to get evenly matched team (gearwise at least) playing each other.

Another thing, how can a gnome be a warrior? Any of the other races should be able to pick up a gnome and throw them half way across the map. How a could a gnome even pick up a shield is beyond me, much less where a bunch of plate gear. I feel better, that's all.

Except I can feel the "he must only care about loot" thing out there. Gear is how you move the next challenge and if none drops for your raid you are no more prepared to face the next boss than you were before. I raid for fun, but bad luck for a group as far as drops goes slows progression, I don't like"luck" slowing progression. The group not getting loot bugs me, not me as an individual.

8 comments:

Bobby said...

I'll do ZA. I think part of the problem, is the lack of PvE geared people active, and left in the guild right now...but I'm game for trying to throw something together.

Personally..I've seen everything we're going to see on the PvE front, I wouldn't mind raiding every other week or so, but it's not really something I want to do on a weekly basis..since there's really nothing new to push for.

Timed chests..I think it's a good idea, but I'm not sure it's enough of a carrot to push people forward on the PvE front, it's not something new to see, it's just loot (and a sense of accomplishment). Based on what I've heard..the people earning bear mounts, geared for ZA by doing 25 man raids to gear up, raids we won't see. Also, I'm not sure we have the exact class structure that would be needed to achieve that last timed chest..but maybe I'm wrong.

That said..if someone invited me into ZA runs, I would definitely participate on occasion.

Ellevis said...

It would have to be a very specific group in order to do the timed chests. In fact we have 1 maybe 2 people capable of taking the birds and even then the Dragonhawk boss is gonna be a pain.

I'm fine with trying to set up a group but unless the right people sign up ......

Lakini said...

I'll do arenas. I think part of the problem, is the lack of PvP geared people active, and left in the guild right now...but I'm game for trying to throw something together.

Personally..I've seen everything we're going to see on the PvP front, I wouldn't mind arenas every other week or so, but it's not really something I want to do on a weekly basis..since there's really nothing new to push for.
Pushing a rating 2000..I think it's a good idea, but I'm not sure it's enough of a carrot to push people forward on the PvP front, it's not something new to see, it's just loot (and a sense of accomplishment). Based on what I've heard..the people earning 2000 ratings, geared for arenas by by playing all day and having no life. Also, I'm not sure we have the exact class structure that would be needed to achieve that rating..but maybe I'm wrong.

That said..if someone invited me into arena runs, I would definitely participate on occasion.

I fail to see how switching za and the arenas makes any difference.

Lakini said...

As far having the right class make up I agree, that's why I am concerned about class make up in the expansion.

Bobby said...

The key difference, is that every arena game is a different experience...you're always fighting a different opponent, where in PvE you're fighting the exact same opponent, and AI every time, for this reason, PvE has much less replayability then PvP...kara makes me sleepy, yet I still manage to enjoy WSG, which has been around much longer.

Bobby said...

You can't really compare PvE and PvP...they are entirely different game mechanics...there's no content progression in PvP...you hit 70..and every single BG and arena map is open for you to do right away..in PvE, you can't view content until you've finished other content. They have added a sort of gear progression to PvP, that micics the gear progression in PvE somewhat...but that's really not the essense of it.

Anyway..this is all my opinion..and you're entitled to yours...you've always favored PvE, there's no crime in it. I enjoy PvE while there's something new to work towards. In PvP, there always seems to be something to work towards, even if you've got every peice of gear, and run every PvP map that exists.

Lakini said...

I look at pvp and pve about the same. Pre BC I was much more into pvp than I was pve, I had little interest in raiding, the thought of killing something in Molten Core with 39 other people had no appeal. Pvp pre bc wasn't so hot at 60 but we were only 60 for 3 months before bc came out.

After it did Blizzard made so big improvements to raiding, lowering the people needed and I actually was interested in the story behind the raid.

Pvp has been a let down. They haven't got arenas fixed yet, class balance in pvp isn't soo hot. I don't care who we face in warsong it doesn't have the appeal it had 2 years ago. A lot of my pvp problems have been my own fault, it took me till season 4 to find a class spec I like. Finding an arena teams that work well is another challenge that has been hard. Switching specs and toons and having a limited availability don't help with that.

I need to go to work now.

Bacon said...

I kinda agree with Lakini. While PVP/arena progression is different than PVE, it's still progression. It still takes a certain makeup, skill, and gear to progress. And the more you progress, the more challenging it is and you find out that the cheap and easy tricks in the earlier brackets don't mean jack squat in the newer bracket.