We've spent the last few weeks tweaking rules around releasing after death in Vendor Trash raids.
We started with "if you die, start running".
The idea was that during trash, if you ran, noone would have to stop to resurrect you. It meant more mana for healers, less whining about buffs, and generally faster movement. A boss-fight wipe would also be a faster recovery when everyone ran. More importantly, it would give no excuse for random afks while people were dead. You couldn't ninja-afk - everyone could see if you hadn't released.
The speed increases were massive. Discontent was too.
The main issue was releasing on trash: if an epic dropped while you were released, you couldn't get it. Also, in some cases, if we'd skipped a boss there would be issues about respawns. Far enough into an instance, run length began to make a difference. And sometimes enough people had lived by resetting a boss that resurrecting the raid would be the faster recovery.
Last week we tweaked the rules again, and everyone seems much happier with them. We didn't lose our new-found speed, so I think this is the right balance... only time will tell.
1) We'll always rez on the occasional trash deaths.
2) If you die on trash, only ask for 'essential' buffs -> dps warriors taking salv, etc. Don't whine if you don't have full buffs.
3) When you die, do not release unless told to by a raid leader.
- Raid leaders make the call since they should know which'll be faster.
- If you release, it can be hard to find your body, so if we're rezing, it's in your best interest to NOT release.
Generally, the idea is to release on full wipes (again, unless the run is excessive or there's trash spawns - which we shouldn't have anymore since we now kill things in order), and to rez for trash. We'll probably assign a trash mob rezzer to hang back and rez as we move on in order to reduce down time even further.
I know it's something small, and in some ways hardly merrits a post. But then again, it's tweaking the little things that seems to make raids run well.
Some other small tweaks: We usually send someone to mark the next trash pull when the current one is about 3/4 done. I now call out a tank (other than me) to be the "target assist" when we're down to one or two CCed mobs and move up to mark. Pulls are done when the healers have 'enough' mana - not when they're all full. I try to give DPS enough time for mana, but really, if they're behind the healers, they can just sit out for a little while.
Downing 5/6 in SSC in a single night is great, and those small changes made it possible. One night for SSC, one (early finish) night for TK, and then two nights working on new content. Sounds good to me.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
How to Kill a Fiery Chicken (Al'ar)
Last weekend my guild took down Al'ar for the first time. I love the fight, and really enjoyed working on this guy. We tried him early on (before we went on to touch things past Lurker in SSC) and got blocked... after getting stuck, we stopped attempts and decided to move on to other content (promissing to return).
Upon our return, we gave our strategy a good hard look... We switched from the standard "kill the adds as they come up" strategy to the "hold phase 1 strategy" to a "hold phase 1, and then batch up phase 2", to ...
Well, the "what we switched to in the end" is below. Side note: I haven't found this strategy posted on other sites. It comes from Valarin (aka Coriel from Blessing of Kings) and I spending a few late nights talking over kill strategies. I largely credit him with the idea. I have to admit that the kill was that much more satisfying knowing that the strategy was one that I'd helped design/modify.
Anyway, it's awesome. Works incredibly well. And simplifies the fight by a significant amount. If you're having trouble with Al'ar, I recommend you try it out. Even if you're an Al'ar killing guild, I still recommend you try it out. Remember: awesome.
Audience
I'm going to assume that you're reading this with knowledge of the fight already. That is, you've read some other strategies, possibly done the fight, etc. I'll likely miss stuff that's important to a "properly written up strategy". For example, I'm not going to explain the numbered platforms, list the boss's abilities, etc.
Setup
Tanks: You need 5 tanks. Ideally one of them is a paladin tank.
Heals: We tend to run with 7 or 8. I think it was 7 when we killed him.
DPS: One meelee group, rest ranged. Want a good number of warlocks and mages.
This is the group we used for our first kill:
Tanks: 3 warriors, 1 druid (pickup), 1 paladin (holding)
Heals: 1 tree, 1 shaman, 2 paladins, 3 priests
DPS: 3 rogues, 2 dps warriors, 2 mages, 4 warlocks, 2 hunters
(We usually try to run with 2 shamans, but one of our core was out of town last Friday.)
Phase 1 (Basic Holding Strategy)
Three tanks upstairs, two downstairs. One of the two downstairs is your paladin aka: "the holding tank". Soulstone your holding tank. For naming convention, we'll call the 2nd tank on the ground floor "the pickup tank".
We assign a healer to each of the upstairs tanks so that there can be immediate heals after a flame quill. These healers stay on the ground and follow the tank (rather than the boss) around tossing out heals when necessary. An assigned healer can off-heal another tank on a nearby platform, but the healer's primary job is to watch his main tank.
The rogues can go in and DPS Al'ar. The DPS warriors stay downstairs as they have a different job to do (this conveniently keeps them low on the threat meters so that they can go execute crazy at the end of phase 2).
When Al'ar transitions platforms, it's the job of the 'pickup tank' to pick them up and bring the Ember to the holding tank. The DPS warriors take the add to 50% health and then the holding tank taunts it off the pickup tank and keeps it. (Make sure your holding tanks knows to do minimal damage to the adds.)
Every time Al'ar transitions platforms, we have the warrior tanks taunt him. This is so that they can stay close to (if not on top) of the threat meters. It also helps the rogues who won't have to worry about aggro so long as the taunt is successful.
Some useful tips for Phase 1...
* Al'ar seems to always go clockwise. I don't know if this is something that was changed in a patch at some point, but he has never gone counter clockwise for us.
* As a warrior tanking upstairs, here's the trick to get you back up fast after jumping for quill.
1) If you were at the back platforms, intercept a ranged person so that you get close to the ramp quickly.
2) Switch to berserker stance while running to the platform, trigger bloodrage, and then wait once you get there.
3) As soon as Al'ar stops quilling, start running up. If he picks your side, intercept his ass.
4) Switch to defensive stance, trigger a trinket, and tank as per usual.
Doing that will ensure that Al'ar gets off *maybe* one flame quill. You probably ran late in step 3 if he gets off two.
* When Al'ar starts on platform 4 (post quilling) and then moves to platform 1, he'll often get stuck. We keep a tank on 2 just incase he doesn't, but more often than not, he gets caught. When he's caught, you'll see him stay there for a long time, and then suddenly an add will show up and Al'ar will stay put. If you were the tank on platform 4 and you see him stick, you may as well head down the ramp and wait for him to go up and quill. No falling damage that way. If he somehow unsticks, you should have plenty of time to run to #3 anyway.
* If an add gets stuck on a platform tank, have a ranged DPS shoot it to bring it down. The pickup tank should be able to get it at the bottom of the ramp. If ranged can't hit it, have a rogue hit it and jump off the platform. Getting the adds in place is more important than the rogue's DPS.
* It should go without saying, but never "jump" off the platforms. Don't use the space bar: it just increases falling damage. Run off the platforms when you have to get down.
* Don't hang out right next to a wall when Al'ar is quilling. The walls seem to get hit with a small aoe. We've had people die from being too close to them.
Phase 2 (Unusual Strategy - 'Ignorance is Bliss')
Once Al'ar spawns in phase 2, have the warlocks seed the adds that you've been holding on your paladin tank. Call for the mages in once you've given the warlocks 5 or 6 seconds... The adds should all blow up simultaneously (or close to it). Ideally the first add's death will launch the paladin tank and not kill him. It doesn't always happen though, and if he dies? Well that's why we soulstoned him back before the pull.
Up to now, we've done the standard "save the adds" strategy. Al'ar should now be down below 80% and noone should be dead. This next bit is where things diverge. It's the key to killing Al'ar and it's what makes the fight easy. So pay close attention...
For the rest of phase 2 (the rest of the fight really): DPS will ignore the adds and focus only on Al'ar. Yep, that's right. Once the Phase 1 adds are down, there will be no more add killing.
When Al'ar spawns post meteor (or dive bomb, or whatever you want to call it), the pickup tank will go in quickly and grab the two adds before Al'ar spawns. We use a druid as our pickup tank since he has a nice multi-mob pickup. He runs in as soon as the black space is on the ground, grabs the adds and gets out. The pickup tank now brings the two adds to the holding tank, who takes them (like in phase 1).
Both ranged and meelee DPS ignore the adds and focus on Al'ar. Ranged should spread out, and be careful with flame patches. Meelee should of course watch for flame patches as well. Tanks taunt when molten armor gets applied (as per usual) and call out whomever ends up with the boss afterwards. Al'ar should ideally be tanked in, or close to the middle of the room.
Some useful tips for Phase 2...
* Make sure all the important debuffs are up on Al'ar at all times. Run Demon if you have to (its an ace2 debuff monitor that shows you at a glance which debuffs are missing).
* When Al'ar spawns, he whirls and sends you flying if you're too close. As a tank, you need to be careful to stand far enough away that you don't get punted. He has a large hitbox, so stand back, and move in after the whirl.
* After spawning, Al'ar likes to attack the tank with molten armor. If you are said tank, hang out in the back so that your fellow tanks have time to taunt the boss and you don't get hurt. Don't attack him until you're sure another tank has solid aggro.
* We leave it up to the molten armored tank to apply Thunderclap and Demoralizing Shout. It tends to help him avoid stealing aggro. (Unless someone has the imp demo shout, in which case that person always applies it.)
* Your paladin tank will not be able to see flame patches under him during phase 2 because of the adds he's holding. Have one of his assigned healers tell him when to move.
* I tended to call out the molten armor timer whenever it was almost up. "ten seconds until molten armor expires on X. Be ready to taunt." Was the general line. It seemed to help. If nothing else, it soothed my nerves. ;)
* Fire resistance gear, although useful for the add tank, is not necessary at all.
-----
And that's it. The classic KISS principle works. This is the simplest thing we did, and was by far the most effective. How effective you ask? The night we switched to this strategy: we explained what to do, went in, and one-shotted Al'ar's fiery ass. Oh and that enrage timer? 4 minutes left on it.
Update: made a few more kills using this strategy. Definately not a fluke. The 6 minute kill seems to be consistant for us. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments section. I'd be happy to answer 'em.
Upon our return, we gave our strategy a good hard look... We switched from the standard "kill the adds as they come up" strategy to the "hold phase 1 strategy" to a "hold phase 1, and then batch up phase 2", to ...
Well, the "what we switched to in the end" is below. Side note: I haven't found this strategy posted on other sites. It comes from Valarin (aka Coriel from Blessing of Kings) and I spending a few late nights talking over kill strategies. I largely credit him with the idea. I have to admit that the kill was that much more satisfying knowing that the strategy was one that I'd helped design/modify.
Anyway, it's awesome. Works incredibly well. And simplifies the fight by a significant amount. If you're having trouble with Al'ar, I recommend you try it out. Even if you're an Al'ar killing guild, I still recommend you try it out. Remember: awesome.
Audience
I'm going to assume that you're reading this with knowledge of the fight already. That is, you've read some other strategies, possibly done the fight, etc. I'll likely miss stuff that's important to a "properly written up strategy". For example, I'm not going to explain the numbered platforms, list the boss's abilities, etc.
Setup
Tanks: You need 5 tanks. Ideally one of them is a paladin tank.
Heals: We tend to run with 7 or 8. I think it was 7 when we killed him.
DPS: One meelee group, rest ranged. Want a good number of warlocks and mages.
This is the group we used for our first kill:
Tanks: 3 warriors, 1 druid (pickup), 1 paladin (holding)
Heals: 1 tree, 1 shaman, 2 paladins, 3 priests
DPS: 3 rogues, 2 dps warriors, 2 mages, 4 warlocks, 2 hunters
(We usually try to run with 2 shamans, but one of our core was out of town last Friday.)
Phase 1 (Basic Holding Strategy)
Three tanks upstairs, two downstairs. One of the two downstairs is your paladin aka: "the holding tank". Soulstone your holding tank. For naming convention, we'll call the 2nd tank on the ground floor "the pickup tank".
We assign a healer to each of the upstairs tanks so that there can be immediate heals after a flame quill. These healers stay on the ground and follow the tank (rather than the boss) around tossing out heals when necessary. An assigned healer can off-heal another tank on a nearby platform, but the healer's primary job is to watch his main tank.
The rogues can go in and DPS Al'ar. The DPS warriors stay downstairs as they have a different job to do (this conveniently keeps them low on the threat meters so that they can go execute crazy at the end of phase 2).
When Al'ar transitions platforms, it's the job of the 'pickup tank' to pick them up and bring the Ember to the holding tank. The DPS warriors take the add to 50% health and then the holding tank taunts it off the pickup tank and keeps it. (Make sure your holding tanks knows to do minimal damage to the adds.)
Every time Al'ar transitions platforms, we have the warrior tanks taunt him. This is so that they can stay close to (if not on top) of the threat meters. It also helps the rogues who won't have to worry about aggro so long as the taunt is successful.
Some useful tips for Phase 1...
* Al'ar seems to always go clockwise. I don't know if this is something that was changed in a patch at some point, but he has never gone counter clockwise for us.
* As a warrior tanking upstairs, here's the trick to get you back up fast after jumping for quill.
1) If you were at the back platforms, intercept a ranged person so that you get close to the ramp quickly.
2) Switch to berserker stance while running to the platform, trigger bloodrage, and then wait once you get there.
3) As soon as Al'ar stops quilling, start running up. If he picks your side, intercept his ass.
4) Switch to defensive stance, trigger a trinket, and tank as per usual.
Doing that will ensure that Al'ar gets off *maybe* one flame quill. You probably ran late in step 3 if he gets off two.
* When Al'ar starts on platform 4 (post quilling) and then moves to platform 1, he'll often get stuck. We keep a tank on 2 just incase he doesn't, but more often than not, he gets caught. When he's caught, you'll see him stay there for a long time, and then suddenly an add will show up and Al'ar will stay put. If you were the tank on platform 4 and you see him stick, you may as well head down the ramp and wait for him to go up and quill. No falling damage that way. If he somehow unsticks, you should have plenty of time to run to #3 anyway.
* If an add gets stuck on a platform tank, have a ranged DPS shoot it to bring it down. The pickup tank should be able to get it at the bottom of the ramp. If ranged can't hit it, have a rogue hit it and jump off the platform. Getting the adds in place is more important than the rogue's DPS.
* It should go without saying, but never "jump" off the platforms. Don't use the space bar: it just increases falling damage. Run off the platforms when you have to get down.
* Don't hang out right next to a wall when Al'ar is quilling. The walls seem to get hit with a small aoe. We've had people die from being too close to them.
Phase 2 (Unusual Strategy - 'Ignorance is Bliss')
Once Al'ar spawns in phase 2, have the warlocks seed the adds that you've been holding on your paladin tank. Call for the mages in once you've given the warlocks 5 or 6 seconds... The adds should all blow up simultaneously (or close to it). Ideally the first add's death will launch the paladin tank and not kill him. It doesn't always happen though, and if he dies? Well that's why we soulstoned him back before the pull.
Up to now, we've done the standard "save the adds" strategy. Al'ar should now be down below 80% and noone should be dead. This next bit is where things diverge. It's the key to killing Al'ar and it's what makes the fight easy. So pay close attention...
For the rest of phase 2 (the rest of the fight really): DPS will ignore the adds and focus only on Al'ar. Yep, that's right. Once the Phase 1 adds are down, there will be no more add killing.
When Al'ar spawns post meteor (or dive bomb, or whatever you want to call it), the pickup tank will go in quickly and grab the two adds before Al'ar spawns. We use a druid as our pickup tank since he has a nice multi-mob pickup. He runs in as soon as the black space is on the ground, grabs the adds and gets out. The pickup tank now brings the two adds to the holding tank, who takes them (like in phase 1).
Both ranged and meelee DPS ignore the adds and focus on Al'ar. Ranged should spread out, and be careful with flame patches. Meelee should of course watch for flame patches as well. Tanks taunt when molten armor gets applied (as per usual) and call out whomever ends up with the boss afterwards. Al'ar should ideally be tanked in, or close to the middle of the room.
Some useful tips for Phase 2...
* Make sure all the important debuffs are up on Al'ar at all times. Run Demon if you have to (its an ace2 debuff monitor that shows you at a glance which debuffs are missing).
* When Al'ar spawns, he whirls and sends you flying if you're too close. As a tank, you need to be careful to stand far enough away that you don't get punted. He has a large hitbox, so stand back, and move in after the whirl.
* After spawning, Al'ar likes to attack the tank with molten armor. If you are said tank, hang out in the back so that your fellow tanks have time to taunt the boss and you don't get hurt. Don't attack him until you're sure another tank has solid aggro.
* We leave it up to the molten armored tank to apply Thunderclap and Demoralizing Shout. It tends to help him avoid stealing aggro. (Unless someone has the imp demo shout, in which case that person always applies it.)
* Your paladin tank will not be able to see flame patches under him during phase 2 because of the adds he's holding. Have one of his assigned healers tell him when to move.
* I tended to call out the molten armor timer whenever it was almost up. "ten seconds until molten armor expires on X. Be ready to taunt." Was the general line. It seemed to help. If nothing else, it soothed my nerves. ;)
* Fire resistance gear, although useful for the add tank, is not necessary at all.
-----
And that's it. The classic KISS principle works. This is the simplest thing we did, and was by far the most effective. How effective you ask? The night we switched to this strategy: we explained what to do, went in, and one-shotted Al'ar's fiery ass. Oh and that enrage timer? 4 minutes left on it.
Update: made a few more kills using this strategy. Definately not a fluke. The 6 minute kill seems to be consistant for us. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments section. I'd be happy to answer 'em.
Progression Update
In the last month, Vendor Trash has been flying through the kills.
I was there for our first kills of Leotheras, Karathress, Solarian, and most recently Al'ar. I missed the first Tidewalker kill, but made it in for the second one.
So that puts us at 3/4 TK, 5/6 SSC.
We took a peek at Vashj this week and I was suitably impressed. I think she'll be very fun. (Which really means, she'll be a challenge.)
Notes on kills:
Leotheras
If you're tanking this guy as a warrior, make sure you've got intercept bound up. It's ridiculously valuable. (It always is, but on this guy, it's the most important ability you have.) I tanked our second kill of Leotheras, and it was definately the key. Leo rarely got one hit off on someone else when I tanked, and I think we didn't even lose anyone on the kill.
That said, warriors aren't the best choice for this guy. If you have a Paladin tank with the right amount of hit rating, Avenger's shield is most definately the way to go. Key thing is making sure that hit rating is high enough. When that shield misses, people die. And if you lose too many...
Also, don't transition him to 'phase 3' while he's in demon phase. That's just bad news. Even after our first kill, there were a lot of wipes until we learned to be patient.
Karathress
This guy must have been nerfed... we went in, learned, and killed him, all in one night.
Key to the fight: getting the pull down. Once the pull works correctly it just falls into place... a missdirect for the shaman's tank is very, very, valuable. It'll ensure no spitfire totems dropped in awkward places.
Solarian
Ridiculously easy. Possibly the easiest boss in T5 content.... no wait, drop the possibly. She is most definately the easiest boss in T5. We two-shotted her on our first kill. Yes, that easy.
Al'ar
This fiery chicken is going to get his own post. We spent a lot of time messing around with strategies until we found one that worked perfectly for us. I intend to post the strat since it isn't what other people talk about (though there are definately elements taken from other strats).
Edit: I should really update that picture on the right. I wasn't even in full T4 then. I hadn't even killed Prince when I took that shot.
I was there for our first kills of Leotheras, Karathress, Solarian, and most recently Al'ar. I missed the first Tidewalker kill, but made it in for the second one.
So that puts us at 3/4 TK, 5/6 SSC.
We took a peek at Vashj this week and I was suitably impressed. I think she'll be very fun. (Which really means, she'll be a challenge.)
Notes on kills:
Leotheras
If you're tanking this guy as a warrior, make sure you've got intercept bound up. It's ridiculously valuable. (It always is, but on this guy, it's the most important ability you have.) I tanked our second kill of Leotheras, and it was definately the key. Leo rarely got one hit off on someone else when I tanked, and I think we didn't even lose anyone on the kill.
That said, warriors aren't the best choice for this guy. If you have a Paladin tank with the right amount of hit rating, Avenger's shield is most definately the way to go. Key thing is making sure that hit rating is high enough. When that shield misses, people die. And if you lose too many...
Also, don't transition him to 'phase 3' while he's in demon phase. That's just bad news. Even after our first kill, there were a lot of wipes until we learned to be patient.
Karathress
This guy must have been nerfed... we went in, learned, and killed him, all in one night.
Key to the fight: getting the pull down. Once the pull works correctly it just falls into place... a missdirect for the shaman's tank is very, very, valuable. It'll ensure no spitfire totems dropped in awkward places.
Solarian
Ridiculously easy. Possibly the easiest boss in T5 content.... no wait, drop the possibly. She is most definately the easiest boss in T5. We two-shotted her on our first kill. Yes, that easy.
Al'ar
This fiery chicken is going to get his own post. We spent a lot of time messing around with strategies until we found one that worked perfectly for us. I intend to post the strat since it isn't what other people talk about (though there are definately elements taken from other strats).
Edit: I should really update that picture on the right. I wasn't even in full T4 then. I hadn't even killed Prince when I took that shot.
Re: Talent Points
I give up. It isn't worth the investment of emotion to really push for this. I've written and thrown out five articles in the last month. Each time trying to address this thing, but none of them came out right. They each ended up being scrapped and the txt files I wrote in are long gone from the box where I do my writing.
Ultimately: it's a major design point in WoW and it's something that the developers have refused to conceed on time and again. If you ask them, I'm sure they'll say that the talent system is one of the things that sets WoW appart from other games. If you're a tank and want to afford your habit? Level an alt or something. *sigh*
Why am I posting about this? Firstly to give some closure to the pieces. Secondly, because I have other things I want to write about that I've been putting off until I could finish up the talent point thing. So yeah, it's done.
Ultimately: it's a major design point in WoW and it's something that the developers have refused to conceed on time and again. If you ask them, I'm sure they'll say that the talent system is one of the things that sets WoW appart from other games. If you're a tank and want to afford your habit? Level an alt or something. *sigh*
Why am I posting about this? Firstly to give some closure to the pieces. Secondly, because I have other things I want to write about that I've been putting off until I could finish up the talent point thing. So yeah, it's done.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Requirements (Respecs)
In my last two posts I talked about why Blizzard introduced talents and respecs, and what went wrong with the design (aka: what's broken). A couple posts ago I also made an attempt at listing "all the stuff Blizzard would have to fix" if they weren't going to introduce free respecs.
I'm not particularly happy with that post, and I want to take another stab at identifying what an ideal solution needs to provide. Rather than name individual gameplay mechanics that are pain points, I'd like to define the solutions requirements in terms of game design as discussed in the last two posts.
1. Keep the System
First thing to point out is the obvious: we can't kill the game to introduce a fix for what seems to be a fundamental flaw. We can't remove game mechanics that have existed since the release of World of Warcraft 1.0. Nor can we re-architect the classes to change what they can do. The general feel of each class has been tweaked through the various patches, but never drastically changed. (Anything drastic was to fix something that was intended but not achieved.)
2. Preserve Pride
As stated in the the post on why Blizzard introduced specialization: their original goal, which hasn't changed, is to have players be proud of their character's specialization. To give players a sense of inviduality. You're not just "a shaman", you're an "elemental shaman"! You're not just "a rogue", you're a "combat swords rogue"! And I'm not just a warrior. I. AM. A. TANK.
Of note: my original solution broke this tennant. I was willing to throw this away in order to fix the others.
3. Be Fair and Equalize
Whatever solution gets chosen, being fair to all classes and specilizations is a must have. As it stands now, DPS specializations have a definate advantage over tanking and healing specializations since the latter two are only viable in one of the three end-game scenarios. A good solution should even things out and not sway the advantage in the other direction. Note that I'm not saying that tanks and healers need to be brought up... the answer could just as easilly be to nerf the viability of DPS.
4. Accessibility (optional)
Ideally, a solution would make all parts of the game easilly accessible. Note: not just equally accessible, but easilly accessible. Regardless of the role you've chosen for your character, or how you've chosen to flavor that role, all game-play scenarios should be viable (again, defining viable as being competative with all other specializations).
I've named this last criteria optional because it really is. Personally, I'd love to see this in a solution, but it isn't a base requirement. At a very minimum, equalizing viablity is required. Making every specialization viable in every scenario is just a nice-to-have way of doing it.
Next Posts:
Now that these 'rules' have been established, my intent is to spend the next few posts discussing solutions in terms of them. Subjects will include: dual specs, daily quests, and possibly another thing or two... we'll see.
I'm not particularly happy with that post, and I want to take another stab at identifying what an ideal solution needs to provide. Rather than name individual gameplay mechanics that are pain points, I'd like to define the solutions requirements in terms of game design as discussed in the last two posts.
1. Keep the System
First thing to point out is the obvious: we can't kill the game to introduce a fix for what seems to be a fundamental flaw. We can't remove game mechanics that have existed since the release of World of Warcraft 1.0. Nor can we re-architect the classes to change what they can do. The general feel of each class has been tweaked through the various patches, but never drastically changed. (Anything drastic was to fix something that was intended but not achieved.)
2. Preserve Pride
As stated in the the post on why Blizzard introduced specialization: their original goal, which hasn't changed, is to have players be proud of their character's specialization. To give players a sense of inviduality. You're not just "a shaman", you're an "elemental shaman"! You're not just "a rogue", you're a "combat swords rogue"! And I'm not just a warrior. I. AM. A. TANK.
Of note: my original solution broke this tennant. I was willing to throw this away in order to fix the others.
3. Be Fair and Equalize
Whatever solution gets chosen, being fair to all classes and specilizations is a must have. As it stands now, DPS specializations have a definate advantage over tanking and healing specializations since the latter two are only viable in one of the three end-game scenarios. A good solution should even things out and not sway the advantage in the other direction. Note that I'm not saying that tanks and healers need to be brought up... the answer could just as easilly be to nerf the viability of DPS.
4. Accessibility (optional)
Ideally, a solution would make all parts of the game easilly accessible. Note: not just equally accessible, but easilly accessible. Regardless of the role you've chosen for your character, or how you've chosen to flavor that role, all game-play scenarios should be viable (again, defining viable as being competative with all other specializations).
I've named this last criteria optional because it really is. Personally, I'd love to see this in a solution, but it isn't a base requirement. At a very minimum, equalizing viablity is required. Making every specialization viable in every scenario is just a nice-to-have way of doing it.
Next Posts:
Now that these 'rules' have been established, my intent is to spend the next few posts discussing solutions in terms of them. Subjects will include: dual specs, daily quests, and possibly another thing or two... we'll see.
What Went Wrong (Respecs Cont)
If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you start by reading my last post. It discusses (what I believe to be) the design decision that lead to talents and respecs. This post is meant to cover exactly what the title suggests: what went wrong to cause the pain that players are now feeling.
To start this off I want to approach specialization from the original source (a second time): Diablo II.
In Diablo II (and the subsequent expansion, Lord of Destruction), you created a character that assumed one of seven classes: Amazon, Barbarian, Necromancer, Paladin, Sorceress, Assassin and Druid. (The last two come from the expansion). The game emphasized combat and was playable in either single-player or multi-player mode. As your character gained experience and levels, you would specialize the character via a system somewhat like WoW's talent trees.
A thing to note about Diablo II is that all of the character classes and talent trees were build around being effective damage dealers. You could boost yourself and your fellow party members, but ultimately all characters were DPS based. There were no healers. There were no tanks. What you customized was how you dealt damage. You developed your own style of delivering death to your opponents via your talent spec. Also important: there were no immunities. Each flavor of damage dealing was just that: a flavor. Choosing to specialize in one way or another would not prevent you from beating an encounter. Specialization just allowed you to be unique in the way you faced it.
The second thing worth noting is that Diablo II had a single gameplay scenario: you went out in the world / dungeon / whatever and you killed things. In doing so you gained new items and levels, and became stronger. This in turn allowed you to take on more difficult content.
That's very different from World of Warcraft where things are more complex and there are several gameplay scenarios:
In both scenarios 1 and 2, the player's objective is to kill things quickly. The game favors high damage output over high survivability. The reason for this, is that this part of the game is meant to be playable without a group. Some classes are designed to have low survivability (good old glass cannon mages) and in order to make it viable for a low survivability class to farm and level, the monsters cannot strike so hard as to kill the character in just one or two blows (like elites potentially can). In order for you to be effective in this part of the game, you need to specialize yourself as a damage dealer.
In scenario 3, the game splits into a several roles in order to beat the content. A player with high survivability, high threat generation and low damage output becomes necessary (tanks). Healers become necessary. And finally, high damage dealers remain necessary. In order to partake in this part of the game, you need to specialize into one of the three roles.
In scenario 4, the game changes again. (Disclaimer: I am not a PvPer and I don't claim to know all that much about PvP specs. If I get this wrong, please feel free to correct me.) High damage output, some survivability, extra control... these are all things I see in the commong PvP builds. As gear stats change, this tends to change as well, but the thing to note here is that hight DPS (though slightly different flavors of it compared to scenario 3) is the sought after trait. Tanks and healers quickly become useless since the 'usual' threat rules don't apply.
You can see what's wrong already: Blizzard has created four different sub-games within WoW. And unlike Diablo II, a character's specialization is not necessarilly viable (read: useful / competative) in all of them. You cannot add flavor to your character and have the character do everything in the game.
In the case of tanks and healers, both specializations that are required for scenario 3, we have two specializations that are not useful in any other part of the game. They cannot farm effectively, nor can they fight with a hope of winning in arenas. This is the opposite of DPS characters that seem to have the 'best of both worlds'... a player who's specialized for DPS in scenario 3 does well in scenario 2, and fairly well in scenario 4. A player who has specialized for DPS in scenario 4 does well in scenario 2, and fairly well in scenario 3.
An asside frustration for DPS: a player who has flavored his DPS in one way for scenario 3 may not be able to partake in all aspects of scenario 3 due to monster immunities. This means that some players, even though they only focus on one scenario in the game, can't even partake in all aspects of that scenario.
And the final reminder: you cannot do scenario 3 or 4 and skip scenario 2. Farming is required for enchantments, making weapons, making and/or buying consumables, and paying for repair bills (of course, no repairs in scenario 4). This means that anyone who has specialized as tank or healer is essentially screwed.
The key things to take away from all this:
Next posts:
what a solution needs to provide
dual specializations
fancier daily quests
To start this off I want to approach specialization from the original source (a second time): Diablo II.
In Diablo II (and the subsequent expansion, Lord of Destruction), you created a character that assumed one of seven classes: Amazon, Barbarian, Necromancer, Paladin, Sorceress, Assassin and Druid. (The last two come from the expansion). The game emphasized combat and was playable in either single-player or multi-player mode. As your character gained experience and levels, you would specialize the character via a system somewhat like WoW's talent trees.
A thing to note about Diablo II is that all of the character classes and talent trees were build around being effective damage dealers. You could boost yourself and your fellow party members, but ultimately all characters were DPS based. There were no healers. There were no tanks. What you customized was how you dealt damage. You developed your own style of delivering death to your opponents via your talent spec. Also important: there were no immunities. Each flavor of damage dealing was just that: a flavor. Choosing to specialize in one way or another would not prevent you from beating an encounter. Specialization just allowed you to be unique in the way you faced it.
The second thing worth noting is that Diablo II had a single gameplay scenario: you went out in the world / dungeon / whatever and you killed things. In doing so you gained new items and levels, and became stronger. This in turn allowed you to take on more difficult content.
That's very different from World of Warcraft where things are more complex and there are several gameplay scenarios:
- leveling up
- grinding materials / gold
- running instances / raiding
- fighting PvP
In both scenarios 1 and 2, the player's objective is to kill things quickly. The game favors high damage output over high survivability. The reason for this, is that this part of the game is meant to be playable without a group. Some classes are designed to have low survivability (good old glass cannon mages) and in order to make it viable for a low survivability class to farm and level, the monsters cannot strike so hard as to kill the character in just one or two blows (like elites potentially can). In order for you to be effective in this part of the game, you need to specialize yourself as a damage dealer.
In scenario 3, the game splits into a several roles in order to beat the content. A player with high survivability, high threat generation and low damage output becomes necessary (tanks). Healers become necessary. And finally, high damage dealers remain necessary. In order to partake in this part of the game, you need to specialize into one of the three roles.
In scenario 4, the game changes again. (Disclaimer: I am not a PvPer and I don't claim to know all that much about PvP specs. If I get this wrong, please feel free to correct me.) High damage output, some survivability, extra control... these are all things I see in the commong PvP builds. As gear stats change, this tends to change as well, but the thing to note here is that hight DPS (though slightly different flavors of it compared to scenario 3) is the sought after trait. Tanks and healers quickly become useless since the 'usual' threat rules don't apply.
You can see what's wrong already: Blizzard has created four different sub-games within WoW. And unlike Diablo II, a character's specialization is not necessarilly viable (read: useful / competative) in all of them. You cannot add flavor to your character and have the character do everything in the game.
In the case of tanks and healers, both specializations that are required for scenario 3, we have two specializations that are not useful in any other part of the game. They cannot farm effectively, nor can they fight with a hope of winning in arenas. This is the opposite of DPS characters that seem to have the 'best of both worlds'... a player who's specialized for DPS in scenario 3 does well in scenario 2, and fairly well in scenario 4. A player who has specialized for DPS in scenario 4 does well in scenario 2, and fairly well in scenario 3.
An asside frustration for DPS: a player who has flavored his DPS in one way for scenario 3 may not be able to partake in all aspects of scenario 3 due to monster immunities. This means that some players, even though they only focus on one scenario in the game, can't even partake in all aspects of that scenario.
And the final reminder: you cannot do scenario 3 or 4 and skip scenario 2. Farming is required for enchantments, making weapons, making and/or buying consumables, and paying for repair bills (of course, no repairs in scenario 4). This means that anyone who has specialized as tank or healer is essentially screwed.
The key things to take away from all this:
- Unlike the original source, where specialization was a customization feature and little more, specializtion in WoW limits your character's options for gameplay.
- Healing and Tank specializations are the most limiting in the game. (and again, people wonder why healers and tanks are so hard to find... *sigh*)
Next posts:
what a solution needs to provide
dual specializations
fancier daily quests
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Justification (Respecs cont)
I want to write two more posts (at least two more) addressing some more alternative solutions: different dailies, and dual-specs. Before I write those, I should write about "Blizzard's reason" for respec costs. I should probably follow this post up with a "what went wrong" post as well.
The justification is fairly simple: Blizzard wants your specialization to mean something to you.
Back in the Diablo II days, you could specialize characters and it was a one way trip. If you wanted a different character, you had to go through the game again and specialize a different way. (I still have many fond memories of jumping across rivers of lava into piles of monsters and laying waste to them. I have to admit that I didn't get into the multiplayer aspects of the game... no clue how specialization and being locked into it ended up playing out in multiplayer.)
Of course, that doesn't make sense for a game like World of Warcraft.
World of Warcraft is not supposed to end: there is no clear ending. There is no final boss followed by a cut scene. You won't ever kill something and then see credits roll. Blizzard extends the story, the items receivable, and eventually levels and talents simply to keep you going (and rightly so!). The longer you play, the more you invest in your character, and the more likely you are to stick around. Why would you ever consider switching to another MMORPG when you have so much invested in your Warcraft character and there is so much more content to see? So long as noone else comes out with a truely revolutionary design, Blizzard has managed to lock players into the game.
Since the players have so much invested in that first character, the last thing Blizzard wants them to do is throw the character away. This is why talents were left changable in WoW 1.0...
Imagine getting to 60 specialized in DPS and finding out that, after months of playing, some of the talent points you spent back in the late 20s / early 30s were badly placed. That you need to be more specialized in order to defeat raid content, and that no guild will take you since your specialization isn't even close to optimal. Or even worse, that you leveled as DPS since it's faster (the nature of leveling is killing things, you don't need a tank to kill things, and thus DPS will always level faster), and now you're needed as a tank.
If one of those things happened to you, you wouldn't start a second character and "try again". You had months invested in the first toon, and finding out that all the high level content is inaccessible would probably have you walking away from the game in disgust. I certainly would be.
So Blizzard introduced respecing. The goal was to let you change specializations whenever absolutely necessary, but to make it slightly prohibitive to do so since they want to achieve at least part of the specialization feel from Diablo II. You're not just "a warrior who can do anything a warrior can do"... you're "a warrior who can take hits and keep things away from the other group members". You're a "sword specialist". You're an "axe specialist". You're unique, and not "just another warrior". Costs start small, which allows players to experiment, but rise quickly, encouraging players to "settle in" to a specialization.
The biggest argument against removing respec costs is, of course, this one: why even have talents if you're going to make it trivial to change specializations? You invalidate the whole goal of having them by removing the cost.
Val made a good point on Monday night when he and I were talking about this. He defined the game in terms of a spectrum of what you play when:
Removing the cost of specialization colapses two of those levels: talents and armor end up going hand in hand. You end up chosing your talents and your armor based on the fight, and completely invalidate the need for the talents.
Next post: what went wrong.
The justification is fairly simple: Blizzard wants your specialization to mean something to you.
Back in the Diablo II days, you could specialize characters and it was a one way trip. If you wanted a different character, you had to go through the game again and specialize a different way. (I still have many fond memories of jumping across rivers of lava into piles of monsters and laying waste to them. I have to admit that I didn't get into the multiplayer aspects of the game... no clue how specialization and being locked into it ended up playing out in multiplayer.)
Of course, that doesn't make sense for a game like World of Warcraft.
World of Warcraft is not supposed to end: there is no clear ending. There is no final boss followed by a cut scene. You won't ever kill something and then see credits roll. Blizzard extends the story, the items receivable, and eventually levels and talents simply to keep you going (and rightly so!). The longer you play, the more you invest in your character, and the more likely you are to stick around. Why would you ever consider switching to another MMORPG when you have so much invested in your Warcraft character and there is so much more content to see? So long as noone else comes out with a truely revolutionary design, Blizzard has managed to lock players into the game.
Since the players have so much invested in that first character, the last thing Blizzard wants them to do is throw the character away. This is why talents were left changable in WoW 1.0...
Imagine getting to 60 specialized in DPS and finding out that, after months of playing, some of the talent points you spent back in the late 20s / early 30s were badly placed. That you need to be more specialized in order to defeat raid content, and that no guild will take you since your specialization isn't even close to optimal. Or even worse, that you leveled as DPS since it's faster (the nature of leveling is killing things, you don't need a tank to kill things, and thus DPS will always level faster), and now you're needed as a tank.
If one of those things happened to you, you wouldn't start a second character and "try again". You had months invested in the first toon, and finding out that all the high level content is inaccessible would probably have you walking away from the game in disgust. I certainly would be.
So Blizzard introduced respecing. The goal was to let you change specializations whenever absolutely necessary, but to make it slightly prohibitive to do so since they want to achieve at least part of the specialization feel from Diablo II. You're not just "a warrior who can do anything a warrior can do"... you're "a warrior who can take hits and keep things away from the other group members". You're a "sword specialist". You're an "axe specialist". You're unique, and not "just another warrior". Costs start small, which allows players to experiment, but rise quickly, encouraging players to "settle in" to a specialization.
The biggest argument against removing respec costs is, of course, this one: why even have talents if you're going to make it trivial to change specializations? You invalidate the whole goal of having them by removing the cost.
Val made a good point on Monday night when he and I were talking about this. He defined the game in terms of a spectrum of what you play when:
- When you choose your race, faction and class at character creation, you choose what you intend to play for the next year or two.
- When you choose your talent specialization, you choose what you want to play for the next month.
- When you don a differen set of armor you choose what you want to play in the next fight.
- When you select your weapons (which are changable mid-fight) you choose what your role will be for the next couple seconds.
Removing the cost of specialization colapses two of those levels: talents and armor end up going hand in hand. You end up chosing your talents and your armor based on the fight, and completely invalidate the need for the talents.
Next post: what went wrong.
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