QuoteWe're continuing to refine the badge/emblem and PvP point systems in Cataclysm and we'd like to share some of those changes with you today. Please enjoy!
Our primary goal when approaching badges in Cataclysm is to address a lot of the confusion that comes with these currency systems. To that end we're changing badges to a more straightforward point system, similar to the ones we've used for a while for Arenas and Battlegrounds. There will be a total of four types of points you can earn in Cataclysm (two for PvE and two for PvP), and these will remain the same even as we introduce new content.
Here's the breakdown:
PvE
Hero Points -- Low-tier, easier-to-get PVE points. Maximum cap to how many you can own, but no cap to how quickly you can earn them. Earned from most dungeons. (most like the current Emblem of Triumph)
Valor Points -- High-tier, harder-to-get PvE points. Maximum cap to how many you can own, as well as a cap to how many you can earn per week. Earned from Dungeon Finder daily Heroic and from raids. (most like the current Emblem of Frost)
PvP
Honor Points -- Low-tier, easier-to-get PVP points. There will be a maximum cap to how many you can own, but no cap to how quickly you can earn them. Earned from most PvP activities.
Conquest Points -- High-tier, harder-to-get PvP points. There will be a maximum cap to how many you can own, and a cap to how many you can earn per week. Earned from winning Rated Battlegrounds or Arenas. (currently called Arena Points)
When a new tier of raiding gear is released or a new PvP season begins, your higher tier of points will be converted into the lower tier. For instance, if a new tier of raid gear is released, your Valor points will be converted to Hero points, and similarly if a new PvP season begins your Conquest points will be converted to Honor points. Of course that means with these new releases you'll always begin without any of the higher tier of points, and thus be unable to stockpile them.
As noted for Conquest points, the Rated Battlegrounds and Arenas will be sharing this same point type. Because of that, it will in fact be possible to get the best PvP items without setting foot in Arena; however, more powerful armor and weapons will of course require more Conquest points, so players who win their matches more often will still gear up faster. We're removing personal rating requirements on almost all items; they're definitely removed for weapons. We might offer a few items to the absolute best players based on personal rating, largely as cosmetic or 'bragging rights' type items. And you'll have the option of purchasing the previous season's gear with the more readily available Honor points.
We do plan to have a way to convert Honor points (PvP) into Hero points (PvE), and vice versa, at a loss. The conversions will be possible, but it won't be a 1:1 rate, and you'll have fewer points after the conversion process. We won't allow the higher tiers to be exchanged for each other, however.
To explain the reasoning for the weekly cap on points for the higher tiers, this is to provide flexibility in how players choose to earn the points without feeling like they have to do all of the content as often as it is available. If your Valor income from raiding is sufficient, you may not feel the need to run Dungeon Finder every night, or perhaps even at all. Likewise, a PvP player could choose to participate in a lot of Rated Battlegrounds but no Arenas, or focus on both, and still be able to earn the points they want.
We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We're eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!
Hmmmmm.......what you lot think........?
I think....that there's no change and their plans will change 137 times between now and alpha. They've just spent 8 inches of column space giving existing systems some new names.
Quote from: TeaLeaf;309014I think....that there's no change...They've just spent 8 inches of column space giving existing systems some new names.
I disagree. I think you missed the part that you will only be able to gain certain number of the higher level point per week, thus not "forcing" you to do random hc each day or possibly at all. This goes perfectly along the way of "gated, not grindy" they are trying to bring with Path of Titans and Archaeology.
Quote from: TeaLeaf;309014...their plans will change 137 times between now and alpha...
Probably. And they mentioned it might change between 4.0 and 4.1 or 4.2 as well
Aren't we already capped on the 'higher level points' - frost badges? Unless they intend greatly reducing th elimit to say less than the equivalent of running the random heroic each week in terms of frost badges.
Quote from: TeaLeaf;309020Aren't we already capped on the 'higher level points' - frost badges?
No, every mean of getting frost emblems is awarding you frost emblems no matter how many have you already collected that week
Quote from: TeaLeaf;309020Unless they intend greatly reducing th elimit to say less than the equivalent of running the random heroic each week in terms of frost badges.
That is exactly the point. I am pretty sure if this was implemented in current tier, you would be allowed to get a lot less than 81 badges (or their point equivalents) per week. Factor in shared lockout for 10 and 25 man and you are at 50 badges per week so my guess would be at 29 (all you can get from full ICC run). Then the price of top emblem gear might be reduced
Quote from: DFE;309022No, every mean of getting frost emblems is awarding you frost emblems no matter how many have you already collected that week
not really there is a max seeing when your done your daily's your weekly raid toravon10+25 and ICC 10+25 there isnt anymore ways to get the emblems, so there is a kinda max but its more blurred
How about doing away with the badge system completely? :D
Like doing away completely and dont implement anything else instead?
yup back to vanilla!!!!
Gets my vote - no skipping of content, you have to actually visit all the content to get the gear.
Current system is ridiculous, allows newbies to skip all of the expansion and step straight into ICC. Produces crappy raiders with little experience, in my opinion.
Would make it really painfull for people that want more then one well geared character though. I know the pain of gearing two chars in vanilla! Allthough I think I was one of the first to have Anathema/Benediction staff on my alt :p
The badges make for some really clueless newbies out there, but at the same time it's not that much fun for me redoing content for the 3rd or 4th time just to get my other chars up to where I want them.
The problem is Blizzard want to give access to the raid content to as many people as possible. Back in vanilla less than 1% of players ever saw the inside of Naxx. SOG was a successful raiding guild at the time, 9th best or so in Aszune and still never downed a Naxx boss. Providing gear via badges solves that problem, but it does as you say "make or some really clueless newbies".
The trend to 'welfare epics' and greater accessibility is one I perosnally do not like. I used to like the fact that you got your PVE gear through the team success of the 40 man raid and that higher tiers of loot were less common. Nowadays everyone looks the same and there is far less variety in set design.
Unfortunately everyone having the same gear access (to therefore provide survivability and access to higher tier raid dungeons) has led to the predominance of GearScore and all its associated idiot users. Back in vanilla a pug would look for people who knew that they were doing as there was little enough gear about that you preferred knowledge over a set-bonus. These days with epics so freely available it is easier to poll an addon for a number and rely on that regardless of the player's ability. It also means people can go AFK in Alterac Valley and get a higher GearScore faster than someone who has ploughed through the heroic dungeons, despite their total lack of PVE skill.
I therefore declare the formation of F.A.G
Fighting Against GearScore is a movement designed to shun users of the GearScore addon and pour scorn on those who rely on it to filter PUG raid members. As a hardcore FAG I commit to positive discrimination in ignoring any person who whispers me for a raid invite and includes their GS or a mention of it. Strangely, whilst setting up a number of PUG Weekly raid quest groups over the last 3 weeks I have found that I fill my pug raids faster when I change my normal shout from this:
/Trade LF1 Tank & some DPS [Noth Must Die!]
to this:
/Trade LF1 Tank & some DPS [Noth Must Die!] - interested parties must be completely devoid of the loathsome GS gene
or
/Trade LF1 Tank & some DPS [Noth Must Die!] - mention GearScore to be ignored
People seem generally to like the fact that this is a FAG raid that shuns GS users and one that automatically ignores anyone that mentions it.
So be proud of who you are, come out and make a statement to others about your beliefs and be a FAG member. DMR needs more FAGs. Commit to declining those who are anti-FAGs and proclaiming your FAG-friendliness to the world in Trade channel when setting up your PUGs.
You know you want to....... :P
/w TL gief inv pl0x, got 6K GS (?) [Level 80] achi lol oki
Now seriously, you might run out of space on your ignore list as it can contain only 50 names (unless it has been expanded recently)
I see a small logical flaw in your post. You claim that nowadays everybody looks the same and has the same gear and that THAT led to dominance of GS. Well, what ourpose would GS serve if everybody had the same gear? :)
Dont get me wrong, I dislike GS the same as you do, in fact I have to smile secretly whenever I see hunters way over hit cap that are still wearing Mark of Supremacy, only to beat the GS :D
Now on badges. Personally, I would prefer some kind of hybrid of Vanilla and current system. There still would be gear obtainable through badges (points)
But you would have to kill certain number of raid bosses of past tier to gain access to next tier. By number of bosses is meant [Kill all bosses up to General Vezaxx to gain access to T9 badge gear] rather than [Kill Flame Leviathan 20 times to gain access to T9 badge gear]. Until you have this "Achievement", or rather Attunement, you cant get any current tier badges.
This attunement might be BoA (since levelling an alt to 60 in is A LOT shorter than levelling to 80 or 85)
But that is just a dream and not going to happen
Oh I like that :D
I'm not in DMR with any of my chars, but can I still be a FAG? :)
Got one question though, for weekly raids and VoA this should be fairly easy to uphold.
However the 25man raiding in the guild I'm currently in is non-existing, so I have to PUG ICC25 (I know, I know. Desperate times calls for desperate measures, but pugs are generally on a decent level these days).
Getting in to ICC outside guild related runs is rather hard without having a certain GearScore (which apparently has been increasing steadily recently with the progress through the place).
Obviously one could make the runs oneself, but not being the leader type and pretty lazy by nature, this could be prove difficult. And I'm sure someone will be ready to complain about the gear nonetheless considering the place the group is heading.
I could skip the content completely, but I would still like to see it and it helps the 10man progress aswell.
The 10man progress is going quite well at the moment, and seeing as I'm no guildjumper (only ever been in 2 guilds - SoG and DD!) and a security junkie, I'm not entirely fond of leaving for a more committed raiding guild, although the temptations are always there.
I find it a little hard to believe that, although as good as it sounds, FAG could be implemented for higher level raids?
I'm not sure Id be able to completely abandon the GS aspect of the game at this time :sad:
Someone needs to invent a Brainscore addons.
Brainscore would deduct points if you stand in the fire on Koralon the Flame Watcher, or ignore adds on Deathwhisper. Or say, ignore the stacks of the frost debuff on Garfrost, and refuse to lose them through LoS.
Quote from: Leemo;309696Someone needs to invent a Brainscore addons.
Brainscore would deduct points if you stand in the fire on Koralon the Flame Watcher, or ignore adds on Deathwhisper. Or say, ignore the stacks of the frost debuff on Garfrost, and refuse to lose them through LoS.
Isnt this what various Fail bots do? :p
Last week one of our raid members had 27 fails on PutricideÃ,´s slime pools in one encounter :)
Interesting, do Failbots produce a log? :norty:
Quote from: Leemo;309706Interesting, do Failbots produce a log? :norty:
As far as I know, the one I use (Ensidia Fails) does various reporting (to channel/raid/party/self/guild/officers/whisper, reports individual fails, stats, etc...) but not saving reports to files.
Just wondering if it also tracks using Saronite Bombs on non existent Frozen throne side platforms in LK encounter :D (for those who dont know, Ensidia used this exploit to help them beat LK and got banned for 3 day for that)
You really used to recognize people by their looks and gear alone, nowadays sure its easier to change your looks, but as you all mentioned above, the gear looks all the same :'(.
I like the initiative that TL takes, might as well follow that, get this hidious GS spamming out of wow!
And lol leemo, thats a pretty good idea, though that would not be beneficial to me, as I have my stupidities from time to time ;)
I think Blizzard has some customizing to do, gief remodeling! I can't wait to run around in tribal gear with some patches of my favourite bands :P
Also Blizzard should reinstate epic fights and maybe legendary rewards. So that people that want to do really hard core work, get real hardcore rewards. And leave the rest as it is, giving people with less time (or brain volume) a chance of gearing up in their own time and give them a chance of seeing everything else in wow, except from that one legendary dungeon, they won't see until the next expension (do not read patch, expension!).
Quote from: DFE;309712Just wondering if it also tracks using Saronite Bombs on non existent Frozen throne side platforms in LK encounter :D (for those who dont know, Ensidia used this exploit to help them beat LK and got banned for 3 day for that)
Scandalous! :rolleyes: