With the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King release, Blizzard has been talking about making the game feel more epic, more heroic (at least for Death Knights). One of the least heroic things I found about levelling my character in outland was that every once in a while I had to haul ass back to some old world capital city to get my training done by the same guys who have been training me since level 10.
If those guys are that good why aren't THEY killing Illidan? Or conquering Alterac Valley? Or dominating the Arena? It certainly won't be epic if theres a few Death Knight trainers just milling about somewhere in Stormwind. (...Undercity on the other hand they'd fit right in...) I say they have served their purpose. I put on my big boy pants at level 70 and they have nothing more to teach me.
Instead spell ranks should be learned through class questing.
One of my faveorite things about levelling up my warlock was that there were plenty of quests that forced me to prove my worth to some master of warlockery in order to receive a particular new spell. They often required me to gather materials from powerful demons or participate in some profane rite.
On the opposite hand I have my rogue and priest alt. My priest had an interesting quest at around lvl 10 to do something for a spell, but nothing new since then. My rogue did the reputation building quest with Ravenholdt, only to discover there was nothing more to do there. In comparison my Warlock had, by level 40, done 4 class quests for learning how to summon pets, and 3 class quests for obtaining useful equipment.
The dreadsteed questline takes the tops: I had to sneak into a demonic lair and trick it's denizens into giving me information on how to summon my mount. Then I assembled a few powerful magical artifacts with rare consumables from around the world. You then wander into some highborne ruins and deactivate a barrier surrounding a powerful demon. After killing said demon I had to enact a ritual that would over time draw more glyphs on the ground as demons warped into existance, ending with a very angry demon and his horse for my group to help me take down.
In Outland, however, they forgot about class quests almost entirely. Only the druids got one, and they already have moonglade. What gives? There aren't even class quests for epic items to help patch up itemization gaps in raiding.
Back on point: for an epic hero who has laid waste to many dangerous foes and magical beasts, training should no longer be about handing over some gold and saluting. Instead it should be about searching out new sources of power and taking them from their owners. Proving your worth through a challenge of power. Discovering a tome of ancient and arcane lore written in an indecipherable language, so you must seek aid in translating it. Sneaking into a heavily fortified fortres, stealing important documents and sabotaging its inner workings before leaving undetected. Competing with a master of arms in sparring, and as a reward for your cunning he teaches you a new trick with your sword. These are heroic ways to unlock new abilities.
I know Blizzard wants to keep people going back to the old Azeroth capitals, but keeping the only source of class training there will just be a repeat of TBC: After the initial rush to 80, there will be little need for 90% of the high level population to step inside old world capitals again. There needs to be a better incentive to hang out there.
There are some downsides to this system, where people can level faster and higher than new ranks would be given to them. It would also unfairly punish PvPers that have no interest in playing the PvE game and just want to reach level 80 ASAP. Theres some definite balance issues. It may seem like a good idea to have a lvl 80 spell rank as a reward for clearing a lvl 80 dungeon instance, or completing a lvl 80 group quest -- but then you run into problems where people need to run that quest and no longer receive the necessary help, as they joined too late or a new expansion dropped.
Showing posts with label design idea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label design idea. Show all posts
Jan 9, 2008
Jan 3, 2008
the bash'ir landing event
Why the hell aren't there more things like this in the game? For anyone who has never gotten enough people together to do it, you are missing out on some very interesting stuff.
Basically the Bash'ir landing event happens every 2 hours. Some Shat'tari Skyguards fly up to the northwestern corner of Blades Edge Mountain and expect a few players to bother to defend them. The longer you defend them, the better merchants you get. But the longer you defend them, the more enemies come, the rate they approach increases, and the types of mobs that attack continually get stronger. Theres a boss mob at the end to top it all off.
Sadly, most of the items you can buy in it are forgettable. You really need 10-20 people to survive all the way to the end, and if you can coordinate that many people you've already been clearing Karazhan, so the blue items you can get from defending to spawn the final vendor aren't that great. But the overall encounter is an interesting experience, and some of the flasks help a great deal on Gruul.
Events like this are nice because they break up the dull staticness of the world. The game world is populated with wandering masses of mobs that will slowly respawn even after you clear the area of them. The event though, your ability to withstand mobs has an effect of spawning more mobs. It would make the game more interesting if they applied this principle elsewhere in the game.
I think a healthy sprinkling of this here or there wouldn't hurt the game too much. For example, the "Onyxia Style" raids in the game are too short to have any interesting trash drops, yet for a guild learning them the repair costs and not easily offset (my repair bill from my worst nights in Karazhan are about 5 gold, my worst nights in Magtheridon? 27). To alleviate this, there could be some sort of crazy optional event in them that would trigger a lot of extra trash to fight, and they would result in some combination of gold, reputation rewards and tokens to receive items. The rewards shoudln't be spectacular, just good enough so that a guild who has the place on farm status would skip over it, but a guild just starting the place would do it, if only to recoup expenses from a night of wipes.
Basically the Bash'ir landing event happens every 2 hours. Some Shat'tari Skyguards fly up to the northwestern corner of Blades Edge Mountain and expect a few players to bother to defend them. The longer you defend them, the better merchants you get. But the longer you defend them, the more enemies come, the rate they approach increases, and the types of mobs that attack continually get stronger. Theres a boss mob at the end to top it all off.
Sadly, most of the items you can buy in it are forgettable. You really need 10-20 people to survive all the way to the end, and if you can coordinate that many people you've already been clearing Karazhan, so the blue items you can get from defending to spawn the final vendor aren't that great. But the overall encounter is an interesting experience, and some of the flasks help a great deal on Gruul.
Events like this are nice because they break up the dull staticness of the world. The game world is populated with wandering masses of mobs that will slowly respawn even after you clear the area of them. The event though, your ability to withstand mobs has an effect of spawning more mobs. It would make the game more interesting if they applied this principle elsewhere in the game.
I think a healthy sprinkling of this here or there wouldn't hurt the game too much. For example, the "Onyxia Style" raids in the game are too short to have any interesting trash drops, yet for a guild learning them the repair costs and not easily offset (my repair bill from my worst nights in Karazhan are about 5 gold, my worst nights in Magtheridon? 27). To alleviate this, there could be some sort of crazy optional event in them that would trigger a lot of extra trash to fight, and they would result in some combination of gold, reputation rewards and tokens to receive items. The rewards shoudln't be spectacular, just good enough so that a guild who has the place on farm status would skip over it, but a guild just starting the place would do it, if only to recoup expenses from a night of wipes.
Jan 2, 2008
new healer mechanics
If the first hero class is going to be able to tank because of "tank drought", I'm betting the second hero class is going to be able to heal. But at the same time there still needs to be mechanics that exist that make them seperate and unique from the other healers. Additionally, Healers will probably be dissapointed if Blizzard doesnt introduce new gimmicks in Wrath that alter how they have to heal, if only a little bit.
IDEAS
Charged Healing: The priest T4 4/5 set bonus has an interesting mechanic where using flash heal several times stacks a charge that reduces the casting time of greater heal. Why not make this into a learnable mechanic? Using a mana inefficient heal to build the charges isnt the best idea though, as then it really becomes more of a way to mitigate the hurt of using them and less of an interesting mechanic to use. Instead you make it an ability that costs little/no mana, but used the global cooldown to build charges, and when fully charged it can reduce the casting cost of the spell to an instant.
"Rage" Based Healing: Druids have Omen of Clarity, but Tree druids are far too immobile to make full use of it in a raid situation. Paladins on the other hand, could benefit from a simmilar ability, as to turn them into something a bit more complex and interesting than deciding "use the big heal" or "spam the little heal". Perhaps a way to spruce up the retribution tree?
Reward for Healing well: One interesting idea is to have an ability that will refund the healers mana based on how much they are actually healing, to discourage them from overhealing. This is a bad mechanic for Paladins (they have this mechanic in reverse), Druids (why bother healing accurately when you can self innervate?), and Shaman (have totems that will refund their mana). It would be best as a high tier Discipline talent for Priests, or good for a new healer class that is fundamentally mana inefficient, and thus to only be useful at healing they have to play smart.
Front/Backloaded HoT: Druids have a nice backloaded HoT, but the HoT component is stack based. A frontloaded HoT would give the healer the dilemma of deciding over whether to continue having the HoT up, knowing that it is healing less and less, or to refresh it. A backloaded HoT would also be nice, its usefullness would be mostly in healing the raid, as a healer could throw it on a target and switch to their next -- but it would also create the dilemma of "is this person going to die before the HoT gets good!?". Perhaps a "Mid"-loaded HoT would combine the best of bost worlds?
Area Shield: A sort of AOE version of Power Word: Shield, where they designate an AOE area or point blank drop an invisible totem that creates a bubble around the area. All damage taken by people in the area reduces from the total amount of damage the shield absorbs, until it breaks.
Situational Shielding: Power Word: Shield blocks all types of damage, but what about shields that can only block certain elemental types? A good class to receive this would be the Shaman, since it fits their "elemental master" role well.
Damage Supression: A buff that prevents the first X of damage from a source but adds a stacking debuff, that on expiration deals X times the number of stacked damage. Alternatively, a buff that functions like inner fire but can be cast on other people. (Allow priests to cast inner fire other people, but they can only have one inner fire up at any time?)
Healing Exhaustion: Power Word: Shield and Blessing of Protection throw on debuffs that prevent them from being used again in rapid succession, and BoP has a nice large cooldown. Perhaps some new healing mechanic could be introduced with this where it reduces the effectiveness of the spell the more it is used. With this in place, Blizzard could give a healing class an awesome new healing spell that is fast, efficient, and bursty, but at the same time only situationally effective and reserved.
Contagious Healing: Simmilar to how some boss effects penalize players for standing too close together, why not make a healing spell that heals the intended target, and gives a little extra healing to those around him/her.
Channeled Healing Spells: Tranquility is ok, but I'm thinking something more along the lines of how warlocks can heal their pets.
Pave the Way First: Healing Way is an interesting Shaman talent, but a more interesting mechanic is a healing spell that requires first a buff to be placed on the target before it is fully effective. For a new class, for example, the buff would be slow to cast, and only placeable on one target, but the benefit would be that buffed target would receive extra healing and/or the spell would would have increased mana efficiency.
A Healing Pet: If only to get more pets in the game. This would go good with the Channeled Healing Spell. While the player is busy focusing on one target, they can order their pet to go spot heal somone else. Make it a small Naaru as to increase their relevance in a post BC world.
IDEAS
Charged Healing: The priest T4 4/5 set bonus has an interesting mechanic where using flash heal several times stacks a charge that reduces the casting time of greater heal. Why not make this into a learnable mechanic? Using a mana inefficient heal to build the charges isnt the best idea though, as then it really becomes more of a way to mitigate the hurt of using them and less of an interesting mechanic to use. Instead you make it an ability that costs little/no mana, but used the global cooldown to build charges, and when fully charged it can reduce the casting cost of the spell to an instant.
"Rage" Based Healing: Druids have Omen of Clarity, but Tree druids are far too immobile to make full use of it in a raid situation. Paladins on the other hand, could benefit from a simmilar ability, as to turn them into something a bit more complex and interesting than deciding "use the big heal" or "spam the little heal". Perhaps a way to spruce up the retribution tree?
Reward for Healing well: One interesting idea is to have an ability that will refund the healers mana based on how much they are actually healing, to discourage them from overhealing. This is a bad mechanic for Paladins (they have this mechanic in reverse), Druids (why bother healing accurately when you can self innervate?), and Shaman (have totems that will refund their mana). It would be best as a high tier Discipline talent for Priests, or good for a new healer class that is fundamentally mana inefficient, and thus to only be useful at healing they have to play smart.
Front/Backloaded HoT: Druids have a nice backloaded HoT, but the HoT component is stack based. A frontloaded HoT would give the healer the dilemma of deciding over whether to continue having the HoT up, knowing that it is healing less and less, or to refresh it. A backloaded HoT would also be nice, its usefullness would be mostly in healing the raid, as a healer could throw it on a target and switch to their next -- but it would also create the dilemma of "is this person going to die before the HoT gets good!?". Perhaps a "Mid"-loaded HoT would combine the best of bost worlds?
Area Shield: A sort of AOE version of Power Word: Shield, where they designate an AOE area or point blank drop an invisible totem that creates a bubble around the area. All damage taken by people in the area reduces from the total amount of damage the shield absorbs, until it breaks.
Situational Shielding: Power Word: Shield blocks all types of damage, but what about shields that can only block certain elemental types? A good class to receive this would be the Shaman, since it fits their "elemental master" role well.
Damage Supression: A buff that prevents the first X of damage from a source but adds a stacking debuff, that on expiration deals X times the number of stacked damage. Alternatively, a buff that functions like inner fire but can be cast on other people. (Allow priests to cast inner fire other people, but they can only have one inner fire up at any time?)
Healing Exhaustion: Power Word: Shield and Blessing of Protection throw on debuffs that prevent them from being used again in rapid succession, and BoP has a nice large cooldown. Perhaps some new healing mechanic could be introduced with this where it reduces the effectiveness of the spell the more it is used. With this in place, Blizzard could give a healing class an awesome new healing spell that is fast, efficient, and bursty, but at the same time only situationally effective and reserved.
Contagious Healing: Simmilar to how some boss effects penalize players for standing too close together, why not make a healing spell that heals the intended target, and gives a little extra healing to those around him/her.
Channeled Healing Spells: Tranquility is ok, but I'm thinking something more along the lines of how warlocks can heal their pets.
Pave the Way First: Healing Way is an interesting Shaman talent, but a more interesting mechanic is a healing spell that requires first a buff to be placed on the target before it is fully effective. For a new class, for example, the buff would be slow to cast, and only placeable on one target, but the benefit would be that buffed target would receive extra healing and/or the spell would would have increased mana efficiency.
A Healing Pet: If only to get more pets in the game. This would go good with the Channeled Healing Spell. While the player is busy focusing on one target, they can order their pet to go spot heal somone else. Make it a small Naaru as to increase their relevance in a post BC world.
Dec 12, 2007
why the current arena system is lame
As a player in general - not just a raider - I have an issue with the current Arena gear distribution system.
Its not that I consider them welfare epics. If Arena gear is welfare epics then that makes all reputation reward, crafted, and badge reward items welfare epics. The only real welfare epics were the things Headless Horseman dropped in my opinion, and that new item they added in Scarlet Monastery. And I'm pretty sure the latter only exists because they wanted to fuck around with people who make BG twinks. Back on point: from what I understand, having a set of Arena gear is necessary to compete in there, and I dont want them to change it so only the best teams have the best gear. Thats stupid.
Its not that I'm bitching about the stats. New seasons are necessary to prevent Johnny Q. Raider from coming into Arena's and being unstoppable because stuff he got from the latest instance is too powerful compared to Arena gear. Furthermore, for all of the Arena's +stats, the Arena gear really sucks for raiding. It doesn't have avoidance stats, so you can't tank in it. It doesn't have enough of the required stats for raid healing. And it doesnt have enough +hit to make it useful for DPS on anything beyond Gruuls Lair. It can fill gear gaps a raider might have in the middle of SSC, but with the new badge gear, ZA gear and various professions these gaps should have been filled by now. Similarly if you desire epics for grinding mobs or doing 5-mans, heroics and badge rewards fill out the armor slots quite nicely and easily.
The only Arena gear that can really interest raiders are the weapons, and now that weapons are getting ratings locked, its really more of a problem on Blizzards end with not properly itemizing encounters. One well documented case is that sword rogues pretty much have to PvP to get decent swords for raiding. This is not the fault of the Arena system having too good of items, but the fault of the itemization team for not including enough swords. Its easily fixed: there needs to be more loot tables like Prince Malchezaar, where you are gauranteed an armor token, a nice weapon, and something extra. On a more extreme side, Blizzard could reintroduce raiding weapon quests, where a quest item can drop that multiple classes can use and then assemble tradegoods and raid drops to create a nice weapon.
My problem is the cosmetics. With raiders, having unique looking gear is one of the side benefits of fighting bosses. Dont get me wrong, I'm not "raiding for the items". The items themselves become the battle trophies of the amount of effort you put into raiding. And while WoWJutsu is nice, its not nearly as built in as Arena ratings. I think this "gear as a trophy" mechanic is an important mechanic. Blizzard thinks so too, which is why S3 shoulders are ratings locked.
But in Arena, after a certain point, everyone starts to look the same from all scrambling to get the same, best gear. My proposition is this: allow gladiator/pvp gear to be upgraded stat wise at a discount, while at the same time ratings lock the newer items. The upgrade itself is a special kind of enchantment that takes up a special "arena enchantment" slot the item has, that doesnt overwrite standard enchantments. The discount should be great enough that it is cheaper for a newcomer to grab the oldest season items and upgrade them to the current season. The discount could be at least some sort of Arena point reduction, but perhaps contain a gold and/or honor point component. To not trivialize getting the newest Arena gear entirely, the "arena enchantments" only apply in Battlegrounds and Arenas -- perhaps only a weakened amount in the Battlegrounds.
This has 3 intended effects:
Removes the barrier for new gladiators even more.
Removes gear gaps that shouldnt exist in pure PvP competition faster.
Enhances the "items as trophies" mechanic on the newest season of items.
There also really needs to be a difference between the Arena gear and Raiding gear. I'm not saying Arena gear should look crappy, I'm saying it should look different. Raiding gear should and does look like you ripped it away from whoever was holding onto it and took it for your own use. PvP gear should look like it is worn by battle hardened elite, who are victorious in the field of battle. A good example of PvP gear models are the old High Warlord/Grand Marshal plate armors. They're a little simple compared to todays current super-cool-animated-glowy-armor, but they're a nice starting point.
At the very least, if they are going to recolor raiding tiers for arena gear, at least make them look different enough that you can readily visibly tell if somone is wearing arena gear or a raiding tier. Good: Priest T5/S2 (though honestly I think the shadow set for T5 should look like S2, make S2 have red highlights or something). Bad: Warlock T5/S2.
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