Cracks starting to show?

[Nebu]

What other method would you use? Until they invent a ranking that shows how likely you are to get out of fire on the ground, gear's pretty much all we got.

Given the mechanics of the game, it's probably as good a metric as any. 

I'm starting to realize that I play MMOs for very different reasons than most people.  Gear isn't something I get excited about (beyond aesthetics) and I was always happy to let someone else in the group have a drop if it made them happy.  I got my joy by seeing things and chatting to people while hammering the same 6 buttons.  For me, it was about the interpersonal interaction and the moments of fun that came out of game elements.  Kind of funny to see myself say that knowing how much I hate pugs. 

[Paelos]

I do totally disagree with their policy of having bag items count to your ilvl. It's one thing when it's pvp and ppl are intentionally hiding items in their bag to gain unfair advantages over an undergeared group in the matchup metric. It's another thing entirely when the only reason to keep high level items in your bag would be to beat the imposed floor on a dungeon. If they are good enough, equip them. Also, put in 3m timer at the beginning of a heroic where you can't immediately switch gear, so people know you're a suckass cheater.

[kildorn]

I don't have a problem using ilvl, but it can be gamed so easily - and therefore it is.  Apparently, just possessing items in one's bag affects one's ilvl.

I don't understand why this is, but the armory bothers to show you ilvl (total) and ilvl (equipped), but in game it only shows the total.

I've cheesed the system a few times to get guildies into heroic queues with the rest of us, but overall it seems like a huge issue with the system. Combined with the higher than heroic ilvl pvp gear that causes pvp gear to both artificially inflate your overall ilvl, and in some cases causes pvp gear to be preferred to the pve equivalent due to the higher base level. Add in that the only crafted level 83+ gear is pvp or epic, and you wind up with a really odd gear system.

Basically, they made a bunch of silly mistakes with the starting gear situation in Cata. But in general: ilvl was displayed so clearly and used to gate because gearscore was doing the same damned thing with a mod.

[ghost]

I'm starting to realize that I play MMOs for very different reasons than most people.  Gear isn't something I get excited about (beyond aesthetics) and I was always happy to let someone else in the group have a drop if it made them happy.  I got my joy by seeing things and chatting to people while hammering the same 6 buttons.  For me, it was about the interpersonal interaction and the moments of fun that came out of game elements.  Kind of funny to see myself say that knowing how much I hate pugs. 

I have a feeling that most people don't play WoW because they like it.  Most are likely addicted to the intermittent positive reward system set up with gear rewards that is identical to the problems you see with gambling addicts.  But I guess that's another issue. 

[Hutch]

Far more enjoyable is either leveling my little worgen rogue (although if that snuffling doesn't get patched out soon, she's becoming a nightelf) or playing my 83 lock in bgs.

Try this, maybe? I haven't put this one in myself, but the author claims it will silence the worgen snuffle.
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/sniff-b-gone.aspx

I've used similar ones to shut off the "train" emote sounds, the slobbering noise that cat pets make (as of Cata), and the voice emotes of the XT boss from Ulduar (and, consequently, the mini-XT pet).

[amiable]

I do totally disagree with their policy of having bag items count to your ilvl. It's one thing when it's pvp and ppl are intentionally hiding items in their bag to gain unfair advantages over an undergeared group in the matchup metric. It's another thing entirely when the only reason to keep high level items in your bag would be to beat the imposed floor on a dungeon. If they are good enough, equip them. Also, put in 3m timer at the beginning of a heroic where you can't immediately switch gear, so people know you're a suckass cheater.

I see your point but again this will be very problematic for healers/tanks.   I switch gear/specs when I enter a dungeon because I don't want to be doing my dailies with the lol dps of a healing specced pally.

[kildorn]

I switch specs on my healer when I get into a queue but was out doing dailies or something as shadow.

I used to on my DK, but then I found out that Blood is absolutely bullshit for solo pve <3

[Rendakor]

Sorry for being wrong about the BoT trash; we're only working on BWD at the moment and haven't had any trouble with any of the trash that a quick look at wowhead didn't fix. Grim Batol is most guilty of "too much fucking trash" even if you're pretty good on the drakes, while VP has the "trash is harder than the bosses" problem; TotT too if you don't skip the last optional wing.

[Merusk]

I do totally disagree with their policy of having bag items count to your ilvl. It's one thing when it's pvp and ppl are intentionally hiding items in their bag to gain unfair advantages over an undergeared group in the matchup metric. It's another thing entirely when the only reason to keep high level items in your bag would be to beat the imposed floor on a dungeon. If they are good enough, equip them. Also, put in 3m timer at the beginning of a heroic where you can't immediately switch gear, so people know you're a suckass cheater.

I see your point but again this will be very problematic for healers/tanks.   I switch gear/specs when I enter a dungeon because I don't want to be doing my dailies with the lol dps of a healing specced pally.

This is easily resolved with the in-game Equipment Manager.  You set them up, flag them as healing, dps, tanking or pvp and Let the ilevel checker look at them instead of the character's bags.

That said, whoever mentioned previously that this was just a reaction by the devs to a very common add-on was correct.  However they are, once again, just slapping the idea in there without thinking about ways to improve it or work out the problems that the addon people had already fixed.  "Oh, people want a gear manager/ raid UI/ item level checker... here you go."

[kildorn]

H-SFK is my "seriously, this is a trash-tastic slog" instance. There is far too much of it, and far too many 1.2m hp brick walls to wear down.

GB can be if you don't do drakes well. If you rock out on drakes, everything has 5% health and your tank can solo the trash pulls. If you don't do well, the trash is a pain.

[Merusk]

GB is SO EASY if everyone just knows to get one shot in on each pack along your path.  Soooo frequently that never happens as 2-3 party members just randomly shoot fire at everything and anything trying to get the quest kills or.. hell I don't know some groups I think I was the only one actually shooting mobs since they were at 3/4 health still when we got to them. 

I tried telling a few "Look, there's a path, up here, across the bridge, around, etc. Skip the guys behind the turns from the bridges and we'll have an easy time of it.  There's also 2-3 seconds before you take off so we can kill this first pack easy."  Nope, doesn't work. 

[kildorn]

First pack's health is a good indicator of how the run will go. If they're not mostly dead by the time the fifth dragon takes off, this will be a bad bombing run.

[Paelos]

First pack's health is a good indicator of how the run will go. If they're not mostly dead by the time the fifth dragon takes off, this will be a bad bombing run.

I always tell the group to focus fire on the group with the phase shifting assholes in them. If you take those out, the rest are a joke.

[kildorn]

Wait, what phase shifters?

I know of the dragonkin packs (charges, and that irritating pet summon of doom), and the elemental/human packs with the 2-3 casters and charging/cone AEing/jumping jackasses.

[Paelos]

Wait, what phase shifters?

The dues that when they run, they leave a copy streak behind them. They cast things and are general assholes, usually surrounded by 4 other things.

[kildorn]

Oh, the huge elemental ascended things. Yeah, they're kinda obnoxious in every form.

[Ingmar]

My problem, if I have one, with the heroics being harder is not that I don't like doing harder heroics, it is with the social consequences. Since I'm a guild tank, when I log in, people bug me to group with them, and a lot of the people who do this are a bit rough to take through a heroic, so it decreases my desire to play because I hate shutting them down all the time.

[Simond]

Heroics aren't harder if you know what you're doing...just longer and more tedious.

[Selby]

Heroics aren't harder if you know what you're doing...just longer and more tedious.

Which is fine, for guild groups.  Get into a PUG heroic group and very often it is complete and utter failure and time wasting.  My guild friends and I destroy normals and can do heroics, but we hate doing anything with more than 1-2 PUG DPSers because either they won't be able to CC\interrupt properly or their DPS will be so low it will be as if we are 3 or 4 manning the instance.

That's my biggest complaint really, that I can't get gear to qualify for raids because they tuned the instances up so badly that the average group doesn't really stand a chance if more than 1 person sucks, is totally unprepared, or not on the ball with their role.  I used to be able to run a heroic or 2 a night and feel satisfied that I was making progress.  And if I had a decent tank, decent healer, and myself the instance could at least be completed despite taking much longer when the other 2 barely did 500DPS combined.  Now I'm lucky if I successfully do 1 a week because of the utterly poor players using the LFD system.

[Ingmar]

Heroics aren't harder if you know what you're doing...just longer and more tedious.

Which is fine, for guild groups.  Get into a PUG heroic group and very often it is complete and utter failure and time wasting.  My guild friends and I destroy normals and can do heroics, but we hate doing anything with more than 1-2 PUG DPSers because either they won't be able to CC\interrupt properly or their DPS will be so low it will be as if we are 3 or 4 manning the instance.

That's my biggest complaint really, that I can't get gear to qualify for raids because they tuned the instances up so badly that the average group doesn't really stand a chance if more than 1 person sucks, is totally unprepared, or not on the ball with their role.  I used to be able to run a heroic or 2 a night and feel satisfied that I was making progress.  And if I had a decent tank, decent healer, and myself the instance could at least be completed despite taking much longer when the other 2 barely did 500DPS combined.  Now I'm lucky if I successfully do 1 a week because of the utterly poor players using the LFD system.

Normal 85s are giving JPs (30 per boss I think) on the PTR so there's a path now if heroics are out of reach (albeit a very slow one).

[Selby]

Normal 85s are giving JPs (30 per boss I think) on the PTR so there's a path now if heroics are out of reach (albeit a very slow one).

Slowly but surely then.  At least that's better than nothing.

[Paelos]

It's a lot better, my guess is they are locking regulars to one per day though.

[Selby]

It's a lot better, my guess is they are locking regulars to one per day though.

Oh yay.  Grinding out that rep with no dailies is going to be awesome.

[kildorn]

It's a lot better, my guess is they are locking regulars to one per day though.

I highly doubt that. I don't think they mind if we mind numblingly grind out JP with HoO runs. That's what, 30x7 bosses for an average 1800 points per item? 8 and a half runs per heroic blue?

[Rendakor]

Why would they limit them to one per day? If they were going that route, they'd just up the amount of JP you get for your first random regular.

[Ironwood]

Putting JP on the normals will help - Not only will you be able to save up as you progress, but it gives those who are at the heroic stage an incentive to help your noob ass through your own journey.

I approve, if it's not implemented retarded.

One a day would be retarded.

[Merusk]

This is their compromise for keeping heroics at the current difficulty.  They figure the reason people are bitching is they can't run heroics for loot because it's the only way to get JP.  Toss JP on normals and tell them "L2P or grind heroics"  They won't cap the runs because, as kildorn pointed out, it takes twice as many runs just to get one piece of loot.

In addition you don't get anything above 333 gear from the bosses you're killing.  Heroics will still gear you up much faster and remain the only place to fill certain slots which is all they really care about maintaining.

[Khaldun]

My current average experience if I log on:

1) See if the guild is going to run a heroic. Often they already are running one, usually the five (or if two groups, ten) best-geared and most skilled folks in the guild, if we have tanks and healers. If not, I can often get one going reasonably quickly, usually again with the best-skilled people. But sometimes, it's the folks who are a bit shakier who are left wanting one, and that's gonna be a long, difficult run, all the more so because there's social pressure not to bail on it. So if I see that the only hope is sloppy seconds, I often log off again--the chances I'll get asked to basically be providing 1.5 players worth of dps in a weaker group grow higher the longer I stay online doing dailies and such. Plus dailies are boring as fuck.

2) If it's an odd time, join the queue. Experiences in pugs at this point run about as follows: 15% of the time, great group that runs well, but it's still a long run because that's just the way heroics are. 15% of the time, weaker group that takes a while but soldiers on through. 70% of the time, groups where half the very very long time we spend in the instance is due to tanks quitting, healers quitting, tanks afk'ing to take a piss and not coming back for 30 minutes, healers afk'ing to take a piss and not coming back for 30 minutes, dps getting kicked, tanks getting kicked, healers getting kicked, multiple wipings on simple trash packs or on bosses, and so on. Often the whole thing falls apart after massive amounts of time wasting, so maybe I get some justice points from one or two bosses.

[kildorn]

My heroic pug experiences have been good on my tank, but I think it's mostly because I keep getting runs where the tank just went fuck it and dropped, and I get to replace them. I get HoO and SFK right before the first boss a LOT.

[Ingmar]

Why would they limit them to one per day? If they were going that route, they'd just up the amount of JP you get for your first random regular.

They're also doing that, 70->140. I don't think they'll put lockouts on the normals, it just doesn't make sense.

[Ashamanchill]

This change has me mulling keeping my sub active on a low boil. I don't care that the points are half as effcient as heroics, or even a third as much. If it gives me a shot at JP gear in a reasonable time frame, then I'm good. And as a bonus they are slightly nerfing ccs for pvp. Personally, I would throw a 3 second immunity to all ccs (maybe excepting slows) a cc effect wears off, but that's just me.

[Paelos]

The increases will help. It might even make me not hate doing Heroics for people if I have to do so many less to get them gear.

[Shrike]

This change has me mulling keeping my sub active on a low boil. I don't care that the points are half as effcient as heroics, or even a third as much. If it gives me a shot at JP gear in a reasonable time frame, then I'm good. And as a bonus they are slightly nerfing ccs for pvp. Personally, I would throw a 3 second immunity to all ccs (maybe excepting slows) a cc effect wears off, but that's just me.

Now they just need to revise VP allocation so we get a shot at VP gear in a reasonable time frame--those of us with serious scheduling issues that are trying to keep up with the guild as a whole. Where's that 'we want to keep guilds together' crap now? I'm beginning to seriously hurt since our second 10 man team simply isn't gelling right now. I've been raid capable for over a month and I'm still cooling my hooves. I have NO other recourse at the moment with VP allocation being next to nothing in heroics.

The only option staring me in the face is /guquit after five years. Yeah, I'm having fun now. Fuck you, GC. Oh, and another fuck you for axe/mace itemization in these early raids. WTF happened to that ICC paradigm?

[Maledict]

Um, I think the VPs from heroics should be removed completely, not increased. It puts a horrible pressure on people to keep doing the daily heroics to maximise their raiding ability, and it's completely contrary to Blizzards design philosophy in every other area of the game. Everywhere else they go to great lengths to ensure players aren't encouraged to go back and complete old content such as raids, or tradeskills, bu for some reason raiders need to complete a daily heroic every day just to get the gear needed for raiding no matter how obsolete they are.

(or they could just do what they said, and make raiding cap your VP allocation so there was no benefit from running thr heroics other than thr JP. Would also help if it was a weekly total rather than a daily, although I presume that would make finding groups on Sunday and Monday quite tricky).

[SurfD]

Um, I think the VPs from heroics should be removed completely, not increased. It puts a horrible pressure on people to keep doing the daily heroics to maximise their raiding ability, and it's completely contrary to Blizzards design philosophy in every other area of the game. Everywhere else they go to great lengths to ensure players aren't encouraged to go back and complete old content such as raids, or tradeskills, bu for some reason raiders need to complete a daily heroic every day just to get the gear needed for raiding no matter how obsolete they are.

(or they could just do what they said, and make raiding cap your VP allocation so there was no benefit from running thr heroics other than thr JP. Would also help if it was a weekly total rather than a daily, although I presume that would make finding groups on Sunday and Monday quite tricky).

While this is true, removing VP from heroics would have the downside of also completely removing Raiders from pretty much any and ALL heroics, meaning a large subset of people would have absolutely NO reason to do heroics any more, meaning eventually finding decent groups to do heroics would become even more annoying then it is now.   No getting lucky in your random with a few raiders doing their daily.  Also, it might also have an impact on the price of Heavenly shards, since less gear would be getting de'd because the raiders would no longer be passing / sharding everything?

Also, completely removing VP from heroics would mean that non raider would have absolutely NO way to get gear over 346 (aside from the 2 or 3 rep pieces that may be good for your class / spec) other then buying insanely expensive crafted epics, insanely expensive BoE drop items, or waiting until the next content push shoves all the old VP stuff down to JP.