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March 03, 2010 :: Posted by - Eulixe :: Category - PVE, Raiding

Gief Emblems

Reading through the official WoW EU forums earlier today, I stumbled across a post regarding the current progression system that is in place within Wrath. The main issue that was brought up was to do with the ease of gearing up your freshly dinged 80. Obviously this topic isn’t anything new, but there was an interesting point brought up that I’d like to give my 2 cents on.

The issue was to do with the large volume of Wrath content that is skipped by the majority of fresh 80′s nowadays. Instead of a streamlined progression from Heroics -> Naxxaramas -> Ulduar -> ToC -> ICC, most players, if not all, opt for the alternative of badge farming. A week or two of heroics, and as long as you’re gearing correctly, there’s a good chance you’re ready to hit up ICC-10. The downside of this being, all you’re doing before you start raiding in ICC, is grinding the same heroics you’ve done, time and time again. However, when comparing this to the Naxx/Ulduar route… are Heroics not the lesser of two evils?

Fork In The Road

Think of it this way. You come to a fork in the road. Both roads lead to the same place, the only real difference is the route they take.

Road A will get you to your destination in a couple of weeks. It’s the popular route, all the cool kids take it and you’ll have no trouble finding people to make nice with. Along the way, money and new clothes litter the ground, free for the taking (which probably explains why the road is so popular in the first place). When all is said and done, you come out of it all a better person. 

Road B is a long road. A lonely road. It rains a lot, and you’ll be hard pressed to make a friend. It will be months before you arrive at your destination, and by the time you get there, it’s more than likely everyone else will have moved on.

Ok, I’ll admit, I made it a little more dramatic than it needed to be, but you see where I’m coming from.

Personally, I can’t get enough of emblems. I’ve spent my time in Naxx, and as much as I enjoyed it, once was enough…more than enough. When I get a new toon to 80, I want them raid ready, and I want them there fast. Not because I want WoW to become the ultimate faceroll, but because I want to raid with my guild, and spend my time in game, with my friends, doing what I enjoy and the quicker I can do that, the quicker I can really start to enjoy myself.

What Say You!

Enough about me! What about you?

Do you like the direction Blizzard has taken with the current emblem system, or do you think a change is due?

Eulix

Comments (3) :: Add Comment
  • Grendalsh

    The emblem concept itself is good, it’s the implementation that causes the issues.
    Previously, if you wanted a specific piece of gear, you HAD to run a specific dungeon to get it. Tier 2 hat? Kill Onyxia.. repeatedly. And MAYBE you’d see it. Good in that it gave content value beyond ‘seeing’ it, bad in that it left everyone at the whim of the RNG.
    Cue emblems. Run any dungeon you want, collect enough emblems, and you get the piece of gear you want. Good in that we’re no longer at the mercy of the RNG, lousy in that there’s no reason to run older or undesireable dungeons (re: Blizz bribing players to do Oculus).
    Two extremes, each with their own problems.
    This issue is inherent in how MMO’s in general, and WOW in particular, are currently framed – level up and leave old content behind. Once there’s no reason to do content, no-one does. (unless they’re a nutter like me that likes doing old content BECAUSE…)
    Now, if there was a “you can’t do dungeon x unless you’ve finished storyline y”, folks would go bonkers on their 3rd alt, so that wouldn’t work. And while i’m slogging away at progressing by storyline, my alts are probably going to just skip ahead and come back at 80 for acheivements, so I’m just as guilty of this. So, MAKING players replay old content isn’t the answer, but incentivizing it is.
    Overall, MMOs need to have a system that is level-agnostic. For instance, the Frozen Orb turn-ins coming with 3.3.3. This is older content that now has a value for players that have progressed beyond its initial value. In a true economy, just because Polyester has become the ‘new’ cloth, doesn’t mean Cotton stops having value.. Similarly, MMOs need to have a system where, yes you can craft better gear with chillyweave, but it still requires linen (for the lining), wool (for the trim), mageweave (for the sparkles), etc.. so there’s still a market for lower/newer players to sell their mats to (besides overfunded alts). Similarly, dungeons still need to have a specific REASON to be there – want your current tier hat, run dungeon X for the appropriate tokens, guaranteed to drop for everyone in the run.
    So how does this relate to your premise? There is no value or incentive to take the hard path. At most, there’s the ‘get the dungeon completion achievement’ incentive to go through once. By ‘solving’ one problem while focusing on the level and leave it framework, Blizz has perpetuated the same problems at a higher level. What’s needed is a new framework for content that keeps content value regardless of player levels.
    If Blizz doesn’t figure this out and implement it, when a quality game with compelling content comes along that gets this concept.. it will be the WoW-killer.

  • Eulixe

    Bloody hell mate! What a well crafted post, and I think you could be onto something.

    I 100% agree with you, that, if Blizzard could implement a suitable incentive to go back and run outdated content at end game, there wouldn’t be nearly as much desolate content around.

    I guess this is what they were aiming for with the LFD tool, and it has worked to some extent, its getting players back into old Heroics. On the other hand, the majority of players admit, grinding out heroics is dull, and if it wasn’t for the badges, they wouldn’t be there.

    It would be interesting to see what ideas the WoW community could come up with regarding an incentive (excluding emblems)

    The difficulty is balancing, you don’t want the incentive to create a situation in which running old content is more favourable than newer content. And you dont want it to be so meager that no one really cares about it.

    Hmm.. Im going to give this some thought! Trying as I might to brainstorm atm, Im in an internet cafe and some dude, who’s had WAY to much suger is freaking out over TF2..

  • Evlyxx

    Personally the only way to go is the emblem farm via heroics. This will give you some excellent gear really quickly if you put the effort in. By mixing in some of the ICC heroics and the ToC5 heroic you can fill the gaps missed from emblems.

    Along the way I strongly recommend a few ToC 10s (it really is the only full blown raid instance regularly pugged now) and ofc VoA and Onyxia runs when you get the chance to fill in obscure slots like off-hands and trinkets to help get a full set of raid items. Of course guild runs are best but if they are not able/willing to boost you through hope for pugs not demanding the achievement (or start a run yourself).

    The weekly raid Q is another valuable run you can get, its just a shame they dont make it the end boss in a wing rather than the first.

    And never discount the popular ICC rep runs, boring yes but the friendly level ring is very good for the time invested.

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