Oct 1, 2008

Posted by Spooner | 4 Comments

The Daily Spoon: Wednesday Wrapup & Wrath Changes

The Daily Spoon: Wednesday Wrapup & Wrath Changes

Howdy folks. A little early right now for a wrapup as news is still breaking later today, but I figured I’d share some of the more miscellaneous information coming out today as well as answer some reader mail woot!

You can see from this picture that the Taunka also got a new model change, they look really freaking pissed. And that is awesome!

Stonekee wrote in asking me what was going to happen to daily quests in Outland and the Sunwell Isle when the level cap is raised. The answer is simple my good sir, they will not be removed but they will grant no EXP (or next to none) and very little gold. In other words, you’ll get 3x the gold and experience by just leveling normally and doing Northrend quests than you would doing Outland dailies. Granted for rep grinding with the Shattered Sun or Netherwing and such you can still do these quests, but it won’t be nearly as rewarding.

Got some more news for you here too:

Warrior Berserker Rage Change
Ghost is out for the rest of the evening so I thought I would make a quick post regarding a new warrior change. Berserker Rage will now be usable in all stances. (src)

This is AWESOME for warriors. That’s one less ability we have to suffer berserker stance for, I say suffer because you take 10% more damage to stay in a stance that grants tons of PVP moves. That doesn’t make sense to me.

Arena Ratings System Change
There will be a new, persistent rating system that should keep top-rated players facing other top-rated players, regardless of the bracket in which their current team sits. We’ll have more information to come on this soon. (src)

Not too sure how this is going to work out we need more details, but if it indeed helps break some nasty habits then it’s great. Here’s what I am thoerizing right now: Arena gear has a rating requirement, I now think this is a good thing. If Blizzard can scan and check what gear you have when you enter the arena, they can see that you’re rocking season 4 or whatevr gear. If you’re not allowed to switch gear when you’re preparing for a match then that’d stop a lot of these jackoff high rollers in great gear starting a new 1500 team and steamrolling their way to an easy 1800+ rating. What do you guys think?

Here’s today’s recap:

4 Comments

  1. Jaredilus says:
    October 1, 2008 at 4:13 pm

    I’m not a huge Arena fan, but in the 20 or 30 matches I’ve played, I’ve come across low-rated teams with awesome Arena gear on… who knows, maybe they are new friends who want a new team… but for some reason I doubt it. Anyhow, your idea would fix the rank-matching system regardless.

  2. threeleaf says:
    October 2, 2008 at 9:35 am

    I hate the idea of gear-matching in arenas, I mean I really loathe it.

    One, because in an MMO getting better gear should be progression, not a trade-off between better stats but tougher opponents. If your opponents get tougher every time your gear improves, there is no progression – just different numbers and equally hard opponents.

    Secondly, because we will get loads of teams intentionally going in with weak gear to face weak gear opponents. The game is balanced (as much as it is) around high end gear, not naked characters or people in greens. We will get teams in greens fighting to high rating, never upgrading their gear and loving it against weaker geared opponents.

    If this comes in – arenas is dead.

  3. Spooner says:
    October 2, 2008 at 9:40 am

    So matching teams fairly based on their gear level is unfair and will break arena?

    I’m sure they have the tech that can check a player’s personal rating, any gear that has rating requirements and such at the point of entering a queue. That’s what I was suggesting.

    Right now you can’t say that the arena is working as intended when we have players in full brutal gladiator rocking a vengeful title with a new team completely EATING 1500 ranked teams. Obviously they win 80 games or so in a row, very easily done on any given Monday. And suddenly hey; I’m in the 1800 ratings bracket and I have a few thousand points to spend on whatever.

  4. threeleaf says:
    October 2, 2008 at 9:55 am

    Not resetting people’s personal ratings when they leave a team would be fine by me – its gear matching i would hate to see.

    The whole point of arena is your rating and your opponents are based on your past performance. I start in the middle and if I win i go up, if i lose i go down. Anything that moves you away from that undermines the basic concept and gear matching undermines it in a big way.

    Maybe it would be enough just to increase the costs of setting up a new team, to discourage lots of new teams forming.

    Or maybe, if you have good gear you should start out at 1700 rather than 1500

    But gear matching cannot be the way to go. People are already very well protected from anything bad happening in wow – surely arena teams (the pinnacle of pvp after all) dont now need protection against better arena teams!

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