Patch 3.2 - Part 2: The "Trials"

Let me begin with this rather obvious line. WoW is a very linear game. Level 2 comes after level 1, and is then followed by levels 3, 4 and 5 in that order, and so on. The methods of gaining these levels are usually very similar, just in different locations. It’s pretty much the same all the way up to max level. But that is what is usually expected. If you were to suddenly jump from level 5 to 34 you would be at least a little perplexed I would think. But the path of raiding is, and always was meant to be linear. You start off at the entry level raid, do the bosses, learn the skills and gear up until you are good enough to get to the next raid, and so forth. As Blizzard have stated on many occasions “We want all players to be able to see the content”. Not a statement I particularly agree with, but that’s for another post. However, here comes the self induced spanner in the works…

Trial of the Champion normal mode drops item level 200 epics, 5 of them in total. Heroic mode drops 5 item level 219 epics. Item level 200 epics can also be found on the last boss of a standard heroic and predominantly in Naxxramas 10 man, with item level 219 epics from Naxxramas 25 man. That’s the same quality epics for a 15 minute 5 man dungeon as in a 25 man raid that can take anywhere usually between 4 and 8 hours, depending on raid skill, experience and gear. I have an elemental shaman who, before the patch had a mixture of level 80 and levelling rare quality gear (blues). One week later, after a few heroic runs and some normal mode farming of said new dungeon, he was fully kitted out in epics. So that leaves me with the question, who needs Naxx when you can get all the gear you need from farming a quick dungeon? Not that I’m against the idea of skipping Naxx, but it sort of ruins the “content for all” message a bit.

I mentioned in the last post about the key issue of progression and how the badge change spoils it. So does this. Just as badly. They both boil down to the same debate. Time versus Effort. It seems like the new statement is “Time spent playing should be rewarded in the same way that effort is” and this doesn’t work. Consider the same statement as used in an FPS game.
“There are 10 levels, each one harder than the next, culminating in a big, tough boss battle. However, if you don’t feel up to completing the game that way you can always do the first level, where they teach you how to move and shoot a few pathetically weak enemies, thirty times and that’ll count as completion too.”
Of course, you may argue that completion is different depending on who is playing. One of the key reasons why MMOs are played for so long is that completion never really comes. You would have to do a hell of a lot to say that you’ve completed the entire game, however completion is what you make it. For me, completion is beating all of the raid encounters, while for others it may be getting a high PvP rating. But the point of my analogy is that spending time repeatedly doing the same easy content doesn’t not equal the effort required for beating endgame raid bosses. Time and effort are two completely different concepts in gaming and I wish this could be better understood.

Anyway, that’s enough about the free shinies, how about the part that makes them free. Let’s go from the beginning with everyone’s favourite pastime, jousting (technically speaking the first part is the intro that makes Illidan Stormrage or Kael’Thas “merely a setback” Sunstrider’s intros look short and sweet).
I don’t mind the jousting part. Yes, it isn’t that complex, or challenging…and it isn’t made any better by the equally dull intro, but I can see why it’s there. And anyway, trampling the other faction does give a slight sense of satisfaction, even if it is then ruined by having all three of them turn on the healer as soon as you dismount (and mostly, when I’m there, the healer is me…). In all the time I’ve been there, on normal and heroic, I’ve experienced one good tank pickup, a handful of shoddy pickups, and all the rest have left me a bit transparent. But after that, the rest is easy, just like a small pack of trash mobs really. Eadric is painless and Paletress can be a little tricky at times, but usually quite straight-forward. And then the Black Knight, like Paletress, if you’re not totally clued up about it then wipes are possible, but generally not that tough. But the fact I’m stating here is this, while some of the bosses have slightly tricky moments, it is still not more challenging (even less so in some cases) then previous heroics, yet offers significantly better gear.

Best move on to the raid then. Doubt I’ll have much to say about this, since it isn’t actually all released yet… Not a decision I agree with either. It seems that they are going more and more in the direction of releasing the content bit by ever smaller bit. In TBC we had most of the raids in one go, in Wrath they released the raids one at a time, now it’s one boss at a time. I’m starting to think that in Icecrown Citadel there’ll be bosses that’ll only allow you to do 10% of it per week. But to be honest that’s a minor whinge at the moment. The 25 man is definitely where the challenge lies for progressive raiders, the 10 man is ridiculously easy at the moment. Starting with the Northrend Beasts, this is clearly not a dps test, this is an intelligence test. Bring the brains, not the failures. A cavalcade of “Don’t stand in crap”. If you have 25 smart, experienced raiders who can do as they are directed and realise that if their feet feel a bit on the abnormally warm side then they might want to consider moving a little, then this encounter is easy. Nevertheless, silly mistakes are still made regularly by players not concentrating or those who appear to have left a Drinking Bird over their Nuke button and gone to sleep. Other than that, I find it to be a reasonable first boss. I’ll probably give some more feelings once the other bosses are released and I can try them on proper 25 man mode.

I think that pretty much sums up my feelings on the PvE content in the new patch. For me, the rest of the stuff is pretty inconsequential. Yay, I can mount faster and buy items for the alts I don’t use from someone who I don’t have the reputation to talk to. The new daily quests are pretty standard, a good source of money when I’m bored but I don’t do them regularly anymore since I have enough cash and Champions Seals drop from the new dungeon. Best bit of the new patch’s extras for me include being able to fly over Dalaran and Wintergrasp and the new Wintergrasp queuing system. Much better to leave the grouping in the hands of the game than the players in this case. There is also the new battleground, but I haven’t experienced that properly since when I PvP I PvP boomkin, therefore PvP is just too depressing.

That’s it for the moment I think, please do post comments so I know that at least someone is having a look at this.