Darkmoon Faire Island items -- too costly p.2

#1 - Dec. 6, 2011, 2:45 p.m.

edit: in regards to people saying they are receiving items from raids as 100% drops for 100% of the people in the raid - either your raid was bugged, or raids in which my friends participated were bugged, because I have people reporting that the raids they attended only allowed 1 person to "get the special DMF loot". So something is definitely screwey there. Even so, Raid Drops do not justify the progression setting set forth by blizzard. 1 ticket per daily is not cool. More below (oh and I added the E to Faire) :

Continuation of this thread:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3657610824

Thread is highly rated with multiple responses.

Original post:

Ok, this is beyond unacceptable.

I understand blizzard wanting some people to feel special for completing shadow craft when they were level 80 farming the level 50 dungeons (such as strath) in their lich king gear by making the armor a semi-costly purchase.

But if any of you have done the math as I have, it would take 7 months to complete a singular set.

What kind of bull is this?

7 Months to complete a set that was removed for the sole reason of "Well we wanted to update the lower level content and didn't want to leave incomplete sets in the game."

Honestly?!

Either up the tickets from the daily quests or do an across the board 50% reduction of all costs for every DMF item in the game.

There's a difference between keeping something special and giving your players the middle finger. This is beyond extreme. You've actually adopted the EverQuest model for equipment purchases. I thought WoW was supposed to SAVE people from the EverQuest model. These items don't even have stats on them and are not tradeable. This is just for LOOKS! I mean COME ON! To top it off it'll take a YEAR just to get a mount and a pet.

Do you want to keep players interested in the game, or do you want to piss them off? Because I gotta tell you, adopting the EverQuest model of "Hehe once a month you can only get 50 tickets at most (assuming you can redo the profession quests once per month)- GOOD LUCK for the REST of the month and the year!" is really the wrong way to go.

Oh, and Blizz, the Blackened Defias Chestpiece - still missing! 1/2 of the defias gear is IN THE GAME. There's no justification NOT to put the two remaining pieces back in as drops from Ripsnarl and Cookie.

edit: Oh and to those of you who will read this thread who are looking back at how many "tickets" you've collected on Day 1, you need to know this. The majority of your tickets, about 20 or so, came from Yellow Quests. Now these quests might be "once a month", but I'm not so sure about that. The daily quests (and there are what, 5 or 6?) give you 1 ticket each. Don't be fooled by the "boost" you got on day one. It will take you easily 7 months to 1 year to get a full set of Dungeon Set 1-2 armor. That's if you're going straight for the armor and not the mounts/pets.

Further post regarding the actual drop rate of the "dungeon drops" that people keep ignorantly quoting as "a good way to farm and get above 100 tickets a week":
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3657610824?page=17#337

The response from people who are arguing against me say these things:

1. Use alts!
A. This one was posted by an MVP. Is it blizzard's position that we have to use 10+ ALTS in order to accomplish something on a main?

2. Stop crying you don't need this you should THANK Blizzard.
A. For changing things from the PTR to live without explanation? Feels like bait and switch.

3. Your just crying about vanity items, they're worthless anyway.
A. So you determine what I and others think might be fun?

4. Fun things in games require WORK this is no different than Molten Front, you just want everything on the first day!
A. No, it doesn't and no, we don't. First of all molten front was a persistent in world concept. We weren't forced to play during a short period of one week a month, forced to farm dungeons (including older dungeons which seems more like a bug than actual game) 24 hours a day just to get a rare 10% drop turn in in order to supplement the poor reward rate of daily tickets. Second of all, we're saying it's ridiculous to expect people to farm for 7-12 months just to get a complete set of the gear which was taken out of the game solely because blizzard "didn't feel like changing the stats" during the revamp. Many of us would be happy with 3 months, which is still a gated availability of the items, without the ridiculous 7-12 month wait.
I also want to point out there's a vast ocean of difference of doing dailies for 3 months and only doing dailies for 1 week then being artificially forced to wait for 3 weeks before being able to do them again.

5. Stop crying we can get 100 tickets a day! You don't know how to farm.
A. The only possible way you are getting 100 tickets a day is if you're sitting on your lazy butt for 6-8 hours farming 60-80 bosses just to get a rare with a drop rate of 10% (remember, you can only do 5 dungeons an hour). If you got lucky and got 5 rares after 8 boss kills, then you got lucky. That's RNG. I refer you to this post which explains the statistical probability of 10% drop rate in an open ended pay off:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3657610824?page=17#337

IF Blizzard is forcing people to behave like this in order to get the tickets, then they might as well rename themselves to EverCamp. That's what EverQuest was LIKE - exactly what it was like. I remember farming trade goods all too well. It was horrendous, and intolerable.

Regardless, forcing people to play alts, forcing people to farm dozens and dozens of level 20-50 bosses in order to turn in a daily quest reward just to make the ticket gains tolerable, is intolerable in itself and demonstrates that something is BROKEN with this implementation.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#485 - Dec. 6, 2011, 10:18 p.m.

Thanks everyone for your feedback. To hopefully clear up some of the confusion over time investment vs reward costs we've broken down exactly how many tickets you can obtain in a single Darkmoon Faire week. The design intent of the Darkmoon Faire is that it’s available for one week out of the month, and in that one week we expect you to be able to obtain a significant amount of tickets. To clarify the OP’s point of how long it would take to obtain an entire set of cosmetic gear, the math presented was incorrect, and it would in fact only take 4 Darkmoon Faire weeks to complete an entire set. That’s of course still no quick task, and the intent is not for it to be. There are plenty of rewards that can be obtained in one or two weeks of the Darkmoon Faire, but we expect that an entire set will take a few events to obtain.

Here’s the breakdown:

Tickets Per Faire

Total Tickets per faire: 145

* 5 mini games, available daily: 7*5=35

As an example, here are some options that you can choose over the course of two Darkmoon Faires (2 weeks over 2 months):

Prioritizing mounts/pets: 1 mount + 1 pet, with 20 tickets to spare

Prioritizing pets: 3 pets, 20 tickets to spare

Prioritizing cosmetic armor: 4 pieces of cosmetic armor, with 30 tickets to spare

Prioritizing heirloom armor: 1 piece of heirloom armor + 1 heirloom weapon, with 20 tickets to spareKeeping all of this in mind we don’t feel the current ticket acquisition rates or reward costs are out of hand, but we’re interested to hear your thoughts after reading this information and considering the longevity of the content, as well as the ‘once a month’ format of the faire. We’ll be continually evaluating it, and we’re looking forward to incorporating more goodies to be won, and more activities to the faire, in the future.

Please ensure you read this followup before replying: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3657441916?page=30#596

Bashiok

Community Manager

#491 - Dec. 6, 2011, 10:27 p.m.

12/06/2011 02:24 PMPosted by Michela
The original armor did not take me more than 2 months to complete.

We're not attempting to recreate the time investment that was originally seen to obtain these items when they were relevant. They exist for transmogrification/customization choices, not necessary power increase requirements to be able to progress your character.

If they were part of a progression path we'd definitely look at the acquisition rates and standardize them, but as they're show-off pieces the acquisition rate is usually gated a little higher so that the appeal and worth of showing them off remains high.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#504 - Dec. 6, 2011, 10:31 p.m.

12/06/2011 02:30 PMPosted by Fizwick
Ohh more math! That should prove how "fun" this "faire" is! lol

I'm pretty awful at math, but simple addition shouldn't scare anyone... I hope.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#506 - Dec. 6, 2011, 10:33 p.m.

12/06/2011 02:31 PMPosted by Eyrios
Hey Bashiok, thanks for taking the time to put that all together for us. I'm still going to have to say that is an incredibly long time to wait to get all of the items that I want. I'm pretty sure most people won't want to grind dungeons for 40 tickets as those drops seem pretty rare in the first place. So that seems to be a side thing that you might win against 4 other people in a dungeon that it might drop in. I'll be doing the dailies every day I can that they are available, but I'm not going to spend a whole week each month on grinding tickets. I think it does seem a bit excessive, and I sure hope you guys can reconsider this.

I certainly appreciate the well-reasoned (and calm ;) response and we'll be continuing to bring concerns to the designers and will keep you updated should we get any good examples or reasoning to share, or should anything change. Thanks again, much appreciated.

Elineé

#581 - Dec. 6, 2011, 11:33 p.m.

12/06/2011 03:32 PMPosted by Arkthan
But.... that is with a perfect record of 145 tickets, and so far I don't see that happening at all.

Its going to happen for me, because i put out the effort for it.

Come back here in 2-6 months when you find out you have a life outside of wow, and you can't sit on your butt in front of your computer screen 6 hours a day every day until you get 145 tickets during that one precious week that you are allowed to participate in the DMF.

Not everyone can do this. It's a massive poke in the eye.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#596 - Dec. 6, 2011, 11:55 p.m.

Just to clarify one point, the quest drops that happen in the dungeons/raids/BG’s happen all the time, even if the faire isn’t in town. Think of it sort of like the Darkmoon Card redemptions. You’re out playing all month, while you’re doing stuff you’re getting chances at the items, then when the faire is in town you turn it all in. (It’s also worth pointing out that the turn-in items aren’t soulbound, so just like the cards I’d expect some people to farm them just to put them up on the AH.)

It’s really just this first week and appearance of the faire that’s off because the

Darkmoon Adventurer's Guide wasn’t available for the 3 weeks prior. When it rolls around next month there should be better feel for how the whole system and ticket acquisition rate feels.

Durak

#621 - Dec. 7, 2011, 12:22 a.m.

The amount of tickets you get from the dailies is simply unacceptable given the cost of purchasable items. The fact that the faire is only available one week per month merely exacerbates this fact (and my NERD RAGE).

Add to this the rarity of the dungeon item drops and the loot roll competition when they finally do and, speaking for myself, it's highly frustrating and demoralizing. At least if there were some way to farm tickets WITHOUT an imposed daily/weekly limit (e.g. repeatable solo quests, random drops from gathering/fishing/archaeology), it would give me a way to vent my frustration.

If people are willing to put in the time farming tickets, let them. RNG is fine, but so far trying to get all the artifacts feels like the old Hallow's End achievement, "A Mask for All Occasions" -- flucking aggravating...

Bashiok

Community Manager

#624 - Dec. 7, 2011, 12:22 a.m.

12/06/2011 04:06 PMPosted by Breacca
I'd really like to have this expanded on, as it's something I've touched on in both threads; why is it seen that aesthetic character growth has to be more punitive than stat/function-based character growth? I know that Blizzard has always taken an extremely hands-off role when it comes to the RP/vanity aspect of this game, but why is there a perception both within the community and from the developers that there should be a lower acquisition rate for people who want to customize how their character looks compared to those who simply want higher stats?

It's a simple fact of the intent behind the vanity rewards and people's desires to customize their appearance, and do so in a way that they are unique from other players. To be unique, or close to it, the desire is to have something to show off that no one else has, or at least very few people have. Secondarily (or in some cases primarily) the appeal of the item can simply be due to some very difficult-to-reach goal. "Look at me, I did X". To achieve that from our side there needs to be a high barrier of entry to obtain the item or else everyone can get it, the item loses its special 'show off' value, and as a way to be unique from other players it has completely lost all value. This isn't just a dress up game, the items have significance attached to how they were obtained. Some things, like pets or mounts, have alternate values through achievements and such though, so things can get a bit more complex.

Obviously it doesn't apply to everything, there are nigh unlimited amounts of ways now to customize your character with transmogrification. The vast majority of customization options don't require a ton of time investment. But if you look at these items in the Darkmoon Faire, or the mounts or pets that are hard to obtain, and you really want them to dress up and show off, I think that's proving the exact point of why they're difficult to obtain.

I'll bring up the sparkle ponies. When they came out everyone wanted one and sure enough on the first day the sky was filled with sparkles, and ponies, but now days you rarely see anyone bring theirs out because they became too common. You see people, usually, on their rarest/most difficult to obtain mount, because that's the satisfaction of obtaining these things and then displaying them in a social setting. "This is who I am, and this is what I've achieved."

Bashiok

Community Manager

#698 - Dec. 7, 2011, 1:31 a.m.

Wait, what?

Hold on, hold on. Aren't you guys the people who have, for years, told everyone who complained about other players getting rare things easier after time had past that they shouldn't complain because, after all, they had those things and got to enjoy them longer than players who are now able to get the items far easier? I seem to remember that being said in blue text many, many times over the years. I know, being here since classic, I've been on the receiving end of those blue posts many times as I saw things I worked hard for, unique things I had, given out to players sometime later for almost no effort.

Other than the few times you've removed mounts to be sure only the raiders got them and could feel special, this is the first time I've ever seen blue text that took the side of players wanting to be somewhat unique, players who don't want other players to have what they have, even if significant time has past since they got the items. Pretty massive about-face in policy, I have to say.

Time changes all. We're not going to be able to keep everything in the game relatively "difficult" to obtain from now until forever. There are going to be game changes or a progression of player power that simply makes some of their acquisitions easier. We can try to build in gates, such as lockouts and timers to help mitigate them, but it's very possible that at some point in the future the Darkmoon Faire items become substantially easier to obtain through some change.

As time goes on more and more people will naturally be able to achieve these desired 'show off' items, and so as time goes on it makes sense to continue to introduce new ones. Being the first, or one of a few is awesome, but unless we do something like the AQ gong event again (never) we're not going to literally gate items to a specific number of people.

Such is the reality of a constantly moving and evolving game. It's a big reason why we use words and phrases like "currently" and "at this time", we can't speak to how we're going to be thinking or designing the game a year from now, or what items will be available and at what cost.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#711 - Dec. 7, 2011, 1:46 a.m.

12/06/2011 05:35 PMPosted by Donaghan
That doesn't necessarily mean that the items need to be more easily obtained. But it does seem to me like an illustration of how Blizz lacks in understanding what our motivations are (resulting in some overly-restrictive barriers IMO).

Maybe I misunderstood, as it seemed the items being very easy to obtain simply to provide all of the customization options possible was exactly what was being requested.

I understand the intent of obtaining items to customize your character, and I would absolutely argue that it is not devoid of wanting to appear special/unique to those around you. World of Warcraft is not a strict 'roleplaying' game, in that the majority of focus is on cooperative or competitive group-based content, and much of that is to obtain and earn prestige through displayable rewards. Because of that our intent is largely going to be to create methods through which that prestige can be obtained. That doesn't mean everything has to be some kind of crazy long time investment, and it's a fact that World of Warcraft asks very little in that regard for 98% of the content, but surely there needs to be some that are very difficult to appease those who are looking for it. I would also argue the Darkmoon Faire and its items are not one of them, though, and do not ask an out-of-the-ordinary amount of dedication to obtain the rewards.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#717 - Dec. 7, 2011, 1:50 a.m.

12/06/2011 05:48 PMPosted by Raimondas
* 5 mini games, available daily: 7*5=35

Just as a point of clarification, you can do the mini games 8 times per week. The "eighth" time being Sunday morning between midnight and 3 am when dailies reset.

This brings us up to 150 tickets per month.

If you loot the chest in the arena, that's worth another 5 tickets and there's no cap on that.

Finally, I should point out that all of the Darkmoon Artifacts, as well as all of the replica gear, can be traded between players and sold on the Auction House.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#724 - Dec. 7, 2011, 1:57 a.m.

We were not requesting the items be very easy to obtain, we're requesting that the time it takes to acquire such items be reduced by adding 2-3 more tokens to the daily rewards.

Here are exactly the scenarios many people other than myself have given:

1. Increase dailies to 3-5 tokens per completion.
2. Create a "ticket acquiring cap" much like the Justice Point Cap. Allow players to complete as many of the carnie quests or drop quests as they have up to a limit of 160. 160 seems a more reasonable amount than 145.
3. Reduce the ticket cost of the sets from 30-50%

We don't want instant gratification. We also don't want to sit around for a year.

We're more than willing to take feedback on how the rates could be adjusted, but at this time we feel four months to obtain a full set seems about right, should you choose to not seek them out through other means (trading/AH). Of course should we decide to make any adjustments we'll let you know as soon as we do.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#732 - Dec. 7, 2011, 2:05 a.m.

12/06/2011 05:59 PMPosted by Donaghan
This, it seems to me, is related to the assumption on Blizz's part that the only "valid" purpose for Transmogrification is prestige-- to show off the armor we earned, preferrably in an attempt to look more powerful and awesome. But many of us are not in fact motivated by that-- we're motivated by the desire to customize our characters to make them look the way we want, according to our own feel for our characters-- whether that feel is "powerful and awesome" or "silly and quaint".

No and I apologize for using that phrase, my intent wasn't to devalue character customization it was to make a point that the items don't just exist in the world for baseless customization, but they're either obtained by killing a boss, being great in the Arena's, or even putting time into gathering enough tickets so you can look awesome.

Like I said before there are tons of customization options that are very, very easy to obtain, and the combinations and customization potential is really insane. But, there are going to be restrictions and requirements to get what's considered the higher prestige items because that's in no small part what makes them prestigious, and drives people to obtain them. I understand that may not be why you play the game, but it is why the majority of people play, and the majority of the content that's developed.

We're in the infancy of transmogrification though, and so I don't think we really have any idea where we'll be six months or a year from now and the various venues we could have available to obtain pure-customization options for your character.