#491 - July 16, 2011, 12:35 a.m.
07/15/2011 10:53 AMPosted by
Feandel I'm trying to create a reasonable amount of variety in the avenues available for groups to play that game of catch up. Not just one single "best and only" route. The current design is self-destructive and unhealthy for WoW's long term health. Right now there are no options. You either raid "the newest raid" or you run heroic dungeons till your eyes bleed.
Valor Points aren't awarded in a vacuum though, nor are ZA and ZG necessarily the 'best and only' route. Overall, running a raid, even the previous tier's raid, is going to be more rewarding for most players overall than just hitting up ZA/ZG. You can acquire gear of a high ilevel that provides set bonuses to help prepare for the next tier of content, as well as get a chance at potentially lucrative (or useful) BoEs; opportunities you won't find in the troll dungeons.
That's not to say that there aren't advantages to hitting up ZA/ZG to cap your VP if that's all you're after; but to believe that it's necessarily the most rewarding path if that isn't your sole goal, is, I think, a mistake. They still offer viable alternative for those players who have already spent a good deal of time in the tier 11 raid content too.
On a related note, we're looking at ways to make raiding accessible and easier to get organized, without at the same time compromising the experience for those who are looking for a challenge. We adjusted tier 11 specifically so that players who haven't seen the content yet will have a chance to get in there and mix it up. In fact, we think that things work best overall when we have heroic raids, normal raids, and then previous tiers all available at the same time - which was an arrangement we didn't quite have in place when Cataclysm launched (unless you count Argaloth, but we don't think a single boss counts as a tier).