#1 - June 21, 2013, 1:40 p.m.
For those that also are long time raiders it's not too large a stretch to say that they are professors in a way.
The knowledge they have of the game is immense, it really is.
For someone new to wow, coming up against that knowledge and experience is either fiding the golden goose, if the veteran is friendly, or a dip in hellfire caustic enough to make them consider quitting right away, if the veteran is unfriendly.
The PVE game in WoW is currently balanced so you are not requiered to optimise your character to be able to reach max level, or even kill the last boss if you're willing to go for a watered down version of the encounter.
This is good. It makes wow give you trememndous value for your money.
For a newbie.
For a veteran, with a professor level knowledge of wow remember, the newbie experience is either very frustrating and/or boring. Of course it is.
How funny or challengeing would a professor in biology find it to read high school level biology?
There are harder modes available, which require you to know your class well and to optimize your character. For a veteran this is often second nature. So is using video guides or third party sites.
It's tougher to meet those requirements but the award is also substantially higher, and not just in terms of loot.
Downing a hard boss with your guild is an awesome experience that hopefully many players get to do at some point in their wow careers.
There exist a few problems though.
Wow does give very good value for the money to a new player but the experience can be so much richer and with more depth that there definitely should be a better way of introducing them to a new player who doesn't know the difference between LFR and Heroic raiding (except that it's harder).
This is sadly a part that is lacking today.
Instead of whining about them I'm going to give a few attempts at solutions.
Gear optimisation:
When you reach level cap you get a quest popup that send you to the ethereals. One of them is a questgiver that asks you if you want to learn how to be more powerful.
He (?) goes on to say that if that's the case you should step into the teleporter.
(Maybe a reskinned goblin/gnome teleporter? Or do they already have teleporters in their own style?)
The teleporter takes you to an undisclosed location in the twisting nether (an instanced room with some etherals and etheral paraphenalia).
You turn in the quest to one of them who says "Greetings <race>, please step into the scanner." (Another reskinned teleporter maybe?)
After you do that he greets you with "Ah, a <class>. Then [insert relevant stats] are the things that you should look for in your gear choices. Speak to my colleagues as well, we have just the things you need to improve yourself."
He then sends you to the other etherals one by one (via quests) who tells you about basic break points (like 7,5% hit and expertise), enchantments, gems and gem sockets, reforging and item upgrades.
(I know this is pretty meta and immersion-breaking, which I why I'm suggesting the ethereals and a location that isn't on Azertoh. Maybe actively hint that it's a space or dimension ship?)
- The enchantment guy will give (or allow you to buy for a cheap sum) a green quality leg, chest and shoulder enchant for your current spec and tell you to look for more at the auction house.
- The gem guy will give (or allow you to buy for a cheap sum) a pair of green quality socketed boots, a belt buckle and some green quality gems for your current spec.
(Socketed boots to tach about socket bonus, belt buckle to teach them that such exist. ;)) and then tell you to look for more at the auction house.
- The item upgrade guy will give you a pair of blue quality bracers and allow you to upgrade them once. He will also tell you about justice points and valor points and that you should speak with his colleagues down on the planet.
- The reforging guy will tell you about reforging and makes a suggestion based on the gear you are wearing. He will also let you reforge the piece of gear he suggested (maybe always target the gloves or something?).
Finally you come back to the original guy who then sends you down with the parting words "And don't forget to check out other resources in the twisting nether for more in depth advice. Your 'internet' should assist you in that endeavour."
(Maybe mention specific site? Would direct the player to those resourcs directly but on the other hand sites change. Not many uses thottbot or allakhazam anymore for example even though they are still going.)
Maybe name the etheral NPC's after well-known theorycrafters? ;)
For normal and heroic raiding you can't really use the same approach.
Instead I'd prefer the e-peen approach. :P
For the examples I will use the Mists item levels.
- Gear in the first tier of LFR has 476 item level.
- Armour and weapon models are the same as the dungeon models but has glowing runes/symbols added to them.
- Not until the second tier does the item level rise to 483.
- Gear is either a recolored version of last tier's Normal armor or has different colour of the dungeon armor with runes/symbols in yet another colour. (Personally I prefer the second option, mainly because I think having glowing runes/symbols added to the dungeon armor is cool :P.)
- No set bonuses.
The point here is two-fold. First, I do want to keep the higher item level compared to the dungeons to give players who can't raid a way of progressing their characters gearwise.
Second, I want to lower the incentive/"necessity" for Heroic/Normal mode raiders to run LFR.
- Flexiraids have weaker versions of normal mode raiding armor and a 'basic' loadout of weapons (all the necessities covered). Set bonuses included.
- Normal mode has everything flexiraids has but also has a few extra weapons beyond covering the basic necessities for each class. Not unique models but with extra effects, like Gurthalak's tentacles or Kir'il's growth proc. Fun/cool visual stuff to say "Ok so you've put in some extra effort and time - here, have some cool stuff."
- Sometimes also have an extra boss, or a boss with an extra phase compared to LFR/Flexi raid.
- Heroic mode has all the things normal mode has but also has a few weapons with unique models.
- Armor has some visual model differences compared to normal mode aside from "just" colour. Maybe a few more or less of the spikes/ornamets on the helm and shoulders? Nothing major (to avoid the artists imploding), but a little something.
- Heroic mode always has a non-secret extra boss.
- Heric mode sometimes has a second, secret extra boss. ;)
If you have other ideas or suggestions please chime in with them. :)
