The questing experience in World of Warcraft changed drastically with the release of the Cataclysm expansion. Back in the 'good old days' most quests were self contained. There's a dude who wants you to kill some deer. As soon as you're in level range he wants you to kill some deer. After you kill some deer for him he gives you some experience and then just stands around looking stupid. Nothing changed because you killed some deer. Every now and then you'd run into a long chain of quests that had to be done in order but the deer killing guy wasn't involved in those and didn't care if you did that chain or not. With Cataclysm that changed and they made entire zones into one huge chain. There'd be a guy who wants you to kill some deer but he'll only ask you to do it after you do a seemingly unrelated quest to kill some fire elementals. Further along is a guy who wants you to sift through poop but for some reason he only wants the poop sifted through after the deer have been killed. Blizzard also made heavy use of 'phasing' during these chains so it's entirely possible you can't even see the poop guy at all until you've killed deer.
On the one hand the idea is pretty neat that you'd be playing through a single contained story. With phasing the world actually changes (for you, anyway) as you complete quests. Some people like it, some people hate it. I've leaned on the side of not liking it. Up until today, anyway, when I've seen how rails questing can impact my Ironman character. Now I'm firmly against the whole rails concept as there are two consequence which are going to hurt me in my journey.
The first problem is the inability to skip dangerous quests. Maybe my poor undergeared and untalented shaman simply can't kill deer at all. Maybe they have nature resistance or something, I don't know. In the old way I'd just abandon the deer quest and move on with my life. Go and sift through some poop or something more appropriate for my skills. Now? I risk my life trying to kill the deer or I find an entirely new zone to quest in. I lose everything in my current zone after the deer quest because for some reason they're all dependent on killing deer.
The second problem is the inability to just drop in on the middle of a zone. My thinking is that once I gain a few more levels I'm going to have to search for quests that are barely green in order to find things I can plausibly do. This shouldn't be a problem since the game is filled with tons and tons of quests. But if I can't access most of those quests because they're behind other quests I could run into a problem. Some quests could be locked behind dangerous quests I want to skip. Others are locked behind quests that are too low to be worth experience at all.
I haven't leveled a new character since Cataclysm launched (well, other than solely in dungeons) so I don't know if the rails problem is going to infest every zone but it is certainly the case in Azshara so far. I was given stealth in order to do a quest today which really worried me. I had to sneak past some elites which were 5 levels higher than me. If they saw me I was dead, guaranteed. But I didn't know how good the stealth was going to be. A druid trying to stealth around would be screwed for sure, but is this stealth better than that? Maybe this quest was designed to teach people how bad stealth can be so they stop whining about 'overpowered' rogues? But if I didn't do the quest I was done with the zone. I could probably try the Barrens instead? But I was right here! Ultimately I decided to risk it and lived so all is well. (And all that stealthing made me crave playing Metal Gear Solid again...)
I'm up to level 15 which slots me in as the 89th highest living shaman. Woo!
Showing posts with label Ironman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ironman. Show all posts
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Saturday, March 03, 2012
World of Warcraft: Drnickiron!
The 7 day trial offer from Blizzard expired yesterday so I finally signed up for it. Everything seemed strange on my old main, Recolada, so I quickly logged out to start my ironman character. All my character slots on Vek'Nilash are full and I didn't want to worry about deleting one so I went back to my first server, Zul'Jin, to start up. I'd decided to play a shaman so the first question was which race to play. Passive and active damage buffs seem like they'd be important when you're playing without talents or gear and I ultimately decided the 1% haste that goblins get coupled with their free blink-like escape and free rocket strike were too good to pass up. As an added bonus I've never started a goblin before so I'd get to see a new zone and quests.
Even in an area where I'm supposed to be in mostly white gear I found myself playing paranoid. I had a quest to kill a named monster at the end of a town. After killing him most of the town had respawned. Normally this would cause me to just run for the entrance. Probably I wouldn't die, right? And even if I did I'd probably still get to turn in the quest faster by dying and ghosting back than by clearing my way to the start. This time where death means game over I took it slow. I waited for the mobs nearby to finish respawning (so they wouldn't spawn on top of me) and then slowly made my way to the entrance killing everything in sight. As an added bonus I'd get more experience per quest which should result in being overleveled as time goes by. Which is really important later on when I should be in blues and greens but remain in whites.
I've made it up to level 12, which is good for 152nd place on the live shaman list, I think. (I had to count manually!) I worry that searing totem is going to end up aggroing something and getting me killed. Apparently I have to wait until level 30 to get totemic recall!
One cool thing I noticed is that my health bar would fill up with a teal colour when I started a heal on myself. This way I could see how much health I'd expect to have after the heal finished. Assuming that appears for people in my party/raid as well this seems pretty great. It would stop multiple people from healing the same person and would also let me know, as a Death Knight, if I need to worry about healing myself or if the healers have me covered!
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
More On Ironman
Sky commented on my post from Monday about thinking about doing an Ironman character as well but not wanting to be either a sissy or a big pig. It sounded like his gut feeling was that hunters were going to be the best by far at the challenge and that warriors were going to be terrible. Warriors have had weird rage scaling in the past and I'm not sure where they're at now but I imagine using a white or grey weapon would really cripple a warrior.
There is a webpage with all the stats for people who signed up for the challenge and I like crunching numbers so I figured it could be interesting to take a look at a few metrics to see how classes have actually fared thus far when played by people who are actively participating in the challenge to see who is actually lagging behind the pack. Note that it is possible to delete a dead character and start a new one with the same name so I'd imagine there are some low level characters that died and were subsequently replaced so they don't exist in the data anymore.
I decided to manually pull out the information above. The total number of each class in the database and the percentage of total. I found the highest level character of each class that are still alive and the highest level that was dead. I counted the number of people in each of the expansion level ranges since those feel like they should be real breakpoints. Finally I worked out how many of each class hit at least level 61 as a percentage of all characters of that class.
Hunters are clearly the best. Someone's actually managed to hit level 85 on an ironman hunter! 40% of all characters loaded into the challenge have been hunters. In terms of sheer number of players that hit at least 61 they have a massive lead but that should be expected when they have 40% of the total. As the last column shows, though, they are busting through that threshold at a better rate than any other class.
Warlock is the only other class to break through the 71 barrier. He made it all the way to 78 before dying which is actually the best of any dead character. Warlocks have the second best success rate as well. They aren't super popular with paladins and druids both clocking in more total characters.
Warrior actually doesn't seem to be doing too poorly. It's had a couple characters break the 61 mark and one even got as high as 68. Looking at the names (Ironpossible and Possibleiron) I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's the same guy who did both characters. I tried to armoury the second one but it's already a level 18 night elf priest.
I worry that the sample size for a lot of these are two small. Is warrior actually ok or is that one guy just godly at playing an undergeared warrior? Since it's just one guy there's also the possibility that he's found a way to skirt the rules without getting caught by the system. I'd like to think not, but the point is with just one guy doing well with warrior we can't have a lot of confidence. Contrast that with hunter which has had 45 characters break the level 61 barrier! We can be a lot more sure that a hunter can handle outlands content.
I feel bad for the shamans. Worst in both best living and best dead character. It's been a while since I've played a shaman and I know they made a lot of totem changes but I would have thought both totems and weapon enchants would be a big help to this sort of challenge.
Priests seem similarly bad and I can't even think of what a priest could have going for it. Without talents I'd think their heals would end up really inefficient and I don't know how they'd even kill anything. Shadow word pain and wand? Are there even white wands? (The answer is yes, as I looked up an armoury profile for a level 64 mage and he has on a ilvl 35 wand. Which does less damage than his staff.)
When I first heard of the challenge I was leaning towards trying it with a hunter. I've always liked hunters, my first character was a hunter, and they seemed like they were probably the best. Having someone actually complete the challenge on a hunter greatly diminishes that desire. I'd rather be the first person to get shaman to level 44 than the second to get hunter to 85! I was thinking that mage could actually be fun. Frost bolt to slow enemies and kite them around while getting mana back. Actually casting polymorph. I think if the challenge was to level up with no gear/talents I'd give that a shot. But doing it without dying? I don't know that I trust myself to play a mage safely enough to do it without dying... Rogue or hunter may actually be my only hope since I may well be too reckless to survive without vanish or feign death.
I donno. I think I am going to give it a spin and I think I'll probably end up starting a shaman since they've done the worst so far. Assuming I can make a character with doctor or dr in the name, anyway!
There is a webpage with all the stats for people who signed up for the challenge and I like crunching numbers so I figured it could be interesting to take a look at a few metrics to see how classes have actually fared thus far when played by people who are actively participating in the challenge to see who is actually lagging behind the pack. Note that it is possible to delete a dead character and start a new one with the same name so I'd imagine there are some low level characters that died and were subsequently replaced so they don't exist in the data anymore.
| Class | Number | % of Total | Best Living | Best Dead | 61-70 | 71-80 | 81-85 | 61+ % |
| Hunter | 2856 | 40% | 85 | 75 | 39 | 4 | 2 | 1.6% |
| Warlock | 626 | 9% | 65 | 78 | 5 | 1 | 1.0% | |
| Rogue | 321 | 4% | 62 | 69 | 3 | 0.9% | ||
| Warrior | 425 | 6% | 50 | 68 | 2 | 0.5% | ||
| Paladin | 969 | 13% | 62 | 63 | 3 | 0.3% | ||
| Mage | 483 | 7% | 53 | 64 | 1 | 0.2% | ||
| Druid | 826 | 11% | 56 | 46 | 0.0% | |||
| Shaman | 370 | 5% | 38 | 43 | 0.0% | |||
| Priest | 314 | 4% | 58 | 47 | 0.0% |
I decided to manually pull out the information above. The total number of each class in the database and the percentage of total. I found the highest level character of each class that are still alive and the highest level that was dead. I counted the number of people in each of the expansion level ranges since those feel like they should be real breakpoints. Finally I worked out how many of each class hit at least level 61 as a percentage of all characters of that class.
Hunters are clearly the best. Someone's actually managed to hit level 85 on an ironman hunter! 40% of all characters loaded into the challenge have been hunters. In terms of sheer number of players that hit at least 61 they have a massive lead but that should be expected when they have 40% of the total. As the last column shows, though, they are busting through that threshold at a better rate than any other class.
Warlock is the only other class to break through the 71 barrier. He made it all the way to 78 before dying which is actually the best of any dead character. Warlocks have the second best success rate as well. They aren't super popular with paladins and druids both clocking in more total characters.
Warrior actually doesn't seem to be doing too poorly. It's had a couple characters break the 61 mark and one even got as high as 68. Looking at the names (Ironpossible and Possibleiron) I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's the same guy who did both characters. I tried to armoury the second one but it's already a level 18 night elf priest.
I worry that the sample size for a lot of these are two small. Is warrior actually ok or is that one guy just godly at playing an undergeared warrior? Since it's just one guy there's also the possibility that he's found a way to skirt the rules without getting caught by the system. I'd like to think not, but the point is with just one guy doing well with warrior we can't have a lot of confidence. Contrast that with hunter which has had 45 characters break the level 61 barrier! We can be a lot more sure that a hunter can handle outlands content.
I feel bad for the shamans. Worst in both best living and best dead character. It's been a while since I've played a shaman and I know they made a lot of totem changes but I would have thought both totems and weapon enchants would be a big help to this sort of challenge.
Priests seem similarly bad and I can't even think of what a priest could have going for it. Without talents I'd think their heals would end up really inefficient and I don't know how they'd even kill anything. Shadow word pain and wand? Are there even white wands? (The answer is yes, as I looked up an armoury profile for a level 64 mage and he has on a ilvl 35 wand. Which does less damage than his staff.)
When I first heard of the challenge I was leaning towards trying it with a hunter. I've always liked hunters, my first character was a hunter, and they seemed like they were probably the best. Having someone actually complete the challenge on a hunter greatly diminishes that desire. I'd rather be the first person to get shaman to level 44 than the second to get hunter to 85! I was thinking that mage could actually be fun. Frost bolt to slow enemies and kite them around while getting mana back. Actually casting polymorph. I think if the challenge was to level up with no gear/talents I'd give that a shot. But doing it without dying? I don't know that I trust myself to play a mage safely enough to do it without dying... Rogue or hunter may actually be my only hope since I may well be too reckless to survive without vanish or feign death.
I donno. I think I am going to give it a spin and I think I'll probably end up starting a shaman since they've done the worst so far. Assuming I can make a character with doctor or dr in the name, anyway!
Monday, February 27, 2012
Ironman!
Recently I've been thinking I should stop 'following' Tobold's blog. I hate it when someone is wrong on the internet and I've found myself getting increasingly frustrated with the assumptions he makes about the way some people play games. I wish I had better things to do with my time than get annoyed on the internet...
And then he comes out with an informative post like this one about playing World of Warcraft in 'Ironman' mode and it makes me happy I'm still reading. I doubt I'd have stumbled across something like this on my own but now that it's been pointed out to me I'm very intrigued.
The basic idea is you start a new character at level 1 and play the game without putting on magical gear, without taking a specialization, without professions, without enchantments or glyphs or potions. You never group, you never do dungeons, you never participate in pvp. You don't use any of the ways to speed up leveling like recruit a friend or being in a high level guild. And perhaps most importantly you never die.
Now, I love challenges (as evidenced by playing with only one thief in Final Fantasy). For the most part I do them for the fun of doing them. But in this case there's actually a leaderboard and such built for the challenge. They're pulling data out of the armory to check and see if people are 'cheating' or not. It's obviously not perfect (I would imagine you could get buffs, for example, and make sure to toggle them off before you log out and never get caught) but it does a pretty good job. Hearing about this makes me want to take Blizzard up on their 7 days free offer and give it a spin. If I did, what would I want to play? There are a few different metrics to look at, I think, in order to figure out which class would have the best chance of success.
The WoWIronman site has stats for what other people have been trying and how successful they've been so far. Hunters are the only class currently alive beyond level 65. Only one non-hunter has made it beyond 70 (a warlock that died at level 78). Almost 10% of all characters that have tried the challenge have been night elf hunters (night elves get a second feign death type ability). Hunters feel like the strictly best option to me since they seem likely to be the best at scaling, emergencies, and sustainability. Assuming they have decent weapons (a quick search shows a gap between level 20 and 60 which might be rough) they should do fine. So if my goal is to have the best chance at making it far then hunter seems obvious. But maybe I'd be happier doing something harder and aiming for the best of that class instead of trying to make it all the way to 85? The highest level dead rogue is only 69, for example.
And then he comes out with an informative post like this one about playing World of Warcraft in 'Ironman' mode and it makes me happy I'm still reading. I doubt I'd have stumbled across something like this on my own but now that it's been pointed out to me I'm very intrigued.
The basic idea is you start a new character at level 1 and play the game without putting on magical gear, without taking a specialization, without professions, without enchantments or glyphs or potions. You never group, you never do dungeons, you never participate in pvp. You don't use any of the ways to speed up leveling like recruit a friend or being in a high level guild. And perhaps most importantly you never die.
Now, I love challenges (as evidenced by playing with only one thief in Final Fantasy). For the most part I do them for the fun of doing them. But in this case there's actually a leaderboard and such built for the challenge. They're pulling data out of the armory to check and see if people are 'cheating' or not. It's obviously not perfect (I would imagine you could get buffs, for example, and make sure to toggle them off before you log out and never get caught) but it does a pretty good job. Hearing about this makes me want to take Blizzard up on their 7 days free offer and give it a spin. If I did, what would I want to play? There are a few different metrics to look at, I think, in order to figure out which class would have the best chance of success.
- Scaling - Normally you want skills that scale well with your stats. Here where you're not going to get any stats at all from any source you want skills that just have high base numbers. I don't know how WoW has managed to keep things balanced recently but thinking back to the past things like hunter pets and mage pyroblast/arcane missiles are things that started off huge but didn't scale properly to be good at end game. You're going to want the starting off huge here!
- Emergency Buttons - If you die once you're done so having ways to escape from a deadly situation is really important. You don't want a random elite patrolling on top of you and wiping you out! Hunters seem to be kings here with feign death, disengage, traps, slows, and a pet. Warlocks have a worse pet, healthstone, and some ok crowd control. Rogues get vanish, blind, and sprint. Mages get blink, frost nova, and invis. Druids get a bad sprint? Paladins might have bubble/hearth? Warriors get to die...
- Sustainability - How many fights can you go without having to eat/drink to full? I have a big fear that someone like a mage is going to see this number actually fall below 1. Your mana pool is going to be so small and your spells are going to do so little damage that I really wonder if you'll be able to kill a single monster. On the flip side you have the hunter which doesn't use mana and which has a pet to absorb hits.
- Gear Availability - You're allowed to wear white and grey items. Is there a good enough distribution of weapons in particular as you level up to stay geared? Rogues for example use energy and have a lot of great cooldowns but if you can't find a weapon for a large level span you probably have no hope.
The WoWIronman site has stats for what other people have been trying and how successful they've been so far. Hunters are the only class currently alive beyond level 65. Only one non-hunter has made it beyond 70 (a warlock that died at level 78). Almost 10% of all characters that have tried the challenge have been night elf hunters (night elves get a second feign death type ability). Hunters feel like the strictly best option to me since they seem likely to be the best at scaling, emergencies, and sustainability. Assuming they have decent weapons (a quick search shows a gap between level 20 and 60 which might be rough) they should do fine. So if my goal is to have the best chance at making it far then hunter seems obvious. But maybe I'd be happier doing something harder and aiming for the best of that class instead of trying to make it all the way to 85? The highest level dead rogue is only 69, for example.
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