MoP Bucket List – One Month Later

All in all the Christmas Holidays and the very act of making a list proved quite productive.

(Everything in red, blue or black was already on the list. Items in green are new additions).

Non-character specific

• Reach 14000 achievement points. I’m currently at 13215 so that’s quite a bit to go but I have plenty of options to tick off. I’m now sitting at 13485 so whilst there is still quite a long way to go, at least I made some headway.
• Get a Magical pet to 25. Done. Basil the Twilight Fiendling has reached his 25th season.
• Get an Elemental pet to 25. Done. The annoying Audreytwo otherwise known as the Singing Sunflower also reached the level cap.
• Defeat Garrosh and my stupid lack of self confidence at the same time.
• Make a decent amount of gold to enter the expansion with. I hate being broke even more than I hate farming.
• Explore Vashj’ir properly. This is the only exploring achievement I still haven’t completed. Done by my Gnome rogue so now I never need return unless I want to!

Dulcamara

• Make friends with everyone on the farm. Done and as it turned out, it was surprising easy. I just spent a few minutes flying around in between doing the cooking daily as well as heading to the Valley for some between battlegrounds buried treasure pick ups.

• Get Cooking to 6oo, do the Master of the Ways and pick up the Cooking School Bell
• Farm the other 8000 Dinosaur Bones I require for the mount
• Complete rank 6 in the Brawler’s Guild as a Mistweaver. Done. I’m now working my way through rank 7.
• Get Endless Healer on the Proving Grounds.
• Master of Alterac Valley, only 33 graveyards to go.

Snowflower

• 35 reputations ticked off. One more to go and I’m currently farming it as this goes to press.
• Exalted with the Oracles
• Collect Oracle Eggs until one miraculously turns into a Dragon. Hah…. I can’t give the pets away at the moment.
• Fish up the remaining coins I need from the Dalaran fountain.
• Argent Tournament goodies. I need more tokens to be able to buy the mounts I still have outstanding. Still quite a long way to go here although I did score myself a Unicorn Mount.
• Finish up Frostbitten

Briarrose

• Briarrose is my long forgotten original Druid currently rusting on a massively imbalanced (not in her favour) PvP server, stuck at lv 73 she needs some love mostly because she has awesome bits and bobs in her bank and can rightfully wield the original vanilla PvP set. Sure the Druid version isn’t my cup of tea but I am rather partial to the staves so she needs to find herself some Boomkin gear and get slaughtering.

Calantha

• Finish farming the Oshu’gun Crystal Powder I need (in the region of 300ish) to grab the two Halaa mounts. I already have the tokens you get from pvp, it’s just the grind I’ve been putting off.

Anann

• Level so that I can tame one of these beauties. Very much a work in progress.

MoP Bucket List

I like lists, they give purpose and clarity to my thinking. In fact the first thing I do every Monday morning at work is glance over last week’s list and then make a new shiny one for the week ahead.

I know that the next expansion isn’t even being beta tested yet but it’s time in my head at least to finalize what I want to achieve before we’re all heading off to a brave new world.

Non-character specific

• Reach 14000 achievement points. I’m currently at 13215 so that’s quite a bit to go but I have plenty of options to tick off.
• Get a Magical pet to 25
• Get an Elemental pet to 25
• Defeat Garrosh and my stupid lack of self confidence at the same time.
• Explore Vashj’ir properly. This is the only exploring achievement I still haven’t completed.

Dulcamara

• Make friends with everyone on the farm
• Get Cooking to 6oo, do the Master of the Ways and pick up the Cooking School Bell
• Farm the other 8000 Dinosaur Bones I require for the mount
• Complete rank 6 in the Brawler’s Guild as a Mistweaver
• Get Endless Healer on the Proving Grounds.
• Master of Alterac Valley, only 33 graveyards to go.

Snowflower

• 35 reputations ticked off
• Exalted with the Oracles
• Collect Oracle Eggs until one miraculously turns into a Dragon.
• Argent Tournament goodies. I need more tokens to be able to buy the mounts I still have outstanding.
• Finish up Frostbitten

Calantha

• Finish farming the Oshu’gun Crystal Powder I need (in the region of 300ish) to grab the two Halaa mounts. I already have the tokens you get from pvp, it’s just the grind I’ve been putting off.

Anann

• Level so that I can tame one of these beauties

This will definitely do as a starting point. I’d like to level a Horde Hunter for example, probably an Orc to tick the dual boxes of rescuing Spot from Theramore and also being able to explore Draenor at some point on a Orc. I’d also like to level a Dwarf Mage or Worgen Mage, I can’t decide which would fit the name of Havisham best but these can wait.

Day 11: A Screenshot A Day

Day 11 – What I did today

I had a go or two at Gold but fell short at the final hurdle. I think I need to focus a bit more and relax rather than start panicking. I suppose I should think of it as PvP rather than PvE.

I also paid the Timeless Isle a visit and picked up a bunch of coins, killed some rares and looted some upgrades for various characters. I still haven’t made up my mind about the Isle yet. As much as I hate dailies, I do like having something to focus on rather than riding around looking for shinies.

Seven things I’d fix in random PvP

I’ve been doing a lot of pvp recently. As the embers of one expansion die down, I always seem to drift into doing more battlegrounds than normal. As with anything you do regularly, you find yourself noticing the flaws and wondering how you would have done it better. These are a few of the things which really bother me in random battlegrounds these days and my solutions to the problems because without solutions it’s just whining.

1. Gear Discrepancy

• The Problem: Quite often when I zone in to a battleground, I have one of the highest health pools. Now as a Disc Priest, that shouldn’t be the case. You look around and see the obligatory melee with 110k health  (usually a plate wearer but can also be a feral druid) and your heart sinks. Unless the enemy team have the same, you’re basically playing one person down. In SotA yesterday for example I had four Horde on me, they were interrupting and basically doing everything right but they just didn’t output enough damage to put pressure on me. Now I realise that Blizzard are taking steps to deal with this in MoP but I don’t think their steps go far enough. Everyone having basic resilience will help but in the scenario I described, it wasn’t their survival which was an issue, it was their damage or lack of it.
• My Solutions: Split the endgame random battlegrounds into two categories. Group 1 would be everyone who just hit level, the people with no gear whatsoever. This group would get more honour per game but zero conquest points for winning. On reaching a certain item level (a level which would move up with the start of each new season), you would be moved into the second pool and would start earning less honour (still the same amount we currently get) but getting conquest points too. The benefits of this would be twofold, less complaining on the part of both the geared and the undergeared. Also games would be more interesting because the playing field would be reasonably level. This would only apply in the 10 and 15s, i.e. the games where gear matters. So if you queue to random with a well-geared friend, it would automatically put you into the queue for 40 mans. A second and certainly simpler solution would be to re-visit the Burning Crusade method of adding basic PvP gear to the reputation vendors.
• Possible negatives: People trying to stay in the bottom category until they have a full set of gear or to farm undergeared players. That’s partly why I don’t think conquest should be available in this category, it’s meant to be transient not somewhere you set up home and attempt to specialise at. Another potential negative would be the risk of running of new players increasing wait times in the first category but since there seems to be a neverending supply of them in the current system, I’m sure that wouldn’t be an issue.

2. Perceptions

• The Problem: The scoreboard shows names and specs, mindvision works from every start zone apart from AV, SotA and Isle of Conquest and addons like Battleground Spy exist. Before the gates even open people have compared their team to the enemy team and often decided there is no chance. We had a Twin Peaks the other day in which we were one and a half healers (the other half was a Holy Priest with 100k health) versus a team with four well geared healers. Before we started our dps were complaining that it was a loss because of perception. As it turned out, it wasn’t because the majority of our dps could cc and kick but at least one person afked before we started because of that belief. We got lucky in that our team decided to actually try before giving up and sitting in the graveyard.
• My Solution: Don’t populate the scoreboard before the game starts. Let people figure out who the low geared players and healers are on the battlefield, not in advance. If half the team comes from the same server, we shouldn’t know that until we get out on the field.

3. Premades in General

• The Problem: Beating organised groups with randoms is harder, yes it’s doable if the premade is bad or your team also has a premade component but to tie into the previous issue, perception plays a part. I might be willing to go 1 v 5 but a lot of my team aren’t. They see the same server name or the same guildtag and lose some of their will to fight. You start getting people saying “Oh it’s a premade…. lose fast”.
• My Solution: If 5 people queue up together then match them with 5 people who are also queuing up together. Don’t put them with a mix of randoms. Now don’t take this the wrong way, I can’t remember the last time I got farmed at the graveyard but in the run up to Cataclysm, I premaded a lot and yes, playing with friends is always fun but you should be facing other people who are also playing with friends not Scrubby McGraw the Dwarf Mage who queued solo and who just wants some honour points so he can buy his first bit of proper PvP gear.
• Possible Negatives: This is a multi-player game and we are meant to be playing with other people, friends, guildmates, the guy we met ganking in Tol Barad. However, I’m not sure that the queue times would radically increase if 5 man group met 5 man group and so on. It might also lead to a better quality of game.

4. Achievements

• The Problem: I’m fine with the concept of achievements in PvP but what I hate are the ones which aren’t focused on the objectives. Things like “take 50 graveyards in AV” and “Get 20 killing blows without dying” spring to mind. I have actually lost games because a small percentage of our team were too focused on getting certain achievements and not playing the actual game.
• My solution: From this point forward, all the PvP achievements should be designed around the objectives or things which don’t actively hinder those objectives. If we take “take 50 graveyards in AV” as an example, because games are fairly short unless you run into a hk farming premade, people who are after this achievement often try and tag graveyards that don’t help you win. Iceblood for example when you’ve already got Frostwolf and could really do without everyone you just killed ressing in the base, the one place you’re trying to get to. I’m also iffy about achievements which favour dps classes like the killing blow one. We shouldn’t have to either get creative (Sprout got hers at lev 82 courtesy of a siege engine in IoC) or play a role we don’t like in order to get an achievement (yes I realise that achievements aren’t mandatory but I’m not convinced the vast majority of the player base does).

5. Bots

• The Problem: Winning when half your team aren’t actually playing is tricky.
• My Solution: Harsh penalties for those caught botting. Because this is a multi-player game, cheating shouldn’t be tolerated. Also I don’t see why anyone should profit from such behaviour. I’d take away every single piece of pvp gear, regardless of whether they were botting or not when they got it. However, I’d also take a look at the way the game allows certain scripts to be used. At the moment you can enter  battlegrounds using a script and I believe this is how a lot of bot programs work. Removing this loophole would also stop the AV pre-former working which would get rid of the 40 man hk farming groups which are fairly common at the moment, at least in the EU.

6. “Killing blow stealers” – Those that Complain

• The Problem: This ties in with the previous issue. Every battleground seems to have at least one, usually either a rogue or a ret paladin who seems to assume that everyone they hit will provide them with a killing blow. They have their addon installed to track said killing blows and believe that their prowess in this field demonstrates how super awesome they are. If anyone else happens to accidentally “steal” said killing blow, they stop whatever they are doing, even if it results in their death to complain vocally about how unfair and pathetic you are and that you should “get your own killing blows mate”.
• My solution: Sort the scoreboard by something other than killing blows as default. It’s the least important feature on there. What it should do is read your spec when you enter and sort by damage for everyone who isn’t a healer and healing for all those that are.
• Possible negatives: This wouldn’t make the annoying KB hunters go away but at least it would make pointing out they’re doing the same dps as a wet paper bag whilst you’re trying to defend a node solo a lot easier.

7. Absorbs not showing on the scoreboard

• The Problem: As a Disc Priest around 50 percent of my contribution in a battleground doesn’t show on the scoreboard. Now I can live without my dispels turning up and the same for my cc but it annoys me on so many levels that all my pretty shiny absorbs that save lives are missing.
• My Solution: If addons like recount can correctly figure out the absorbs from the combat log I see no reason other than laziness as to why this hasn’t been fixed already. If something is going to be displayed for public consumption, I’d like it to be accurate. Explaining class mechanics to idiots whilst trying to play properly is a little frustrating.

The full list of things which annoy me in PvP is actually considerably longer but is comprised of things could only be fixed by not letting half the player base play battlegrounds. So have I missed anything? What would you like to see changed about the way we battleground going into MoP?

Account-wide achievements and an end to blank slates.

Some graphical glitches are creepier than the rest. Not sure whether it’s her lack of eyes or the fact that her entire body seems have been dipped in plaster of Paris. Either way, I know I’d be running in the opposite direction.

Account-wide achievements seem to be semi working in the current Beta build and more than ever I find my feelings on the subject are mixed. When I wrote my original post on the topic, I was torn between liking and disliking but now, I think I’m definitely coming down on the side of dislike.

Pets I’m okay with. It was a necessary evil to get the most of the Pet Battle system, that makes sense. Asking people to level pets individually on a character by character basis would be frustrating and annoying. Everything else, I’m not so comfortable with.

Based on shots like this one, it looks like if you have an achievement somewhere on your account, you will get any relevant  titles and mounts handed out on all characters once they reach the level required to use them.

Perhaps I’m a special snowflake but part of the reason I love rolling new characters every so often is that they are blank slates (just like the Student of Chi-ji). You start completely afresh with nothing but come MoP without purchasing a new account, that won’t be true. Instead of trying to pick a first companion pet that I feel suits the character, I’ll have well over a hundred to pick from. The same goes for mounts, already by the time a new character hits lv 80, it will have it’s pick of over a 100 creatures to ride.

Now I’ve swapped mains once or twice across the last seven years so I should be in seventh heaven. My two characters who are Hands of A’dal sit unplayed, my main pet and mount collector who also happens to have a variety of PvE titles as well as the bulk of my achievements is currently the wrong faction. My Hyacinth Macaw and Horseman’s Reins sit on Druids 1 and 3, neither of which get much playtime these days. Finally, my achievements will reflect me, the player yet still I find the whole concept uncomfortable.  It’s not because I’m afraid of being stalked, although I believe that these changes will make it a whole lot easier for people to track down other gamers because suddenly your achievements will be one unique fingerprint across all your characters. Hiding on alts, re-naming and server transferring won’t be the safety net they were before. Of course in the case of bad behaviour, that’s a good thing. Way back before server transfers were an option, my old GM said one night that, “all we have in WoW is our reputation” and perhaps account-wide achievements is one way to help bring back that sense of accountability. Yet, I still don’t like it.

All my characters who are high enough level to reach AV are exalted and that’s a rite of passage for me. Just as is saving my <Make Love, not Warcraft> achievement for the stunned corpse of someone I really enjoyed ganking. Inheriting those moments from others takes away some of the fun from achieving achievements in the first place.  Of course, it’s probable that you’ll still get the achievement, your new one just taking over from the inherited one but it’s not the same. It’s like the difference between blank notebooks and half filled jotters or buying new clothes versus getting your brother’s cast-offs.

Then there is content. I repeat content on my alts just because there is a blank space in my achievement list. I explore places I know like the back of my hand, flying over old familiar hidey holes, taking screenshots and thinking about all the memories they gave me. I do old favourite quests and farm rep with people who already love me on four other characters. I get out into the world because my achievements aren’t currently shareable and I know plenty others who do the same. Even when there is no new content available, when the game seems stagnant (like now), there is plenty of things to do if you treat all your characters like separate individuals. This change alters that. When your play time is perhaps limited by outside factors and achievements are shared, it makes sense to only do certain things once. Why for example should I run Ulduar again because I’ve got all the titles and both mounts already. If there is nothing I want for transmogrification, there is no reason for me to set foot in there again. No one is ever going to farm the Firelands dailies twice (or at least if they do, that gives a whole new definition to masochism). All these areas which on all the servers I play on  (mainly medium to high pop) are currently buzzing with the latest crop of alts will fall silent.

Now this is all fine and dandy, if Blizzard keep new content flowing at a rate where we don’t get stuck for things to do but if they don’t? I can’t help but feel that making achievements account-wide makes the world smaller. I’m one pet off completing the Darkmoon Faire collection, once I’ve grabbed that this week why go back (unless they add new stuff). Don’t get me wrong, I do quite enjoy the games, especially hitting toy Hoggers over the head with a mallet and punting my Gnome out of the cannon but if I don’t need the tickets because my pets and mounts are about to become shared across all my characters.. then it diminishes my need to visit whole chunks of the game. So, we’ll get the new shiny expansion with lots of things to do but then what happens when we come to level the second character through it and the third? When we already have all the achievements to show before a character even leaves the start zone? Doesn’t that take away from the experience.

I know there are benefits and that I will probably benefit more than most. I have been playing a long time and have switched raiding character more than once for my guild and yet, I still dislike the idea. Although I can see one silver lining in the whole concept. Sunday sees the start of everyone’s favourite holiday “Children’s Week”. The week where everyone manages to get annoyed, whether it’s pvpers ranting at achievement hunting under-geared idiots ruining their battlegrounds or everyone else complaining about being targeted by a never ending succession of evil ganking scum whilst trying to get their achievements done. Now if Blizzard intend all achievements and mounts to be shared, well then hopefully by next year, everyone who wants a purple drake will have one on one character or another and Children’s week will be a peaceful and relaxing occasion without the shrieking and whining of previous years. We can but dream!