I’m not much for QQ posts but in this case I am making an exception cause I think this issue has potential for causing a lot players to get very bored in the long run. What follows is an open letter to Blizzard if you will and secondly it is also an investigation to see if others share my opinion.
The problem with having two dungeon tiers
Since patch 4.2 came out I have been running heroic dungeons on a weekly basis to reach the Valor Point cap for that week. While I do love the new system of not having to do one each day and instead being able to do them whenever you like during the week, I really am not enjoying the Valor Point reward difference between troll heroics and regular heroics.
Here’s the problem: Troll heroics (Zul’Aman and Zul’Gurub) reward 140 Valor Points upon completion and the other heroics reward 70 Valor Points upon completion. To reach the weekly cap (980 Valor Points) you need to do 7 troll heroics or 7 regular heroics and 4 troll heroics (since regular heroics cap at 490, meaning you have to do 4 troll heroics regardless).
What’s the problem with that you might ask? “Troll heroics are harder so they reward more points for the effort”. I disagree, they aren’t all that difficult and to be honest, dungeons in general are never THAT difficult. One troll heroic does not equate two regular heroics in terms of time and effort. But still, I could be fine with that. My main problem is really only this: I have to run the same two instances over and over and OVER AND OVER again! There are several perfectly fine heroic dungeons out there which are now not being used at all because everyone is going to the troll heroics to get their Valor Points more efficiently.
I really do like these troll dungeons, they are excellent instances with some challenge, fun and interesting mechanics. But please Blizzard, you have to change this. Because very soon these troll heroics are gonna become the new “Trial of the Crusader”. Remember? 4 lockouts per week? The same repetition is going on here. 7 troll heroics on your main character per week and maybe 7 more for your alt… and no other dungeons.
The solution
I suggest upping the regular heroics reward to 140 Valor Points or lowering the troll heroic reward to 70 Valor Points. Either way, it needs to be the same to avoid this issue of effectively removing the other heroic dungeons from the game.
I still think a lot of people will go for the troll heroics for their non-Valor Point rewards, so I don’t think they’ll be left out of the rotation and cause people to just leave the instance when they notice “oh it’s one of THESE again… /leave”. I mean, in the troll heroics you have; epic gear, maelstrom crystals, additional gold and possible mounts. These rewards are enough to justify the slight increase in difficulty.
Please Blizzard, I want my Cataclysm dungeons back.
Update (2011/07/19): Since this post, Blizzard has made one change to help alleviate this problem. They have added small Valor Point rewards for all Tier 11 raid bosses, 35 valor for each 10-man boss kill and 45 valor for each 25-man boss kill. This means you can earn 420 – 540 valor points each week by clearing old content. This will reduce the amount of weekly troll heroics you have to do by 3.
While this still doesn’t solve my main problem with the current system, it does make things a little bit less painful and it means more people will want to keep doing older content, which is always a good thing!
Perhaps the greatest thing about this development however is that they acknowledge that players were exclusively running ZA/ZG for valor points and that all the other dungeons were getting ignored. This could mean that we will see a fix similar to what I have suggested sometime in the future.
Totally unrelated self-congratulatory picture
Aeonaxx bites the dust, after months of hunting!
Interesting posts
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- OutDPS: No new Sic ‘Em! Bug
- OutDPS: Comparing the Hunter Talent Trees for PvP
- Jinxed Thoughts: You No Take Key!
Cheers,
Gav
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I was thinking the same thing just the other day, why did they make troll instances reward more when they’re only two? I’d be fine with doing more of the other instances, but as you say, they cap out which means you have to run the troll ones in either case! I love them, think they’re fun and difficult enough to be fairly entertaining without being too easy, but it’s still only the same thing. I really dread the prospect of doing this for the next couple of weeks…
100% agree
I agree 100%… so sick of running the same two just because its best valor gain.
oh yes I have similar thoughts in my head…
I think the best would be to buff the VP-gain from the “normal” heroics to 140 and put them in one queue with the Zandalaris. That would surely result in people leaving the Zandalaris when they pop up.
But: Why not buffing the other instances up and say like “superheroic” or Tier12 Heroic, mobs hitting harder and boss-mechanics instant-killing you when you fail. And you get the 140 VP upon completion. That would stop people leaving Zandalari heroics because they wouldn’t be harder than zandalaris, just different.
You can still go for the Tier11 versions of Stonecore or GrimBatol or whatever else, with minimum average itemlvl 329 and get those 70 VP.
Conclusion: Buff the dungeons each tier and they will not get zerg-festivals, therefore be funnier because of difficulty. Players in USA/europe don’t like grinds, we didn’t like it in aion, what makes blizzard think we like it in wow?