12-18-2006, 05:46 PM
So I haven't read all the EJ thread but I'm starting to wonder if the difficulty slider is simply set up to be "tuned for no consumables" to "tuned for max consumables".
Part of my decision (and there were many parts to this decision) to not raid anymore on Stormrage was because we were up at the you have to constantly farm to just be able to raid stage. We had killed the twin emps, the consumable grinds were just looming over the horizon. I looked at reward vs time invested and that, with other factors, simply wasn't worth it for me.
But if the tuning is set up that way, it could allow you to gear progress most of the instances. You can hit the hardest instance on normal then go back to the easier instances on the harder setting since having farmed that top gear closed the gap. You could have done that easier instance with consumables before and gotten the better gear that happens on the harder difficulties faster. But now it could simply be going back through those older instances on a harder difficulty to gear up for the next gap. You'll never be able to be on the very cutting edge this way, because you will always need to be one or two instances back (at least when set to the highest difficulty) but you will be able to see all the content on the normal setting, you just won't be getting the same rewards.
I'm not sure that is such a bad solution. There are people that enjoy the hardest stuff as soon as they can get to it and don't mind the grind so much, those folks will stay in guilds. There are those people who like the really hard stuff but simply don't have the time to do the consumable grinding. They will still be able to work up to it without the consumable farming. They still have to farm, they will just have to do the instance farming but this time it's old content on a harder setting.
I don't know. I'm not sure it solves the problems. I'd need to think about it more. The issue will still be there that you know that you can beat it with consumables now and get the top rewards now. Perhaps you do that once or twice for the thrill, but instead of soloing farming herbs all the time to do it again, you group farm older instances on harder difficulty since you've got a few pieces of that uber gear and the gap of need consumables vs don't are smaller. Dunno if that is better or not.
Part of my decision (and there were many parts to this decision) to not raid anymore on Stormrage was because we were up at the you have to constantly farm to just be able to raid stage. We had killed the twin emps, the consumable grinds were just looming over the horizon. I looked at reward vs time invested and that, with other factors, simply wasn't worth it for me.
But if the tuning is set up that way, it could allow you to gear progress most of the instances. You can hit the hardest instance on normal then go back to the easier instances on the harder setting since having farmed that top gear closed the gap. You could have done that easier instance with consumables before and gotten the better gear that happens on the harder difficulties faster. But now it could simply be going back through those older instances on a harder difficulty to gear up for the next gap. You'll never be able to be on the very cutting edge this way, because you will always need to be one or two instances back (at least when set to the highest difficulty) but you will be able to see all the content on the normal setting, you just won't be getting the same rewards.
I'm not sure that is such a bad solution. There are people that enjoy the hardest stuff as soon as they can get to it and don't mind the grind so much, those folks will stay in guilds. There are those people who like the really hard stuff but simply don't have the time to do the consumable grinding. They will still be able to work up to it without the consumable farming. They still have to farm, they will just have to do the instance farming but this time it's old content on a harder setting.
I don't know. I'm not sure it solves the problems. I'd need to think about it more. The issue will still be there that you know that you can beat it with consumables now and get the top rewards now. Perhaps you do that once or twice for the thrill, but instead of soloing farming herbs all the time to do it again, you group farm older instances on harder difficulty since you've got a few pieces of that uber gear and the gap of need consumables vs don't are smaller. Dunno if that is better or not.
---
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.