Honor reduced ~30%

[Concillian]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...=55975614&sid=1

Now that the Before the Storm content patch has been live for the past week, we’ve had a better opportunity to track the rate at which players are accumulating honor, and subsequently how easy it's been to obtain honor rewards. In gauging these elements, we've determined that the effort required to obtain honor rewards is more trivial than we had intended. As a result, during today's maintenance we’ve applied a hotfix that reduced the amount of honor gained by approximately 30%. This change allows the honor rewards to be obtained at rate that better reflects the item’s in-game value.

The reason that we decided to reduce the rate of honor gain rather than simply raise the honor cost of each item, is to ensure that everyone’s time and effort participating in PvP since the patch is not diminished. As this change will only affect future honor accumulation.

Especially interesting given Drysc's comments just yesterday in this thread:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...405599&sid=1#19

Right hand... meet left.

Wait... there's more....

http://blue.cardplace.com/newcache/us/55895590.htm

"It's just a rumor" from the same CM that posts the update that honor gain is reduced (effectively increasing prices ~40-45%)

Go to the original post... it's deleted... they're trying to cover their tracks.

Right hand... meet right.

[bonemage]

Now I suddenly regret leveling my old Alliance warlock from 59 to 60 in the last week, that time would have been better spent doing PvP, and capping him later. <_<

[Tuftears]

Now I regret spending the time working on a focus target mod instead of going nuts on PvP. :(

[Quark]

Especially interesting given Drysc's comments just yesterday in this thread:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...405599&sid=1#19

Right hand... meet left.

That specifically mentions "after the expansion" ... we're not there yet. After the expansion, everything except top end weapons will be vastly devalued.

http://blue.cardplace.com/newcache/us/55895590.htm

"It's just a rumor" from the same CM that posts the update that honor gain is reduced (effectively increasing prices ~40-45%)

Maybe shady, but not even close to wrong.

The reason that we decided to reduce the rate of honor gain rather than simply raise the honor cost of each item, is to ensure that everyone’s time and effort participating in PvP since the patch is not diminished. As this change will only affect future honor accumulation.

Go to the original post... it's deleted... they're trying to cover their tracks.

Right hand... meet right.

Err ...

I had to double check on some information first so pulled it briefly and put it back up.

Also, the information on the reduction of costs in the future is still correct at this point in time.

[oldmandennis]

Right hand... meet left.

Wait... there's more....

No, this all makes sense. Pre-expansion, they feel people were getting items too easy. They can either raise the prices, screwing all the people who didn't jump right into PvP _AND_ the people who were PvPing, but hadn't spent points (I'm in this category, still contemplating 2H vs DW for the xpac. Other people might almost have enough for a 2h weapon, for example) OR they can cut the rate of future gain, only hurting the people who MIGHT have pvped more if they had known the nurf was incoming.

One is a theoretical harm to people who might have done something differently, one is an actual harm to people who have actual points in the bank.

Reducing prices after TBC hits makes sense. Are people really going to stop and PvP for hundreds of hours to accumulate a rank 13 set of gear? Reducing the price to let people grab 1-2 pieces makes sense to me.

[lemekim]

I thought this patch was supposed to make PvP less of a grind. But I guess PvP will always be an afterthought in this game.

[Concillian]

One is a theoretical harm to people who might have done something differently, one is an actual harm to people who have actual points in the bank.

Either way they did it they would be effectively raising the price of the items. In the post he mentions not wanting to mislead people, but he did, in fact, mislead people.

They may have been technically correct in their precise wording by saying that the price was not increasing, however, they definitely mislead the community. And in my mind they definitely lost respect and credibility. I wouldn't have thought that CMs would want to lose the trust of the people they are informing, but apparently they do.

My point was not about the way they changed the system, my point was in the way they seemingly intentionally misled the community with two posts yesterday suggesting he system wouldn't be changing, then changing the system today. My guess is that the CMs would not have made these kinds of comments yesterday if they knew what exactly was happening.

[Monkey]

This is lame for three reasons:

1. It's a month until TBC's street date. Who cares if people get level 60 epic PvP rewards too fast? What, they'll level a bit faster to 70? These items don't have resilience and will be useless compared to level 70 'rare' PvP rewards.

2. People are already earning tokens far faster than the honor required to use them. Blizzard's just forcing people to throw away (more) tokens.

3. Without the team/gear-based matching system and with the (Blizzard-has-acknowledged-as) unbalanced level 70 talents, this just preserves the Offense > Defense gap that makes raiding a requirement for PvP in the game.

This is what Blizzard calls the "donut/hole" game development problem, and Blizzard has clearly decided to err on the side of the 'hole'. Again.

[Concillian]

That specifically mentions "after the expansion" ... we're not there yet.

1) the response is to the original post, asking if prices are going up
2) The comment "That would mean the prices would be going down though, not up. " seems to indicate that prices won't be going up... yet effectively they just did

Maybe shady, but not even close to wrong.
Err ...

2 things here too:

- The post I linked to at blue.cardplace.com is not the one referred to being pulled... the post about the honor changes was posted, pulled and re-posted. The post I linked to was referring to extended maintenance.
- The CMs indeed misled the community. Given the job of a CM is to inform the community misleading us undermines their own credibility. Given the following post by Drysc:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...ageNo=1&sid=1#2

the CMs indeed did not know about the changes being implemented when they made the comment, which does, in fact, indicate that one arm of Blizzard was not communicating with another. This is precisely the point I was trying to convey by the "Left hand... meet right" comment.

Do you think the CMs would have been so forward with saying that the prices weren't increasing if they knew that there was going to be a change that would not necessarily increase the price, but effectively increase the price?

[Zarathustra]

I thought this patch was supposed to make PvP less of a grind. But I guess PvP will always be an afterthought in this game.

Oh, cry me a river. People have their GM weapons in less than a week. Now it'll take 10 days instead? *gasp* Whatever shall we do?!

There's a difference between "less of a grind" and "trivial".

[Mavfin]

Oh, cry me a river. People have their GM weapons in less than a week. Now it'll take 10 days instead? *gasp* Whatever shall we do?!

There's a difference between "less of a grind" and "trivial".

Yeah, FFS, 10 days vs a week for better weapons than my toon that raided for 8 months has. It's still extremely trivial. I and a former Grand Marshal were discussing this over the weekend, and were just flabbergasted that people were going to be able to get GM-level weaps in 1-2 weeks.

[vor_lord]

Yeah, FFS, 10 days vs a week for better weapons than my toon that raided for 8 months has. It's still extremely trivial. I and a former Grand Marshal were discussing this over the weekend, and were just flabbergasted that people were going to be able to get GM-level weaps in 1-2 weeks.

It's setting wrong expectations that makes people upset. It's the fact that anything you want really needs to be completed before TBC comes out.

I planned to get a dagger for my priest. I typically never get any DPS gear in instances as it's a higher priority for others, so I'm very unlikely to get anything anywhere near that good for damage for a long time in TBC.

I probably wouldn't have spent my last three times I could play doing PvP if I knew it would be put out of reach for me by January 16th. So it looked in reach (although admitted very cheap I'm not arguing that). Now it's probably out of reach. So I'm disappointed.

If I can't get the item I want by TBC, it's been a waste.

[TheDragoon]

It's setting wrong expectations that makes people upset. It's the fact that anything you want really needs to be completed before TBC comes out.

I agree completely. I see 2 main things that make people upset in a game like this:

1) Comparative unfairness (casual vs. raider epics, horde vs. alliance easy-mode, druids vs. the world)
2) Taking things away that people have gotten excited about (primarily nerfs but also things like delaying patches or improvements)

Clearly setting the wrong expectations while getting people excited about PvP and then appearing to take that away (even if it's only 30% different) isn't going to make people happy. :)

[Icebird]

Sure I'm regretting I didn't PvP more when accumulating points was easy. But in the long term I don't think its going to make much difference.

In the old system, you toiled for a long time without receiving *any* rewards, then you got rewarded with bunches of items at once. In the new system acquiring any *one* particular item isn't that hard (most people opting for weapons) but acquiring say, a full set of the epic PvP armour would take a fair bit of grinding.

The offence-to-defence ratio was unbalanced in favour of the offence before and its worse now since the system is tuned around people possessing expansion items with their greater stamina and properties like "resilience". My warlock does fine in his tier 2/tier 2.5 gear, but my other characters have much shorter lifespans than they used to.

Even with the honor nerf, top quality weapons are exponentially more accessible than they used to be.

Chris

[Mavfin]

Sure I'm regretting I didn't PvP more when accumulating points was easy. But in the long term I don't think its going to make much difference.

In the old system, you toiled for a long time without receiving *any* rewards, then you got rewarded with bunches of items at once. In the new system acquiring any *one* particular item isn't that hard (most people opting for weapons) but acquiring say, a full set of the epic PvP armour would take a fair bit of grinding.

The offence-to-defence ratio was unbalanced in favour of the offence before and its worse now since the system is tuned around people possessing expansion items with their greater stamina and properties like "resilience". My warlock does fine in his tier 2/tier 2.5 gear, but my other characters have much shorter lifespans than they used to.

Even with the honor nerf, top quality weapons are exponentially more accessible than they used to be.

Chris

I think the biggest thing is there is no more decay. You earn the honor, it's yours. No 'wall' at a certain rank to run into that requires you to go w/o a life to advance. People can get stuff according to the time they put into it, but not have to go w/o a life to get there eventually.

[Icebird]

I think the biggest thing is there is no more decay. You earn the honor, it's yours. No 'wall' at a certain rank to run into that requires you to go w/o a life to advance. People can get stuff according to the time they put into it, but not have to go w/o a life to get there eventually.

Based on the evidence of the past week, pvp participation is way up, and I don't see the honor adjustments this week changing that. Based on personal experience I can attest how demoralizing it was when you *just* missed getting a rank for a week (particularly a good reward rank). Getting only 95% of the way to Rank 10 cost me another week of pvp.

While the new system lacks of competition element of a ladder system (which should be better replicated in the Arena anyway), it gives everyone the opportunity to get the pvp rewards they want. I suspect a lot of people will pvp a lot initially for a new weapon - and then they'll cut down their playing time a lot unless there are any particuilar armor pieces or other rewards they want.

Chris

[lemekim]

Oh, cry me a river. People have their GM weapons in less than a week. Now it'll take 10 days instead? *gasp* Whatever shall we do?!

There's a difference between "less of a grind" and "trivial".

Most players will want to get the 6 piece R12/13 set, and a few R14 weapons. That's approximately 200k Honor, or an equivalent to 3 million Honor under previous system. So if you go really hard, getting an equivalent of ~500k per week under old system, you still need a month and a half to get that whole set of gear. So the difference now is that you need to go very hard for one and a half months instead of 2-3 months. And we all can agree that the old system was really bad.

So what is the difference? A lot of people are going for 1-2 items that they want instead of grinding through the whole system for them. And everyone putting in extra effort is rewarded, not punished, as under old system.

If you think that's bad, I want to see the tears streaming down your face when you realize how quickly your precious gear gets obsolete as you level up in expansion. Seriously, it's like 1 month left, let it go. A game should be about fun, not your second job.

[WildFire]

I saw this coming.

If anything, this widens the gap between the Honor Point and the BG marks requirement. As it was, you would have three times the required number of marks before you had enough Honor for an item. This change has exacerbated this issue.

Either they start selling stuff for marks only, or put back the marks for Honor turnins; or there's going to be a serious number of surplus marks in my inventory before I'm done.

[Monkey]

Yeah, FFS, 10 days vs a week for better weapons than my toon that raided for 8 months has. It's still extremely trivial. I and a former Grand Marshal were discussing this over the weekend, and were just flabbergasted that people were going to be able to get GM-level weaps in 1-2 weeks.

I encourage you and your GM friend to visit Thottbot's beta side. Peruse the quest rewards from Hellfire Peninsula, a level 60 zone immediately on the other side of the Dark Portal. They have quests with green or uncommon rewards that will remind you eerily of epics you may have coveted in the past.

Some examples:

Original Staff of Dominance: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=334
Cheapo Knockoff: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=14267

Original Draconic Avenger: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=5840
Cheapo Knockoff: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=14383

Original Corehound Tooth: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=126
Cheapo Knockoff: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=14330

Original Brutality Blade: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=125
Cheapo Knockoff: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=14459

And of course, TBC has Feral Itemization:
http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=14331

To earn your choice of any one of these lovely green items, you must find, battle, and triumph over eleven non-elite level 58-60 mobs. And for anyone wondering, these rewards, along with 10 levels of better items, will be all be available 5 weeks from today.

[Mavfin]

I encourage you and your GM friend to visit Thottbot's beta side. Peruse the quest rewards from Hellfire Peninsula, a level 60 zone immediately on the other side of the Dark Portal. They have quests with green or uncommon rewards that will remind you eerily of epics you may have coveted in the past.

Some examples:

Original Staff of Dominance: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=334
Cheapo Knockoff: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=14267

Original Draconic Avenger: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=5840
Cheapo Knockoff: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=14383

Original Corehound Tooth: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=126
Cheapo Knockoff: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=14330

Original Brutality Blade: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=125
Cheapo Knockoff: http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=14459

And of course, TBC has Feral Itemization:
http://www.thottbot.com/beta?i=14331

To earn your choice of any one of these lovely green items, you must find, battle, and triumph over eleven non-elite level 58-60 mobs. And for anyone wondering, these rewards, along with 10 levels of better items, will be all be available 5 weeks from today.

Oh, I know. It's just how trivial stuff is to get now that we put in tons of effort for.

All of it will be junk in BC anyway.