OK, let's look at loot distribution.
Badges will be converted into a points scheme that pays a little more if you do the 25 man raid. You'll be able to supplement your points income by doing 5-mans so characters that can tank or heal are advantaged. On the other hand since you can get points by doing 5-mans there's no reason to prefer 25s for points.
Tier sets are by class. So in a 10 man raid you can have perfect distribution with 10 players, one of each class.
Standard loot table items have traditionally been split fairly evenly along the following lines:
Tank plate
Dps plate
Spellpower plate
Dps mail
Spell mail
Dps leather
Spell leather
Nuking cloth
Healing cloth
See there are 9 possibilities and generally speaking the loot tables aim for one of each for every boss. This is a huge advantage to a raid that has the spread of loot type users over a guild with, say, a lot of guys in plate doing melee and a lot of cloth casters nuking and healing. (for an example see Valithria's drops at the end of this WoWwiki article).
Let's now look at the Cataclysm specs that correspond to those armour types:
Tank plate Prot Warrior, Blood DK, Prot Pally, (3 specs)
Dps plate Ret Pally, Arms Warrior, Fury Warrior, Frost DK, Unholy DK (5 specs)
Spellpower plate Holy Pally (1 spec)
Dps mail Hunter, Enh Shaman (4 specs)
Spell mail Resto Shaman, Ele Shaman (2 specs)
Dps leather Rogue, Feral Druid (4 specs)
Spell leather Boomkin, Tree (2 specs)
Nuking cloth Warlock, Mage, Shadow Priest (7 specs)
Healing cloth Discipline Priest, Holy Priest (2 specs)
Now there are two possibilities with raid composition. Either a raid guild recruits by armour type in which case it's hard to get in if you are in one of the popular categories or a raid recruits whoever in which case people in the popular categories probably have to share loot with several other people.
Best thing to be for loot: Holy paladin
Second best: Healing Priest, Boomkin, Tree, Casting shaman
Second worst: DPS Plate
Worst: Nuking cloth (7 times less likely to win an item for your role than a holy paladin)
There is a minor advantage to being high up the tree. A casting shaman could pick up caster leather or cloth, a holy paladin could pick up cloth, leather or mail in addition to their expected loot. This advantage has specifically been removed for DPS Plate who will be Strength based while those in lighter armour will be Agility based.
There is a workaround to this - if you cherry pick your raid you can eliminate anyone who rolls on the same loot. I saw this happen in a pug raid in WotLKwhere the raid leader decided the 25 man team was full on Death Knights at one DK and turned away several during the 20 minutes it took to form the raid. I wonder if he'll practice the same method in Cataclysm - turning away 1 player every 6 recruits.
Long term that workaround won't work, you'll just force other plate dps on your server to do the same thing and exclude you rather than let you form raids to exclude them.
People who are in a minority armour type in a 25 man raid will do best. A holy paladin or a caster shaman may be the only person in his armour type category and so can expect 1 in 9 drops to be for him.
1 in 9 could mean a lot of epics very fast. If a 10 man boss drops 2 pieces of armour and a 25 man boss drops three times as much to split between 2.5 times as many players that means that if you're the only caster shaman or holy pally in the raid you see 2 pieces of armour for you every 3 bosses.
In 10 man raids it will be very common to have sub-optimal distribution. You may be in a raid with 5 clothies that disenchants all the spellpower plate and mail. This will slow down your raid progression.
Where you have optimised distribution you will have one player over. 9 armour types and 10 spots. So it's likely there will be a couple of people who gear up significantly slower than everyone else, eg the mage and the warlock.
Offspec loot will be extremely hard to get if your offspec is in a popular category. In other words healing priests won't be able to get caster cloth, healing paladins won't be able to get ret gear from raid drops very easily. On the other hand a caster offspec for a feral druid, ret pally or enhancement shaman will be very easy to gear.
Conclusion
I will play either a boomkin/tree dual class druid or a resto/elemental dual class shaman in Cataclysm. I think the Shaman will be optimal for loot, especially if I play Alliance. It's the most unpopular class already and there's a fair chance that some of the people who dropped their previous main to roll Draenai will drop their shaman to play a Worgen. A lot of people will roll Druids, especially Worgen players.
On the other hand I do rather like Druids.
If I lead or help lead a raid guild I will urge my guild to recruit by armour type and maintain a hard cap of 2 in each armour category and in each class. This is quite harsh - if we have one mage and one warlock on our roster we will be full on cloth nukers. Sorry shadow priests!
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Friday, 23 April 2010
Eve: selecting a mission hub
Some thoughts now on selecting a long term mission running hub in Eve.
Security level
The three big choices are null sec, low sec or high sec. Null sec missions are mostly given by pirate factions and offer some really nice faction rewards in their loyalty point stores. However the pirate stations are open to anyone and they tend to be more dangerous than sovereign space since neutrals and enemies may dock there.
Low sec contains some of the better agents including all level 5s. It's extremely risky solo. Low sec is primarily the domain and hunting grounds of small pirate gangs and you will stick out like a sore thumb if you run missions, even if there's a gang of you.
High sec is "safe space" which suits my purposes best because my pve fit is different from a pvp fit and I want to be able to run these missions solo.
Within high sec security rating varies from 0.5 to 1.0 and the lower the security rating the better the mission you get. Each 0.1 of security standing equates to about 5-10 levels of agent quality. So I'm really looking for a 0.5 security system.
Faction
I've developed my character with Caldari/Amarr loyalties. I could have gone Gallente/Minmatar but that would mean no autopiloting to Jita which would be inconvenient. I'll stay in Caldari or Amarr space and shoot Gallente and Minmatar in my missions.
Another option if I were starting over would be cherry picking my missions so I just kill drones and pirates avoiding losing faction. It would mean a lot of travelling to new agents and bookkeeping about whether my 4 hour lockout has expired on an agent so I can start using him again. In retrospect I wish I'd done that, I afk autopilot a lot and it's annoying to find I've lost a ship because it veered into Gallente space.
OK so I've narrowed it down to 0.5 Caldari or Amarr space.
Mission level and type
I'm looking for level 4s for now. Level 5s are too hard alone and the lower level ones aren't sufficiently rewarding.
I'd rather run kill missions than anything else and checking this handy chart I can see that there are 4 mission types offering over 90% kill missions: Command, Internal Security, Security and Surveillance.
I'm looking for Command, Internal Security, Security and Surveillance level 4s in Caldari or Amarr space.
Loyalty point to isk conversion
One of the key factors in the profitability of mission running is how much isk you get per loyalty point. You can generally make more money spending your LPs on something rarer than the ubiquitous implants.
I want the corporation I run missions for to offer something rare and valuable in its store.
Don't send me to low sec!
This one's a personal preference - it's very inconvenient being sent to low sec. So if I get offered a mission in low sec I'll refuse it but you can only refuse one mission per 4 hours without taking a standings hit.
So 1) I need a base with other suitable level 4 agents nearby in case I lockout one agent and 2) my ideal system is a 0.5 or 0.6 with no adjoining low sec systems (since most missions are only one jump or no jumps).
Proximity of storyline agents
Another factor is how close the storyline agent is that you will be sent to every 16 missions and how useful his corporation's loyalty points are. I haven't found any method of discovering this information other than playing Eve. It clearly would be a pain to have to jump 4 jumps and/or have to go to low sec to get your storyline missions.
So now I know roughly what I want the next step is to search Eve Agents for suitable agents. I decide to check out the Amarr region as it's more remote and uncrowded than Caldari which appeals to me. I set filter to level 4, no Storyline agents, no Faction Warfare agents and Faction=Amarr then looked through my dataset ones that matched my criteria.
Amongst those that jump out at me is:
Momabah Pindan, a 4,-17 agent of the Royal Khanid Navy in Palas (0.5). His quality is low but he's miles away from any low sec and the faction store has some nice items including armour repairers.
Khanid is super quiet, borders Querious and Delve which is not where player corps famous for suicide ganking live these days. Might be a nice peaceful place to run lucrative level 4s.
Summary of useful links:
Mission types (proportions of courier, kill, mining or trade)
Region maps
Agent finder
What's for sale at the loyalty store?
Eve Survival level 4 mission guides
Security level
The three big choices are null sec, low sec or high sec. Null sec missions are mostly given by pirate factions and offer some really nice faction rewards in their loyalty point stores. However the pirate stations are open to anyone and they tend to be more dangerous than sovereign space since neutrals and enemies may dock there.
Low sec contains some of the better agents including all level 5s. It's extremely risky solo. Low sec is primarily the domain and hunting grounds of small pirate gangs and you will stick out like a sore thumb if you run missions, even if there's a gang of you.
High sec is "safe space" which suits my purposes best because my pve fit is different from a pvp fit and I want to be able to run these missions solo.
Within high sec security rating varies from 0.5 to 1.0 and the lower the security rating the better the mission you get. Each 0.1 of security standing equates to about 5-10 levels of agent quality. So I'm really looking for a 0.5 security system.
Faction
I've developed my character with Caldari/Amarr loyalties. I could have gone Gallente/Minmatar but that would mean no autopiloting to Jita which would be inconvenient. I'll stay in Caldari or Amarr space and shoot Gallente and Minmatar in my missions.
Another option if I were starting over would be cherry picking my missions so I just kill drones and pirates avoiding losing faction. It would mean a lot of travelling to new agents and bookkeeping about whether my 4 hour lockout has expired on an agent so I can start using him again. In retrospect I wish I'd done that, I afk autopilot a lot and it's annoying to find I've lost a ship because it veered into Gallente space.
OK so I've narrowed it down to 0.5 Caldari or Amarr space.
Mission level and type
I'm looking for level 4s for now. Level 5s are too hard alone and the lower level ones aren't sufficiently rewarding.
I'd rather run kill missions than anything else and checking this handy chart I can see that there are 4 mission types offering over 90% kill missions: Command, Internal Security, Security and Surveillance.
I'm looking for Command, Internal Security, Security and Surveillance level 4s in Caldari or Amarr space.
Loyalty point to isk conversion
One of the key factors in the profitability of mission running is how much isk you get per loyalty point. You can generally make more money spending your LPs on something rarer than the ubiquitous implants.
I want the corporation I run missions for to offer something rare and valuable in its store.
Don't send me to low sec!
This one's a personal preference - it's very inconvenient being sent to low sec. So if I get offered a mission in low sec I'll refuse it but you can only refuse one mission per 4 hours without taking a standings hit.
So 1) I need a base with other suitable level 4 agents nearby in case I lockout one agent and 2) my ideal system is a 0.5 or 0.6 with no adjoining low sec systems (since most missions are only one jump or no jumps).
Proximity of storyline agents
Another factor is how close the storyline agent is that you will be sent to every 16 missions and how useful his corporation's loyalty points are. I haven't found any method of discovering this information other than playing Eve. It clearly would be a pain to have to jump 4 jumps and/or have to go to low sec to get your storyline missions.
So now I know roughly what I want the next step is to search Eve Agents for suitable agents. I decide to check out the Amarr region as it's more remote and uncrowded than Caldari which appeals to me. I set filter to level 4, no Storyline agents, no Faction Warfare agents and Faction=Amarr then looked through my dataset ones that matched my criteria.
Amongst those that jump out at me is:
Momabah Pindan, a 4,-17 agent of the Royal Khanid Navy in Palas (0.5). His quality is low but he's miles away from any low sec and the faction store has some nice items including armour repairers.
Khanid is super quiet, borders Querious and Delve which is not where player corps famous for suicide ganking live these days. Might be a nice peaceful place to run lucrative level 4s.
Summary of useful links:
Mission types (proportions of courier, kill, mining or trade)
Region maps
Agent finder
What's for sale at the loyalty store?
Eve Survival level 4 mission guides
Sunday, 18 April 2010
WoW: Once were warriors
I first played Warcraft in 1994. It was a brutal head to head contest between Orcs and Humans, portrayed as a rugged tough looking man facing off a ferocious orc.
I continued to play the series as it continued through several evolutions, the world became more complex and more races were added.
In 1995 the series produced Warcraft 2, thematically and graphically very similar to Warcraft 1.
Warcraft 3, released in 2002, stressed the grimmer aspects of the game with the tormented Prince Arthas going on a genocidal rampage against his own people. The storyline is dark as was the box art:
This was swiftly followed by an expansion. Warcraft 3: the Frozen Throne, the box art of which restored the orc: human ratio while supporting the theme of a darker, grimmer, game world.
World of Warcraft took the series in a new direction. The box art for the original game was the first to contain a female and she is prominent.
However the Horde faction remained defiantly unpretty with putrescent deliquescent undead, brutal orcs, monstrous minotaurs and cruel trolls available as character races.
Burning Crusade, the first expansion, introduced two new races, both rather pretty.
Wrath of the Lich King slightly reversed the trend by basing its image on iconic Elric-clone, Arthas:
However there was substantial prettification of Warcraft going on. The bleak and desolate atmosphere of the Icecrown region was bizarrely undermined by a jousting tournament. You can almost imagine them saying "I say old chap, would you mind awfully not stealing anyone's souls for the next half an hour, we're having tiffin."
Seasonal quests that are totally out of tune with a grim relentless conflict have come to pervade the game. They look ridiculous:
And daily quests share the theme:
Now finally with the addition of My Little Pony mounts we've come all the way from the boy's game Warcraft started out as to the girl's game it is today:
Warcraft players once were warriors. What have we become?
I continued to play the series as it continued through several evolutions, the world became more complex and more races were added.
In 1995 the series produced Warcraft 2, thematically and graphically very similar to Warcraft 1.
Warcraft 3, released in 2002, stressed the grimmer aspects of the game with the tormented Prince Arthas going on a genocidal rampage against his own people. The storyline is dark as was the box art:
World of Warcraft took the series in a new direction. The box art for the original game was the first to contain a female and she is prominent.
However the Horde faction remained defiantly unpretty with putrescent deliquescent undead, brutal orcs, monstrous minotaurs and cruel trolls available as character races.
Burning Crusade, the first expansion, introduced two new races, both rather pretty.
Wrath of the Lich King slightly reversed the trend by basing its image on iconic Elric-clone, Arthas:
However there was substantial prettification of Warcraft going on. The bleak and desolate atmosphere of the Icecrown region was bizarrely undermined by a jousting tournament. You can almost imagine them saying "I say old chap, would you mind awfully not stealing anyone's souls for the next half an hour, we're having tiffin."
Seasonal quests that are totally out of tune with a grim relentless conflict have come to pervade the game. They look ridiculous:
And daily quests share the theme:
Now finally with the addition of My Little Pony mounts we've come all the way from the boy's game Warcraft started out as to the girl's game it is today:
Warcraft players once were warriors. What have we become?
Friday, 16 April 2010
HOMMO: A blast from the past!
Wonderful news for those of us who played Heroes of Might and Magic in the Nineties.
Heroes of Might and Magic Online (HOMMO to its friends) is launching in the West after a successful run in Asia.
Gameplay consists of:
four magic systems and allows the player to choose heroes from eight factions comprising a total of 56 unit types.[2] It is staged on three different levels:
* A global, randomly generated level, where players move and interact in a typical MMORPG fashion (in realtime)
* A strategic level, similar to a Heroes III map, where the heroes move within a certain amount of time
* A turn-based 3D combat level using a tactical grid, similar to the combat mode in Heroes III
In other words a randomly generated open area which will be like the standard WoW zone and may or may not feature ganking, a Homm3 style strategic map and a Homm3 style tactical grid.
It looks exactly like Homm3:
Wow fans will be delighted to know that the game features a sparkly pegasus - I'm reliably informed these alone are worth $25.
It will be a big nostalgia trip for me. Whether the game holds general appeal will depend on how well they can clean up the current state of the game's English. It looks pretty unpolished from the screenshots.
Heroes of Might and Magic Online (HOMMO to its friends) is launching in the West after a successful run in Asia.
Gameplay consists of:
four magic systems and allows the player to choose heroes from eight factions comprising a total of 56 unit types.[2] It is staged on three different levels:
* A global, randomly generated level, where players move and interact in a typical MMORPG fashion (in realtime)
* A strategic level, similar to a Heroes III map, where the heroes move within a certain amount of time
* A turn-based 3D combat level using a tactical grid, similar to the combat mode in Heroes III
In other words a randomly generated open area which will be like the standard WoW zone and may or may not feature ganking, a Homm3 style strategic map and a Homm3 style tactical grid.
It looks exactly like Homm3:
Wow fans will be delighted to know that the game features a sparkly pegasus - I'm reliably informed these alone are worth $25.
It will be a big nostalgia trip for me. Whether the game holds general appeal will depend on how well they can clean up the current state of the game's English. It looks pretty unpolished from the screenshots.
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
AoC: Grouping
I've settled on a Priest of Mitra as my main character and the person I play with is playing a Dark Templar. Fairly standard duo stuff, the eponymous tank and healer.
The benefit of this set up is it makes it very easy to form groups which is just as well because even though the server is busy it is not easy to form groups in AoC. The UI doesn't help much at all.
There is a group tab in the UI. It allows you to search for groups and even restrict your search to an instance. So I can search for level 30-35 groups inside the Black Castle. The flaw however is that these are full groups, midway through the adventure, not partially formed groups recruiting players.
There is also a LFG channel which makes a good starting point for building a group and which occasionally presents you with a forming group for an instance you're interested in.
The way I build groups is I ask my friend who I'm on skype with, I then ask my guild and friends list, then I ask in the LFG channel and finally I do a Player search for level appropriate players and send everyone tells. So far everyone I've sent an unsolicited tell to has either not responded or been polite so don't worry about doing it - people are generally glad to be asked and don't get asked that much.
You need a tank, which to me is a Soldier class player who wants to tank. You will sometimes find a dps-specced Soldier who will reluctantly agree to tank, that's usually a recipe for disaster. Tanking is pretty hard and the dps-specced tanks can't take the hits.
You need at least one healer, preferably two. Healers of different classes stack better so a Bear Shaman and a Tempest of Set will give you better healing than two Priests of Mitra. This is because one of the hots can be run concurrently with another classes minor hot so if I run my Emanation of Mitra heal over time a Bear Shaman can run her Renewal where a second Priest could not contribute a second Emanation.
Healing is a matter of keeping your heals going while nuking. In a twenty second cycle I will cast my two heal over times and have an emergency big heal to cast if things look grim. Otherwise I can nuke and luckily the Priest gets a talent allowing one of my nukes to give a minor secondary healing effect. Every little bit counts! The spell is called Lance of Mitra.
You'll notice the name is vaguely phallic. Like so many things in Age of Conan there is an undercurrent of double entendre which both deliberately and accidentally fills the game world with hilarious moments. It's like Arnie meets Frankie Howerd.
DPSing in Age of Conan is an intense affair of aggro management. You have to watch what the tank is doing and not start early, hit the mob he's not focussed on because if you rip aggro it's very hard to heal you. This is because most healing is directional and pointed at the tank. Unless you happen to be standing next to the tank the heals won't hit you. The healers can recast the heal to hit you if you stand still or if the healer correctly hits you on the run but that's really hard to do.
It's actually very skilled, challenging and fun. It also creates comical Benny Hill chases as the dps runs from the mobs who are chased by the tank who is chased by the healers.
The instances are fairly trash-intensive. Patrols often come along moving at high speed and can add before you know they are there. Ranged pulling and corner pulling is recommended.
Trash doesn't seem to respawn in the low to mid level dungeons we've experienced so far.
Bosses are often rather more complex than simply tank 'n' spank. The last boss of the Pyramid of the Ancients for instance is only beatable if you perform the correct sequence of buffs using items dropped from 4 previous bosses. The sequence is Shadow, then when boss life is 75% Holy, then when boss life is 50% fire, then when boss life is 25% Frost. The last boss in the Black Castle in an endurance test against waves of multiple adds. Gathering them close for AoE is really the only workable strategy unless you out-level the instance.
All told it's very fun to get into groups even if it's a little cumbersome to organise. Best to be about 4 levels higher than the instance claims to be as they're super hard at the correct levels in a random group.
The benefit of this set up is it makes it very easy to form groups which is just as well because even though the server is busy it is not easy to form groups in AoC. The UI doesn't help much at all.
There is a group tab in the UI. It allows you to search for groups and even restrict your search to an instance. So I can search for level 30-35 groups inside the Black Castle. The flaw however is that these are full groups, midway through the adventure, not partially formed groups recruiting players.
There is also a LFG channel which makes a good starting point for building a group and which occasionally presents you with a forming group for an instance you're interested in.
The way I build groups is I ask my friend who I'm on skype with, I then ask my guild and friends list, then I ask in the LFG channel and finally I do a Player search for level appropriate players and send everyone tells. So far everyone I've sent an unsolicited tell to has either not responded or been polite so don't worry about doing it - people are generally glad to be asked and don't get asked that much.
You need a tank, which to me is a Soldier class player who wants to tank. You will sometimes find a dps-specced Soldier who will reluctantly agree to tank, that's usually a recipe for disaster. Tanking is pretty hard and the dps-specced tanks can't take the hits.
You need at least one healer, preferably two. Healers of different classes stack better so a Bear Shaman and a Tempest of Set will give you better healing than two Priests of Mitra. This is because one of the hots can be run concurrently with another classes minor hot so if I run my Emanation of Mitra heal over time a Bear Shaman can run her Renewal where a second Priest could not contribute a second Emanation.
Healing is a matter of keeping your heals going while nuking. In a twenty second cycle I will cast my two heal over times and have an emergency big heal to cast if things look grim. Otherwise I can nuke and luckily the Priest gets a talent allowing one of my nukes to give a minor secondary healing effect. Every little bit counts! The spell is called Lance of Mitra.
You'll notice the name is vaguely phallic. Like so many things in Age of Conan there is an undercurrent of double entendre which both deliberately and accidentally fills the game world with hilarious moments. It's like Arnie meets Frankie Howerd.
DPSing in Age of Conan is an intense affair of aggro management. You have to watch what the tank is doing and not start early, hit the mob he's not focussed on because if you rip aggro it's very hard to heal you. This is because most healing is directional and pointed at the tank. Unless you happen to be standing next to the tank the heals won't hit you. The healers can recast the heal to hit you if you stand still or if the healer correctly hits you on the run but that's really hard to do.
It's actually very skilled, challenging and fun. It also creates comical Benny Hill chases as the dps runs from the mobs who are chased by the tank who is chased by the healers.
The instances are fairly trash-intensive. Patrols often come along moving at high speed and can add before you know they are there. Ranged pulling and corner pulling is recommended.
Trash doesn't seem to respawn in the low to mid level dungeons we've experienced so far.
Bosses are often rather more complex than simply tank 'n' spank. The last boss of the Pyramid of the Ancients for instance is only beatable if you perform the correct sequence of buffs using items dropped from 4 previous bosses. The sequence is Shadow, then when boss life is 75% Holy, then when boss life is 50% fire, then when boss life is 25% Frost. The last boss in the Black Castle in an endurance test against waves of multiple adds. Gathering them close for AoE is really the only workable strategy unless you out-level the instance.
All told it's very fun to get into groups even if it's a little cumbersome to organise. Best to be about 4 levels higher than the instance claims to be as they're super hard at the correct levels in a random group.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
AoC: Insidious Basterds are recruiting on EU-Crom
At the beginning of April we started a guild and it's turning out amazing!
The Black Castle, the Sanctum of Burning Souls, all no match before our combination of casual finesse, friendliness and dirty humour.
If you want to get to 80 while having a laugh, if you want to be part of building a city and taking a battlekeep off some set-in-its-ways old farts' guild, if you want to have fun simply join us and have a blast.
Probably the best guild for leveling up a character on the server at this present time.
Accepting all time zones, all levels, all classes. Our main language is English.
The Black Castle, the Sanctum of Burning Souls, all no match before our combination of casual finesse, friendliness and dirty humour.
If you want to get to 80 while having a laugh, if you want to be part of building a city and taking a battlekeep off some set-in-its-ways old farts' guild, if you want to have fun simply join us and have a blast.
Probably the best guild for leveling up a character on the server at this present time.
Accepting all time zones, all levels, all classes. Our main language is English.
Friday, 9 April 2010
WoW: new purchasable pet - only $100!
It's April but no, it's not the first.
If you love WoW and Starcraft then good news - inside your copy of Starcraft 2 collector's edition will be a mini Thor pet.
If you love WoW and hate Starcraft then it will cost you $100 to buy Starcraft 2 collector's edition, add your pet to your WoW character then bin the game.
If you love WoW and Starcraft then good news - inside your copy of Starcraft 2 collector's edition will be a mini Thor pet.
If you love WoW and hate Starcraft then it will cost you $100 to buy Starcraft 2 collector's edition, add your pet to your WoW character then bin the game.
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