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Q u o t e:


6 months later he is given better means to be promoted. And all that time you've been working harder you've also been collecting a larger pay check which you've been able to use that he hasn't.
[quote]

If it always worked like that life would be grand.


[quote
Badge gear isn't an accomplishment, downing bosses is an accomplishment. If you want badge gear so you have "cool stats" then have fun with that, it's your choice how you want to play. The real intention of the badge loot is to make the push into the previously endgame content easier for the more casual guilds. This is both in gearing up the current raiders better and also allowing for them to gear up replacements quicker as casual guilds tend to have higher turn-around than endgame guilds.

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If you want to believe that was the intention for the loot then go ahead. But if that is the case then why are they going to a tiered method?

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Q u o t e:


The visual appearance is quite different, which should be good enough. Given that other people having epics has zero affect on your raid encounters, and raid gear is visually distinctive from badge gear is it just about other people having purples?




How does this address my point that same number of people are indeed trying to clear high end content?

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Purple is just a color, I care about the stats.

Because it shows that people are lazy and go for the path of least resistance. If you want people to be rewarded through progression you dont give them a virtually effortless way to get the reward.

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Q u o t e:
/sigh

Who is worse, the raider who says casuals shouldn't get easy loot, or the casual that says they should get freebies?

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Well... after considering your question I have an answer,

You. You are worse.
And apparently you are "the raider who says casuals shouldn't get any loot that holds a candle to your loot." It's not even that its easy, it's that it diminishes your "acomplishments" IN YOUR OWN MIND.

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Q u o t e:
But if you have heard Blizzcast 3, Kaplan already said a similar system to what the OP proposed will be in place in WotLK, so this discussion is pointless.

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And I thought they had learned their lesson.

Do we really need another round of "pick up 4 of this and 6 of that and one of these and get your rep to here and I'll give you a ring"? I still have a bunch of those ZG coins and AQ 20 drops on one of my alts just wasting bag space.

IMHO unifying to one badge type is vastly superior for the exact reason they said they implemented the badges in the first place -- fewer moving parts, easier implementation, lest waste of time, effort and storage.


Edited to add:

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Q u o t e:


Dude, you are retarded. People who can't raid? How do you think the nubs get all their badges? They raid Kara or do heroics. I guarantee all of you so called "casuals" spent just as much time nubbing it up in those places as raiders do raiding. You have the time, you just don't have the skill.

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Are you really arguing that people with schedules that prevent raiding because of the start times must therefore have no ability?

Really?

That's what you're hanging your hat on?

That anyone that doesn't raid doesn't have the skill to raid?

If you truly believe that then there is no purpose to trying to have a rational discussion with you because you live in some fantasy land where your stool smells like flowers.

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Q u o t e:
It is not about similar gear, it is about diminishing the accomplishment.

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The accomplishment is being able to kill the boss. Gear is not even a representation of that accomplishment. Gear is means to an end. You get better gear so that you can do task X more easily. For you, X might be clearing MH/BT/SP. For someone else, X might be running heroics and kara with their friends. Just because it's different content doesn't mean they should be able to have avenues to expand to make it easier for them. If you're going to argue against that, then why does Illidan have a loot table at all? You've proven that you can beat him with the gear you have, why do you need anything new to fight him again.

Heck, before the attunements were lifted, I can't think of many examples where people said they were farming Vashj and Kael for loot drops before moving on to MH/BT. They'd go back for vials, and the loot was a perk sure, but for the most part, it was about getting out of there and accomplishing something new.

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Q u o t e:


Purple is just a color, I care about the stats.

Because it shows that people are lazy and go for the path of least resistance. If you want people to be rewarded through progression you dont give them a virtually effortless way to get the reward.

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150 Badges is...

13 Sunwell Clears (13 Weeks)
7.5 BT Clears (8 Weeks)
13.6 MH Clears (14 Weeks)
16.6 TK Clears (17 Weeks)
13 SSC Clears (13 Weeks)
6.5 Karazhan runs (7 Weeks)
10.76 ZA runs, assuming you turn in the Blood once. (4.6 Weeks)
25 Daily Heroic Runs, assuming an average of 6 Badges per. (3.5 Weeks)
50 Magtheridon kills (50 Weeks)
37.5 HKM/Grul Clears (38 Weeks)

Or some combination of the above.

Now, a Karazhan guild can be expected to be running a daily Heroic or two in-guild, or maybe even a ZA for ~7 Badges once per week, as well. Low-level raiders are probably earning about 42 Badges per week.

An SSC/TK guild might not be killing Vashj or Kael (-6), but are definitely clearing Karazhan and ZA (+30) and both Magtheridon and HKM/Gruul, although they might not be running Daily Heroics. Mid-level raiders are earning around 54 to 60 Badges per week.

A BT/MH Guild is probably doing the odd Vashj or Kael or Magtheridon for the last few T5 set bonuses or extra gems (+6), and definitely clearing ZA once a week (+13). Most high level raiders run Heroics Karazhan clears on their own accord, although they might get hung up by around Azgalor or Bloodboil for a little while, they won't be stopped for long, safely clearing everything but Illidan in short order if they actually deserve the name "raider" (-3 for Illidan) A high-level raider is earning at least 47 Badges per week, but likely closer to 73 to 80 Badges if you honestly factor in the Karazhan runs.

A Sunwell guild is still most likely clearing MH/BT out of inertia, though ZA bear runs are probably played out at that point and Karazhan probably isn't an consideration; still, that's around 31 to 42 Badges per week minimum for bleeding-edge raiders. But who cares? You're in Sunwell! These raiders around going to be grinding badges in order to get all the Badge pieces; they're only filling in the one or two slots they hadn't yet managed to upgrade in BT/MH yet. Badges are this level are for extra Gems to sell on the AH, pretty much.

If it's effortless for low-level raiders, it's trivial for high-level raiders, and let's not forget that the hight-level raiders (BT/MH) don't want or need all the badge items; several pieces aren't itemized in a way that makes them unambiguously superior to drops for any class; in fact, most of them are purposefully itemized to be almost but not quite awesome. I'd put them closer to T5.5 than truly T6 in terms of quality.

It's still going to be close to a month for a Kara Raider to get a Weapon, let alone a full suit of gear - at 485 Badge for the Chest, Legs, off-piece, Weapon, and ring, that's closer to three months.

Three months of effort to earn five epics better-than-T5-but-not-quite-T6 is more than reasonable, given that after three months in MH/BT, any respectable guild should have just about cleared the place save for perhaps one or two bosses, earning an aggregate total of around 100-150 actual T6 pieces, plus a similar number of actual T6-level epic items for every slot, distributed amongst a raid of what, 30 to 35 regular players? Somewhere around 8 actual T6 epics per raider. Plus around 700 Badges of Honor, nearly 1.5 times the amount you'd need to buy all the Sunwell Badge gear. Plus patterns. Plus trash drops. Plus Reputation items, including the best rings in the game.

And you would begrudge a casual player 5 Epics in the same amount of time.

I was enjoying this thread until about the 3rd or 4th page when some prep decided to flame on a lvl 1 alt.

All I'm seeing in this thread are a bunch of people who only feel like they accomplished anything if they beat everyone else. People think they have to be better than others in order consider anything they did as an achievement.

I can't consider myself casual because I spend 30+ hours a week on this game (I only have to work part-time because I live 2 blocks from my job, so I don't need a car). I enjoy raiding, but I have very limited experience with it. Highest content I've done on a live server would be SSC a couple times.

Guess what? My guild isn't ready for T5 content. Not yet anyways. I personally feel that I'd have no problem pulling my weight in T5, but we're just not there yet. Why don't I leave to find a better-progressed guild? Because of 'elitists' like some of the people in this thread who won't let me raid with them if I'm not in the same level gear that they are.

See the problem? The 'haves' won't let the 'have-nots' run with them because they don't have the gear. But if we can't run with them, how are we supposed to get the gear? Hmm? Think about it.

If my guild does not progress, at least I can start accumulating nice badge gear in the meantime so I will be able to get a spot in a better guild should the need arise. I like to feel like I'm contributing to a raid instead of being carried. Badge loot is a necessary evil. Some of us CAN'T raid the needed content, so we need to be able to get our gear in other ways. Just because I'm in a guild that can't get to better content does not mean that I should be forced to settle with my current gear.

Hope I've made my point clear.

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Q u o t e:
You guys are missing the point. It's not about the time sync, its about ability to complete more difficult content. If you had different tiers of badges you wouldn't have to require 150 to get an item. They do that because they know everyone will milk kara for 23 every week. If you had to get higher tiered badges by running a more difficult instance, you could require much less to get you item. The funny thing is, the idea should make casuals happy, they could get their gear in less time, which is what they claim they don't have. Yet they light the torches and break out the pitchforks instead, go figure.

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You're missing the point, actually. In the same amount of time in their more difficult content, the BT/MH raider has earned, at minimum triple the amount of reward the casual has. And better rewards, to boot.

It's not so much a matter of not having, say, ~20 hours a week to put into the game. It's not having it in ~4 to 5 hour chunks, but instead 2 to 3 hour chunks with a long go on the weekend; i.e., perfect for irregularly running Heroics and a Kara on the weekend, but terrible, terrible for being a raider.

Badge gear, even for 150 Badges, is better gear in less time, by definition; what they were getting before was nothing.

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Q u o t e:
I think I've said like 3 times in this thread I am talking about ten mans, not 25. Please don't reply to threads where you skip everything between the first post and the last.

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You can't separate the two, sorry. Artificially declaring that they're not interacting via the badge system makes your argument incoherent and, frankly, stupid.

Plus, I wasn't replying to your OP and therefore you don't get to dictate the terms of my reply to Thaylin's post, thank you very much.

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Q u o t e:
First off, you can seperate the two, because most casuals roll in guilds that can only get enough people to do 10 mans.

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Wrong. They both drop "Badges of Justice". They interact via the Badge system and the Badge system therefore covers the spectrum of players continuously. You can't talk about Badges of Justice enabling casuals without pointing out they're twice as effective as empowering Hardcore Raiders.

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Q u o t e:
Second, I don't mention anywhere in my original post anything about 25 mans, I do however specifically mention Kara and ZA. Try again.

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Try again? Until you reinserted yourself here as a reply to my answer to Thaylin's post, I wasn't talking to or about you. You took it upon yourself to critique my post on baseless grounds.

In short, I wasn't talking to you.

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Q u o t e:
I think I've said like 3 times in this thread I am talking about ten mans, not 25. Please don't reply to threads where you skip everything between the first post and the last.

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Placing an artificial limit in order to bolster your argument makes no sense.

Fact is, raiding isn't hard. All you have to do is be literate enough to read up on the encounter, then try it a few times. And have good enough gear for it.

A lot of us, me included, are now adults. Sure, we could spend hours every night playing EQ back in the day. But that was back when we were a lot younger. Now we've got jobs, kids, spouses, and all sorts of other things that take up our time and we can't devote 4-5 hours every night to raiding. Or even 4-5 hours on one night. That says nothing about our "skill".

Fact is, unless you're getting world-first, -second, or -third kills, you're not especially skilled. You're just putting in enough time to get there. I congradulate you on your ability to commit that much time to the game, but I won't consider you "skilled" when you're just following in others footsteps.

And really, the anti-badge people are forgetting the reason badge gear is in the game. It's the exact same reason the PvP gear is in the game. They are gear treadmills.

We who don't have the time to raid hardcore keep getting shiny things to work towards. Without the badges, we get bored and quit. Heck, that's why I left before BC: I was out of stuff to do. With badges, and the occasional new vendor, Blizzard will keep me playing and paying for a lot longer.

This is a very depressing idea.

I got extremely tired of instance/raid-specific collectables Pre-TBC (anyone want a Gurubashi coin? I've got some extras WASTING A BANK SLOT), and in my opinion, streamlining that process with a single type of badge was one of the few redeeming changes in TBC.


Looks like another great leap backward to keep the "Elite Raiders" from kvetching that people THEY WILL NEVER PLAY WITH got gear slightly worse than their own.




I can only hope that this is a ruse to get them to quiet down over an irrelevant subject, and that you will just reverse it in the future before implementation (like FAILING to make scare beast instant, but still changing the tooltip, LOL) or ignore completely (like the new pet skill training process promised nearly two years ago).