Is Valor Point Upgrading Stressing Raiders Out?

Theck’s back today with another really interesting, in-depth column – this time, looking at the effects of the new Valor Point mechanics on raiders, alts, and the game as a whole.

He starts out talking about alts in Mists – but there’s more to this discussion than that, as he takes in an overview of raiding vs time in this entire WoW expansion:

“In previous expansions, there was a distinct cycle to a player’s involvement throughout an expansion. When a new raid tier or patch arrived, it generally added new stuff to do, and most importantly new reasons to care about valor points. Generally, those reasons were valor point gear rewards, and for a long stretch of time that included tier items. A patch might also introduce new reputations to grind, or new dailies to do (or both), or other new “stuff” like quest lines, pets, or what have you.

And the response of a raider was predictable: you’d log in and do a bunch of that stuff on your main character for a few weeks. Valor accrual was the most important part of those activities – if you considered yourself a serious raider, you were making sure to cap your valor point income each week during that period to make sure you got your hands on that new gear as soon as possible. If you weren’t already clearing enough raid bosses to cap each week, you were out there running heroics to make up the difference.

However, a month or two into the tier, the situation became totally different. ”

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Tagged as: mists of pandaria, valor points

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WRUP: What so you think of upgrading for ransoms

You shouldn't send email messages late at night, on your phone, while letting the dog go outside. Don't know why? Well, as we were posing the bonus question for WRUP to your intrepid WoW Insider staff, this is what I may have written: what so you think of upgrading the amount of loot that drops for ransoms?

Under editorial order, we ran with it. This is what so staff think of upgrading the amount of loot that drop for ransoms.

Adam Holisky (@adamholisky) I'm working on my warrior, getting him up to 90 hopefully by Monday sometime.

I'm very much in favor of increased loot drops in the previous tier of LFR. Infact, I'd go as far as to say that it'd be a good idea to increase them 4 to 6 weeks before patch 5.2 releases, just to give people that need a little more boost the opportunity to get it before the big release day fun.

Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey) Hopefully, more PTR testing, sans bugs. Goodness are there ever bugs. Other than that, some writing, a little raiding, the usual. Bonus Question -- It's a nice idea. I like that they're doing this, it kind of keeps people up to pace with current content, and helps with alts, which is never a bad thing.

Chase Hasbrouck (@alarondruid, @alaronmonk) I, too, want to hold Tsulong ransom for my ****** sha-touched weapon. (IOW, yes, increased drop rates would be nice.)

Soloing old content this week on my druid! Cleared Sunwell excepting Kalecgos, OS3D, and RS.so far. Tackling Naxx25 next to put together a transmog set.

Dan Desmond (@Antigen_) Chugging through more of Dishonored. I guess I'm awful at the stealth in that game -- my ideal method of getting through an area is letting a guard sound the alarm and then proceeding to kill everything. I'll admit, casually strolling through the rest of the level is kinda nice, but my stock of health potions has to be running low by now.

I think increasing the drop of a previous tier's LFR loot is a great idea. It won't affect progression and will make LFR seem worthwhile for alts. The only thing I'd be concerned with is whether or not they'll be increasing the drop rate of Sigils for the legendary quest.

Elizabeth Wachowski (@leeatwaterlives) If I have time, I'll be doing archaeology on my Druid and trying to level my shaman. Slowly but surely! Since I can't really raid, I don't have an opinion on the LFR stuff.

Joe Perez (@lodurzj) I HAVE INTERNET! Which means it will be time to relax with some video games! another playthrough fo Dishonored attempting full stealth, some League of Legends and likely some more unpacking from the move.

I'm OK with the increase in the drop rates, honestly it's good for alts or off specs and I'm OK with that.

Matt "Matticus" Low (@matticus) Definitely looking to break more stuff on the PTR! I want to explore the new Isle of the Thunder King and see what's around the place. Other than that, I'm going to knock out Scholomance on Challenge Mode and try to go for the gold. This was a really productive week of raiding with 3 new heroic bosses down. Challenge modes might seem like a weird way to relax, eh?

Matt Rossi (@MatthewWRossi) Wanting to sleep, tbh.

And I'm cool with the increased loot drops.

Olivia Grace (@oliviadgrace) My guildies and I have developed a diabolical twinking plan, involving several low level characters with a lot of heirlooms! I'm hoping we'll be doing that this weekend, and it's my mother's birthday celebration on Sunday. Her actual birthday was on Tuesday, but we're all too busy to take a full day out of the middle of the week, so Sunday it is. I may well also be finishing off Portal 2 again.

I think it's a good plan. I've been very unlucky in the Raid Finder so far, having won an amazing 2 pieces of loot, one of which is tier, so I heartily applaud anything which might give me a little more luck. I also think it would be great if they increased the loot drop rates on the normal raids of the preceding tier, to give players more of a reason to run that old content. One of my great regrets of Cataclysm was that the old tiers were abandoned so quickly. The first Cata tier was the best!

Robin Torres (@cosmiclaurel) I'll be duoing with The Spawn again: my brewmaster monk with her holy priest. It's slow-going, but very rewarding. I'll also be attending the Art of Blizzard Entertainment Gallery Exhibition. http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/01/03/the-art-of-blizzard-entertainment-exhibition-to-open-on-jan-12/ I can't wait!

The weekend is the perfect time to kick back, relax and enjoy some game time. Are you an achievement junkie? Can't get enough raiding? Rolling a new alt? Considering taking the leap into roleplaying? Whatever your favorite way to play World of Warcraft, let us know in the comments what you're playing this weekend! Tags: what-so-you-think, wrup

Filed under: News items

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Patch 5.2: No gear upgrading planned at release

One thing that we won't be seeing with patch 5.2 is the ability for the new gear to be upgraded via valor points. As Ghostcrawler explains in a tweet from this weekend:

@champlain1635 Our plan at this moment is upgrading only for patches without a new raid / PvP tier. That design could change.

- Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) January 5, 2013

This makes sense in many ways; the primary focus of the "grind" should be acquiring new gear across all slots, not making minor incremental changes to the gear that you've already seen dropped. Valor points also will continue to be useful in the mid-patches with this philosophy (5.1/5.3), versus just becoming something you've got and are never going to use, which often happens during the later end of a raiding tier.

We're assuming here that Ghostcrawler's note will just apply to patch 5.2 gear, and not the total system. It would seem quite odd to just switch off the entire upgrading mechanic all the sudden. Tags: breaking, ghostcrawler, patch-5.2, valor-upgrade-patch-5.2, wow-patch-5.2, wow-valor-upgrade

Filed under: News items, Raiding

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