Thank you for the references. Many of them I am already familiar with, but I can take another look. However, I would highly encourage you to take a Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement – specifically to address your literal bottom tier ‘Name-Calling’.
So, one of the weakest elements of my discussion post is how long I take to explain the surface level details. However, I do this so that others can have a better understanding of the ruleset we need to preserve the communal value of items within the game.
The communal value of an item has nothing to do with how many people have it – whether it is 0.1% or 100% of the community, this has nothing to do with communal value. Communal value is the representation of a player’s skill and/or effort in acquiring that item – that’s it. Again, if we are exchanging material to read, considering reading the description of how the system functions here: Discussion: Skill-Based Difficulty, Time-Based Difficulty, and Value Preservation
If we ever have a version of WoW come out that rewards little to nothing for an activity, then I will be happy to have that discussion with you.
So, this is one of the reason’s Paul Graham places ‘Name Calling’ as the bottom tier form of disagreeing – because it oversimplifies the position taken by assuming all values of that label (or name) among other things.
The reason the preservation of communal value is so important is that it gives us a guideline to follow in what should be made easier, when should it be made easier, and what should not be changed. This guidance comes from setting up content with an initial value derived from skill and time requirements. A person’s time and their effort are valuable. These rewards represent this value.
Do you think it would be a good idea to make legacy raids 1-shot everything soloable as soon as the next expansion comes out? What about the consideration for those players who put in all that time and effort to complete that content a few weeks prior – wouldn’t that create of risk of them feeling like their effort is devalued? More importantly, do you think impending change would actively encourage people not to participate in that content the last few weeks before the expansion?
Same thing with Balance of Power, do you think people would have taken several characters to get the different appearances on different classes, if they knew those would be made Do-1-Get-11-Free? Furthermore, how do you know where to stop without a guidance system of communal value? For example, if you can get all 12 sets of Balance of Power appearances with 1 character, how do you justify not giving all 9 Molten Core tier sets to a player if they complete it on 1? Do you consider the time and effort players took before you randomly made this easier?
Again, this is about having a system impartial to personal preferences so that it is fair to the community as a whole.
This is impossible. Even within a single niche of content like raiding, this is impossible. We know this, because we have 4 difficulties and 3 of those difficulties have entire guilds built around them. Just to be clear, having 4 difficulties is a nice option to have in choosing what to participate in and what not to participate in. The same is true for mounts, transmogs, toys, pets, and anything else deemed a reward. All this without touching the topic that different players have different degrees of available time and skill. Who would you center your changes around?
Now, preserving the communal value through transitioning from primarily Skill-Based Difficulty to primarily Time-Based Difficulty is the best way we have of preserving an item’s value while also giving access to more players. The players with less skill will likely have access to this content later.
This is a separate topic. What if part of the playerbase is addicted to outdoor pet battles? Should Blizzard then limit the entire playerbase to only 10 per hour, because a handful of people cannot control themselves? Blizzard setting behavioral limits for everyone to address the very few who cannot control themselves seems to be punishing for the playerbase as a whole. If I really care about the item, I will put in the time and effort. If it is not worth the time or effort to me now, then maybe I will come back to it later.
Yeah, I still stand by this.
I think this is a fair comment. Players could cut the time in half that they farm by going to Timeless Isle and farming up the necessary currencies for extra loot coins. Additionally, maybe Blizzard could look at reducing the spawn time from 15 minute to 5 minutes. Also it may be worth introducing an immunity bubble that reduces all incoming attacks down to 1 damage for the first 30 seconds of a spawn - just to reducing the annoying experience of 30 people waiting to 1-shot a rare.
Blizzard could look into reducing the daily limiter for each character for the X-45 Heartbreaker. Maybe through holiday currency, players could purchase extra loot tokens for the mount.
For Balance of Power rep grinds, player can wait until the Time-Walking week for the extra 50% rep. Or they could purchase some reputation tokens by doing Time-Walking from other expansions (if they really hate Legion that much).
Either way, there are thoughts and ideas to be had and discussed that do not simply obliterate the communal value of an item.