Spending time raiding and not getting any loot makes it all the more sweeter when you do finally get your drop. Long grinds with a rare payoff are more fun than short grinds with constant rewards that everyone can get.
If you hand out bags of loot and tokens for every boss kill, instead of making raiding more rewarding, it makes it even more dissappointing when you open up your bag and only find tokens. It also puts the grind right in your face because raiding then becomes of game of token collecting so you can get that next piece from a vendor. Since you know with certainty that if you keep raiding you will eventually have enough tokens to buy almost any gear you want, you'll enter every raid with no sense of excitiment or anticipation. It will be more like "lets just kill this boss asap because I need 5 more tokens for my helm."
In the long term this is a bad system and will burn people out a lot faster than "old school" raiding.
Total crap. Spending time raiding and not getttng loot is a complete waste of your time. You most likely have done the raid before, so nothing will be new or interesting about it at all. You basically just press buttons and spend your night watching the same movie if you will. Handing out bags for everyone gives a sense of accomplishment, and it gives you more of a reason to be there. Not only do you have a chance of getting that epic piece you've been wanting but you will also be getting this extra bag of stuff gauranteed if you succeed.
NOT having some kind of reward is what puts the grind right in your face, because if you leave empty handed you've basically accomplished absolutely nothing for yourself.
Oh, and token collecting is optional.
Seriously? I can understand that people play these games for different reasons, and that many do not share my opinions, but if item rewards are the only thing that have value for you in these games, then I can't help but feel sorry for you. These games have the potential to offer so much more. You can get rewards in any other computer game. What makes this genre unique seems to be the entire point you are missing. Getting better at the game is a waste of time? Meeting other people from around the world, that you otherwise would have no opportunity to interact with, is a waste of time? Perhaps I just misunderstood you.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Again, with Item Mods what makes an item in ToR epic?
The number of Mods it allows? What kinds of Mods it allows? The strength of the Mods it Allows?
Need more info.
This system is great for turning those awesome armor sets into vanity items. Which is scary cause they can make some really cool looking sets, sell them in a cash shop, and honestly say they are only vanity items.
"Epic" or "Max Level" gear would depend first, on what kind of gear it is. PvP or PvE. Some gear does have stats inherent in the gear, for instance, PvP gear will likely have a base stat modifier geared towards PvP, as they've stated that top tier PvP gear only warrants a 10% increase.
This would be similar for PvE gear. While some gear may have more slots (But there is a cap on the amount of slots) you'll likely end up with top tier gear with the max slot amount, plus a small percentage. While it won't completely overpower you with that extra percentage, for those that want max stats, they'll strive for that gear.
Overall you'll get a percentage rate increase, but comparably the mods you select will spec your gear more than the actual gear does, but thats not to say epic gear won't be worth striving for.
The term welfare epics where coined during the early years of WoW. The term came from hardcore raiders that would raid and gear up, and than in turn go into pvp and steamroll the non raiders into the ground. Being almost untouchable, so what WoW did in response to this was to make gear for non raiders. Basically people that spent most of their time in pvp instead of raiding, when the pvpers geared up in this manner the hardcore raiders found that they couldn't no longer beat those people, and thus inturn started get their asses handed back to them. In response to this the raiders started calling the pvp gear welfare epics, although you still had to work your ass off just to obtain said gear. Under the old system it took months to be able to aquire a whole set of pvp gear and it required large chunks of time on the player's behalf. Although it took staggering amounts of time and work to obtain this gear just like raids. The hardcore raiders still felt it was inferior to their gear grind raids, it really wasn't about time and effort. It was more about the hardcore raiders being epeen hurt, they could no longer go into pvp with their shiny new epics and steamroll the pvpers. This also set up pvp as a viable way of endgame progession. People throw around the term welfare epics without knowing the true meaning or origin of the term.
That is the source of contention here. Though many players who actually enjoyed PvP did work hard for their gear, players didn't have to work their ass off. They just had to show up at the welfare office and wait in line. I was never a hardcore raider, but it certainly pissed me off when half of my team was AFK just to get the honor points, and couldn't be assed about actually trying to win.
Palebane, you are right there were people that were afk whores but the same can be said for raiding as well. I have been in raids and have saw some dpsers just standing around doing nothing while everyone else was fighting. So in essence they could collect their gear if it dropped without putting anything into it. Under the old WoW pvp system you had to get and maintain ranks in order to get your gear, so in effect you had to pvp all the time for those ranks and to keep them. That was actually easier said than done. Not to mention bgs like AV that could take anywhere from a few hours to a whole day to win, unlike raiding gear didn't drop you had to get a ton of honor points and rank to obtain the gear. Where else in raiding a good amount of luck could have you decked out in 1 raid run. But the point is, work still went into getting the gear not matter how we look at it.
I don't understand why its called 'welfare'. Its not a system to grant epics to people who don't run the raids right? It just keeps people from having to run the same raid over and over to wait for their chance/turn to receive the loot, which is the main thing that kept me from raiding in other games. I like to do group instances but not the same instance over and over hoping each time It'll be the last.
I think it comes, partly, from players who do nothing and still get rewards, just for showing up. The best example I can come up with is WoW's battlegrounds. Players can sit AFK for the entire match, and still get honor points to buy epic weapons and armor.
This.
The term welfare epic really came around in the early days of WoW BG's and Arenas, were it was stupid easy to afk for a battleground, or be "power-leveld" through the arena ranks and get raid quality gear (back then epic pvp gear was sometimes BiS) with little to no effort involved.
The writer of this article is completely wrong when he tries and even vaguely connnect SWTOR or even WoW's current justice/valor point system with the old welfare PvP system of Burning Crusade fame. Getting bages/points/commendations for raiding should NOT be considered welfare epics. First, you have had to show up for a raid and then HELP to defeat the raid, several times to get enough currency to buy the epic...so you did just as much work IF NOT MORE WORK then the elitist that got lucky and won the roll for his loot the first time he raid downed the boss.
And even though you can get a small amount of the higher end Valor points in wow for doing heroic 5-man instances, it is a slower process, and even when comined with raiding you are capped at how many points yo can get in a week, so you will still be doing MORE work then someone getting that gear raiding and getting lucky rolls or is in his guilds "in-crowed". That is not welfare, welfare is getting somthing for nothing. Grinding the same repetative 5-mans day after day with pugs full of jerks that rather spit on your mothers grave then help a new person learn the content is a lot of work.
Spending time raiding and not getting any loot makes it all the more sweeter when you do finally get your drop. Long grinds with a rare payoff are more fun than short grinds with constant rewards that everyone can get.
If you hand out bags of loot and tokens for every boss kill, instead of making raiding more rewarding, it makes it even more dissappointing when you open up your bag and only find tokens. It also puts the grind right in your face because raiding then becomes of game of token collecting so you can get that next piece from a vendor. Since you know with certainty that if you keep raiding you will eventually have enough tokens to buy almost any gear you want, you'll enter every raid with no sense of excitiment or anticipation. It will be more like "lets just kill this boss asap because I need 5 more tokens for my helm."
In the long term this is a bad system and will burn people out a lot faster than "old school" raiding.
Total crap. Spending time raiding and not getttng loot is a complete waste of your time. You most likely have done the raid before, so nothing will be new or interesting about it at all. You basically just press buttons and spend your night watching the same movie if you will. Handing out bags for everyone gives a sense of accomplishment, and it gives you more of a reason to be there. Not only do you have a chance of getting that epic piece you've been wanting but you will also be getting this extra bag of stuff gauranteed if you succeed.
NOT having some kind of reward is what puts the grind right in your face, because if you leave empty handed you've basically accomplished absolutely nothing for yourself.
Oh, and token collecting is optional.
Seriously? I can understand that people play these games for different reasons, and that many do not share my opinions, but if item rewards are the only thing that have value for you in these games, then I can't help but feel sorry for you. These games have the potential to offer so much more. You can get rewards in any other computer game. What makes this genre unique seems to be the entire point you are missing. Getting better at the game is a waste of time? Meeting other people from around the world, that you otherwise would have no opportunity to interact with, is a waste of time?
We all play for our own reasons trust me that if we all decided we only wanted to play with people from even our own city the devs wouldn't care if it didn't effect the bottom line.
My point being if those types of people grow the genre who are we to complain. I don't think it's an issue of it being the only reason people play the games because if that were the case many players wouldn't instantly hop onto the next game once they reach level cap.
The idea is that they are removing an artificial barrier that keeps many players moving on to the next game.
Raiding isn't going to make you better and honestly once you've been through the instance 2-3 times how much better can you get? from there you either have good nights or bad ones but by the time we begin raiding we all know what we are supposed to do.
as far as rewards go truth be told in comparison to the vast number of items offered in mmorpgs you really can't get those "rewards" in other games whether they are offline pc games or console mmorpg's are the loot kings (which is not really all that important to me) just think we have to consider that most games including rpg's you are lucky if five different variants exist for each class not to mention that unless the game is online that will never change in an mmo the things people raided hundreds of hours for five years ago are either all now sold or in the bank big difference in comparing.
The term welfare epics where coined during the early years of WoW. The term came from hardcore raiders that would raid and gear up, and than in turn go into pvp and steamroll the non raiders into the ground. Being almost untouchable, so what WoW did in response to this was to make gear for non raiders. Basically people that spent most of their time in pvp instead of raiding, when the pvpers geared up in this manner the hardcore raiders found that they couldn't no longer beat those people, and thus inturn started get their asses handed back to them. In response to this the raiders started calling the pvp gear welfare epics, although you still had to work your ass off just to obtain said gear. Under the old system it took months to be able to aquire a whole set of pvp gear and it required large chunks of time on the player's behalf. Although it took staggering amounts of time and work to obtain this gear just like raids. The hardcore raiders still felt it was inferior to their gear grind raids, it really wasn't about time and effort. It was more about the hardcore raiders being epeen hurt, they could no longer go into pvp with their shiny new epics and steamroll the pvpers. This also set up pvp as a viable way of endgame progession. People throw around the term welfare epics without knowing the true meaning or origin of the term.
That is the source of contention here. Though many players who actually enjoyed PvP did work hard for their gear, players didn't have to work their ass off. They just had to show up at the welfare office and wait in line. I was never a hardcore raider, but it certainly pissed me off when half of my team was AFK just to get the honor points, and couldn't be assed about actually trying to win.
Palebane, you are right there were people that were afk whores but the same can be said for raiding as well. I have been in raids and have saw some dpsers just standing around doing nothing while everyone else was fighting. So in essence they could collect their gear if it dropped without putting anything into it. Under the old WoW pvp system you had to get and maintain ranks in order to get your gear, so in effect you had to pvp all the time for those ranks and to keep them. That was actually easier said than done. Not to mention bgs like AV that could take anywhere from a few hours to a whole day to win, unlike raiding gear didn't drop you had to get a ton of honor points and rank to obtain the gear. Where else in raiding a good amount of luck could have you decked out in 1 raid run. But the point is, work still went into getting the gear not matter how we look at it.
I suppose you have a point, but generally, the more you contributed to a raid, the more respect you got, and the better chance you had at getting an item, at least ideally. If someone got decked out on their first run, it was likely because they were being carried by an experienced team who already had all their drops. I'm not saying that's bad, but I wouldn't say that they worked very hard for their gear either. I don't even necessarily believe that players should have to work hard for their gear, as long as they are actively participating.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
My thoughts on this are simple, in the games of old there was not dang story. I played EQ for years and years, I still got no idea what the story was. I had some idea about it in WoW and more of a picture in AoC. But none of them were story driven. If you look at a table top, you see every mob has what their equipment is on them in their description, when they die you get to loot it.
That is story for you, the idea of hey I can roll a corpse. In a story driven game it makes no sense for a raid to drop so little in the way of stuff for the people in it. I mean what, do the bosses know they are screwed that badly, that they go crap incenerate my gear before those gamers break down my door?
As for the people being upset over this, TOR from day one has been about giving people gear. Crafted gear is the second teir of awsome in the game, falling just under raid gear, with pvp gear under it, and social point gear bringing up the rear. Lastly you have to do each flash point to get into the next one, and to raid you have to have completed your characters story or bought crafted gear to be geared for it.
This means someone either spent weeks crafting one peice of armor over the period of several days, or you spent several hundred hours doing your story to the end just to be able to raid. I wonder how this will sit with hardcore, must rush to end game, raiders that skipped the story? I have a feeling them getting there and finding out they have a hundred and fifty hours of story quests or almost a month of waiting on a crafter will actually weed them out of TOR.
The term welfare epics where coined during the early years of WoW. The term came from hardcore raiders that would raid and gear up, and than in turn go into pvp and steamroll the non raiders into the ground. Being almost untouchable, so what WoW did in response to this was to make gear for non raiders. Basically people that spent most of their time in pvp instead of raiding, when the pvpers geared up in this manner the hardcore raiders found that they couldn't no longer beat those people, and thus inturn started get their asses handed back to them. In response to this the raiders started calling the pvp gear welfare epics, although you still had to work your ass off just to obtain said gear. Under the old system it took months to be able to aquire a whole set of pvp gear and it required large chunks of time on the player's behalf. Although it took staggering amounts of time and work to obtain this gear just like raids. The hardcore raiders still felt it was inferior to their gear grind raids, it really wasn't about time and effort. It was more about the hardcore raiders being epeen hurt, they could no longer go into pvp with their shiny new epics and steamroll the pvpers. This also set up pvp as a viable way of endgame progession. People throw around the term welfare epics without knowing the true meaning or origin of the term.
That is the source of contention here. Though many players who actually enjoyed PvP did work hard for their gear, players didn't have to work their ass off. They just had to show up at the welfare office and wait in line. I was never a hardcore raider, but it certainly pissed me off when half of my team was AFK just to get the honor points, and couldn't be assed about actually trying to win.
Palebane, you are right there were people that were afk whores but the same can be said for raiding as well. I have been in raids and have saw some dpsers just standing around doing nothing while everyone else was fighting. So in essence they could collect their gear if it dropped without putting anything into it. Under the old WoW pvp system you had to get and maintain ranks in order to get your gear, so in effect you had to pvp all the time for those ranks and to keep them. That was actually easier said than done. Not to mention bgs like AV that could take anywhere from a few hours to a whole day to win, unlike raiding gear didn't drop you had to get a ton of honor points and rank to obtain the gear. Where else in raiding a good amount of luck could have you decked out in 1 raid run. But the point is, work still went into getting the gear not matter how we look at it.
I suppose you have a point, but generally, the more you contributed to a raid, the more respect you got, and the better chance you had at getting an item, at least ideally. If someone got decked out on their first run, it was likely because they were being carried by an experienced team who already had all their drops. I'm not saying that's bad, but I wouldn't say that they worked very hard for their gear either. I don't even necessarily believe that players should have to work hard for their gear, as long as they are actively participating.
I agree with you on this, as long as one actively participates than they are working for their gear. Which is what will have to be done in order to get the loot containers in SWTOR. If you don't do the operation and help kill the bosses than you don't get the container. So in effect there are no welfare epics to be had, just the time that you are willing to invest in the operations to get your gear.
Spending time raiding and not getting any loot makes it all the more sweeter when you do finally get your drop. Long grinds with a rare payoff are more fun than short grinds with constant rewards that everyone can get.
If you hand out bags of loot and tokens for every boss kill, instead of making raiding more rewarding, it makes it even more dissappointing when you open up your bag and only find tokens. It also puts the grind right in your face because raiding then becomes of game of token collecting so you can get that next piece from a vendor. Since you know with certainty that if you keep raiding you will eventually have enough tokens to buy almost any gear you want, you'll enter every raid with no sense of excitiment or anticipation. It will be more like "lets just kill this boss asap because I need 5 more tokens for my helm."
In the long term this is a bad system and will burn people out a lot faster than "old school" raiding.
Total crap. Spending time raiding and not getttng loot is a complete waste of your time. You most likely have done the raid before, so nothing will be new or interesting about it at all. You basically just press buttons and spend your night watching the same movie if you will. Handing out bags for everyone gives a sense of accomplishment, and it gives you more of a reason to be there. Not only do you have a chance of getting that epic piece you've been wanting but you will also be getting this extra bag of stuff gauranteed if you succeed.
NOT having some kind of reward is what puts the grind right in your face, because if you leave empty handed you've basically accomplished absolutely nothing for yourself.
Oh, and token collecting is optional.
Seriously? I can understand that people play these games for different reasons, and that many do not share my opinions, but if item rewards are the only thing that have value for you in these games, then I can't help but feel sorry for you. These games have the potential to offer so much more. You can get rewards in any other computer game. What makes this genre unique seems to be the entire point you are missing. Getting better at the game is a waste of time? Meeting other people from around the world, that you otherwise would have no opportunity to interact with, is a waste of time?
We all play for our own reasons trust me that if we all decided we only wanted to play with people from even our own city the devs wouldn't care if it didn't effect the bottom line.
My point being if those types of people grow the genre who are we to complain. I don't think it's an issue of it being the only reason people play the games because if that were the case many players wouldn't instantly hop onto the next game once they reach level cap.
The idea is that they are removing an artificial barrier that keeps many players moving on to the next game.
Raiding isn't going to make you better and honestly once you've been through the instance 2-3 times how much better can you get? from there you either have good nights or bad ones but by the time we begin raiding we all know what we are supposed to do.
as far as rewards go truth be told in comparison to the vast number of items offered in mmorpgs you really can't get those "rewards" in other games whether they are offline pc games or console mmorpg's are the loot kings (which is not really all that important to me) just think we have to consider that most games including rpg's you are lucky if five different variants exist for each class not to mention that unless the game is online that will never change in an mmo the things people raided hundreds of hours for five years ago are either all now sold or in the bank big difference in comparing.
Thanks for not flaming me. I don't necessarily believe that growing the genre is in the best interest of the players who use the genre as a hobby. I don't agree with the general direction modern MMORPGs are going, and thus I will continue to complain, even though I do try to respect those who enjoy it.
I think raiding does make me a better player. It usually takes me three or four runs of a raid encounter before I feel comfortable enough not to second guess myself, and I still screw up occasionally. And there are usually a few players who are not as seasoned, and if I have to make up for them, I feel I still have improving to do.
The only difference, in terms of rewards, between online games and offline, is whether or not you get to show them off, from my perspective. The constant treadmill seems absolutely counter to players who value loot above all else. Something of an oxymoron, to me.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
My biggest fear is that the stuff in the bags will in some way not fit my particular build, making it harder for me to build as I want.
Take WoW for example. I like having an extremely high crit rate on my Fury Warrior, because certain abilities only proc when I get a crit. However, I can't take certain items in group content because they're meant for other classes, even though sometimes they look like they might be really nice for mine.
So even though the Fury spec does reward high crit rates, the game itself punishes me by not making high-crit gear readily available for my class. In the end, the "best" gear setup is the same for every Fury warrior, regardless of all other concerns.
My biggest fear is that the stuff in the bags will in some way not fit my particular build, making it harder for me to build as I want.
Take WoW for example. I like having an extremely high crit rate on my Fury Warrior, because certain abilities only proc when I get a crit. However, I can't take certain items in group content because they're meant for other classes, even though sometimes they look like they might be really nice for mine.
So even though the Fury spec does reward high crit rates, the game itself punishes me by not making high-crit gear readily available for my class. In the end, the "best" gear setup is the same for every Fury warrior, regardless of all other concerns.
In this game a majority of the gear is highly customizable, think like Re-Forging in WoW but to a greater degree. The items will have slots to apply modifications to, and you basically choose the best stats for your playstyle. Furthermore, the end game tokens will be usable to purchase any number of different items, and I think it's likely you'll find the exact items you'll need to tailor fit your characters abilities in addition to modding.
Though in truth, there's always a 'best in slot' in any game that you play, so you'll see other players using the same gear that you have.
I like this idea. Removes corrupt guild leadership from giving loot to specific people. Rewards me for actually being there instead of having to go to 5-10 raids before you even get one piece of gear.
Hate raiding in the past but this might actually make it doable.
Never really got too many epic gear pieces. Not much of a raider. I did have "welfare purples" from WOW battlegrounds. At least that's what they were called. I spent so many hours in BGs for those that I can hardly see how they are welfare. Yes ..I didn't take on entire teams single-handedly..but I did my part and more. Many times over. When it comes down to it...any "welfare epics" ...whether for PvP or PvE...were earned with time and grind. Those espousing that they earned their epics with skill...hardcore PvP or Raiding....still usually end up with the best gear in game.Our "welfare epics" are always sub-par. You still have the satisfaction of "winning". So why all the bitching?
Of all the welfare epics systems out there i find this one the least objectionable i am old school i really wanna work hard for what i get and i hate welfare anything but i also recognize that what i want is dying so this is not a deal breaker and its just something i will have to live with. Who know's maybe the asian grind fests are where i belong , they may be the last bastion of gaming difficulty
*this system does help with ninja's so i give BW there props for that
I Like the idea of meshing together Loot containers and adding the legendary items such as the equal of shadowmourne. So people can comptete with one another but could also stand out as their own character.
So what happens when something drops for someone else of the same class and build but he already has that piece and you need it? Traditional looting gives that option of getting the gear to the people who need it rather than it getting bound to someone who is going to vendor or break it down.
I like the idea, I just don't see it being practical unless you can trade your loot with the raid in case you get something someone else can use more.
Only obvious problem and go figure we need TONS AND TONS more details. Get your weapon/chest piece/legs/hands/belt/boots anddddddddddd raid done no point and going back anymore lol
5 runs of a instance and you have complete gear set?? wtb open beta
This is something I've wanted to see for a long time. For one, I hate DKP and loot priorities. I've always thought that if you're with a raid when they kill a boss, you contributed just as much to the kill and deserve just as much of a chance at the loot as the next guy. Of course, this makes it even better as now players will be sure to get something they can use for their efforts.
'Welfare' is something for nothing. Time and energy is put into raiding. Welfare would be sitting on my ass in Dalaran outside of the auction house begging for coin, and getting free gear in the mail at regular intervals.
I'm Surprised "Dumbing down" wasn't thrown in here too. Everyone knows that isn't thrown around enough too.
I like the idea on it, but I hope it's not a Contribution like PQs in war. That'd be terrible.
As long as it doesn't ALWAYS REWARD EPIC SET, I don't think this will burn someone out faster then the old system of random drops / rolling on an item.
Comments
Seriously? I can understand that people play these games for different reasons, and that many do not share my opinions, but if item rewards are the only thing that have value for you in these games, then I can't help but feel sorry for you. These games have the potential to offer so much more. You can get rewards in any other computer game. What makes this genre unique seems to be the entire point you are missing. Getting better at the game is a waste of time? Meeting other people from around the world, that you otherwise would have no opportunity to interact with, is a waste of time? Perhaps I just misunderstood you.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
The only problem with this loot bag scenario, is that somebody decided to equate it to welfare epics from WoW for the sake of a news column.
The column on the whole is decent, but seriously, why the WoW welfare epic comparison?
So there is a chance you can get a bit of class specific loot from one of these bags, where did, or even does, epic enter into it?
Who says the class specific item is epic?
Drop the WoW comparisons, drop the sensationalism, stick with facts.
A creative person is motivated by the desire to achieve, not the desire to beat others.
"Epic" or "Max Level" gear would depend first, on what kind of gear it is. PvP or PvE. Some gear does have stats inherent in the gear, for instance, PvP gear will likely have a base stat modifier geared towards PvP, as they've stated that top tier PvP gear only warrants a 10% increase.
This would be similar for PvE gear. While some gear may have more slots (But there is a cap on the amount of slots) you'll likely end up with top tier gear with the max slot amount, plus a small percentage. While it won't completely overpower you with that extra percentage, for those that want max stats, they'll strive for that gear.
Overall you'll get a percentage rate increase, but comparably the mods you select will spec your gear more than the actual gear does, but thats not to say epic gear won't be worth striving for.
Palebane, you are right there were people that were afk whores but the same can be said for raiding as well. I have been in raids and have saw some dpsers just standing around doing nothing while everyone else was fighting. So in essence they could collect their gear if it dropped without putting anything into it. Under the old WoW pvp system you had to get and maintain ranks in order to get your gear, so in effect you had to pvp all the time for those ranks and to keep them. That was actually easier said than done. Not to mention bgs like AV that could take anywhere from a few hours to a whole day to win, unlike raiding gear didn't drop you had to get a ton of honor points and rank to obtain the gear. Where else in raiding a good amount of luck could have you decked out in 1 raid run. But the point is, work still went into getting the gear not matter how we look at it.
This.
The term welfare epic really came around in the early days of WoW BG's and Arenas, were it was stupid easy to afk for a battleground, or be "power-leveld" through the arena ranks and get raid quality gear (back then epic pvp gear was sometimes BiS) with little to no effort involved.
The writer of this article is completely wrong when he tries and even vaguely connnect SWTOR or even WoW's current justice/valor point system with the old welfare PvP system of Burning Crusade fame. Getting bages/points/commendations for raiding should NOT be considered welfare epics. First, you have had to show up for a raid and then HELP to defeat the raid, several times to get enough currency to buy the epic...so you did just as much work IF NOT MORE WORK then the elitist that got lucky and won the roll for his loot the first time he raid downed the boss.
And even though you can get a small amount of the higher end Valor points in wow for doing heroic 5-man instances, it is a slower process, and even when comined with raiding you are capped at how many points yo can get in a week, so you will still be doing MORE work then someone getting that gear raiding and getting lucky rolls or is in his guilds "in-crowed". That is not welfare, welfare is getting somthing for nothing. Grinding the same repetative 5-mans day after day with pugs full of jerks that rather spit on your mothers grave then help a new person learn the content is a lot of work.
We all play for our own reasons trust me that if we all decided we only wanted to play with people from even our own city the devs wouldn't care if it didn't effect the bottom line.
My point being if those types of people grow the genre who are we to complain. I don't think it's an issue of it being the only reason people play the games because if that were the case many players wouldn't instantly hop onto the next game once they reach level cap.
The idea is that they are removing an artificial barrier that keeps many players moving on to the next game.
Raiding isn't going to make you better and honestly once you've been through the instance 2-3 times how much better can you get? from there you either have good nights or bad ones but by the time we begin raiding we all know what we are supposed to do.
as far as rewards go truth be told in comparison to the vast number of items offered in mmorpgs you really can't get those "rewards" in other games whether they are offline pc games or console mmorpg's are the loot kings (which is not really all that important to me) just think we have to consider that most games including rpg's you are lucky if five different variants exist for each class not to mention that unless the game is online that will never change in an mmo the things people raided hundreds of hours for five years ago are either all now sold or in the bank big difference in comparing.
I suppose you have a point, but generally, the more you contributed to a raid, the more respect you got, and the better chance you had at getting an item, at least ideally. If someone got decked out on their first run, it was likely because they were being carried by an experienced team who already had all their drops. I'm not saying that's bad, but I wouldn't say that they worked very hard for their gear either. I don't even necessarily believe that players should have to work hard for their gear, as long as they are actively participating.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
My thoughts on this are simple, in the games of old there was not dang story. I played EQ for years and years, I still got no idea what the story was. I had some idea about it in WoW and more of a picture in AoC. But none of them were story driven. If you look at a table top, you see every mob has what their equipment is on them in their description, when they die you get to loot it.
That is story for you, the idea of hey I can roll a corpse. In a story driven game it makes no sense for a raid to drop so little in the way of stuff for the people in it. I mean what, do the bosses know they are screwed that badly, that they go crap incenerate my gear before those gamers break down my door?
As for the people being upset over this, TOR from day one has been about giving people gear. Crafted gear is the second teir of awsome in the game, falling just under raid gear, with pvp gear under it, and social point gear bringing up the rear. Lastly you have to do each flash point to get into the next one, and to raid you have to have completed your characters story or bought crafted gear to be geared for it.
This means someone either spent weeks crafting one peice of armor over the period of several days, or you spent several hundred hours doing your story to the end just to be able to raid. I wonder how this will sit with hardcore, must rush to end game, raiders that skipped the story? I have a feeling them getting there and finding out they have a hundred and fifty hours of story quests or almost a month of waiting on a crafter will actually weed them out of TOR.
I agree with you on this, as long as one actively participates than they are working for their gear. Which is what will have to be done in order to get the loot containers in SWTOR. If you don't do the operation and help kill the bosses than you don't get the container. So in effect there are no welfare epics to be had, just the time that you are willing to invest in the operations to get your gear.
Thanks for not flaming me. I don't necessarily believe that growing the genre is in the best interest of the players who use the genre as a hobby. I don't agree with the general direction modern MMORPGs are going, and thus I will continue to complain, even though I do try to respect those who enjoy it.
I think raiding does make me a better player. It usually takes me three or four runs of a raid encounter before I feel comfortable enough not to second guess myself, and I still screw up occasionally. And there are usually a few players who are not as seasoned, and if I have to make up for them, I feel I still have improving to do.
The only difference, in terms of rewards, between online games and offline, is whether or not you get to show them off, from my perspective. The constant treadmill seems absolutely counter to players who value loot above all else. Something of an oxymoron, to me.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
My biggest fear is that the stuff in the bags will in some way not fit my particular build, making it harder for me to build as I want.
Take WoW for example. I like having an extremely high crit rate on my Fury Warrior, because certain abilities only proc when I get a crit. However, I can't take certain items in group content because they're meant for other classes, even though sometimes they look like they might be really nice for mine.
So even though the Fury spec does reward high crit rates, the game itself punishes me by not making high-crit gear readily available for my class. In the end, the "best" gear setup is the same for every Fury warrior, regardless of all other concerns.
In this game a majority of the gear is highly customizable, think like Re-Forging in WoW but to a greater degree. The items will have slots to apply modifications to, and you basically choose the best stats for your playstyle. Furthermore, the end game tokens will be usable to purchase any number of different items, and I think it's likely you'll find the exact items you'll need to tailor fit your characters abilities in addition to modding.
Though in truth, there's always a 'best in slot' in any game that you play, so you'll see other players using the same gear that you have.
Loot bags are the best idea ever. long gone are the days of greedy ass guild leaders and nasty DKP.
I like this idea. Removes corrupt guild leadership from giving loot to specific people. Rewards me for actually being there instead of having to go to 5-10 raids before you even get one piece of gear.
Hate raiding in the past but this might actually make it doable.
Never really got too many epic gear pieces. Not much of a raider. I did have "welfare purples" from WOW battlegrounds. At least that's what they were called. I spent so many hours in BGs for those that I can hardly see how they are welfare. Yes ..I didn't take on entire teams single-handedly..but I did my part and more. Many times over. When it comes down to it...any "welfare epics" ...whether for PvP or PvE...were earned with time and grind. Those espousing that they earned their epics with skill...hardcore PvP or Raiding....still usually end up with the best gear in game.Our "welfare epics" are always sub-par. You still have the satisfaction of "winning". So why all the bitching?
Of all the welfare epics systems out there i find this one the least objectionable i am old school i really wanna work hard for what i get and i hate welfare anything but i also recognize that what i want is dying so this is not a deal breaker and its just something i will have to live with. Who know's maybe the asian grind fests are where i belong , they may be the last bastion of gaming difficulty
*this system does help with ninja's so i give BW there props for that
I Like the idea of meshing together Loot containers and adding the legendary items such as the equal of shadowmourne. So people can comptete with one another but could also stand out as their own character.
Love this idea. Im tired of getting nothing more than a repair bill at the end of most raids.
Also, it kills immersion when you have to kill the same enemy 100x's over.
Only obvious problem and go figure we need TONS AND TONS more details. Get your weapon/chest piece/legs/hands/belt/boots anddddddddddd raid done no point and going back anymore lol
5 runs of a instance and you have complete gear set?? wtb open beta
Who wants to spend several hours doing a raid so I can get geared up, while they get nothing?
I do like the sounds of this but I am not gear motivated playstyle so, hehe.
I am still always waiting for a Monk class that uses little to no gear at all and can instead donate all their gold to some NPC organization :P
This is something I've wanted to see for a long time. For one, I hate DKP and loot priorities. I've always thought that if you're with a raid when they kill a boss, you contributed just as much to the kill and deserve just as much of a chance at the loot as the next guy. Of course, this makes it even better as now players will be sure to get something they can use for their efforts.
'Welfare' is something for nothing. Time and energy is put into raiding. Welfare would be sitting on my ass in Dalaran outside of the auction house begging for coin, and getting free gear in the mail at regular intervals.
I'm Surprised "Dumbing down" wasn't thrown in here too. Everyone knows that isn't thrown around enough too.
I like the idea on it, but I hope it's not a Contribution like PQs in war. That'd be terrible.
As long as it doesn't ALWAYS REWARD EPIC SET, I don't think this will burn someone out faster then the old system of random drops / rolling on an item.