Thursday, August 11, 2011

A new achievement training system to raid or w/e

The only checks built into the game atm are achievements and a visual gear check and ilvl.  All 3 can be very misleading. 

Otherwise you need to go out and use external websites and programs to get a better picture of potential raiders, guildees, PUGs or whatever

Achievents do not reflect your contribution on the kill, you easily can get carried to most of them.  Visual gear check is probably IMO the most valuble, but it only says they can use some external method to optimize, but have no experience or knowledge why and how to make intelligent decisions.  ilvl, in game tells you what your bags/bank/wearing BIS by ilvl is, not what you have equiped... then dont even get me started on the PVP gear...

First make an "inspect" button clickable from the menu when you click on the chat box... like invite, but inspect instead... remove the range issue, and dont allow any addon to use the function...  Manual user actions only. 

Proposal to blizz... A one man instance gauntlet of sorts that test your ability in various areas... and based on time and or progress you can obtain various achievements that are a more valid dispaly of proper use of skill.

Example: you enter an instance similar to the plants vs. zombies quest line... its you and the environment... but you do not get to use any gear to get it done.. its all skill, and when passed then you can do it with your toon for a gear check... it also serves as a training and learning what agro, threat, interupts etc is...
You chose your "vehicle" to procede, for instance for the tanking event, you get an abom for horde and a Mtn Giant for ally.  You get 6 buttons on your vehicle... Taunt, interupt, threat/dmg one target, AoE dmg threat, and Dmg reduction CD and a nuker buttons... you begin the gauntlet, an have environmental events that will assist you in completion... sooner or later... Fire on the ground would be an example of sooner...  saving a healer would be a later example.. you have to use your abilities to accomplish the event to the furthest point possible.. interupts... taunts off your healer, dodge fire, careful timely pulls of packs... readiness to pick up a pat that wanders in... aggressive pulls and use of AoE and dmg reduction would add to the complexity... If you last 90+ seconds in the gauntlet you get the common raider achievement, if you last 120 seconds you get the uncommon raider achievement, if you last 180 seconds you get the Rare raider achievement, at the 240 seconds you get the epic raider achievement, and if you last 300 seconds you get the Heroic mode raider achievemnt.  Upon completion of each you can then test your own toon in the environment.. but, now it is you on your toon with your own abilities gear, gems, enchants that come into play... for this you get the same criteria but a new set of acheive.. not based on ilvl, but based on the whole you... and you get the common GEARED tank achieve, uncommon>rare>epic>HM geared achieve... should you get both as a tank in this example. You then can go on with your toon to to the Glory of being an Elitist Beast achieve that is the most difficult to obtain and is a 10 minute encounter with you and your gear...

Now on just tanking, that has the potential to show the real potential of the tank to properly multitask, threat gen, single target and AoE, interupt, save healers an you could even add a dps element to it...  Much like the events that were in the game to free gnomer or the trolls... if you remember that...  It could be an epic set of dailies that that could be done for gold, and such and achievements and such with meaning and true reflection of the player behind the toon... No one to talk you through it, no one to point out what going on, its you and maybe DBM...  fail to hold agro... lose a healer, and less progress, fail to pull threat on target, DPS gets shot down and less progress, fail to interupt, loss of HP you need to complete...

the same could be done for dps and healers and mana management, interupts, cleanse effects, not pulling threat off the tank, dropping threat, dont stand in fire, target the correct target, CC the target etc...   If elegantly done.. it would be the means for which all players are not only judged, but the way they are trained and things are referenced as players continue to help each other... ilvl would have meaning to go with the gear... it would take into account the gems and enchants...   So you want to tank a normal dungeon at level 15... you have to have accomplished the achieve for uncommon tank.. and uncommon geared tank... base the health in the dungeon on say a fully green geared tank that in full greans 3 levels below the player its doable with some skill...  And also.. the same requirement of healers and dps...  the instanced event scales to your level and expected gear level based on the level of achievement you could attain.. but you have to have done something besides potentialy wear plate and que tank to get the que.. and DPS likewises...

For instance, H ZA/ZG... if you gear is not capable of 11K dps single target burn, you will not accomplish the Rare achievemtn and not be able to get in the LFD for it.. the standard for normal heroics would be.. say 8K for current cata heroics.. as well as interupts, CC,  not pulling threat and doing some level of acceptable AoE... in there, when playing your instanced toon.... the one you are stuck with you could have 6 buttons again... interupts, threat drop, CC, a nuker ability on medium CD, spam button for combo point/debuf generator, and your nuke that is not a nuke unless you use at max combo point/debuff, or drop the threat one and creat a DPS CD... make people not learn to use that... as all classes dont have it...

Healer buttons would again be 6, AoE heal, slow one, fast one, big one, cleanse, healing CD or dmg reduction CD...

In the end, a player could learn to play in the game using abilities that are based on the game in general, learning threat, mana usage, interupts, environmental complexities, and maximum output while multi tasking...  just for good measure it could be 4 types of achieves, melee dps, ranged dps, healer, tank... Now you could get all the first achieves on any toon,  and learn lots of perspective... but you would only be able to get the "geared" achieves for what you have the gear for... Lastly the thing that would almost have to be put in place is the "geared" achievement decay.. that your achieves become feats of strength after some period of time.. somewhere at the one month time frame.. maybe less...  and also every ten levels....

Not a big PVPer type of guy, so I would be hard pressed to really come up with something good that would have PVP comparisons, but I am pretty sure it could be done, they seemed to do a good job in ToC faction champions...

If elegantly and well done... Do you think it would work.. each event could include a video or tutorial to show and explain the rather directly or by demonstration the value of hit, crit, haste, mastery, dodge, parry, block, armor value... in general terms, since each class must be a unique snowflake...

share your thoughts...

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