World of Warcraft

What is the purpose of it? is it just a way to keep people subscribing?

The purpose of it is to give everyone the same chance of keeping up with Valor Gear.

If there was not a cap on how much Valor you could obtain, you would be able to gain an unfair advantage against other players just because they might not have the same amount of time to put into the game.

One good reason to keep the vp cap is to limit the speed at which players can get epics in this 'badges' way. The whole vp/badges system of getting epics is casual enough, no need to increase or remove the cap.

19/02/2012 13:45Posted by Yggsztanzull

What is the purpose of it? is it just a way to keep people subscribing?

Asked and answered.

But yes, also slows down progression and lets the more casual playerbase keep up with the more hardcore.

It also limits the amount of content you are "forced" do each week, back in Wrath raiders needed to run the daily heroics to max out their badges, now they can reach their weekly cap by just doing raids(more or less).

Its a gating system. It serves a few purposes:
1. It hides the miserable way Blizzard designs their end game by preventing those who can play more than 4 weekly hours to run out of things to do.

2. By fulfilling point 1 they somewhat prolong the life-span of the game as they keep you subscribing longer.

At the end of the day its no different from gating ICC - they screw up the normal progression and character development themes so they need to artificially limit you otherwise.

To prevent people from buying all the valor gear the first day of course

Its a gating system. It serves a few purposes:
1. It hides the miserable way Blizzard designs their end game by preventing those who can play more than 4 weekly hours to run out of things to do.

2. By fulfilling point 1 they somewhat prolong the life-span of the game as they keep you subscribing longer.

At the end of the day its no different from gating ICC - they screw up the normal progression and character development themes so they need to artificially limit you otherwise.

Here's another thought: It prevents people from having to play 20 hours per day in the first week of a new expansion, just so they can max out their VP potential.

why is there valor??

19/02/2012 23:48Posted by Gamerforever

why is there valor??

Nice cape and belt. You've answered your own question without saying a word.

I think it is designed so you can slowly progress your gear even without raiding, or to get bandaid gear to slots where gods of RNG (bossdrops) have not been pleasant.

IMO making BiS items with VP is however stupid design. Cannot really give good argument to this, just my opinion.

20/02/2012 03:21Posted by Oak

why is there valor??

Nice cape and belt. You've answered your own question without saying a word.

Lets say that dwarf masterrace gets free BiS.

I could ask "why?"

Then you come to answer "You've answered your own question without saying a word.", because I am wearing that BiS?

I don't approve this logic.

To keep the casual players up to par with hardcore players (with the exception of heroic raid loot, justified by effort), and to keep PvE players away from farming the best PvP gear in the shortest amount of time without doing any actual PvP. Even tho' trading currency points should go both ways, to be honest.

Fake difficulty to keep playing and making the game harder and longer.

20/02/2012 08:47Posted by Eburyundy

Fake difficulty to keep playing and making the game harder and longer.

Oh you :D

The purpose of it is to give everyone the same chance of keeping up with Valor Gear.

If there was not a cap on how much Valor you could obtain, you would be able to gain an unfair advantage against other players just because they might not have the same amount of time to put into the game

I strongly disagree with the word "unfair". Why should it be unfair if you put more time/effort into a game?
But overall it is there for purpose of everyone having the same chances to progress on VP gear and I think it is good that way when all tier tokens drop from bosses.

The original implementation was basically to allow people to accrue some gear regardless of whether they had crappy RNG, the cap is there to ensure people don't get everything on day 1 and decide there's then no need to see or do any of the other content.

This expansion, with shared lockouts and the reduced number of bosses overall, it's started to be used as an overflow for various slots thanks to the resultant lack of space on boss loot tables to offer something for every slot for everyone from boss kills alone. Because of this, some items are BiS from there and so their acquisition should in theory be slowed to ensure a steady gearing curve.

Agree with cap to slow down progression, but the cap is too low.

Take helm for example, 2200 valor.

You need three weeks to get one item. It's farcical.

20/02/2012 12:14Posted by Warogan

Why should it be unfair if you put more time/effort into a game?

Because WoW's philosophy is slighty changing to the point of where two people, one who logs once per week for 15 mins and one who is online 8 hours per day, should have the same gear and achievements.

This expansion, with shared lockouts and the reduced number of bosses overall, it's started to be used as an overflow for various slots thanks to the resultant lack of space on boss loot tables to offer something for every slot for everyone from boss kills alone. Because of this, some items are BiS from there and so their acquisition should in theory be slowed to ensure a steady gearing curve.

And even though neck, cloak and relic slots are available only from VP (I know Morchok drops a Spirit neck though), the loot tables are still so crowded that items have had to be moved to a shared boss loottable which means even less chance for them to drop, and also some items have still not dropped at all after 10+ weeks (I know, RNG and all) for some.

On another topic I had suggested a few ways to reduce the clutter which were:
- Mail removed. Hunters and Shamans use Leather all the way to max level. Warriors and Paladins start using Plate and stay that way. This one in fact solves the most problems even if it "breaks" the RP feeling somewhat.
- One slot dropping only from trash (let's say Belt)
- Trinket schematics also dropping which would be crafted via Engineering, remove one trinket of each type from the loottables.
- One slot being only crafted (say Boots from Tailors/LW/BS)
- Droprates of those belts and patterns/plans/schematics increased (it is abysmally low in DS currently, especially the belt one)
- Re-introduction of the Crystallized Firestone currency, but with a normal drop chance (1 per boss on hc mode) and gear that doesn't drop from bosses be upgradable that way to heroic version (Belt, Boots and that one Trinket, of course the amount of Crystallized Firestone currency required would be higher for trinkets, say 2 for Belt and Boots, 5 for trinket)
- Shared Boss Loot removed, there should be "enough" space on the bosses now for items to drop.

Agree with cap to slow down progression, but the cap is too low.

Take helm for example, 2200 valor.

You need three weeks to get one item. It's farcical.

it took me whole 4.2 and 3 weeks of 4.3 to switch 353 helm on my pala for better one (aka 397) - totaly no luck with rolling it in raids and i was raiding BoT BWD and FL every single week on this char. so 3 weeks is very short time range .