Transmogrification - My view and solutions
So at first (when the new system came out) I wasn't gonna write this. I was just going to shut up and do my own stuff but then today came.
TIFU hard and I'm frustrated and probably end on this server. I've never like said that I quit before, this is the first time I really feel I waste my time and want to move on. Nice knowing you AT (Blackrock, whatever...).
I've been farming to get my first transmog. It was the PVP marathon of my life. I'm not good enough to have some solid ratings in arenas so it's pain to work your way to the transmogs.
I've finally got it, sunday afternoon, exhausted but happy that I can finally take a break from the game. I've bought a token and wanted to transmog my legendary skinned Melmorta's Twillight Longbow and mindlessly clicked on the mainhand (there was no ranged option!!!). Yes, the bow got transmogged on my mainhand sword...
So let's get down with the thing:
The transmog system has fatal flaws. At first it might actually increase the arena activity but in a long run it's going to make people burnt out and drive away the more casual players.
Let's talk basic game theory. There are two basic ways you can reward people (And I want to say that things that the player wants and that are not essential gameplay elements should never be for free):
• For Farming
• For Skill
These are the two basic ways. There are different types of people in the game and you need both of the methods. They also need to have different rewards so that people can recognize between farmers and skillers.
The flaw number one: The system you have is neither Skill nor Farming based. It's Some kind of wierd Farming mutant. The main content of the server is basicly gameplay-time gated. With simple calculations to get a transmog item your average player at 1800 rating and 2:1 win:loss ratio has to play for at least 12 hours in the week. Doesn't sound like much does it? Well I think it is. Before I never played that much on this server. I played like hour a day, sometimes more sometimes not at all. I played both BGs and arenas and I played multiple characters. If I came close to 12 hours a week it was very varied experience. Now it would be just 12 hours of 2vs2 or (please no) SoloQ on one character. I'm sure I'm not the only one. (BGs are highly inefficient for farming honor. To get the same reward you have to play 3 times longer.)
But blizzard gameplay-time gated content as well uh duh!
Well kind of. You had to play exactly 10 arenas a week to get the rewards. That's like 1-2 hours. (I get that this has to be higher on a server with just PvP content but not 12 hours).
This system we have is basicly vanilla type but not based on actuall ranks and with a problem. It's worse than vanilla because even on vanilla you didn't have just High Warlord and Grand Marshal sets. There were two complete sets where different items (In pairs) required different ranks so even if you were noob you got something. Here you get nothing.
The flaw nubmer two: The system is inconsistent, recolors are not processed. (And I'm actually going to call you Lazy for this. I know there are thousands of items in wow but the work is not difficult, it's just time consuming and it can be done even by just your average gamemaster. One afternoon you just divide different types of gear between all your gamemasters and by the evenfall you have complete list of items with rating requirements and other stuff then just run a simple script and tadaa...) This doesn't sound like big of a deal but I can imagine that for the high rated people who care about their unique look and prestige it can be quite anoying. It screams carelessness...
Now let's take a look at the tokens.
20000 for any transmog. 20000 for any transmog. 20000 for any transmog.
Do you see it already? No? So let's take look at Wrathful gear. At the prices and requirements specifically (I'm actually going to paralel something different, the rating requirements ~ honor cost of transmog token). I'm sure all the items required 2000 rating right (Or 1800 or whatever equals 20K honor)? You need to have some kind of progression. Especially since there is nothing more on the server to progress on, not every transmog should cost 20k honor. Especially considering how easily you can make a mistake like I did. Also not all top arena transmogs should cost 20k honor. The way you have it now totaly homogenizes people and their playtime schedules. People play different amount of time and one kind of people get's basicly 0 reward right now.
[edit]: Look at two players. One has 1500 rating in 2vs2 and one has 2000. At first look, you won't be able to see any difference. The only difference you'll see between players will be that I'm total noob but I farmed hard for my transmog so now I have something. Then there is this guy who has 2000 rating and 1:0 win:loss ratio but he won't have anything because he didn't play enough games to have the honor. Quite the paradox isn't it? (This is a theoretical situation, I have actually no idea how many won games you need to get to 2000 rating.) There should be rewards for both of us. Different rewards.
How to do it? Here is my system (It's complicated but works) (the numbers are subject to discussion (seriously, discuss) ):
• There should be 2 basic lines of progression.
• There should be multiple types of transmog tokens for different sets (time gated farmer progression type). You can go two ways:
#1: { rare - 10k honor, epic - 25k honor } to transmog one item you need 2 tokens of the same kind. To get the basic one you have to farm the same amount of honor but in a twice the time so it leans more towards the farmer type (You don't have to get the tokens both in one week). Then at each rating tier you can have sets divided for people who farm less or more. People who farm less have something to transmog and people who farm more have a actuall reward. You could also take this system even further like 3 or 4 cheaper tokens for one item.
#2: { uncommon - 10k honor, rare - 20k honor, epic - 40k honor } to get transmog you need just one token. This system leans more towards the time gating type and for casual players it's less time consuming. It has 10k token for basic transmogs, 20k for the better stuff and 40k for the unique.
• Transmogs should be better categorized by the rating. (Skill type progression) People with nothing should get very little transmog options but there should be more rating tiers both in the lows (currently it's - nothing > 1700 > 1950... it should start lower (just like the wrathful gear) first tier (maybe like relentless set) at 1600 then 1700, 1800 and so on.) and in the hights.
• The different qality tokens shouldn't work like this: At 1600 rating you need the 10k ones, at 2200 you need the 40k ones. That is bad. There should be at least 2 sets at each rating (There don't even have to be 3 at each tier).
• You could implement some system to reward people who are not active one week and burn out the other one but play consistently. Example: Let's say from 1st to 7th August (Monday to Sunday) you farm up at least 5000 honor, on the Monday of 15th you get 1000 honor bonus to the start.
A few more things I want to say. System like the one you have now wouldn't be such a problem on a normal server (If you had some kind of PvE variant as well) but instant PvP servers have much shorter Character Lifespan and it won't get longer by making more expensive rewards. The way to prolong your character lifespan and player investment in their characters is add more types of progression and more different content.
Removing gear shortened it. Find some creative ways to prolong it.
You should also fix arena points or address them. Every delay without any communication frustrates players and you don't want that.
I won't be replying here. I don't care anymore. Read it. Hopefully you understand the problems and remove them. Hopefully I helped and don't get flamed down to hell.
