May 30, 2012

Head Enchants, Schmead Enchants


Good news, everyone! Ghostcrawler has confirmed that head enchants are coming out of the game for Mists:
"Head enchants are gone.

We decided that putting head enchants on the various faction vendors wasn't working well with our design intent for the factions. There is a lot of max-level quest content in MoP, much of it focused around the reputation with the new factions. I think it's really cool stuff -- worlds away from the old Argent Crusade scourge stone days. :)

In previous expansions, the head enchants on the faction vendors served to force players into that content. You couldn't even choose which reputation to pursue -- you had to pursue the one with your specific head enchant. Our design intent for MoP is to give players options in how to play, and the head enchant design wasn't compatible with that.

Once we decided to no longer offer new head enchants, we made the older ones non-functional or else players would feel like they had to go back to older content or be missing out on power. This way, helmets are just no longer enchantable and you'll have one less required step to get a piece of loot ready to wear.

Shoulder enchants can now be provided by scribes, so those still exist, but they are also not part of the faction reputation system." (Source: Wowhead News | Blue post)
My initial reaction was positive. There would be no more angst because the faction with my head enchant was not the same as the faction with my shiny exalted gear! I had a little think though, settled down a little, and realised it wasn't all rainbows and celebratory cakes.

The trouble for me is that the grind to exalted for that head enchant was content, something to aim for, another thing to achieve. I live for achievements, UI-based or self-imposed. While I'm not losing much with the removal of this grind, it was still content. Couple that with account-wide achievements removing the necessity to grind mounts/titles/achievements on more than one character if you don't want to, and I find myself experiencing a twinge of worry.

I do find it harder to mourn the loss of shoulder enchants obtained via rep grinds - Therazane rep and its forced series of quests to even unlock the tabard mean that only my main has friendly status - and as they will be available from scribes I don't think the change will be felt in the same way, but that's another milestone we don't need to reach anymore. I'd always wished for an Inscription option on top of the Therazane grind, or at least Bind to Account status for the enchants. We've gone straight past that to just removing the rep element altogether.

Ultimately, there are so many new features shipping with Mists that it's been impossible to see how I would run out of content. Pet battles, farming and more have been added. All the usual things will still be in the game. I will simply have to trust that Blizzard have got their balancing right!

9 comments:

  1. It bothers me a bit too. I like having things to strive for, things that make a difference to your character whether by giving a pure stats boost like helm enchants or more cosmetic items like mounts/titles.

    MoP is going to be a brave new world and I'm nervous already.

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    1. Exactly! Really, really new. Excitedly apprehensive, sums it up best for me!

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  2. In many ways, I think this could ADD content for achievement-hunters such as yourself. Because the head/shoulder enhancements need to be provided for mandatory power, the grinds themselves have to be very, very easy and painless or they would accompany an explosion of complaint.

    On the other hand, it appears that reputation grinds are about to become far more optional for players; you do it, or you don’t, and the rewards are purely cosmetic. If that’s the case, there’s no reason why Blizzard can’t elongate the grinds because anyone who doesn’t like reputation grinding won’t actually be forced to do it for endgame PvE.

    Keep an eye out. o/

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    1. Hmm. For the right rewards I'd go to a lot of effort. That's a very good point :)

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  3. I don't mind not having the head enchant anymore. I guess they didn't want us to be disadvantaged because of rep or something. But I too liked the rep grind :) Maybe I will have some pets to grind for or something instead.

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    1. I think that's it - it forced your choice rather than it being truly your own (not without disadvantaging your gearing at least). I'm still happy to see what else turns up. I'm a bit masochistic when it comes to grinds, so there better be enough timesinks at launch!

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  4. I was happy when I heard about the head/shoulder news. Grinding the required rep for both was a pain when you're required to do the same quests week after week. Much like the Molten Front dailies to open up the vendors inside.

    The only thing I did like about them were the achievements, and Guild rep. But if there's a pet or mount involved, you can count on me to keep going until I have them all - Argent Tournament comes to mind for that and I even did the daily grind on Alliance to get all the pets too =/

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    1. That was my instinctive reaction too - a great big yay! The other musings just tempered it a little.

      Also, the only reason I finished unlocking Molten Front vendors was for the pets >.>

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  5. So all the time spent getting those enchants was a wasted effort

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