I’ve been following a discussion over on the official forums the past couple days regarding the new ammo that will be available in Patch 3.3 (which, for those who haven’t heard, is hitting live servers today). Ghostcrawler has made a few appearances in the thread, but not much appears to have been accomplished by his comments aside from deflecting the primary issue and further frustrating those trying to coax answers out of the development team.
The New Ammo
In case you haven’t seen it yet, we’re getting two new projectiles this patch:
These projectiles are crafted by Engineers. In order to purchase the plans, the Engineer must be Honored with The Ashen Verdict. Only Gnomish Engineers can craft the arrows, and only Goblin Engineers can craft the bullets. One stack of 1,000 Iceblade Arrows requires 2 Crystallized Shadow to craft and One stack of 1,000 Shatter Rounds requires 2 Crystallized Earth.
The Complaint
The primary complaint on the forums regarding this new ammo is that Blizzard has placed too many restrictions on obtaining the ammo, particularly given that Blizzard has stated that they hoped to make the process of obtaining ammo vastly easier in Cataclysm. The complete 180 here at the end of Wrath seems to have upset the Hunter community greatly (and that’s the understatement of the century if you take the time to read the thread in question).
In The Burning Crusade, we obtained ammo directly from vendors (based on reputation standings). In this expansion, we obtained ammo from Engineering recipes that all Engineers could craft. In Patch 3.3, we see a reputation prerequisite, a crafting prerequisite and a crafting specialization prerequisite for obtaining the best ammo available, and that’s the rub. We’ve gone from one restriction on obtaining ammo to three.
The question on deck is: are all these restrictions being placed on the new ammo unfair?
Let us know what you think in the comments!
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Only two people on the realm need to be able to craft arrows/bullets. After that, everyone can get them.
That seems to me to be far easier than any other pre-WOTLK requirement for attaining ammo for 99% of the players in a realm.
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That does appear to be the argument in favor of leaving the restrictions as-is: that as long as there are a couple crafters able to put them on the Auction House, then there isn’t much room for complaint.
While I can see the validity of this argument, I’m not sure I’m entirely swayed by it.
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Utterly stupid way of doing things.
Not only does adding a rep AND profession requirement bear the potential to make this ammo exceptionally expense to get, but spec-specific? This means if your Hunter happens to be a Gnomish Engineer, you better not ever roll on a gun, or you’re not going to be able to make your on ammo.
This really ticks me off. My Hunter isn’t an Engineer, which means if I want to make my own arrows/bullets, I’m going to have to gear my rogue up and drag her through ICC until she hits honored, just so I don’t have to be subjected to the price gouging that is inevitably going to happen because of these ridiculous restrictions.
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Presumably, the low material costs for making the new ammo is supposed to act as a soft pricing cap for the items when they’re being sold on the Auction House. Unfortunately, I’m not convinced that’s how things will actually play out in reality.
The thing I’m not sure the devs have considered is that, in addition to the cost of the raw materials, crafters selling items on the Auction House also take into account supply and demand. There are few Engineers as-is. Even fewer Goblin or Gnome Engineers. Even fewer still that will be in ICC getting the rep to get the plans. Scarcity alone will make the prices skyrocket.
Sure, you may be able to get a deal on the ammo if you can find a pocket Engineer that will make it for you if you provide the mats, but for the majority of the Hunter population, that’s not the case, which means most Hunters will be paying the higher prices on the AH.
Now, sure, you should have to pay more–one way or the other–for the best ammo in the game. But I’m not sure the potential prices are in line with the quality of the item here.
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On (Alliance) Cenarion Circle, arrows are sold for 5G per thousand. That seems pretty cheap, considering how easy gold is to come by.
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The few cursory searches I’ve done for the ammo on Ner’zhul had arrows posted for 5g per 100. Not surprising that server prices will fluctuate, of course, but the difference here just illustrates the fact that Hunters will be at the mercy of their server’s economy for something that is an integral part of their performance–something other classes don’t have to deal with.
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Everyone can get them, but at what cost? I know I’ll be watching the AH like a hawk to see how supply and demand affect the price of this ammo, as well as trade chat. It is highly unlikely that those with early access to these patterns are going to make them for every hunter who wants them as a trade for mats. The price of Crystallized/Eternal Earth and Shadow is going to go through the roof as well.
Gold may be a lot easier to acquire these days, but people are almost always going to try to get as much as they possibly can from the market while they can.
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Agreed. And that seems to be the rub for most Hunters: that the added cost/inconvenience required to obtain the best ammo in the game is understandable and acceptable… but how much is too much? And has this ammo crossed the line of what’s an acceptable cost?
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For none engineers such as myself, it does not matter. We have to buy ammo regardless. Ammo should end up being cheaper, which is a nice thing.
I can see why it does matter to an engineer, due to the fact that they have to select a track to follow, it’s a pain to change tracks, ammo has never been track dependent, and it screws with people that are min/maxers.
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I think the other issue is that Blizzard has said they wanted to make obtaining ammo easier to the point where it would just be an equipped item rather than one you have to keep buying, and then they pull a complete 180 at the end of the expansion and give us ammo that’s harder to obtain than any we’ve seen previously.
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Yeah, I’m sort of annoyed that my pocket engineer DK won’t see this ammo, because there’s no way in hell I’m going to level him up and grind rep with him. 10 levels to get Mammoth Cutters was enough. And Mammoth Cutters are pretty stinkin’ rare on Whisperwind’s Horde AH already, so if the new stuff ever ends up for sale, I’ll be surprised as hell.
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That’s another issue that was brought up in the forum thread: low-pop servers. The issue wasn’t addressed, so I’m not sure how that will eventually play out. I know on high-pop servers, you can eventually get whatever you want, for a price. But low-pop servers? I guess I’m just glad I’m on high-pop servers, heh.
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Solution is not to buy them off the AH and pay market price, but to provide mats (hopefully avoiding buying those too) and get bulk amounts made for the cost of a tip. It means trolling Trade until your guildies have the pattern, but *shudder* we all must suffer.
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“Solution is not to buy them off the AH and pay market price, but to provide mats (hopefully avoiding buying those too) and get bulk amounts made for the cost of a tip. It means trolling Trade until your guildies have the pattern, but *shudder* we all must suffer.”
I don’t know what your server is like, but on Bladefist, the ones most likely to have these ammos first are also most likely to charge a 2-4g per combine “service fee”.
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Yeah, I’m not sure how much I trust Trade for getting the items I need. High or low pop servers, there are always plenty of people that will gouge you whether you provide the mats or not, and in some cases you may even find yourself forking over mats and a tip and then they run off with your stuff. It’s a pretty sketchy way to do business. At least if you’re buying straight from the Auction House, you know you’re going to get exactly what you paid for, even if you do end up paying more for it.
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If they run off with your mats you can petition a gm about being scammed. I’ve never had it happen to myself but i know a few people who had that happen and they got their mats back through the gm.
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Yeah, I have heard that you can petition a GM about it and have a good chance of your items being returned to you, but a whole lot of run-around involved.
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As a gnomish engineer, I think this decision is kodo pucky. Sure, right now I’m fine with Talonstrike, but what happens when I (inevitably) upgrade to a rifle. As a dwarf, even an equal DPS rifle is superior for me, so this means I need to drop ALL of the recipes I picked up that are Gnomish only, and potentially swap back and forth depending on what drops? None of the other crafted gear has that kind of restriction attached to it.
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This… is really stupid. I don’t expect it to last. And yes, I leveled as an engineer so I could always have ammo, and I went Gnome for the flavor, and I’m a dwarf that uses a gun. So, as a dwarf, I need Goblin Engineering. *sigh*
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Yep, I agree, They should remove the specialization restriction. Silly Blizz.
Remember Thorium arrows? Swapping shells/arrow with the guy in the Ironforge inn?
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The rep requirement doesn’t bother me at all. It’s the best armor in the game, released in a fancy, end-game raid. Why shouldn’t it have some kind of requirement for the pattern. I actually like having special craft pattern rewards in the game for people who make the effort to reach the special content.
Making it a crafted item rather than a bought item is only a bonus for those with that profession – it really doesn’t matter to those of us who are buying as long as someone on the realm has the pattern to sell it.
Making it spec specific within the profession – I think this is dumb. It doesn’t make any kind of lore sense, and seems completely arbitrary. It really doesn’t feel like the tribal=leather, dragon=mail of the old leatherworking specs, which while frustrating, at least made sense.
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That seems to be in line with popular opinion. People don’t mind that there’s a rep requirement–that makes sense. It’s what we did all through TBC. People are a little miffed that it’s also a crafted item on top of that, but that still seems to be within the realm of what people are willing to accept in order to obtain the best ammo possible. But, just as you said, when we get to the spec requirement for crafting the ammo, there’s where people seem to take issue with it, and I think it’s a valid gripe.
The spec requirements don’t fall in line with what we’ve already seen in this expansion, it goes against what Blizzard has been telling us recently regarding the ease with which ammo should be obtained, and from a lore perspective it doesn’t seem to make much sense either.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the “QQing” about this has made an impression on Blizzard from what I’ve seen, and the ammo will likely remain as-is. Regardless of the reasonable arguments people have presented against the spec requirement, Ghostcrawler has brushed them all under the rug insisting that the spec requirement isn’t the “real issue” that’s got people so upset (despite numerous players chiming in with thoughtful posts saying that the spec requirement is precisely what they take issue with).
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Edit: should be “best ammo in the game”
Sorry.
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http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19110156197&sid=1
Switching Specs between Gnomish and Goblin Engineering isn’t such a big deal anymore. Since I have Talonstrike now and am a Gnome engineer, I will stick where I am, or I might make like 200 stacks of arrows, put them in the mail to my bank alt, and switch to Goblin, and make bullets. I wanted to learn the Goblin engineer recipes anyway, for the sake of my OCD.
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I think that the most ideal implementation of this would have been to make these patterns account bound. I picked Enchanting ages ago (Vanilla WoW) because I thought it would be cool, and refuse to give it up because of all the rare patterns I have. I power leveled my inscription when Wrath came out. So, I don’t want to give these up. My Solution ?
I have an Engineer alt who make all my ammo. However, trying to level up an alts rep, while possible, is a bit of a pain. Which brings the (obvious to me anyway) solution, make the patterns account bound, just like the shoulder and helm enchants are now.
An Alt of course
Thoughts ?
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I think the idea has definite merit, but I don’t think it’s one they’ll ever implement.
Making crafting recipes account-bound, particularly ones for some of the best items in the game, would make the game entirely too homogeneous. All that would really accomplish is encouraging players to level one character, and then invest just enough time in alts to get them to where they can craft whatever your main might need (potions, gear, ammo, etc) and call it a day.
Blizzard wants crafting to act as social incentive. They don’t want one person to necessarily be their own self-sustaining economy–they’d rather players have to work together to get the items they need. By making crafting recipes account-bound, they would effectively destroy the economic system they’ve spent the last five years trying to build. Now, sure, if someone actually took the time to level several 80s, they could be their own self-sustaining economy now. However, the percentage of players that have put that kind of time and effort into that many characters is extremely low.
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As of last night (Moday 12/14), there were 3 engineers on ally side of Arygos with the ammo for sale on the AH…..all 3 were priced @ 100G/stck of 1000 arrows (price was the same for the bullets).
To me the one of the base issues, is the reliance on a specialized profession for the best reagent for Hunters. No other class has this limitation. My hope is that the developers may be looking at this for the future, and having other specialized profession requirements for other classes to do their best at their job (i.e. Elixer master for poisons, enchanters for candles, etc…).
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edit: which if they added this kind of specialization to other professions, it seems it would make them more appealing, as well as balance some of the DPS perks for other classes (i.e. Hunters wouldn’t feel so targeted – pun intended).
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This is a general cluster muck. Reputation gained only in a 10 and 25 raid zone, recipes BoP so can’t transfered to alt (though I do understand the “keep these out of the AH” line of thinking), two different engineering paths for each ammo….Oh come on. It’s ridiculous. When I discussed this with guildmates, at first I didn’t believe Blizzard had implemented the ammo upgrade in this fashion. After viewing the information on various WoW related web sites, I was slightly stunned and very annoyed.
They could have done much better.
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YES!!! finally something that makes having engineering worth while other than some random twink items only the engineer can use! I chose engineering so I could make bullets and arrows so this is rockin’ for me. Now I can make a few gold in the process!! Yes yes base jumping around Azeroth has been fun with my parachute but it don’t earn me no cash.
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I’m all for Engineers having a means to make money from their profession. All professions should have something that can make them a little money. However, I think this was a poor way for them to have gone about it.
Ammo and Engineering both need fixing.
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I all for this, its about time that engineers have something worth selling, when was the last time anyone asked an engineer for anything? I mean seriously, every other profession has products that sell well and often at endgame (except inscription of course)
Sure the gnome/goblin spec isn’t ideal, but I’ve managed to get the rep on my rogue to make the arrows, and rather than try and make a fortune i have set my sell prices at 2g50s per stack of 1000. Not gouging, but making a fair profit.
Its about time my hard work to level and max my profession actually pays off..
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