New Cataclysm Badge and PvP Point Changes

[Svpernova09]

We're continuing to refine the badge/emblem and PvP point systems in Cataclysm and we'd like to share some of those changes with you today. Please enjoy!

Our primary goal when approaching badges in Cataclysm is to address a lot of the confusion that comes with these currency systems. To that end we're changing badges to a more straightforward point system, similar to the ones we've used for a while for Arenas and Battlegrounds. There will be a total of four types of points you can earn in Cataclysm (two for PvE and two for PvP), and these will remain the same even as we introduce new content.

Here's the breakdown:

PvE
Hero Points -- Low-tier, easier-to-get PVE points. Maximum cap to how many you can own, but no cap to how quickly you can earn them. Earned from most dungeons. (most like the current Emblem of Triumph)
Valor Points -- High-tier, harder-to-get PvE points. Maximum cap to how many you can own, as well as a cap to how many you can earn per week. Earned from Dungeon Finder daily Heroic and from raids. (most like the current Emblem of Frost)

PvP
Honor Points -- Low-tier, easier-to-get PVP points. There will be a maximum cap to how many you can own, but no cap to how quickly you can earn them. Earned from most PvP activities.
Conquest Points -- High-tier, harder-to-get PvP points. There will be a maximum cap to how many you can own, and a cap to how many you can earn per week. Earned from winning Rated Battlegrounds or Arenas. (currently called Arena Points)

When a new tier of raiding gear is released or a new PvP season begins, your higher tier of points will be converted into the lower tier. For instance, if a new tier of raid gear is released, your Valor points will be converted to Hero points, and similarly if a new PvP season begins your Conquest points will be converted to Honor points. Of course that means with these new releases you'll always begin without any of the higher tier of points, and thus be unable to stockpile them.

As noted for Conquest points, the Rated Battlegrounds and Arenas will be sharing this same point type. Because of that, it will in fact be possible to get the best PvP items without setting foot in Arena; however, more powerful armor and weapons will of course require more Conquest points, so players who win their matches more often will still gear up faster. We're removing personal rating requirements on almost all items; they're definitely removed for weapons. We might offer a few items to the absolute best players based on personal rating, largely as cosmetic or 'bragging rights' type items. And you'll have the option of purchasing the previous season’s gear with the more readily available Honor points.

We do plan to have a way to convert Honor points (PvP) into Hero points (PvE), and vice versa, at a loss. The conversions will be possible, but it won't be a 1:1 rate, and you'll have fewer points after the conversion process. We won't allow the higher tiers to be exchanged for each other, however.

To explain the reasoning for the weekly cap on points for the higher tiers, this is to provide flexibility in how players choose to earn the points without feeling like they have to do all of the content as often as it is available. If your Valor income from raiding is sufficient, you may not feel the need to run Dungeon Finder every night, or perhaps even at all. Likewise, a PvP player could choose to participate in a lot of Rated Battlegrounds but no Arenas, or focus on both, and still be able to earn the points they want.

We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We're eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!

[Svpernova09]

My personal concern about this is "Maximum cap to how many you can own". If they model after the current PvP gear for Honor Points system it's going to take 50k points to get an on level piece of gear while being capped at 75k points. But what about those of us who hoard badges (points)? If they use the same system and set the gear price high and cap low, you won't be able to save for an entire offspec set or even save up for a 2 piece bonus. I really, really hope they set the Hero & Valor Points cap really, REALLY high.

[genocyde]

No personal rating on gear? Yes please, No longer will I have to farm current tear 25 raids to be elligible for arena (non-boxing rogue).

Gear progression speed limits on current top tier? Yes please, No longer will I have to hate everyone in my guild after while build a pile of bodies big enough to suffocate bosses were not geared for just to get a few items to stay competitive.

A limit to how many points I can stockpile? No thanks, the only reason you could ever use to justify this is patching in new content / gear without moving to a new tear and doing a points reset. If you reset the points every time a new tier starts there is no reason at all to limit the points you can stockpile. It just doesn't make sense.

Converting PvE points to PvP and vice versa? Yes please, I have always liked completely gearing for one before the other and sometimes I feel forced to do both at the same time under the current system. This way I can do whatever I want for the gear I want.

I like it overall.

[Mercurio]

Like most things Blizz is coming out with for Cataclysm, this sounds good.

As a multi-(multi-multi-)boxer, I really like the sound of capping the Valor Emblem gains per week. From the description above, it sounds like you may be able to just do Heroic Dailies each day and get the max number of emblems for the week (w/o having to raid!) Or if you raid, you may only have to do one Heroic Daily all week to be at the cap. This is very good for those of us with lots of alts. It is too easy to fall behind the overall gear score ramp-up that most solo players jump on each time a new tier is offered. This way, those who are more casual (or have more alts) can keep everyone even.

Sounds neat.

[Starbuck_Jones]

14 from heroics. 4 from voa. 50 from icc10/25, 15 from weekly raid quests. 83 frost badges a week currently. So it sounds like they are just going to cap it say at 50 or something. That way if you have all the raid content on farm, you're done, but if not you can still max out your badges with weekly and daily events.

Seems kinda lame to put a cap like that in place and in the same post mention that people who play more will gear faster (pvp). I do not see any reason why they should limit it. If a person has the time to do it all, then they should get it all. They have provided an avenue for both raiders and non raiders to get the same iLev gear. Why try and say that each path is equal? Risk vs time vs reward is getting out of balance. They should know that the masses will act like water, we will take the path of least resistance.

[Svpernova09]

Some more from blues:

Here are some clarifications to some common concerns we're seeing:


Q u o t e:
So this means that at some point I'm encouraged to stop playing because I know my current valor will convert to hero and I'll have a huge stockpile of points which I can then just use to buy the set I'd be after anyway.

Our basic model throughout Wrath of the Lich King has been that you can get the shiny hotness now, or wait until it “goes on sale” next tier. In this example the set one would be after would be the old set and everyone else would be pursuing the new set.


Q u o t e:
People should have to progress through more than just two tiers!

They will, just not at the 4.0 stage. All we’re really doing with the badges is removing the need to keep adding new types every tier, which proved confusing.


Q u o t e:
What is the valor total cap? (a little more than double the highest item point cost?)

We haven’t made that determination yet. It will be something in line with how Honor works today; that is you can save up for expensive things but can’t have so many points that you can just rush out and get everything all at once and be done.


Q u o t e:
What is the valor weekly cap?

We haven’t made that determination yet. We want to pick a number such that you don’t feel compelled to complete all of the content every week just for points if you choose not to.


Q u o t e:
What's the system/time between when a new raid is released and points are converted?

Probably almost simultaneously. The points will be converted before new loot appears on the vendors.


Q u o t e:
Why are rating requirements being removed?

The current system has a touch of the rich-get-richer syndrome where players who lack the ratings can’t get the most competitive gear and feel like they have no hope of competing. Better players will still gear up much more quickly because they will have more points to spend. Rating requirements on, for example, weapons was pretty unpopular in the community.


Q u o t e:
And won't this bring back the issues of people gearing weapons through PvP for raiding?

PvP equipment spends a chunk of its budget on resilience so it’s always going to be sub-optimal for PvE compared to equivalent raiding gear. We don’t mind players using PvP gear in PvE (or vice versa) as long as it’s a stepping stone towards getting more appropriate gear.


Q u o t e:
Why not have a 'heroic' equivalent for PvP gear?

We are still tweaking item levels, but the basic concept is that there is the current season and there is the previous season. In this first season there is no previous season, so we also have to provide the “Honor gear.” That is supposed to be roughly equivalent to the pre-raiding tier that you’ll want for PvE before you begin raiding.


Q u o t e:
Essentially all of the PvE changes together seem aimed to disincentivize 25s, is there some reasoning as to why 25s are no longer being encouraged?

Our goal through Wrath of the Lich King was that players could choose 10 or 25 as a personal preference. We think we missed that mark though. Because 25s still provided more powerful rewards, it felt like that was the “real” raiding, and 10s were what you did on off-nights, or if you just couldn’t stomach the logistics of recruiting or pugging 10 more players. We know there are a lot of players out there who just prefer to raid 10s but felt like we didn’t deliver on our promise to let them just raid 10s. The Cataclysm model is to let players raid 10s or 25s as they see fit. There are advantages and disadvantages to both raid sizes. The larger raids can feel more epic, yet the smaller ones tend to have less loot drama because there is less competition per item that drops. The smaller raids in some sense are more hardcore, because there are fewer opportunities to include novice raiders or folks who just aren’t carrying their weight.

We understand that changes like this can cause social upheaval and we didn’t make the decision lightly. The community was similarly concerned when we removed 40-player raids (and we literally did remove those; today we’re just offering an alternative to the larger raids). We think there is a non-trivial audience of players who prefer the 25-player raids and we’re going to continue to support them. We tried many different raiding models in Wrath of the Lich King with regard to Heroic modes and lockouts, and rest assured that if we don’t like how the 4.0 raiding game evolves that we will revisit it for 4.1.


Q u o t e:
The term 'points' is not RP enough for PvE

This is a legitimate concern and something we struggled with. On the other hand, one of the problems we kept running into with the current badges was granularity -- you can’t offer half a badge the way you can offer 1, 3 or 5 points. Depending on your perspective, you can argue that your character “earning”; valor for defeating an enemy makes more sense in the game world than the dragon having all of these badges on its corpse.

[drevil]

no big changes from the current system.

the only new thing: exchange pvp points for pve

[Catamer]

I didn't know there was a maximum cap on the current system. that cap scares me because the honor cap really sux.