Smolderforge Support Community

* This is for you, Henry*

I see this topic has been discussed many times already but i feel the need to QQ about it myself xD
Rather than discussing the exact prices items should have I'd like to talk about the thinking behind this.
First of all, i perfectly understand the purpose of donations (i have two donor characters myself).
I can understand why you give people S4 / T6 gear and some other special items for money, it helps support the server of course! What i don't understand though is why you make it impossible to get S4
the normal way- by playing arena. I hate to be bold, but that is just plain LAME. And before people say sth- YES, it is pretty damn impossible to grind your ass to 2000 rating through the donor-filled arena unless you're some kind of freaking prodigy!
(sadly, I'm not one) *lol*
I really don't think that lowering the prices would make people stop donating. There will be always plenty of people who are too lazy to grind the rating when they can simply get started fully geared. Or people who are not that skilled (perhaps don't intend to play arena at all) but they just want these shiny items. And last but not least- people who donate just out of goodness of their hearts :)
Also i REALLY believe that if you made it possible to get S4 the normal way it would encourage many more people to play rated arena.. Maybe there would even be enough 3x3 teams to really start playing that bracket! Wouldn't that be worth something? This could really change the way things look on TBC realm :) (tbh, I don't really care about what happens on Wrath realm xD)
For reference, the original rating requirements of items should look something like this.
(i hope i remember this stuff correctly)

Gloves- 1500
Legs-1550
Chest-1600
Head-1700
Weapon-2050
Shoulders-2200
Guardian items all range from 1600-1700 ... wrists were at 1575 i think.
CBA to remember the exact arena point prices xD

That's all i wanted to say i think... I'm not trying to force this stuff on you, just giving you something to think about. I hope you read this and respond with some non-cliché opinion :)

Thx Henry and keep up the great work!

Victort wrote: i don't understand though is why you make it impossible to get S4 the normal way- by playing arena.

Well, originally we never even offered S4 at all. I was always too afraid to offer it because of it being the donated item and I was afraid it would encourage wintrading. When, waay back in late 2008 we added Warglaives to the mall for 60 badges each (long time ago, no hate) immediately we saw a massive increase in exploiters, speed hackers, etc. and the battlegrounds were ruined. I don't believe we had a Warden system then so people could hack and it was terrible. So many rogues had Warglaives within a day.

So my fear was having it at all would promote wintrading. Then I finally agreed to add it, but to make it almost impossible to prevent wintrading teams. I will say, in some way it has maybe increased wintrading because we have seen some teams do that and be able to buy a few S4 pieces but they usually are caught and banned by that time. With the new auto-broadcast system I hope some people will heed the warning that tells people we will catch them.

I have discussed lowering the S4 prices several times with the staff and it's something we are thinking about doing, just doing carefully. I can't say when we'll get around to it but it's surely something we'll eventually look into. I think with the new S3 changes the balance is going to be greatly improved by allowing everyone to earn full S3 & weapons as long as they put the time in.

Victort wrote: I really don't think that lowering the prices would make people stop donating. There will be always plenty of people who are too lazy to grind the rating when they can simply get started fully geared.

It probably won't, but like I said I was paranoid about the exploiting/wintrading. I think with what I've seen with adding them in general it's something we can consider to lower in the future.

Have you checked the 3v3 arena rankings? The first ranked legal team would be around 1750.. the others are wintraded.Imagine if they lower the prices of s4..

Yea it really is a bit paranoid :) I dont think everyone would start wintrading wildly the moment you lowered it. But if someone does just punish their ass in some exemplary way.. And others will stop doing at soon enough.
The reason why i even made this topic is that i feel certain emptiness, lack of purpose when i play on SF.
Not everyone is that kind of nolifer who wants to be "Rank 1" .. or "high rated" and brag about it.
Many people actually just want to play for fun and to win some of these shiny items if they play hard.
(personally i always played just to get the shiny items. i couldn't care less what my "PvP reputation" is xD)
The way it is now they're given two choices: either pay up and get all the arena items (which makes further playing of arena kinda pointless ) or don't pay up and play your s2/s3 character, knowing you'll never ever have S4... And this prospect seriously ruins some people's motivation to play arena (including me).

Offtopic question- who's the leader of "Donor" user group?
(who can i ask for the Donor tag}

The more people run aound with S4, the more people will cry about it. Most notably new players who equip themselves with S2 (or PvE for the lolz), just to be steamrolled by an army of S4.

It costs 5$, yet it's not seen too often... it's good that way. =p
Even ignoring all this win-trading crap (which is a good reason to be paranoid, it certainly will happen...).
Arena isn't frustrating because of S4, it's because 2on2 worked that way... it's only about class choice.
Being a druid is a good start though.

@Peekaboo: You don't see them too often ?:D
lol there's a whole SWARM of them.. and not a single one got that gear by playing for it.
(well maybe there are some individuals, but you could count them on fingers of one hand)
All i'm trying to say for the last 3 posts :) Is that not being able to get the items by playing arena takes all the fun out of it. Yes, class choices are important... but gear is equally important. If you step into arena with S2 and meet a donor team (with some basic skill at least) they WILL fuck you up.
Btw: Being a druid is not a "start" for me, i play wow for some 3 years now :) Feral is just my all-time favorite :)

I'd say it's equally important under serious conditions, where people know their class (even then it's not solely about skill), but that's hardly the case here... =p
On top of that it's not that you compete with blues/greens vs epic geared guys. The problems in that regard were present in S1, where resilience was a rare sight, but S4 vs S2 is nothing compared to it. Resilience is about equal, and the longer the fight takes the more S4 shines, but in 2on2s most battles are decided after 3 minutes, that's certainly not related to dealing 6% more damage.
Yes, there are some devious tactics to force this, but those depend on the matchup and can be abused with S2 aswell (Resto Druid+Pillar=win). With S3 around, the gap is even reduced further.

the difference between s3 and s4 can never be gamebreaking lol.Its like 60 healing or 60-70 ap more.. the thing thats OP is the pve gear the donors have.But you said ur willing to farm stuff then do pve for it.. if u have brains and know how to gear up just the difference between the s3 and 4 mainsets wont be a problem.

s3 geared mage only pve rings






s4 geared mage only pve rings, same enchants and same gems



As you can see the only difference is like 70 spell dmg, less than 10 resi and 500hp and some mana lol.. it is something but to blame that for losing is hilarious.. l2p issue.

tell me if u want me to do that with more classes