Well, the gear distribution eye dropper just got smaller...

[Shadowwolf]

[blizzard author=Bashiok link=http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3595371172]We've made slight adjustments to the Valor Point (VP) drops on the 4.3 PTR which testers can now see. In both 10- and 25-player raids, bosses will now drop 100 VP each (down from  115 and 135 respectively). We'll also be changing Firelands raid bosses to drop 50 VP per kill upon release of the patch.

This change is being made to further emphasize the desire to kill bosses for the items they drop. In the 4.3 raid, tier sets can only be earned from boss drops, and as Raid Finder will allow for just about anyone to get a chance to kill bosses, we think there will be less need for Valor overall. We want to try to match the lower desire for VP with a slightly slower acquisition rate.

We appreciate your thoughts and constructive discussion on how these changes may affect you and your guild once 4.3 is released.

We're also making changes to Conquest, recently announced, found here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3595670888[/blizzard]

So essentially you are now forced to hope RNG works in your favor for ALL tier items instead of at least being able to get a 2pc bonus with crap luck from valor points. Plus, itll take just a bit longer to get all the points you need for what gear you can still buy since the total points per boss is falling by 35.

The easiest way to read this is like it should be stated for honesty....

We are nerfing how we distribute gear in 4.3 to extend the life of that patch so we can work on Mists of Pandaria and not have to work on another content patch. By limiting your gear attainment options and forcing you to raid, but at the same time reducing the rewards from said raids, we hope to accomplish this.

[Shadowwolf]

My vent post to Blizz

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3595371172?page=20#396

I am going to try and attempt to be constructive about my criticism here as much as I can in the small hope that one of you at Blizzard will read it and take it into consideration since you all claim to read all the postings, however I don't see that as logistically possible unless you pay interns to do it. For the rest of you, I apologize in advance for critting you with a wall of text, and for you trolls or those who may disagree with me, I dont care what you have to say, this is a forum for saying opinions, just because you might not agree with said opinions, doesn't mean you have to make people feel like crap to express your opposition.

Disclaimer aside...

I don't see the logic in this decision outside of a way to artificially extend the longevity of this patch in prep for development on Mists of Pandaria. I look forward to the new expansion if you hold true to the marketing hype you doled out at Blizzcon, but perhaps someone should be flogged with a rubber hose in the project management area in screwing up timelines, because if its going to take that long between 4.3 and 5.0, it wont matter how much you try to extend its lifespan, people are going to grow bored and tired anyhow simply out of frustration in it being so "grindy" instead of due to finishing content.

I can't speak to 25 raids and the impact it will have on my guild from that perspective because I haven't had the ability to run 25 raids in my guild since 7 weeks after Cataclysm was released. That was officially the last time we as a guild were able to completely fill a 25 raid without pickup players to offset any vacancies. As such, we were forced to run 10's since that time which is a bit heartbreaking since we've been able to muster 20+ people since Vanilla. The dissatisfaction and frustration this expansion has become for most cost us many many good players who just dont feel it worth the time to play with all these artificial ceilings in place as well as some other unsuccessful changes. I say unsuccessful because they were, regardless if you count some minor success in part of it, the subscription numbers don't lie. At any rate thats a rant for another time and I digress...

For 10 raids right now as a casual guild, and OMG I said "casual" so trolls arm yourselves, our definition of casual is not what most people would label it as. Casual to us is: We take who wants to come based on proper roles required for raids (Tanks, Healers, DPS) and the number of those needing to be filled, not discriminating on class or spec or even prioritizing any type of "seniority" system, which means that the same people may not be there week after week thus taking us a little longer to move through content than most other raiding guilds would. I don't expect you folks at Blizzard to tailor the game for how we run our guild, however what we do has worked up until Cataclysm (thats right, we got all the way into Sunwell back in BC doing things like this).

Anyhow, my point here is how we run 10 raids now, and how you have somehow managed to undermine the "bring the player not the class" philosophy with some of these encounters, when we do start meeting success in progression level raids, RNG for gear absolutely sucks. 2 drops per boss is all fine and good, but when you carry no Pally healers and plate healing drops, congrats you just busted your ass for nothing but a shard. In addition, our first Firelands Shannox kill dropped 2 items NO ONE could use [item]71013[/item] & [item]71026[/item]). The ONLY thing that salvaged the victory from being a complete let down was the fact that 1) we did it being how we roll, and 2) we got some points out of the deal which could be used on items we could actually use. Now, you're telling us that we have to rely on an already horrible RNG system for drops for Tier pieces which are generally, save some exceptions, some of the better pieces for classes in this expansion. Meanwhile in the last 4 weeks of completely clearing Firelands normal for the shoulder and helm tokens for people, Staghelm has dropped [item]71681[/item] every time where the 1 priest and warlock we had with us now has a shoulder item for every spec they dont ever play. The problem of your RNG goes on for tiers past as well where we still have folks who just LAST WEEK finally got Nef to drop their T11 token.

So here I sit looking at this announcement and I sit in bewilderment as to how you expect me to believe that this change is for anything other than extending the 4.3 lifespan and think people like myself are actually going to be happy about you reducing the amount of valor we earn per boss which is the only thing that offsets a garbage RNG loot system in your raids more so for 10. Again, I cant speak to 25 raids, but my guess is with more drops per boss and a larger capacity for class spread, its usually likely something that drops will be useful to someone for at the very least the first few weeks of killing a boss. Meanwhile all hopes of balancing things out are being tied to an as of yet untried system which if LFG for heroics is any indication will not be this ultimate ease of acquiring gear as you seem to think its going to be. It's hard enough getting 5 people in a newly released heroic that know WTF to do and not wipe repeatedly in encounters and thats with a buff to dmg, health and healing. Now you want us to believe that an identical system that will allow raids will be more successful simply because the difficulty will be slightly tuned down and the ilvl for drops slightly lower than normal raid grouping. I guess I am just not privy to the Kool-Aid you guys have in the office to believe this will be as much of a savior system as you think it is. You're going to have the same issue there is with LFG right now in that those more experienced players arent going to want to use it simply because we dont want to have to take the random chance of putting up with stupidity of someone pulling a bunch of trash and then leaving group thinking its funny, a tank with "Hai guys I just hit 85 and amz Deathwing tank!", or any of the other nonsense and just rely on raiding with their guilds. With the weekly cap on points earned still in effect, there is no reason for them to do otherwise. Why waste time raiding with random people who 90% of the time turn out to be a**holes for slightly lesser quality gear when you can just wait, run with your guild and have a less stressful time?

I liked the ability to buy at least some of my tier items off the vendors when drops didn't cooperate with me, which as of yet, they never have. I'm betting a lot of other people felt the same way. In addition to that, people in our guild who couldn't commit to the same amount of play hours each week or had to take a week off here and there for real life could still spam heroics for some points when they could and almost catch up in gear so they could be successful in our raiding when they returned. Now that you're limiting the way we can get this gear to only raid bosses, I foresee many more players getting frustrated and seeing no point to play and people who may need to step away for a time for RL issues being left to feel left behind even more.

One of you in the Dev department, maybe it was GC said some time ago that the objective in WoW is to improve your character and gear was one of the main ways. When you make the attainment of that gear such a damn chore and grind, people are going to grow tired and fed up with the process before they complete it because in the end, this is a game, not a job. I heard all about how there will be multiple ways to attain gear and you dont want it to just be raids on the Panels and presentations at Blizzcon this year, and this change right here tells me all that talk was a bunch of BS, because this is the direct opposite of that claim.

[Kothnok]

If we're supposed to rely on RNG more, I sincerely hope they improve it so that we don't get so many of the same/useless items in a run.