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Garrison Blog Analysis (Part 1 of 4)

by - 10 years ago

In terms of giving us a clearer picture of what garrisons are going to look like in Warlords of Draenor, the long-awaited garrison blog series is starting off with a general overview of the system. For anyone who’s been paying attention since the feature was announced at BlizzCon last year, there’s not a lot that’s new in this post, but there are some new things in there.

It’s important to point out a couple things on that note: first, there’s generally a LOT of info dropped at BlizzCon, and not everyone catches everything, so a solid review six months on is pretty beneficial to the community. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, what’s remarkable about what we’re seeing about garrisons now (while we’re in a visible-but-inaccessible alpha stage of the game) is how LITTLE has changed from what was announced at BlizzCon. Yes, some buildings have been dropped, some previously-stated intentions (namely the ability to put your garrison in any zone in Draenor) have been altered, but overall this post solidifies that most of what was promised by the system upon announcement is actually going to be implemented wholesale.

Let’s talk about what’s new in this first entry.

Garrisons Are Part of Leveling: The assertions heard from Stockton and other devs that the garrison is being tied very tightly into the leveling experience in Draenor has now got some more meat behind it. The example given in the preview (choose between a Lumber Mill or a Sparring Arena at some stage during Gorgrond questing) gives the impression that you’ll come across a choice during a questline, and then unlock an Action Button ability, much like the Klaxxi Paragons offered you in Dread Wastes. I feel like there’s a couple edges to this concept, since creating a semi-irrevocable choice means you’ve got more flexibility for the questing experience when you roll through on a second character. The other edge is that Blizzard clearly designed all of the zones to house a garrison, and the fact that you’re going to use that space (even if your full-on garrison isn’t going to be there) means that there won’t be a weird gap in the zone where something ought to be. That’s good from an immersion standpoint.

Decisions, decisions...

Decisions, decisions…

Followers… Gotta Recruit ’em All: At face value, there’s not much new here, but read between the lines a bit: the act of collecting followers is likened to collecting battle pets and mounts. Nothing is said about having a limit on followers, which is what the Barracks initially increased as you leveled it up. So the inference is that you’ll be able to collect all the followers, combined with the Barracks’ ability changing in the most recent alpha build, certainly implies that  you won’t have such a limit.

Another implication? The Johnny Blacksmith gag specifically states “will increase the output of materials from… your Blacksmith when assigned to work it.” If you don’t need to have a follower with the Blacksmithing skill assigned to the Blacksmithing profession building to get its daily production, that’s certainly a big shift from what we expected from the profession buildings when this was first announced. Put another way: you build a profession building, and you get its benefits immediately, follower not required.

One last note about that /conga emote that’s been promised here: if Blizzard doesn’t make this happen in time for the expansion to launch in the fall, PUSH THE EXPANSION BACK.

jewelcrafting-garrisons

CUT MAH GEMZ

Building Acquisition / We Require Additional Pylons: The main new component here is a follow-on point from the choice matrix from questing: namely, you don’t need to worry about permanently losing out on a building you didn’t choose while questing, because at level 100 you’ll be able to straight-up buy it. Aside from the other avenues of blueprint acquisition we knew before, like dungeon drops and reputation rewards, getting them from particular followers is a new concept, but not really unexpected at this stage. It feeds into the follower collection mini-game.

Garrisons in the Gear Curve: I wanted to pull out this particular quote, since I think there’s something important to understand here. Emphasis added.

In addition, amassing a powerful army of Followers will maximize your chances of earning mission rewards like dungeon and entry-level raid loot for your character—but these will be tuned to feel more like bonuses rather than eclipsing your character’s direct accomplishments. We want there to be a ton of depth to the gameplay and customization of the Garrison, but we also don’t want to make players feel like they’re required to spend more time than they’d like laboring away on it after they’ve reached level 100. We recognize that there’s a fine line between introducing a system that provides cool bonuses and adding “chores” that feel necessary for cutting-edge endgame progression. To this end, players who prefer to level up mostly through dungeons or Battlegrounds will still be able to purchase the building blueprints that would otherwise be obtained through questing on Draenor.

The clear implication here is that your followers are going to net gear for you that will help you out when you’re running dungeons in quest greens, and/or when you’re gearing up to start up Normal raids. The read-between-the-lines moment here is that the gear you get here may be on par or superior to LFR gear. That channels an entirely different blog entry about where LFR will come into play, but the bottom line is that if the gear return for effort is that low, players really will have virtually zero reason to go to LFR for upgrades if follower acquisition is trivial.

Then again, keep in mind that Archaeology in Cataclysm offered entry-level raid gear, and that led to a lot of players burning out on that profession. Notably, gear rewards from Archaeology in Mists were much less powerful, and there’s notable far fewer pieces of gear. I’ll take this all on faith that Blizzard is continuing to refine how players interact with reward systems and try to offer a breadth of opportunities to account for different playstyles without inviting too much powergaming. There’s no way to no how successful that’ll be until we see the implementation, and even then, it might not be until the postmortem until it’s clear if it worked.

That’s all for now: expect another reaction post after the next Garrison blog entry goes live.

 


JR Cook

JR has been writing for fan sites since 2000 and has been involved with Blizzard Exclusive fansites since 2003. JR was also a co-host for 6 years on the Hearthstone podcast Well Met! He helped co-found BlizzPro in 2013.


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