Proving Nothing in the Proving GroundsJul 29th, 2013 at 10:00 AM by Qelric

Thoughts from a Tank

‘Proving Grounds’ are something I and many other World of Warcraft players have been requesting for a long, long time. I envisaged some sort of in-game tutorial or teaching tool designed especially for new players that wish to fulfil ‘important’ roles in groups, such as tanking.

New or inexperienced players would be able to learn the fundamental basics of their class and role without the pressure/stress of learning with a group of random – often impatient – players.

What tanks have been given so far on the public test realms (PTR) is an arena-like setting where wave upon wave of various enemy types come charging at an NPC the tank is instructed to protect. There are four difficulty levels: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Endless.

I logged onto the PTR to try out the Proving Grounds on my Death Knight tank and could see right away how some would find the current design useful. However, ignoring the bugs with both the instanced event and my class (PTR is PTR, after all) I must admit to being disappointed.

What I would like to see is a small dungeon layout with packs of trash requiring tactical pulls, a ready-check confirming the tank is wearing tank gear and a brief explanation of defensive cooldowns and why they’re important.

Next up would be boss positioning, interrupting casts and moving out of fire. Ok, the Proving Grounds already cover the fire part, but all of these things are important for a tank to know. Some of it comes with experience, but remember, the tool is supposed to teach new players before they have a terrible experience in a pick-up-group, giving them the confidence to fulfil their role in this wonderful MMO known as World of Warcraft.

Penny for your thoughts.

For the latest updates on what's coming in Patch 5.4, keep a keen eye on Wowhead.

Qelric

Tags: 5.4,, grounds,, News, patch, proving, warcraft, WorldofWarcraft

Comments

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Joke of an Idea
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# Aug 28 2013 at 7:35 AM Rating: Decent
__DEL__1600042720901
2 posts
Most Players that are mature enough and have played WOW for a long time find this a bit of a joke. I believe most players by level 90 and the ones who have experienced the older content of this game will avoid this feature. Once I have reached lvl 90 on my MAIN toon I better KNOW how to play my TOON in any spec I have chosen to make my MAIN SPEC. SO Why would I want to pit my self agains Computer NPC's to see if I am Number 20 or 50 on my server. Isn't WOW HEROES website enough to say hey this person is ranked 10th on a HOLY priest or 20th on a Shadowpriest.
This is only good for the PVPPER NUTS not us pvers
Right now we will be working on getting geared for that next big raid no doing some silly childs game as a brag
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I-Level
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# Jul 31 2013 at 8:43 AM Rating: Good
Lyrailis
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3,441 posts
......and don't tell me, doing anything in the proving grounds probably requires 496+ I-level, right?

Kinda like Brawlers' Guild.

I really wish they'd start normalizing some of this stuff, or reduce your gear level to a set amount like Challenge Modes so that you don't disinclude non-raiders from ever trying anything.

Non-Raiders != Non-Skilled.

There are plenty of decently skilled players out there who don't have the IRL TIME to join a raiding guild. Requiring ridiculous I-level to get any of this done (Brawler's Guild is nothing but a huge DPS check) makes the content useless for a huge portion of the playerbase.

If they want to test your skill, they need to remove gear from the equation, and you do that by scaling gear down to a set i-level. That's what Brawler's Guild should have done in the first place.
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I-Level
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# Jul 31 2013 at 9:17 AM Rating: Good
__DEL__1612743460917
Scholar
31 posts
I won't swear to it but I think Olivia on Tankspot mentioned proving grounds would be scaling gear down. I'm at work so I can't check at the moment.

Absolutely agree on the Brawler's Guild, I'd like to check out some of the fights with different classes but none of my alts are geared enough to have a chance past the first few ranks.
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Better than target dummies
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# Jul 29 2013 at 7:02 PM Rating: Decent
__DEL__1659313018376
Scholar
37 posts
If nothing else it is a better target dummy to practice healing/DPS on, and to try out a different spec.

The usefulness at lower levels is pretty marginal, as you don't even have all of your abilities yet, and any proving grounds they did would likely be more difficult than the actual content is, as lower level content is incredibly trivial. Honestly I would like to see them expand on what is there for max level(like issues mentioned by OP) before spending time on lower levels.

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Proving to be a disappointment
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# Jul 29 2013 at 11:13 AM Rating: Decent
__DEL__1625444254631
15 posts
Well, I had high hopes for this. I'm always wanting to learn and improve myself, and tbh from what I've seen or heard it's nothing more than a scenario type situation. Yes it could benefit new players, but at the same time, from what I've seen footage wise, it's just flawed. There's nothing to keep you on your toes, to test your situational awareness, tests in a "what if" environment. It's just not there, and it's not something that's going to be of interest to me to be honest. I mean when you're doing bronze-there's virtually no challenge whatsoever. Not even a basic challenge. Which it needs. If you want to tank which I do, you need to be tested on everything, and not just know your class/role.

So I'm disheartened majorly by this, and I'm hoping it gets tweaked so I can actually be tested properly.
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Proving to be a disappointment
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# Jul 29 2013 at 4:31 PM Rating: Decent
__DEL__1623629842245
5 posts
I was really hoping that this was going to be alot better than what its so far turning out to be. Alot of us out there that either hasnt done alot of tanking ect or had a go and took so much abuse cause they was learning really needed something to actual help us get better without the agro. Lets face it we play this game to have fun afterall n if ya getting alot of bad angry rants thrown at ya doing a raid or a dungeon cause ya new at it, ya gonna think why am i doing this if all im getting is abuse. To me those ppl dishing it out should think bk to their first times as we all have to learn the mechanics at some point and instead of the angry rants give advice, help em get better not make em leave.

Proving grounds needs to be made for lower lvld players, having it set for lvl 90`s is just plain dumb, face it unless ya suddenly changing your role say going a healer instead of tanking or vise versa its not going to help you at all. All i can see it being at that lvl is who can survive the most waves in the endless mode and thats just bad all round. Plz Blizzard think what you are doing with this, put yourself in a new players state of mind and you will see that the player base are correct that it should be for low lvl players once they open up the Dungeon route. Make the lvl 90 mode ones to help them say do their kind of Normal n Heroics with stuff that realy puts them to the test n give them a real sense of achievement of beating it.
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Proving to be a disappointment
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# Jul 29 2013 at 1:56 PM Rating: Decent
__DEL__1665361089755
Scholar
18 posts
You see, there are people out there such as you who would love to learn from such an in-game tool, I hope Blizzard tweak the content and add more complex 'scenarios' to the Proving Grounds.
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Prove nothing indeed
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# Jul 29 2013 at 10:57 AM Rating: Decent
__DEL__1676247503625
17 posts
I think is is mostly a wasted opportunity. This should be done at lowlevels for new players to know what to expect from dungeons. A tutorial level with 3 waves at level 10, then a full 10 waves event at key levels (45, 60 and 75 for the respective talents). It should give a fat exp buff and a blue or epic weapon to incentivise everyone to do it.

Then at level 90 something akin to brawlers guild in difficulty. I think it should be way harder, Bronze being equal to the current Gold which is to give basic understanding of the endgame and good enough for LFR/heroics. Silver on the same level as normal raids/challenge modes and Gold level being equal to heroic mode raiding in terms of performance, close to warlock's green fire boss in difficulty.

That way we can actually gauge the performance of players, and it is in the interest of players advertising themselves for groups like "LFG challenge modes/tot hc [Proving Grounds: Gold]". Since there is no reward from PGs aside from a title i say they need to be way hard in order to live up to its name and prove which level you can perform to because right now getting Gold simply means "you are slightly more intelligent than a monkey and can perform basic functions such as decent reforging and dps rotation"

Edited, Jul 29th 2013 12:58pm by frag971

Edited, Jul 29th 2013 12:58pm by frag971
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Prove nothing indeed
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# Aug 28 2013 at 7:46 AM Rating: Decent
__DEL__1600042720901
2 posts
I agree with you, this should be a test for new players to pass before they can level up further, like a 5 part quest line. they level so fast now they really don't learn the mechanics needed to do major raids. and dungeons don't test them as they are coming up. for insteads I qued on one of my alts to do dungeons, 3 dps, 1 90 lvl lock with his 86 lvl lock friend. the tank didn't tank, and most of the other dps didn't dps. in a reg mop dungeon a 90 lvl warlock did all the tanking and pulling and if i am trying to learn my class how am i to learn when someone just runs me thru. there are others that say then never quest to level so are they being pulled thru dungeons get to 90 then expect to get in a raiding guild to do this new raid
most guilds that are doing on reg content can't find good players that want to learn the fights because LFR gives the Achivements but no Challege or know how.
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Prove nothing indeed
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# Jul 29 2013 at 1:52 PM Rating: Decent
__DEL__1665361089755
Scholar
18 posts
Agree with a lot of what you've said, however why does the Proving Grounds have to have any other kind of reward but for learning? I used to think nobody would do the Proving Grounds without some physical incentive but I've changed my mind. Remove the achievements from this content) so it cannot be abused by those LFM) and implement something that ACTUALLY teaches something useful to those who want it.

Thanks for your thoughts.

~ Q
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Prove nothing indeed
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# Jul 29 2013 at 5:18 PM Rating: Decent
__DEL__1676247503625
17 posts
The reward for low levels is to have players actually do it and get a nice boost in leveling, changes nothing for the "real" game.
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