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[Angry Grimace]

My guild just finally got regular Rag down last week, and I'd have been pissed if he was nerfed before we got to beat him the 'normal' way. I'm disappointed we won't get to refine our execution over the next few weeks, as the fight will be severely nerfed in less than a week. As for the logic that these nerfs give players more to do before 4.3? These nerfs will mean there is substantially less to do for me before 4.3, as (if T11 is any indication, and they said the nerfs would be on a similar scope) these fights will cease to be interesting/fun in less than a week thanks to early nerfs. It's becoming increasingly clear that they want to move this game back towards the Wrath model.

But my guess is that people in the position your guild (i.e. just now downing Rag) is in are in the extreme minority at this point.

I sincerely doubt there are that many people that are just downing Ragnaros right now that are going to be really pissed. You're talking a pretty small portion of the playing population.

As for them going back to the Wrath model? I wouldn't doubt it. The game was at least somewhat more popular then. I must say, I kinda miss being able to fill my game time with 10 billion alt runs on super undergeared alts that could just get away with it.

 

[Rokal]

But my guess is that people in the position your guild (i.e. just now downing Rag) is in are in the extreme minority at this point.

I sincerely doubt there are that many people that are just downing Ragnaros right now that are going to be really pissed. You're talking a pretty small portion of the playing population.

If their participation/completion rates for Firelands are low, which is the only reason I could see for them making this change before 4.3, what makes you think there aren't a lot of guilds working on Rag right now? With T11 most guilds got stuck on 9/12 for a while, and then eventually 11/12. It's entirely possible that there are a lot of guilds at 6/7 now, or that would be soon. It's the most natural point in this tier to get stuck.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

I don't know if you could say there was a specific "Wrath Model" though. Sure people use the term to refer to things as being generally easier, but in terms of raids? Wrath was highly experimental and aside from Halion, every raid tier was different in terms of general mechanics.

T7 we had inklings of hard modes with Sarth 3D and some of the achievements, but for the most part it was similar to the way raids worked previously (single difficulty for boss), with most fights being undertuned compared to what a "normal" tier should be like.

T8, Ulduar, still hasn't been topped IMO not just for the bosses/environment of the raid dungeon, but the methodology behind the hard/heroic modes and tuning. Tuning on normal mode encounters was good, and hard mode tuning was great as well. Some fairly easy hard modes, with others being challenging, but doable, and others brutally difficult (perhaps overtuned.)

T9 - Quality of the raid instance aside (the bosses themselves weren't actually that bad - just other things about it...) we now simply have a UI toggle for heroic modes, like you would have for dungeons. This isn't as fun and doesn't allow for sliding difficulty like was possible before (Sarth, +1+2+3, Freya + Elders, Iron Council, etc.) I don't think anyone ever disliked having more ways to tackle a boss.

T10 - Here we carry over from T9 pretty much, a more refined version of that system, except now you don't have to run the instances 4 times in a week since doing the normal or heroic mode locks you out of the other (you can only kill a boss once per raid size per week, rather than twice as in T9).

T10/T11 - Same as T10, except now you can only do the raid once per week (one raid size.)


I may be leaving some specifics out - they did so many changes during/after T10. In T9 you just switched the entire raid instance over to heroic, but in T10 it was toggleable per boss at one point? Then it wasn't? Anyway...

Point is...they tried out a fuckton of different things in Wrath so there is no "Wrath Model" unless you just mean a general lack of need to CC - which did exist in some spots, but was outgeared much quicker than seems to have happened in Cataclysm.

Ulduar with sliding difficulty for some bosses and binary for others was still the best overall system, but I remember Blizzard at the time saying that they chose not to continue doing that and went with the UI toggle because the options "were too confusing for players" or some such bad explanation. That argument wouldn't hold water now with the introduction of the Dungeon Journal clearly pointing things out for you. It would be easy to put in the details that say "Oh, killing XT's heart will activate his hard mode and make him stronger, he now gains X abilities and loses Y abilities."

Another reason could be - you have to design better encounters for sliding difficulty to work (again, it doesn't have to be on all the bosses, but still...) and coming up with mechanics that activate a hard mode as well as hard mode mechanics themselves would become too difficult over time, so Blizzard just scrapped it for the toggle we have now that gives you the trio of more health, more damage, a couple new abilities (and possibly more for showpiece encounters like Ragnaros.) That's the pessimistic view though - that they decided to take the easy way out rather then stretch themselves with good design.


So if you got anything out of this post...

Yes, 2 years later, I'm still bitter over patch 3.2

 

[C.Dark.DN]

I'm 6/7 normal. We have done 18 attempts the past month because we basically only raid 1 day a week because people keep having things come up.

Piss poor progression right there.

How do I feel? Mad that we have wasted a months worth of progression time. Maybe we can get shit together before the 19th.

But we've been a casual 1 or 2 day a week raiding guild for 4.2.

So, it's our fault for not downing him yet.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I don't know if you could say there was a specific "Wrath Model" though. Sure people use the term to refer to things as being generally easier, but in terms of raids? Wrath was highly experimental and aside from Halion, every raid tier was different in terms of general mechanics.

T7 we had inklings of hard modes with Sarth 3D and some of the achievements, but for the most part it was similar to the way raids worked previously (single difficulty for boss), with most fights being undertuned compared to what a "normal" tier should be like.

T8, Ulduar, still hasn't been topped IMO not just for the bosses/environment of the raid dungeon, but the methodology behind the hard/heroic modes and tuning. Tuning on normal mode encounters was good, and hard mode tuning was great as well. Some fairly easy hard modes, with others being challenging, but doable, and others brutally difficult (perhaps overtuned.)

T9 - Quality of the raid instance aside (the bosses themselves weren't actually that bad - just other things about it...) we now simply have a UI toggle for heroic modes, like you would have for dungeons. This isn't as fun and doesn't allow for sliding difficulty like was possible before (Sarth, +1+2+3, Freya + Elders, Iron Council, etc.) I don't think anyone ever disliked having more ways to tackle a boss.

T10 - Here we carry over from T9 pretty much, a more refined version of that system, except now you don't have to run the instances 4 times in a week since doing the normal or heroic mode locks you out of the other (you can only kill a boss once per raid size per week, rather than twice as in T9).

T10/T11 - Same as T10, except now you can only do the raid once per week (one raid size.)


I may be leaving some specifics out - they did so many changes during/after T10. In T9 you just switched the entire raid instance over to heroic, but in T10 it was toggleable per boss at one point? Then it wasn't? Anyway...

Point is...they tried out a fuckton of different things in Wrath so there is no "Wrath Model" unless you just mean a general lack of need to CC - which did exist in some spots, but was outgeared much quicker than seems to have happened in Cataclysm.

Ulduar with sliding difficulty for some bosses and binary for others was still the best overall system, but I remember Blizzard at the time saying that they chose not to continue doing that and went with the UI toggle because the options "were too confusing for players" or some such bad explanation. That argument wouldn't hold water now with the introduction of the Dungeon Journal clearly pointing things out for you. It would be easy to put in the details that say "Oh, killing XT's heart will activate his hard mode and make him stronger, he now gains X abilities and loses Y abilities."

Another reason could be - you have to design better encounters for sliding difficulty to work (again, it doesn't have to be on all the bosses, but still...) and coming up with mechanics that activate a hard mode as well as hard mode mechanics themselves would become too difficult over time, so Blizzard just scrapped it for the toggle we have now that gives you the trio of more health, more damage, a couple new abilities (and possibly more for showpiece encounters like Ragnaros.) That's the pessimistic view though - that they decided to take the easy way out rather then stretch themselves with good design.


So if you got anything out of this post...

Yes, 2 years later, I'm still bitter over patch 3.2

They should commit themselves to making kickass shit like Ulduar again. Best dungeon ever.

 

[GLopez12]

Rift's raids were also plagued with bugs.

True, and they also have gear checks.

I'm just saying that Blizzard should make harder content that lasts longer. They can still keep a low bar for the access stuff, like normal modes, but making even heroics easy is ridiculous. I think they can do better than have the last boss of a tier die in heroic mode within two or three weeks of release.

Regardless, Blizzard should never nerf content in the middle of a patch cycle. It's one thing to have a buff like they did in CC or nerf old content, but severely nerfing the freshest content in the middle of a patch cycle is really bad.

 

[wonderdung]

Guilds around 2000ish world will be hitting 6/7H this coming week. It feels a little early to go nerfing everything, and it's a disappointing choice given how easy the content is already. The only thing that's worth nerfing is heroic Rag, and I'd expect them to go another few weeks before touching that.

I guess this is an indication of what we can expect from the future of WoW raiding... I'm not expecting it to increase their subscription numbers either.

 

[Mairu]

Guilds around 2000ish world will be hitting 6/7H this coming week. It feels a little early to go nerfing everything, and it's a disappointing choice given how easy the content is already. The only thing that's worth nerfing is heroic Rag, and I'd expect them to go another few weeks before touching that.

I guess this is an indication of what we can expect from the future of WoW raiding... I'm not expecting it to increase their subscription numbers either.

They just nerfed heroic ragnaros last week, I really hope the nerfs that are coming next week don't include further heroic rag nerfs.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

They just nerfed heroic ragnaros last week, I really hope the nerfs that are coming next week don't include further heroic rag nerfs.

They do.
" In general, we plan to reduce health and damage of all raid bosses in both normal and Heroic Firelands by around the same percentage we brought difficulty down for the original Cataclysm raids when Rage of the Firelands (patch 4.2) was released."
4.0 was hella nefed in 4.2
Hella.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Guilds around 2000ish world will be hitting 6/7H this coming week. It feels a little early to go nerfing everything, and it's a disappointing choice given how easy the content is already. The only thing that's worth nerfing is heroic Rag, and I'd expect them to go another few weeks before touching that.

I guess this is an indication of what we can expect from the future of WoW raiding... I'm not expecting it to increase their subscription numbers either.

True. Maybe it's just me (and others, not sure if minority or majority) but I feel like there should be some elitism in WoW and MMOs and general. Not everyone has to see everything (when it's relevant.) It gives you something to strive for. Since it's happened, using a Wrath boss for an example:

I think everyone who wanted to kill the Lich King and put in a reasonable effort should have been able to - at least on 10-man. Is that 70% of the population? 80%? Less? More? That doesn't mean everyone should be able to farm Heroic 25-man Lich King. That's something which should limited to 5%-25% or so.

Yes, you will be making content at times that won't be seen first hand by everybody, but it's still content for everybody. The lower the difficulty cap, the more bored a lot of people become.

It's a fine balance, and combined with other factors, Blizzard hasn't hit it out of the park in a while.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

They should commit themselves to making kickass shit like Ulduar again. Best dungeon ever.

My favorite dungeon is Karazhan. Layout was phenomenal. Bosses were fun. And no heroic modes. Just a straight forward dungeon to jump into with 9 other friends. Music and atmosphere was amazing, too.

 

[Mairu]

They do.
" In general, we plan to reduce health and damage of all raid bosses in both normal and Heroic Firelands by around the same percentage we brought difficulty down for the original Cataclysm raids when Rage of the Firelands (patch 4.2) was released."
4.0 was hella nefed in 4.2
Hella.

They just reduced his health by 15%, and while it is possible that they will reduce his health and damage another 20%, I really hope that is not the case. It'd turn a difficult but doable fight into another joke of a fight

 

[Rokal]

They just nerfed heroic ragnaros last week, I really hope the nerfs that are coming next week don't include further heroic rag nerfs.

Normal mode will see ~20% across-the-board nerfs, no word on how big the heroic nerfs will be, but they'll be across-the-board as well. The 20% nerf to T11 made it completely boring to do. Dangerous mechanics no longer really posed a threat, bosses died fairly fast, people could play like idiots and still win.

I remember reading about the Cataclysm beta after a 2 year hiatus from the game, and hearing that the 5-man content was going to be challenging again. People were actually going to have to use CC and pay attention to mechanics, insanity! Things were actually pretty awesome at launch. I liked the new class changes, I loved the new 5-man difficulty, and T11 had a great balance for my guild too. Now look where we are: T11/heroic 5-mans are a total joke thanks to the nerf bat and heavy gear-inflation, and T12 is about to be neutered months before the next raid cluster even arrives.

Should have just skipped the expansion and continued ignoring WoW.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Oh man. Was reading through some of the original WoW thread. I'll have to keep reading as it kind of captures the spirit of being new to everything. Original thread goes from 2004 to 2010 too with over 40k posts.

And one last thing:

Something that would reinvigorate this game is server condensation. Now I know some people like low or medium pop servers and there are drawbacks at times to high pop servers, but I think it could help out in finding more people that fit your playstyle, and livening up the "deader" realms.

Looking at WoWProgress, there are a lot of servers (looking at US here) with 5k, 6k people when the top 25 average probably 13k. Just merge about half the servers, and you'd have 2/3s high-medium pop and the rest low pop. Compared to now which is 50%+ low pop it seems.

Still, you'd have the issue breaking/leaving level 25 guilds, which is probably something that could be worked on, but does currently hinder a freer flow of people. (Unless you can now power-level guilds? I'm not sure if the cap was removed, but it would seem like a logical thing to do now that the system is old.

 

[TheYanger]

Playing on a large server is night and day from playing on a dead one. Mal'ganis was infinitely better than Ysondre where I am now, it really makes a difference.

These nerfs are just retarded. Firelands is EASY. Yeah nerf normals AFTER the next tier is out, but jesus fucking christ...there are no words for the idea of nerfing normal AND heroic next week when the zone isn't even 2 months old. Nobody can defend shit like this as encouraging more people to see content. The time they spent making firelands is completely wasted, it's a flash in the pan: If you weren't here for the 2 months the zone was good, you missed it completely. That's shorter than any raid zone has ever been relevant, and you will have 0 reason to go back to it besides making more legedary staves (Which is a whole other pile of retardation on their part that I won't get in to).

More proof that the BC model worked, and this current model is just a jumbled mess.

 

[dave is ok]

I'm guessing these nerfs were the reasoning behind nerfing the legendary acquire rate.

If you were killing Rag pre-nerf as a 10 man guild, you might get a legendary this year. If you weren't you won't

 

[TheYanger]

Except they didn't nerf the acquisition rate really, only for 25h, it's now faster to split your 25 man into 2-3 10 mans to get staves, it's fucking retarded.

The 10 mans whining that they'd only get 1 staff before the next tier was absolutely ridiculous. (especially since in all likely hood it would be 2 but I digress, and it's DEFINITELY 2 now). Like, it's a fucking legendary. How is getting tons of them useful for the game? 1 of your dps getting a staff in a 10 man is 20% of your dps getting one, PROBABLY 50-33% of your caster dps. Compare it to 25 man where to have 20% of your dps getting a staff you'd need to get almost 4 times as many (3.6 staves, assuming a 5 heal 2 tank), and they make it sway FARTHER in 10 mans favor? 10 man raiders act so entitled and throw a fit over the stupidest shit. The fact that Blizz caved just showed that they lack the balls to use some basic math or spreadsheets for acquisition rates and ratios to shut up the complaints. (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they weren't actually too stupid to realize how unbalanced it is in the first place)

 

[Angry Grimace]

I swear I'm not saying it be a contrarian, but it does strike me kind of odd for people in forums to suggest they know how to increase subs better than Blizzard does. We can only really speculate on the numbers that people are putting up in Firelands, whereas Blizzard doesn't have to.

The fact is, it seems like all of the people who are claiming to be disappointed already beat Ragnaros on normal; the complaint is entirely theoretical about how bad it might feel if you missed out when the tier was challenging. I'm not saying I don't understand feeling like it's not challenging, but for lack of a better word I'm not seeing a lot of standing to make the complaint. And in all fairness, most of (not all, so don't freak out) the people complaining about heroic Ragnaros never had a chance to ever beat Heroic Ragnaros until it got nerfed, if even then.

 

[mileS]

You cannot finish that quest nor can you obtain it. The reason why you got the achievement was because you theoretically could only get the Dragon Sinew from downing Onyxia, but then Blizzard changed their mind and dropped the sinew off of other black dragons in Burning Steppes, so it was still in there. However, you can't get the hunter's quest any more, nor can you get the sinew or complete the quest.

when did they change it? I've been doing MC lately and I haven't seen another leaf drop so I assume thats what they had taken out? When I finished mine it was late into WOTLK (but then again I had had the leaf sitting in my bags for a good long time) Got the sinew from the new Ony(was kind of surprised about that) and farmed that spot in Winterspring for the other from what I can remember.

Oh well, makes me glad I finally got around to doing it then.

 

[TheYanger]

I swear I'm not saying it be a contrarian, but it does strike me kind of odd for people in forums to suggest they know how to increase subs better than Blizzard does. We can only really speculate on the numbers that people are putting up in Firelands, whereas Blizzard doesn't have to.

The fact is, it seems like all of the people who are claiming to be disappointed already beat Ragnaros on normal; the complaint is entirely theoretical about how bad it might feel if you missed out when the tier was challenging. I'm not saying I don't understand feeling like it's not challenging, but for lack of a better word I'm not seeing a lot of standing to make the complaint. And in all fairness, most of (not all, so don't freak out) the people complaining about heroic Ragnaros never had a chance to ever beat Heroic Ragnaros until it got nerfed, if even then.

I know PLENTY of 6/7 normal people that don't want this stuff to be nerfed either. There are MONTHS until 4.3, why would you nerf the current content people are still working on?

Again, there has never been any proof that people quit because they couldn't see end bosses, only that they wistfully wished they could have. Normal mode/heroic mode 'fixed' that supposedly. Now we're getting heroics nerfed down so everyone can experience those too? What was the point of the division in the first place then?

People quit because there is NOTHING TO FUCKING DO in this game. Making shit easier so there is even less to do is not the way to fix the problems. More content, not invalidating your own work as a company (IE not making it so there is literally only one thing worth doing at any given time), quality content, that's what got Blizz to the top of the heap. When your business model is what got you there, why would you think changing it would suddenly recoup losses? This is panic mode plain and simple. Game loses subs, PANIC. the reality is that the game is fucking old, of course it's losing subs. You get new subs and you can retain them the same way you retained subs in the old days: by making content that people want to do to keep them playing the game. Once someone ACTUALLY does everything, then they don't need to play anymore. That's not rocket science that's game design 101. You can make the game more accessible and less obtuse to newbies while still retaining challenge and tiers of content, the two goals are not at odds.

 

[Angry Grimace]

when did they change it? I've been doing MC lately and I haven't seen another leaf drop so I assume thats what they had taken out? When I finished mine it was late into WOTLK (but then again I had had the leaf sitting in my bags for a good long time) Got the sinew from the new Ony(was kind of surprised about that) and farmed that spot in Winterspring for the other from what I can remember.

Oh well, makes me glad I finally got around to doing it then.

The quest isn't offered, obtainable or possible to be turned in. It's what they call a depreciated quest.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I know PLENTY of 6/7 normal people that don't want this stuff to be nerfed either. There are MONTHS until 4.3, why would you nerf the current content people are still working on?

Again, there has never been any proof that people quit because they couldn't see end bosses, only that they wistfully wished they could have. Normal mode/heroic mode 'fixed' that supposedly. Now we're getting heroics nerfed down so everyone can experience those too? What was the point of the division in the first place then?

People quit because there is NOTHING TO FUCKING DO in this game. Making shit easier so there is even less to do is not the way to fix the problems. More content, not invalidating your own work as a company (IE not making it so there is literally only one thing worth doing at any given time), quality content, that's what got Blizz to the top of the heap. When your business model is what got you there, why would you think changing it would suddenly recoup losses? This is panic mode plain and simple. Game loses subs, PANIC. the reality is that the game is fucking old, of course it's losing subs. You get new subs and you can retain them the same way you retained subs in the old days: by making content that people want to do to keep them playing the game. Once someone ACTUALLY does everything, then they don't need to play anymore. That's not rocket science that's game design 101. You can make the game more accessible and less obtuse to newbies while still retaining challenge and tiers of content, the two goals are not at odds.

But I don't think it's a fair argument to put the data Blizzard has about how many bosses are being downed a week vs. attempts against the "guys you know." The only way that argument makes sense is if you argue Blizzard is making a totally arbitrary decision. The nerf might have nothing to do with subscription numbers at all. Perhaps people just aren't progressing anymore, or fast enough.

I'm just saying that I think it requires drawing inferences from inferences to try and connect all this to the subscription numbers and cancel/uptake ratios (which we don't really have access to). It's a perfectly fair point that WoW is a 6 year old game and the sub numbers might just be down because WoW is long in the tooth, and nothing related to Cataclsym at all. Saying there's no proof people quit because raiding is too hard is an inherently fallacial statement because there's no proof that people quit for any particular reason.

I just think it's a weird argument when Wrath had continually rising sub numbers before they stopped putting out content entirely at the end given that the raiding model was far easier to begin with.

 

[Mr Nash]

It seems silly that the nerfs would come for heroic mode. I thought the whole point of playing heroics was for the challenge. Have normals for those who just want to see the content, and have the heroics who want something to really bang their head against. The fact that heroic Firelands is already on the firing lines for nerfs is worrisome.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

It's a perfectly fair point that WoW is a 6 year old game and the sub numbers might just be down because WoW is long in the tooth, and nothing related to Cataclsym at all.

I definitely think part of it is that WoW is getting older, sure. But I do think that Cataclysm itself has been subpar compared to the other expansions, especially not providing nearly as much endgame content (which is what most people spend the majority of their time with) and having long droughts between that content.

Anyway, I think one of the problems that has been approached the wrong way is continually making raids easier with the intention that everyone should be able to do them. Not everyone has time to commit to a raiding schedule though, and if you do, the difficulty of the raid dungeon is not a huge issue if you have the time to put in practice. Instead of making raids easier earlier (I don't mind nerfs post-relevance), they should work to put in worthwhile PvE content (whatever that may be) that people at max level can do other than raids.

I had another point here, but it slipped my mind - will post if I remember.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Ooh. Druid T13 and Retrospective is up.

I think it looks pretty good, but it's not a complete standout. Might just be that it's being modeled on a Night Elf though. Lemme see it on a Tauren!

T6 is by far the best Druid set though, and probably one of the top 10 sets in the game overall. Really great there.

For me, none of the other Druid sets are huge standouts, but none are complete trash either. Worst is maybe T2.5 and T9. Next best after T6 is probably T7 or T5. T1 and T2 have that super druidy look though, other than T6.

 

[Bisnic]

I'm not sure what Blizzard could add to end-game PVE content other than heroics, raids and (lol) dailies. I think they need to add something that doesn't require a schedule like raiding. Something that can be done in less than a hour like a heroic run, but still isn't very repetitive and boring like dailies are. Sure, there is also achievements grinding right now, but honestly, who wants to fish 43 different fishes for 10 useless achievement points?

 

[Angry Grimace]

Druid T13 looks like 5 man dungeon gear with some blue sparkles on it

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Druid T13 looks like 5 man dungeon gear with some blue sparkles on it

They're actually glowing mushrooms if you look close. At first I thought they were crystals (which maybe would have been better?)

 

[Rokal]

The fact is, it seems like all of the people who are claiming to be disappointed already beat Ragnaros on normal; the complaint is entirely theoretical about how bad it might feel if you missed out when the tier was challenging. I'm not saying I don't understand feeling like it's not challenging, but for lack of a better word I'm not seeing a lot of standing to make the complaint. And in all fairness, most of (not all, so don't freak out) the people complaining about heroic Ragnaros never had a chance to ever beat Heroic Ragnaros until it got nerfed, if even then.

I'm disappointed that in a week normal mode will be nerfed to be completely boring, robbing me of the fun I might have had clearing it normally a few more times before moving on. I'm disappointed that heroic mode is being nerfed, so any kills my guild does get on heroic mode will no longer feel earned (or heroic). I'd have rather only been able to kill 1-2 bosses on hard mode and never seen Ragnaros HM than to have the entire thing nerfed.

 

[idlewild_]

Druid T13 looks like 5 man dungeon gear with some blue sparkles on it

the main problem i have with this set is the 'jewelry'. i'm sure it's showed up on other tier sets before, but when you have a pendant on a rope, you can't just stretch the texture for different stances (standing ready vs 'active', etc.) and have it not look like ass. i'm at a loss for what exactly blizz could do better in designing these sets. they need to have new unique looking designs to keep people happy, however using complex cloth physics is probably not possible with the size of the game and all the other interactions going on. it just makes the sets look bad in motion :/

 

[TheYanger]

I'm not sure what Blizzard could add to end-game PVE content other than heroics, raids and (lol) dailies. I think they need to add something that doesn't require a schedule like raiding. Something that can be done in less than a hour like a heroic run, but still isn't very repetitive and boring like dailies are. Sure, there is also achievements grinding right now, but honestly, who wants to fish 43 different fishes for 10 useless achievement points?

Things like making heroics challenging again, putting in lots of solo content that required WORK ('boring' though it may be, people fucking did it and it compelled them to play). There was plenty to do in BC and Vanilla at max level, and since you didn't just gear up through dungeons/heroics in a fucking weekend you kept doing them. Especially with the dungeon finder those are now a solo activity, yet you run their course almost immediately besides the once a week badge farm.

 

[dave is ok]

Except they didn't nerf the acquisition rate really, only for 25h, it's now faster to split your 25 man into 2-3 10 mans to get staves, it's fucking retarded.

This isn't true. If it was, they'd be doing that.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Things like making heroics challenging again, putting in lots of solo content that required WORK ('boring' though it may be, people fucking did it and it compelled them to play). There was plenty to do in BC and Vanilla at max level, and since you didn't just gear up through dungeons/heroics in a fucking weekend you kept doing them. Especially with the dungeon finder those are now a solo activity, yet you run their course almost immediately besides the once a week badge farm.

One notable thing is rep grinds. I kind of enjoy them. Tabards for every one? Makes it a bit too easy IMO.

Maybe if the Tabard only worked up until Revered, or vice versa and was only unlocked at Revered.

Kind of nitpicky I know. I can't say reputation tabards are necessarily a bad thing. But having to grind out rep through killing mobs, or turn-ins, or interesting quests feels a bit more worthwhile, even if it is more grindy. I felt really good when I finished Netherwing, for example.

 

[TheYanger]

This isn't true. If it was, they'd be doing that.

Yes, it is true, and it's only been a week. Expect to see it soon. If you do ALL of the steps on 10 man it's not significantly faster, because the first few parts are still slow, however it's now been 3 months, any guild that has been raiding 25s that whole time has at least 2 people waiting on the last step, and at least 2-3 more on the step before.

I'll quote the exact numbers from EJ:
Previously it was 18/8/8/3 now it's 10/8/8/4.

So while before you got 18 essences per boss on heroic 25 vs 8 on heroic 10, you now get 10 on heroic 25 vs 8 on heroic 10. You can quite easily split a 25 man guild into three 10 man runs, and now get 24 essences per boss on average. Even if you don't have 3 GOOD 10 mans that can do Rag, you're making out like bandits compared to running 25 man. It's retarded as hell. I guarantee you'll see this soon enough, there won't be any reason to keep farming the zone BESIDES legendaries to pimp your raid up before Deathwing, and given how absurdly strong the staff is it could be a major deciding factor in the progression race. The only legendary that has ever been remotely this good was Thunderfury, and you only needed one of those.

 

[TheYanger]

One notable thing is rep grinds. I kind of enjoy them. Tabards for every one? Makes it a bit too easy IMO.

Maybe if the Tabard only worked up until Revered, or vice versa and was only unlocked at Revered.

Kind of nitpicky I know. I can't say reputation tabards are necessarily a bad thing. But having to grind out rep through killing mobs, or turn-ins, or interesting quests feels a bit more worthwhile, even if it is more grindy. I felt really good when I finished Netherwing, for example.

I know a LOT of people that feel that way, even if you're very casual it's giving you a goal to work towards at your own pace. While I think the tabards are good for some reps, there's nothing saying there can't be a half dozen other reps/daily sets to grind out, that are totally optional and have fun rewards along with medium level upgrades for the solo player. This is CHEAP content to create as well, and uses very little dev time.

 

[wonderdung]

Except they didn't nerf the acquisition rate really, only for 25h, it's now faster to split your 25 man into 2-3 10 mans to get staves, it's fucking retarded.

The 10 mans whining that they'd only get 1 staff before the next tier was absolutely ridiculous. (especially since in all likely hood it would be 2 but I digress, and it's DEFINITELY 2 now). Like, it's a fucking legendary. How is getting tons of them useful for the game? 1 of your dps getting a staff in a 10 man is 20% of your dps getting one, PROBABLY 50-33% of your caster dps. Compare it to 25 man where to have 20% of your dps getting a staff you'd need to get almost 4 times as many (3.6 staves, assuming a 5 heal 2 tank), and they make it sway FARTHER in 10 mans favor? 10 man raiders act so entitled and throw a fit over the stupidest shit. The fact that Blizz caved just showed that they lack the balls to use some basic math or spreadsheets for acquisition rates and ratios to shut up the complaints. (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they weren't actually too stupid to realize how unbalanced it is in the first place)

All I want is for the rate of acquisition to be the same for 25 and 10 assuming equal progression, I don't care if they get 2.5 staves in the same time as a 10 as long as everyone gets their first the same week. The time it takes to get one also doesn't really matter so long as the rate is the same. As for getting more than one staff I think people are still in the ICC mindset where guilds got like four Shadowmournes... but that tier lasted way too long to start with.

This is easily the worst designed legendary questline they've come up with. I've said that multiple times. And it's not just because I won't get my staff for another 6-8 weeks when other guilds have had it for weeks. It's broken beyond repair, though... naturally I appreciate any nerfs to the 10 man acquisition time because it benefits me, but it's still a totally wrong-headed way to distribute legendaries.

 

[dave is ok]

Expect to see it soon. If you do ALL of the steps on 10 man it's not significantly faster, because the first few parts are still slow, however it's now been 3 months, any guild that has been raiding 25s that whole time has at least 2 people waiting on the last step, and at least 2-3 more on the step before.

You said it yourself. Most progressed 25 man guilds are almost done with their 3rd staff with a few people finishing up cinders and waiting on essences. It will always be quicker for those people to get the items from 25 man. Unless a guild wants to make multiple staves at the same time, which is dumb

 

[Angry Grimace]

Things like making heroics challenging again, putting in lots of solo content that required WORK ('boring' though it may be, people fucking did it and it compelled them to play). There was plenty to do in BC and Vanilla at max level, and since you didn't just gear up through dungeons/heroics in a fucking weekend you kept doing them. Especially with the dungeon finder those are now a solo activity, yet you run their course almost immediately besides the once a week badge farm.

The problem is that you're conflating Pavlovian response with fun. There's a reason Jonathan Blow once referred to classic WoW as "unethical." I go to work to do work. The EQ mindset is a rapidly dying phenomena. The chance of them putting that type of Korean MMO grinding back into WoW is almost nil. The fact you used the term "compelled" is instructive. There's lots of things people will do; even within an ostensibly "fun" activity that are.t fun at all. You just do it for some carrot.

I'd much rather see something new and innovative that isn't at its core, just more grinding.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Yes, it is true, and it's only been a week. Expect to see it soon. If you do ALL of the steps on 10 man it's not significantly faster, because the first few parts are still slow, however it's now been 3 months, any guild that has been raiding 25s that whole time has at least 2 people waiting on the last step, and at least 2-3 more on the step before.

I'll quote the exact numbers from EJ:
Previously it was 18/8/8/3 now it's 10/8/8/4.

So while before you got 18 essences per boss on heroic 25 vs 8 on heroic 10, you now get 10 on heroic 25 vs 8 on heroic 10. You can quite easily split a 25 man guild into three 10 man runs, and now get 24 essences per boss on average. Even if you don't have 3 GOOD 10 mans that can do Rag, you're making out like bandits compared to running 25 man. It's retarded as hell. I guarantee you'll see this soon enough, there won't be any reason to keep farming the zone BESIDES legendaries to pimp your raid up before Deathwing, and given how absurdly strong the staff is it could be a major deciding factor in the progression race. The only legendary that has ever been remotely this good was Thunderfury, and you only needed one of those.

What thread are they discussing that on EJ?

 

[TheYanger]

The problem is that you're conflating Pavlovian response with fun. There's a reason Jonathan Blow once referred to classic WoW as "unethical." I go to work to do work. The EQ mindset is a rapidly dying phenomena. The chance of them putting that type of Korean MMO grinding back into WoW is almost nil. The fact you used the term "compelled" is instructive. There's lots of things people will do; even within an ostensibly "fun" activity that are.t fun at all. You just do it for some carrot.

I'd much rather see something new and innovative that isn't at its core, just more grinding.

You're right, it makes more sense to give them nothing to do so that they quit. Contrary to what you might think, a LOT of people find it compelling to grind things, and classic and BC wow put those grinds in without making it anything mandatory, it was totally optional. that's a HUGE difference from your average korean MMO. Your average wow player literally CANNOT LOG IN and accomplish anything besides earning some gold, at any given point right now. I would love to have more options available to me, because wow is inherantly fun to play....when you're working towards a goal.

You said it yourself. Most progressed 25 man guilds are almost done with their 3rd staff with a few people finishing up cinders and waiting on essences. It will always be quicker for those people to get the items from 25 man. Unless a guild wants to make multiple staves at the same time, which is dumb

How is that dumb? That's the whole idea. You get 3 times as many staves in the same amount of time. THAT is dumb. Of course we have staves out the ass in 25s right now, they JUST nerfed the drop rate. This week. You're also comparing a single 10 man to a single 25 man. The entire point of this being a problem is that it is more compelling for a 25 man guild to split into multiple 10 mans to complete staves faster. I don't get what's hard about the math.

All I want is for the rate of acquisition to be the same for 25 and 10 assuming equal progression, I don't care if they get 2.5 staves in the same time as a 10 as long as everyone gets their first the same week. The time it takes to get one also doesn't really matter so long as the rate is the same. As for getting more than one staff I think people are still in the ICC mindset where guilds got like four Shadowmournes... but that tier lasted way too long to start with.

This is easily the worst designed legendary questline they've come up with. I've said that multiple times. And it's not just because I won't get my staff for another 6-8 weeks when other guilds have had it for weeks. It's broken beyond repair, though... naturally I appreciate any nerfs to the 10 man acquisition time because it benefits me, but it's still a totally wrong-headed way to distribute legendaries.

Agreed, Shadowmourne was over the top too, but people forget it was a FUCKING YEAR. And you got like, 4 or 5 in that time. This staff is going to leave good guilds with almost fucking 10 after less than 6 months. It's retarded.

What thread are they discussing that on EJ?

Was a topic of discussion last week when it happened in the 4.2 thread in the BB. The BB is the ONLY part of EJ that has actual discussion about what goes on with the game, the rest is too heavily moderated and only useful for keeping up to date on theory changes or whatever.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

The problem is that you're conflating Pavlovian response with fun. There's a reason Jonathan Blow once referred to classic WoW as "unethical." I go to work to do work. The EQ mindset is a rapidly dying phenomena. The chance of them putting that type of Korean MMO grinding back into WoW is almost nil. The fact you used the term "compelled" is instructive. There's lots of things people will do; even within an ostensibly "fun" activity that are.t fun at all. You just do it for some carrot.

I'd much rather see something new and innovative that isn't at its core, just more grinding.

Achievements are probably worse though. They justify doing something even when there is no other significant award.

 

[Entropia]

In non-in-game related news, is anyone going to be attending this? http://www.wowheadnews.com/blog=195083/blizzcon-2011-wowhead-and-wow-insider-party

Or is anyone even going to Blizzcon?

 

[Angry Grimace]

You're right, it makes more sense to give them nothing to do so that they quit. Contrary to what you might think, a LOT of people find it compelling to grind things, and classic and BC wow put those grinds in without making it anything mandatory, it was totally optional. that's a HUGE difference from your average korean MMO. Your average wow player literally CANNOT LOG IN and accomplish anything besides earning some gold, at any given point right now. I would love to have more options available to me, because wow is inherantly fun to play....when you're working towards a goal.

See, but the problem is that the fun part of the game is playing dungeons and raids with other people. You're proposing that they put content in the game which you are explicitly saying is not fun ("'boring' though it may be, people fucking did it and it compelled them to play.'") because casual players will do it anyways.

That's taking a position that's elitist (which to some degree is fine and expected in anything competitive) and turning it into a position that's outright morally bankrupt. People find it compelling to grind things because it's psychologically addictive. Saying we should take the content in the game that is objectively fun and taking it even more out of their hands and replacing it with content which we're freely admitting is not fun on the grounds that some people will do anything is simply an outrageous position to take.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Was a topic of discussion last week when it happened in the 4.2 thread in the BB. The BB is the ONLY part of EJ that has actual discussion about what goes on with the game, the rest is too heavily moderated and only useful for keeping up to date on theory changes or whatever.

Post a screen shot because I think you know the BB is only for people who donated to EJ and I think you're too embarssed to admit you quoting this thread Dragonwrath rate is unfair for 25m HM guilds on the official forums because you like to say things like "The 10 mans whining". The Offical Forums can have accurate information on either side of the argument.

Prove me wrong, because I think it's hilarious if I'm right.

 

[Entropia]

Post a screen shot because I think you know the BB is only for people who donated to EJ and I think you're too embarssed to admit you quoting this thread Dragonwrath rate is unfair for 25m HM guilds on the official forums because you like to say things like "The 10 mans whining". The Offical Forums can have accurate information on either side of the argument.

Prove me wrong, because I think it's hilarious if I'm right.

I can say with 110% certainty that Yanger is in BB. More than likely, someone from the BB posted that info on the general forums.

 

[TheYanger]

Post a screen shot because I think you know the BB is only for people who donated to EJ and I think you're too embarssed to admit you quoting this thread Dragonwrath rate is unfair for 25m HM guilds on the official forums because you like to say things like "The 10 mans whining". The Offical Forums can have accurate information on either side of the argument.

Prove me wrong, because I think it's hilarious if I'm right.

wat. The only part I directly quoted were the numbers, which are easily verifiable by...DOING SOME MATH. Why would I give a shit where I quoted it from?
Can't believe I bothered but since you threw down on me so viciously I will derive a bit of pleasure in responding.

 

[dave is ok]

Really they shouldn't have made the legendary quest able to be completed by three people at a time. It takes months to make your first, but after that it's five weeks per staff or whatever

 

[TheYanger]

It was too fast in the first place all around, largely because of 10 mans and their need to balance 25s around that, and then all the 10 man bitching led to THIS, which is even worse.

It SHOULD be accepted that a 10 man would get ONE of the legendary during a tier. That's already hugely generous in terms of ratio, but you can't get it any smaller than that. While it sucks that there's no decent way to throttle it like that besides making it just take forever and a day on 10 man, the other options are the shit we have now where you get thousands and it's an EXPECTATION that every caster has one, or where they just don't put them in 10s again. More proof that 10 mans ruin the game when treated as an equal to 25s...but I digress.

 

[dave is ok]

It was too fast in the first place all around, largely because of 10 mans and their need to balance 25s around that, and then all the 10 man bitching led to THIS, which is even worse.

It SHOULD be accepted that a 10 man would get ONE of the legendary during a tier. That's already hugely generous in terms of ratio, but you can't get it any smaller than that. While it sucks that there's no decent way to throttle it like that besides making it just take forever and a day on 10 man, the other options are the shit we have now where you get thousands and it's an EXPECTATION that every caster has one, or where they just don't put them in 10s again. More proof that 10 mans ruin the game when treated as an equal to 25s...but I digress.

This is just elitist garbage.

They should have had quest items only drop on heroic. 10 man guilds will probably only see one staff before 4.3, maybe two for the people who were 6/7H on week two or whatever.

Either way you slice it, a 10 man guild clearing the entire instance on heroic will still see less staves than crappy 2/7 or 3/7 guilds on 25 normal.

 

[TheYanger]

What? that's blatantly false. The rate of acquisition is the same on 10h as 25n, and as I pointed out already a single staff on 10 man represents a full TWENTY FUCKING PERCENT of your dps having the staff. That's the same as 3.6 staves in a 25 man raid. It should be THAT much slower for a 10 man guild to acquire (Or more accurately, it should be that same ratio, ideally they could get their first at the midpoint of that curve for a 25 man, but realistically that's not a feasible way to set it up). The idea that a 10 man should ever get more than 1 staff during a tier is preposterous. If they can get 2 before deathwing comes out, that's basically the equivilent of every god damn caster in a raid having one.