Update #2 - Yes, Patch 4.0.6 is next week, stop asking.




Luck of the Draw Buff
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
In case you aren't already aware, Luck of the Draw is the name of the buff you get for grouping with random people using Dungeon Finder. It currently provides a 5% buff to damage, healing, and health if you have at least one random player in your group. With patch 4.0.6, we are increasing this buff to 5% damage, healing, and health per random player, up to a maximum of 15%.

In the process of working on this change we actually discovered that the Luck of the Draw buff has not been working in Cataclysm at all, save for a few specific dungeons. This means that the difficulty in almost all normal and Heroic dungeons for those using the Dungeon Finder tool was higher than expected. Still, with that issue corrected in 4.0.6, we feel the bump up to 15% for three or more random players found through the Dungeon Finder is a necessary change.

The intent of Luck of the Draw is to help make up for the lack of coordination, communication, and familiarity that pick up groups suffer relative to organized groups of guild members and friends. Cataclysm dungeons, especially on Heroic mode, are quite challenging and ask for more group organization than the Wrath of the Lich King dungeons did. Therefore, Luck of the Draw became relatively weaker in Cataclysm. I'm painting the picture with unfairly large brush strokes here, but in general, Heroic dungeons are of appropriate difficulty for organized groups, but just brutal on Dungeon Finder groups. Players wonder, and rightly so, why Dungeon Finder supports Cataclysm Heroic dungeons at all when the chance of success is so low.

We think buffing Luck of the Draw is a good way to go about correcting the difficulty differences because it makes things slightly easier on PUGs without depriving the organized groups of a fun challenge. We also think the bonus is modest enough that it won't encourage organized groups to split up and just PUG instead - - the success rate for PUGs relative to organized groups is just that far behind. We still think you'll have more fun and a greater chance of success running dungeons with friends, but when that isn’t possible, we hope this change will make Dungeon Finder a more pleasant experience. Also remember that patch 4.0.6 is adjusting the difficulty of some bosses that are particularly unforgiving, such as Ozruk in Heroic Stonecore, though to be fair, we are buffing some underperforming encounters as well. In addition, we are offering larger Justice Point rewards for players who just prefer the faster pace and greater success rate of normal dungeons, and by the time 4.1 comes out everyone will have access to more powerful gear, making the older content even easier. But then there'll be new challenges to face!

We'd like to thank everyone who has provided us with feedback. We do listen, even if we don't immediately deploy every design change suggested by the player community. Our intent is to make the game fun for a wide variety of players, which can be quite a challenge when you have a community this large and this varied. We hope you continue to enjoy the game, and look forward to sharing more changes (and a few surprises) in the months ahead.

-Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street is the lead systems designer for World of Warcraft and was attacked by a coati as a child. (True story.)

All Rated Battleground Weeks Now 10v10
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
We’re in the process of developing a hotfix to push before next Tuesday that will change all 15vs15 rated battleground weeks into 10vs10 weeks.

Looking at participation, the 10vs10 rated battleground weeks have been far and away more popular than the 15vs15 weeks. The difference in organizational requirements as well as battleground map popularity have been a couple big factors that have led to the 10vs10 weeks seeing a great deal more action. By making this change and supporting the popular option we hope to encourage even more players and teams to participate, as they won’t have to wait out every other week, or struggle to beef up to 15 players to match the requirement.

We also have plans to adapt additional battleground maps in the future to work in the 10 player bracket to increase the variety of maps available.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Luck of the Draw Buff started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 559 Comments
  1. Meguas's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by VanishO2 View Post
    That is how you get to raid wide buffs and nerfs, smart guy.

    That's how everything started until we hit the lowest possible gameplay in WotLK. As soon as you start to back away from what you said (in this case, blizzard saying it should be like that and ppl should learn to play like they did in TBC because WotLK was wrong), you won't have any support anymore to get back to it. You cavein to their QQ, now they'll say "see, we're right!" and will start QQing about the next tier in dificult. How do you expect those players will react if the 4.1 heroics (or only heroic, I don't know) is way harder than today's heroics (as they should be, tunned for 346 to 359 geared players)???? They won't want it. How you think Blizzard can say anything about it to support their point of view on the "the next stuff needs to be harder than the previous one" since they alread said they were wrong?

    That's when we get to the raids. That's how we get to 30% ICC. There is no coming back after you gave it away. You see how hard it is to get away from the WotLK concept even after 2 months and many geared players/nerfed heroics.

    You give it, they learn only that QQ matters and they go for more. Blizzard was doing a fine job on trying to move ppl away from WotLK concept and "QQ to earn gifts", but they just threw all their effort away. Sadly.
    Excellent post man. As you said, it starts with heroic 5 mans. Then, because those people can do heroics, their next step is raids! Then, "OMG RAIDZ R TOO HARD PLZ NERF"... it is like a domino effect that will send us right back into the LK era.

    I really think the answer is for blizzard to add more difficulty levels. 5 man raids should have 3-4 levels of difficulty, each with better gear, same thing for raids too.
  1. arenascrub's Avatar
    By now any decent player in this game would have done the HCs so many times he got sick of them. Plus his gear is so good by now that there is actually no challenge at all at this point. So I presume that most people are in the same state as me. We treat the daily heroic like the Tol Bard dailies. Get in, speed rush it, get out, profit. Hell, I don't even mind carrying a (insanely low) dps or two. The luck of the draw buff will make this thing even faster so it's fine by me. Cataclysm HCs used to be hard with leveling gear mixed with the occasional blue. Now most of them are just faceroll so the faster they are completed the better me thinks. I don't see the problem to be honest we are 2 months into the expansion so this is a bit typical to happen.
  1. Cassidin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Prez- View Post
    They eventually went the way the QQ wanted them to go, make stuff easier because they're too lazy to organize a semi-decent group, its funny to be honest.
    It obviously doesnt apply to you then does it, so why are you bothered? You claim people are "too lazy" to organize a "semi-decent" group, I expect all the organization you need in your guild is to say "hey I want to do a heroic, come hold my hand please". Well, newsflash - not everyone is in that position, and not everyone wants to leave guilds with friends they have made over years just to get "better players". Pugs are often hard, if you dont do them - you dont know, and if you do them and dont find them hard then either 1, you got lucky or 2, you are just better at this game. I personally dont care if someone is better or worse at playing a game than me, its just a game.

    The only people that complain about things being easier for other people are those people that simply dont want others to get what they have. Its quite sad really.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 08:30 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by againstme View Post
    Changing LotD to 15% still won't help the people that stand in fire
    No, but it will help with soft enrages etc.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 08:34 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by sevenbug View Post
    You can have in normal dungeon.
    With this buff and with better stuff, heroic is no more.
    As has been pointed out time and time again - heroics wont be hard for long anyway. So people are complaining about them being too easy now? Well, a lot of people are already finding them too easy. This buff doesnt affect them, it only affects people that are finding them too hard. The people that are finding them too easy are generally doing them in guild anyway - so this means nothing to them. For those pugging and having a hard time, this is a godsend. Why the hate on people being able to do something?

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 08:35 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Kev111 View Post
    Really Blizz? Cater to the casuals again and ruin Cataclysm. Thanks bros.
    Blizzard are a company. Do you really think they are going to make "your" game only the way that your maybe 10% of players want it? You really think they are going to really want to loose 90% of their customers? Of course Blizzard will cater to the casuals - we make up most of the player base - you may not like it - but it doesnt change that fact.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 08:37 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Asrialol View Post
    A 12 year old player can still learn how to play properly, unless he's mentally challenged. Takes 5-10 min to read about your class and how to maximize it, and it takes about the same amount of time to read tactics on dungeons on Wowhead for instance.
    And I can read a book on how to fly a plane - doesnt mean I can actually DO it. really this argument that people can do well or they have no brain is just so lame.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 08:37 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Bluenose View Post
    After this change there should be absolutely no excuse for anyone to be under 10k dps in a heroic now.
    People need an excuse to play a game? Just wow really.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 08:40 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Ohforfsake View Post
    It has begun... 2 months of hype and back to wotlk faceroll.. and hasnt even got past the first tier of gear yet.. something is telling me, people will be soloing heroics at the middle of the expansion at this rate.. so much for "TBC difficulty" false advertisement to sell the xpack for competent gamers.. or what was it? a knee-jerk reaction for rift beta success?.
    There is so much rubbish in this. In BC most people didnt raid - a lot of people did normals for a long time before heroics. Things change. Most of the better players are now raiding - they may not have cleared all the raid content - but they are raiding. Of course heroics are going to be easy for them now. Why the surprise?

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 08:43 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Coar View Post
    I had so much fun when heroics first came out wiping over and over and finally beating a boss completely oom with the tank dead or w/e.
    Yeah, great fun in a pug when people just ragequit after a wipe and you have to queue again. I dont mind wiping while learning - but when a wipe means queue again and start at the begining it gets old very fast.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 08:45 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Susej View Post
    I took comfort in the fact that pugs COULD NOT DOWN ANYTHING IN HEROICS..
    I will never understand the attutide of some people. The "hey yeah I stopped someone doing something they wanted yay!" You also steal candy from babys too? Must feel so happy.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 08:46 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by leivadith View Post
    Blizzard and a lot of wow players have no integrity.
    Blizzard have plenty of integrity, to their shareholders which is how companies work actually.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 08:52 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by rofl View Post
    Anyone who thinks heroics are hard is just a really bad player.
    And so what if they are? Better a bad player than an elitest jerk who is just rude to everyone that isnt top of a GAME.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 08:58 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Susej View Post
    Us Elitist pigs don't like it when you poorly playing swine get buffs in your pugs because you can not preform well enough in a 5 man.
    It upsets us greatly when we out play instances. and you get carried by Luck (of the draw).
    Why? why does it affect you in the slightest what others do? You still know you did it without the help.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 09:00 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by rad586 View Post
    In next content patch gear from valor vendors will move to justice vendors ....... and people will faceroll their way trough heroics to get them. Keep that in mind, looks like it's going to be WotLK all over again.
    Seriously, as long as you knew tactics, you could beat every HC boss without any problems. Changing the buff to 15% is just absurd.

    Not to mention achievements like "Sun of a ....." or "Faster than the speed of Light" which will be ridiculously easy with competent pug groups.
    Bottom line is, ALL content is faceroll once people overgear it. Unless you make content scale with your gear (in which case noone would even want to do content when it only dropped gear/points that were useless to them), then everyone will out gear heroics very soon into an expansion. Its just the way it works. Why worry about a buff that will help a lot of people for a very short time?

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 09:14 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Miku View Post
    QQ? My GF works weekends, and goes to school full time and she still finds time to gear up and even do raids with me. And as it is now you only need about 1 hour of free time to do a heroic, if you don't have 1 hour of free time a week you shouldn't be playing wow.
    Who promoted you to the person who says if someone should play a game or not? And with 40min queues, how exactly is that doable with 1 hour of free time? Im not saying that people shouldnt have enough time to play if they want to do an instance, I know I find it very frustrating when people leave half way though with "sorry - got to go now", but saying someone shouldnt play a game if they dont have more time - thats not really up to you to decide.

    ---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 09:17 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Hallonglass View Post
    this is gonna be exactly like wotlk, people complaining that everything is to hard... START USING YOUR FUCKING BRAIN AND DONT WHINE AT FORUM THAT IT'S TO HARD! ITS NOT!.

    atleast ppl with a brain think not.............
    With your rage at blizzard making something easier for those that find it hard, I have to wonder where it is you are currently keeping your own brain. Maybe you just need to switch it on?
  1. hordeache's Avatar
    im not sure buffing a player who is clueless to begin with is gunna make a whole lotta difference...when pugs fall apart its normally due to players not really knowing content and just winging it in a pug ...now when they fail they will feel 15% worse =)
  1. mmocb1848b600a's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Cassidin View Post
    Kicking wannabe elitist butt...
    I like your style. Thank you very much for the work you put into an amazingly good post.
  1. juicywater's Avatar
    Where is the graphical fix for Vial of Sands mount?!

    I'm okay with carrying a passenger instead of them riding it but the animation should be better and the player name/guild name shouldn't appear inside the drake model.

  1. Raztalin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by runeb1980@hotmail.com View Post
    A much needed PUG nerf, actually. I love the added tactics and such of Cata heroics, but 4 hour heroics with PUGs are not fun.
    Couldt agree more ... i now only have time for 1 HC an eve and have to decide on which toon to treat to it ... i have 2 tanks and a healer so queue time is pretty quick on all, its just that you never know who your going to be grouped with and which instance ... GrimBatol takes on average 3 hours with an average pug, with maybe 3 different people during a run.

    If this change enables me to get maybe 2 runs a night in then (as Tony the Tiger would say) Ggrrrrrrrrrrreat!
  1. mmocb1848b600a's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by juicywater View Post
    Where is the graphical fix for Vial of Sands mount?!

    I'm okay with carrying a passenger instead of them riding it but the animation should be better and the player name/guild name shouldn't appear inside the drake model.

    Wrong thread. Regardless, they either forgot to mention it in the notes or they still haven't fixed the stone drakes. (Which would be really sad. I mean how hard can it be to put the player models on the back of a modified drake model that's been in the game for two years*?)

    * or even longer, forgot BC drakes
  1. Raztalin's Avatar
    @ Cassidin - Thank you for taking so much time and effort to express what i think the majority of the WoW playing population think. As you say there is that 10% of players who will not want people to have any help in achieving what they have done ... they could feel agreeved that they did it without help, where as I'm glad i've done it already and look forward to quicker runs in future. As you mention this attitude that people have just stinks, and thankfully Blizz seems to listen to the more casual gaming comunity, whom after all is the majority, and who they at the end of the day make the game for!
  1. Harry Botter's Avatar
    The mod that let this (very original)thread go on so long needs to be fired, and yes i realize ill most likely get banned for saying that. If you think this is not needed you are one or more of the following types of people.

    Elitist
    Troll
    Stupid

    If you run with guild thats fine and this will not affect your gameplay at all. If you pug and would rather run un nerfed heroics get in a guild or find a group of on server peeps to do them. When i play i play at the early very early Am and there is not usually a lot of people on when i play in my guild, so pugging is all i really have. People saying casuals are bad are just idiots, just because we have full time jobs and cannot devote as much time to play doesnt make anyone bad. Just means they want to get the most out of their $15 a month like any other player.
  1. papajohn4's Avatar
    again and again and again...
    heroics are not difficulty, they are taking loooooooong time... while the reward doesn't satisfy you.
    unless they manage to do heroics take under an hour and give a nice reward don;t expect que times under 45 minutes.

    just simple as that.It was fun for a while, 2 hours heroic with your main, good and funny at the very start... now I got sick of it.

    Now forums are full again with the "god-gifted" players qq about the nerfs. Get a life, find a girlfriend, get a job and earn some real money.
    games are not supposed to fill 24 hours of miserable life, are supposed to give you fun in the little free hours you have during the day.
    get over it.

    45 min que times mean that vast majority of people playing wow are normal people that have normal life and not 24 hour to spent in the game.

    again game became too grinding and too time consuming!not difficult...

    I don;t think this buff will solve the problem either but it is a good start
  1. Jantasir's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by runeb1980@hotmail.com View Post
    The "casuals" make up like 95% of the players. They pay 95% of the subscriptions. Should they not be allowed to play endgame?

    Like I've said time and again... if you're so hardcore, go heroic raid, or 3 man heroics etc.
    QFT

    whether you like it or not, casuals will rule the game. There are plenty of other games out there if you're dissatisfied. Nothing shows companies how much you're truely upset about something like removing their paychecks.
  1. djdidi's Avatar
    I can say I'm happy about this, If it shortens que times or the time it takes to run one of these I'm all for it. There are mechanics you still need to follow or you will wipe. I go on with guildies when I can but I like to farm JP's for heirloom gear to outfit my new worgen warrior. I remember this one post I read Blizzard has the hard data now, successes/failures and how many pugs are started but not finished ect. ect. if they werent shocked by that data I don't think they would of gave such a strong Luck of the Draw Buff. I'm sorry for the people that don't like the buff but blizz opened pandora's box with WotLk and expsosed the game to the masses. IMO once you do that theres no going back unless you want to shut WoW down for good. Theres always free servers that probably will offer the original difficulty for you...
  1. Thistlefur's Avatar
    Patch restarted to Need for Speed Hot Persuit not wow ?!?!?!?!?
  1. firadesunna's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by garylisk View Post
    Yeah, you know what would really make PuGs better as far as coordination? Actual GOOD in-game voice chat that people want to use.
    This to be honest... get rid of the buff completely and fix the in game voice chat, use Dolby Axon to run the voice chat or something? then people would be able to communicate during boss fights easier and we wouldnt have this problem as much.
  1. DoctahDeepz's Avatar
    Has anyone stopped to realize how little 15% is? If you're a shitty dps you're doing 5k dps... if you add 15% they're now doing 5.7k dps. Should we really be saying the game is broken because we're giving some scrub 700 extra dps?

    So in all honesty, it's a rich get richer situation. Where good geared people are scaling much better then poorly geared people. 15% is not as big as you guys think it is. If the weather says a 15% chance of rain, odds are you aren't bringing your umbrella just saying.

    Also for you elite few who say that easy heroics are ruining the game... if you're so awesome and progressed why are you still in heroics for anything more then valor points? Why aren't you in a progression guild that runs these with you? Why aren't you raiding for a challenge? Are you going to go complain that lvl 70 heroics aren't a challenge anymore? If you want a challenge do the challenging content out there. There's a whole tier of raiding, heroic raiding, achievements, all made for hardcore players who want a challenge... but no you guys want to roll around in your full 346's and act like a BAMF for it? We've had 3 months to do heroics, personally i have 2 characters out of heroics in both their mainspec and offspec if you're all as progression hungry as you say you are you should be done with em too. So let the people who couldn't get a good group, or who don't have a good guild, or who just couldn't do the content as released, have their time...
  1. mmocdb252c7589's Avatar
    Why not make it wrath all over again ghostcrawler......
  1. mmoc0c8fc73957's Avatar
    Sound like a big deal to me.
  1. Dch48's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gekkeloko View Post
    Why not make it wrath all over again ghostcrawler......
    We can only hope that would happen

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