Blizzard at PAX East, D3 Boss Mechanics, Legendary Item Drop Rates, Monster Affixes, Poll: What's Your Preferred Format for Dev Interviews

Isle of Thunder US - Stage 2 Unlocked

Patch 5.2 Dev Interviews
Let's take a look at the recent Twizzcast interview with Ghostcrawler, where they managed to cover a lot in 30 minutes.

Alt Characters and Catching Up
  • The Dragon Soul patch went on for a longer time, and Raid Finder made it easier to gear alts than was previously possible.
  • In Mists of Pandaria, it isn't as easy to gear alts because there is a lot more for players to do. Many of the alts were created when there wasn't much to do in game.
  • Gearing alts will be something to do when you are done with your main or somehow run out of things to do. Some of the changes in Patch 5.2 were made to make this a little easier. (More Elder Charms, higher LFR drop rates, new rep gear for gold, etc)
  • LFR is a step of the gearing up process for the first tier of content, as it fits between heroic dungeons and normal raids. However, after the first tier, gear from LFR may not be a significant upgrade from Normal or Heroic difficulty gear at all.
  • People would stop playing weeks or months before a new raid because they didn't want to spend time progressing on content that would be outdated as soon as there was a patch. Making catching up too easy reduced the motivation to deal with challenging content.
  • Players that are coming back to the game shouldn't be able to jump right in to end game content with players that have been playing for several months, as some catch up will be required.

Raid, Item, and Class Balance
  • Trinkets are balanced with simulation testing and in game testing, followed by testing on the PTR, and then finally data from live realms.
  • Some players overreact when they see numbers like a 25% reduction to one spell that only makes up 10% of their damage overall. This ends up in a few percentage adjustment to a class's DPS.
  • When balancing classes, there is a lot of in house simulation that looks at DPS on target dummies, AoE situations, burst situations, and other situations.
  • The PTR data is also taken in to account, but it is limited in its usefulness. Usually players on the PTR are just there to play around or are top players practicing the new raids, not average players. There is a lot more useful data once a patch has gone live.
  • Classes shouldn't get an ability that will guarantee them a raid spot because of how good it is.
  • The Rogue population has been dropping for a long time, so Smoke Bomb was added to give them some group utility.
  • The more cooldowns that are added, the harder it is to create encounters that will be challenging, as you can just use a lot of cooldowns on it.
  • There were too many tank and spank style encounters in the past, leading to players being bored. Now Blizzard is trying to ensure there is at least one thing for everyone in the raid to think about during the encounter, rather than just focusing on the boss as a target dummy.
  • The Sealed Tome of the Lost Legion isn't super rare, so most Warlocks that want to start the quest will be able to. One idea that was brought up is increasing the drop rate over time so that everyone can get it. Adding green fire was one of the few ways to increase player prestige without increasing player power.

Low Population Realms
  • Low population realms aren't fun. WoW is designed to be played with friends!
  • Blizzard is investigating making it easier to move all of your characters to a new realm.
  • There aren't any easy solutions, especially when players hear that Mal'ganis has a good raiding community or Tichondrius has a good PvP community. This results in players transferring or creating characters on high population realms, making popular realms grow faster, while lower population realms die faster.
  • Merging or shutting down realms isn't possible because many players like their realm, have a character name they like, and don't want to be forced out or to change their name.

PvP
  • On PvP: "We have some pretty bold plans going forward".
  • Giving players new and different ways to kill each other may not be the best way to advance PvP. There is some room to polish the systems that already exist, especially some of the battlegrounds that players aren't enjoying.
  • One of the things being considering is packaging the big battlegrounds like Alterac Valley and Isle of Conquest in with Wintergrasp and Tol Barad and having a new large scale battleground event. (This wasn't really clear, listen to 25:10 to hear the answer)
  • The PvP and PvE daily quest choice was new tech added to give players a choice of the playstyle they wanted to take part in that day, rather than feeling that both styles were mandatory.

Future
  • Patch 5.3 will be a smaller patch, similar to Patch 5.1. It will happen "sooner than players are expecting" and will be followed by Patch 5.4, another larger patch with a raid.
  • The team and systems are finally set up to where Blizzard can really deliver content faster.
  • Proving Grounds is still being worked on as place to safely learn to tank and heal without ruining the experience of other players. It may not be ready for Patch 5.3 or Patch 5.4, but it is still being actively worked on and is not a "it would be nice to do someday" feature.
  • Players expect change in a game, especially to flawed systems, otherwise they become burned out or bored. New expansions should have roughly 30% new stuff, 30% old stuff, and 30% old stuff that has been evolved a little bit.


Throne of Thunder Heroic Progression
Another day of Heroic difficulty raids and Blood Legion is still on top with 8 bosses down, followed by Method with 8 down, and Exodus with 7 down. DREAM Paragon managed to kill 4 bosses since yesterday, putting them at 8 bosses down.

You can keep up with the kills on Manaflask, our forum thread, and WowProgress.



Automatic Flight Path Discovery Removed
One of the smaller changes in Patch 5.2 was the removal of automatic flight path discovery.



Patch 5.2 Hotfixes: March 14
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Classes
  • Monk
    • Chi Wave should now correctly bounce between targets that are in range.

Creatures

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
  • The time for players to decide if they want to use a bonus roll has been increased to 3 minutes.

PvP

Professions
  • Thunderforges on the Isle of Thunder can now also function as a normal anvil and forge.
  • Archeology
    • Mantid archeology items should now correctly award a Mantid Amber Sliver when turned in.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
One Death Knight Per Server Limit
Any idea when we might see this lifted? I've seen on MMO-champ a few times where it's been stated this limitation is outdated and no longer needed. It was also said that they likely will remove it, I'm just wondering if there is any sort of time frame for this planned at all?

I'd really enjoy rolling another Death Knight on my home server, on the Horde side, just for the benefit of heirloom gear and to experience the horde storylines and what not, hence the inquiry.

Honestly, there's no update I can provide on when this will be lifted, but we're aware of the feedback. It may be a possibility for the future though. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Larger Backpack Request
I think above all the player base should have a quest to receive a larger backpack. I understand new players start with a 16 slot, and that's a godly amount of space at level 10. After 8 years, I've seen classes come and go, and content in game come and go. I just think that with 8 years of playing, this might have been addressed. Just curios as to why simple quests like this we're never introduced.
We'd love to be able to upgrade it too, but it's not as simple as upgrading it. It was coded into the system early in the development of World of Warcraft and isn't as easy as writing up some new lines of code. In addition, we're not sure that simply adding a larger backpack is the solution people really are looking for. You'll get a few more slots, but you'll most likely fill those relatively quickly.

We've made some progress in regard to storage such as being able to learn pets and mounts etc. vs. having to carry them with you all of the time. We have Void Storage now as well as changed over some currencies (over time) from physical objects to something that gets tallied in your character pane; little quality of life increases such as those over time. The developers continue to do their best to keep storage in mind when designing new content.

But, if you're anything like me, you probably have a difficult time letting go of items that are either sentimental in nature or items that you "might need later... maybe". I'm with you, but in that case, I try to "spring clean" now and then just to go through what I have and figure out what I truly don't need and can get rid of.

As always though, we're open to constructive feedback and discussion. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Raid Finder Difficulty Feedback
I genuinely feel sorry for people who can't commit to a raiding guild and are left with LFR as their raiding experience.
As long as people that are not you are having fun with what they do, and you are having fun with what you do...

Also, keep in mind that right now the average player on Raid Finder is most likely more skilled/experienced than those that will visit the place in, say, 2 months. So perhaps things that now you can ignore because of overgeared/experienced players will pose a challenge to the folks doing LFR with LFR gear from the previous tier. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 5.2 and PvP Gear
Thanks Nakatoir, and now that I'm back from an unfortunate ban, I'd like to ask you what your opinion is on the stat difference between the s13 Tyrannical gear and the 5.3 PvE gear. While you miss out on PvP stats, the ilvl from the PvE gear is so much higher that it might outweight PvP gear for certain classes. What do you think about this?
Sadly I cannot give much of a comment on the difference in stats as the 5.3 gear is yet to be released. I can say however that we want to try and make sure that going into all future patches, including this one, that gear rewarded through PvP remains the best for PvP purposes. We understand that the community is concerned with PvE gear returning in PvP and we will do our best to prevent this.

As for the 5.2 gear difference, I am going to assume that you are concerned with Heroic gear. As you can see on these Hunter sets, while the main stats are lower, the survivability and damage increases caused by the PvP stats compensate for this, and then some. The equivalent budget given to these PvP stats would be approximately 40 Ilvl's, which is quite a lot.

I totally misstyped me there, thank an all-nighter for that. I meant 5.2 Heroic PvE gear. Especially openers from Rogue teams (mass stealth) might totally gib the enemy teams within the first few seconds. We will see how it goes, I guess.
No biggie, I assumed you did and that is why I mentioned 5.2 in the post.

But just to quell some of your concerns in the area of damage, this is something that we are keeping an eye on and will make changes as they are necessary. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Marvel Heroes Beta Key Giveaway
Curse has Marvel Heroes beta keys to give away! The first big beta weekend is taking on Saturday, March 16th from 10 AM to 6 PM PDT, and Sunday, March 17th from 6 AM to 2 PM PDT. You can read more about the Marvel Heroes MMORPG here.

Beta keys are being given away to Curse Premium members on Thursday and Friday, and then to everyone on Saturday starting at midnight.



Comics - Dark Legacy Comics #380
DLC #380 has been released.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Dev Interviews, ToT Progression, Flight Paths, March 14 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, Comic started by chaud View original post
Comments 83 Comments
  1. Phaidrae's Avatar
    The changeback to having to personally go and rediscover FPs is total bullshit. I swear, Blizz acts like there are always 5,000,000 new players logging in every day to make new characters for the very first time. Sorry guys, but most low level characters these days are either well-seasoned WoW vets or else they're just ghost players who will most likely disappear before they hit level 25. We've seen ALL of the scenery 100x over, we don't really give a shit about most zones anymore, we just want to get to where we need to be to quest or whatever. Maybe it sounds apathetic, but outside of MAYBE an RP server, I think you'd be hardpressed to find a LOT of people who enjoy having to foot around all the lowbie stuff. Maybe for NEW accounts and the first 2-3 characters they make have it mandate that they discover FPs on their own - but why must you continually punish older players with this nonsensical fluff?

    Blizzard always says "we want you out in the world more, doing things" yet they give us the worst possible things to do. Run/mount around to all of the FPs you'll need (and some you'll actually NEED or you won't be able to fly certain places); go do 250 fucking dailies; go farm up a menial amount of vegetables that'll give you enough to make like ONE feast...

    They need to come up with some more creative solutions to help keep bodies out of Org/SW. I'm sorry, but dailies are just bullshit - and if you're not particularly into raiding anymore they serve no purpose...and what does that leave PvP players to do? If you don't want to queue for BGs non-stop the dailies afford you nothing. How about...more world bosses or expanding questlines that are more interesting than repeating dailies over and over...SOMETHING. I'm sure Blizz could come up with SOMETHING less repetetive.
  1. Gurbz's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ferrouswheel View Post
    Ok seriously they need to stop that bullshit with the "players like their name". PLAYERS LIKE TO BE ABLE TO PLAY. We all know you're full of shit and want to milk that $25 as much as you can. Other mmo's who don't make insane amounts of money every month allow you to bounce around different realms for free. Money grubbing greediness is all it is and nobody is falling for your like their name bull shit.
    Name one of those other MMOs that has held 9-10M subscribers for 6+ years and has very firmly established realm population trends. He even EXPLAINS why they don't want to do this. People would run to whatever realm is considered "The Best" for either PvP or PvE, cause huge population problems like login queues, then bitch to Blizzard because obviously everything is their fault even though they just did what the players told them they wanted. Also, the name thing is very much NOT bullshit. I personally would be pissed if I had to change my name because Blizzard decided to merge my realm with another. And no, adding my old realm name on the end is not an acceptable solution for me. Plus, what if I am one of those people who actually likes a less populated realm. They do exist, kinda like how some people would rather live in a small country town instead of New York.

    You, and everyone I have ever seen that have a similar argument, all say basically the same thing. "The solution is simple. Just give me what I want and to hell with anyone else. Except you won't cause you are greedy poo-poo heads". The bottom line is that it is never as simple as it seems on the outside, and money very rarely has anything to do with it.
  1. Alayea's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    Because your playstyle contradicts what is the norm. Players who have 1 main.

    If you can keep 4 characters fully equipped, what it means is that someone who plays as much time as you, but with only 1 character, runs out of things to do. That was what happened in Cata and the end of WOTLK. there were just too many players who had a real main who had nothing to do with their characters to advance them. The vast majority of players fall into that category of only having one main.
    It'd be more accurate to say that there was nothing they wanted to do. I personally find the claim that there was "nothing to do" a bunch of bull.
  1. redraven937's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gurbz View Post
    He even EXPLAINS why they don't want to do this. People would run to whatever realm is considered "The Best" for either PvP or PvE, cause huge population problems like login queues, then bitch to Blizzard because obviously everything is their fault even though they just did what the players told them they wanted.
    So lock Full or High Pop realms to the free transfers. This isn't rocket surgery.

    Also, the name thing is very much NOT bullshit. I personally would be pissed if I had to change my name because Blizzard decided to merge my realm with another. And no, adding my old realm name on the end is not an acceptable solution for me. Plus, what if I am one of those people who actually likes a less populated realm. They do exist, kinda like how some people would rather live in a small country town instead of New York.
    How is adding your realm name on the end "not an acceptable solution" to you? It already happens in BGs, Arena, LFR, LFG, and in any CRZ you happen to be in. There is no reason it would have to be all spelled out all the time either, just have an asterisk or hashtag or whatever at the end, which can be hovered over to give the full designation if positive identity was necessary.

    And this is besides the point that Blizzard has zero problems with Battletags on the official forums and in-game. You are not Joesmith on the forums, you're Joesmith.1234. Just slap those four digits, the same four digits that people use to quest with you cross-realm right now, and the "problem" is solved.

    You, and everyone I have ever seen that have a similar argument, all say basically the same thing. "The solution is simple. Just give me what I want and to hell with anyone else. Except you won't cause you are greedy poo-poo heads". The bottom line is that it is never as simple as it seems on the outside, and money very rarely has anything to do with it.
    And the only "counter-argument" people like you ever provide is asinine nonsense. Realms are dying, guilds are collapsing, economies crumpling through disuse and despair... and yet we're getting hung up on shit that has been irrelevant for years. Everyone has Battle.net IDs already, it's a requirement to log in. If people still want the no-pop realm experience, Blizzard can leave 4 of the 16 no-pop realms open if they want. Server transfers are already 100% automated, so... what? I'm glad that Blizzard is investigating ways of moving entire accounts to new realms, but undoubtedly that still involves throwing more cash into a hole dug by poor design (Christ, never again will I trust "Recommended servers").

    And we're being hung up by names? NAMES? Oh, yeah, Joesmith.1234 would be much more confusing than Joesmith vs Joêsmith vs Joësmith vs Joèsmith vs Joesmïth vs etc etc etc etc, like it is CURRENTLY. A chat UI feature should not be holding up a very real breakdown in the entire Massively Multiplayer part of the MMO experience. It has to be about the cash Blizzard skims off the top because the alternative is they're too goddamn stupid.
  1. Blaschnack's Avatar
    Haven't seen such an awesome DLC in quite a while! I love it!
  1. Necrotica's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by redraven937 View Post
    So lock Full or High Pop realms to the free transfers. This isn't rocket surgery.


    How is adding your realm name on the end "not an acceptable solution" to you? It already happens in BGs, Arena, LFR, LFG, and in any CRZ you happen to be in. There is no reason it would have to be all spelled out all the time either, just have an asterisk or hashtag or whatever at the end, which can be hovered over to give the full designation if positive identity was necessary.

    And this is besides the point that Blizzard has zero problems with Battletags on the official forums and in-game. You are not Joesmith on the forums, you're Joesmith.1234. Just slap those four digits, the same four digits that people use to quest with you cross-realm right now, and the "problem" is solved.


    And the only "counter-argument" people like you ever provide is asinine nonsense. Realms are dying, guilds are collapsing, economies crumpling through disuse and despair... and yet we're getting hung up on shit that has been irrelevant for years. Everyone has Battle.net IDs already, it's a requirement to log in. If people still want the no-pop realm experience, Blizzard can leave 4 of the 16 no-pop realms open if they want. Server transfers are already 100% automated, so... what? I'm glad that Blizzard is investigating ways of moving entire accounts to new realms, but undoubtedly that still involves throwing more cash into a hole dug by poor design (Christ, never again will I trust "Recommended servers").

    And we're being hung up by names? NAMES? Oh, yeah, Joesmith.1234 would be much more confusing than Joesmith vs Joêsmith vs Joësmith vs Joèsmith vs Joesmïth vs etc etc etc etc, like it is CURRENTLY. A chat UI feature should not be holding up a very real breakdown in the entire Massively Multiplayer part of the MMO experience. It has to be about the cash Blizzard skims off the top because the alternative is they're too goddamn stupid.
    *LIKE*

    I'd like to personally see mega servers, they basically exist with CRZ anyhow, right?
  1. Arganis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Milkshake86 View Post
    Where is the double standard? It's a double standard if good players are allowed to get it and bad players are not with no skill involvement. It's your own fault if you want green fire have the tome and cannot finish the quest. This isnt a man being slutty and a girl being slutty but they are judged differently. This is a player good or not saying YO been farming way to long no drop seen you think they said HELLO BLIZZARD IM UBER LEET INCREASE DROP RATE, or something similar to that?
    The double standard is Blizzard saying they want to make sure "everybody" gets the tome knowing full well only a handful can/will actually get green fire. You didn't get what I meant because you didn't want to get it. You're probably one of those people whining about how low the drop rate is and how you've had to kill 82345 rares with no dice. Boohoo for you but if somebody says "I can't kill Kanrethad", well fuck'em, anybody who doesn't want to "invest time" in getting green fire doesn't deserve it right? Well then shut your trap about the drop rate and go "invest" some of your own "time". Get it now?
  1. Ferrouswheel's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gurbz View Post
    Name one of those other MMOs that has held 9-10M subscribers for 6+ years and has very firmly established realm population trends. He even EXPLAINS why they don't want to do this. People would run to whatever realm is considered "The Best" for either PvP or PvE, cause huge population problems like login queues, then bitch to Blizzard because obviously everything is their fault even though they just did what the players told them they wanted. Also, the name thing is very much NOT bullshit. I personally would be pissed if I had to change my name because Blizzard decided to merge my realm with another. And no, adding my old realm name on the end is not an acceptable solution for me. Plus, what if I am one of those people who actually likes a less populated realm. They do exist, kinda like how some people would rather live in a small country town instead of New York.

    You, and everyone I have ever seen that have a similar argument, all say basically the same thing. "The solution is simple. Just give me what I want and to hell with anyone else. Except you won't cause you are greedy poo-poo heads". The bottom line is that it is never as simple as it seems on the outside, and money very rarely has anything to do with it.
    All medium and low pop servers get free transfers to medium and low pop servers. They can all come and go as they please. High and full realms, free transfer off, pay 25$ to go to them. Problem solved. Paycheque pl0x.
  1. darkpower's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Wayne25uk View Post
    Oh noes please save this person from a little hard work fellow gods of azeroth,seriously this game is too easy and its getting easier by the day,back in vanilla hard work was all you could do to progress and have fun,stop being a lazy tard and accept it!
    There's always one that does this with a change like this, huh? No matter how stupid or how inconvenient or how unnecessary the change actually is towards "let's make the game as tedious as humanly possible and see how long it takes people to get sick of it", there'll always be at least one person who'll master troll the issue, or defend it to the death and lambaste anyone who would dare to call out Blizz on said change.

    It gets really old after a while. How will we ever get any MMO that relies on providing fair, challenging difficulty when we have people like this wanting the bugs and the glitches and the tediousness to be a part of the experience. I'm not saying that the FP discovery thing is going to be that big of a deal since we did this for a big chunk of WoW's life, but how slippery is this slope going to be before we beg for some stability?

    And how many changes are going to get the "all or nothing" argument that leaves no room for a middle of the road compromise? Quick and the Dead! Was the nerf understandable? Yeah! Did it need to be nerfed that much? No, because it negated the reason for having it in there to begin with. It's a guild perk that you got for leveling your guild to 15! You worked to get that, you should be rewarded with something worthwhile. 100% might've been too fast, but 10%? You might as well replace the perk altogether or rename it to whatever the other part of the perk is because a 10% speed increase is hardly worth calling it QUICK and dead. 50% would've been reasonable because you still get the speed that you wouldn't normally get if you didn't get the perk, but you don't have the super quickness that made you miss half of what you're trying to get to.

    That's reasonable and I think many would agree to that if there wasn't this sudden war that never ceases to amaze me in how bad it gets going on. I'm not saying you have no right to your opinion, but please understand that you're opinion isn't the only one, and that they might have a legit reason for why they don't like the change, coming from people that hate being on welfare in this game. I don't mind the FP thing. Minor thing to me, but if we keep having these battles over every little thing and accept this sort of thing and chastise everyone that might think that a nerf or buff or change is too much, then when is it going to ever be enough? Is it going to take a level one mob one shotting a level 90 in full 500+ ilvl heroic gear for us to say that enough is enough, or would we excuse that too and call anyone who calls that out "whiny casuals" as well?
  1. Articuno's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by darkpower View Post
    a level one mob one shotting a level 90 in full 500+ ilvl heroic gear
    This is what you equate having to fly around EK and Kalimdor for 20 minutes to?
  1. Noblia's Avatar
    On PvP: "We have some pretty bold plans going forward".

    I wonder what these bold plans are?
  1. darkpower's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by redraven937 View Post
    And the only "counter-argument" people like you ever provide is asinine nonsense. Realms are dying, guilds are collapsing, economies crumpling through disuse and despair... and yet we're getting hung up on shit that has been irrelevant for years. Everyone has Battle.net IDs already, it's a requirement to log in. If people still want the no-pop realm experience, Blizzard can leave 4 of the 16 no-pop realms open if they want. Server transfers are already 100% automated, so... what? I'm glad that Blizzard is investigating ways of moving entire accounts to new realms, but undoubtedly that still involves throwing more cash into a hole dug by poor design (Christ, never again will I trust "Recommended servers").
    Here's the thing, though: I kind of LIKE being on a Medium populated server. I like being able to get right into the game without having to wait until my "turn". I like being able to have a server be more of a family and not be full of idiots who either can't play the game for shit or are too elitist to deal with. If the population became too high, I might not want to be there because of the calmness and family-like atmosphere not being there anymore. I go on a Medium server because I made that choice. And we should HAVE that choice since I'm paying 15 bucks a month for the right to be able to choose what type of server I want to play on. Why do I have to be forced to play on a high pop server because you said I have to?

    If you want to play on a high popped server, then do that. What the hell is stopping you from doing that? Does GC come by and threaten to break your fingers if you roll a toon on a server like Illidan? Seriously, what is it that makes it so hard for you to roll on a high populated server if you wanted to? As much as I am able to roll on a server with a population that fits how I want to play the game, you're just as able to find a server with as big of a population as you please. Why do we have to be forced to play the way you want us to play?

    Am I saying that some servers don't need the attention? Of course not. The Horde side on Alleria, for instance, is pretty much dead and needs to be addressed. But moving to Kilrogg was the best thing I did. The server is balanced and not too populated. We're still able to pug and recruit as much as we want and always have faces available for raiding and that, but we're not trying to struggle to be able to play because it's not our turn yet. That's fine for me. I hope you can find a server that fits your play style, but it isn't for me, and I'm hoping that we're not headed down this road of not being able to make that choice because some people can't just leave well enough alone.

    ---------- Post added 2013-03-15 at 02:24 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Articuno View Post
    This is what you equate having to fly around EK and Kalimdor for 20 minutes to?
    Do you know what the term "slippery slope" means?

    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...ippery%20slope :
    : a course of action that seems to lead inevitably from one action or result to another with unintended consequences
    Please read that, then look over my post again. I never said that the FP thing was a big deal (said that twice in the post, even). I talked about this ridiculous notion that we must talk down on every one that ever has a negative opinion on a nerf like that, and how doing that on a nerf as small as that will eventually lead to much larger acceptance and chastising down the road because "hey, we accepted the smaller nerf! What's a big bigger nerf gonna hurt?"

    Did the person have to lambaste the person he was responding to in that way because he didn't agree with the nerf being ridiculous?
  1. Articuno's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by darkpower View Post
    words words words
    Or maybe you could just deal with it and stop being lazy. Millions of people played the game when you had to walk uphill both ways, so you sure as hell can play the game when you have to walk a few steps upward.
  1. raps's Avatar
    "In Mists of Pandaria, it isn't as easy to gear alts because there is a lot more for players to do. Many of the alts were created when there wasn't much to do in game."

    Let me fix that.

    In Mists of Pandaria, it isn't as easy to gear alts because there is a lot more that the average player needs to do to raid. Many of the alts were created before it took a multiple hours per day for weeks at a time to grind reputation to get gear that then takes hours a day to grind valor needed to purchase it.

    I guess I am in the minority with this stuff. I enjoyed Wrath and Cata because I don't like living inside a video game. Capping valor wasn't a chore, and if you wanted to take a day to chain run the dungeons, you could get your 7 bonus valor runs in 1 or 2 sessions. Blizzard seems unable to distinguish between "things to do" and what I would refer to as "artificial gating". They haven't given us more. They took what was there, spread it out and restricted you so that it takes longer to get. It's less of a problem now that we're past the first patch, but its still there for anyone looking to catch up an alt to change roles, or bring a friend on board.
  1. redraven937's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by darkpower View Post
    Here's the thing, though: I kind of LIKE being on a Medium populated server. I like being able to get right into the game without having to wait until my "turn". I like being able to have a server be more of a family and not be full of idiots who either can't play the game for shit or are too elitist to deal with. If the population became too high, I might not want to be there because of the calmness and family-like atmosphere not being there anymore. I go on a Medium server because I made that choice. And we should HAVE that choice since I'm paying 15 bucks a month for the right to be able to choose what type of server I want to play on. Why do I have to be forced to play on a high pop server because you said I have to?
    I don't think anyone here is suggesting all that exist should be High Pop realms. If you like Medium Pop, great! Those of us that were on Medium Pop servers that then collapsed into Low Pop, or the people suckered into "Recommended Severs" five years ago only to find world barren, would like OUR $15/month to actually be purchasing the "intented experience" that GC was talking about without having to fork over hundreds of dollars to abandon ship.

    If you want to play on a high popped server, then do that. What the hell is stopping you from doing that? Does GC come by and threaten to break your fingers if you roll a toon on a server like Illidan? Seriously, what is it that makes it so hard for you to roll on a high populated server if you wanted to? As much as I am able to roll on a server with a population that fits how I want to play the game, you're just as able to find a server with as big of a population as you please. Why do we have to be forced to play the way you want us to play?
    Honestly, how does your gameplay experience change with Free Transfers or your four-digit Battletag appearing next to your name? Where is the harm?

    I'm not even sure I want to be on a High Pop server; I simply desire somewhere with more than 74 pages of items in the AH. Somewhere that might still have a single 25m guild still active, or more than five 10m guilds, or more than one Rated BG team going.
  1. SumoSizeIt's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    Because your playstyle contradicts what is the norm. Players who have 1 main.

    If you can keep 4 characters fully equipped, what it means is that someone who plays as much time as you, but with only 1 character, runs out of things to do. That was what happened in Cata and the end of WOTLK. there were just too many players who had a real main who had nothing to do with their characters to advance them. The vast majority of players fall into that category of only having one main.
    I find it difficult to justify that as the norm after all these years, and after 11 classes. People create new characters over time, get attached, like the playstyle, and might still like their old characters - it's not always about rerolling, but about enjoying all aspects of the game.

    No one is saying playable content needs to be tailored around a full roster of characters, but switching to an alt shouldn't mean starting over from scratch every time. In Cata and prior it was easy to switch classes because I could farm entry level epics off dungeons or purchase them with VP and rep. The dedicated mains still got the best gear by raiding or PvPing full time, but alts could still remain somewhat relevant. That can still remain true in the current system, without creating artificial hoops to jump through that make gold worthless and VP unusable without a rep grind. The way it is now, switching to an alt feels punishing, when it should be enjoyable. Not everyone is going to want to spread their efforts out over several characters, and that's fine, but those who enjoy keeping a relevant set of alts at max level shouldn't be punished either. There is no one way to enjoy this game, and 9 years in is no time to be shoehorning players into a specific, limited vision of playstyle.

    ---------- Post added 2013-03-15 at 01:00 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by raps View Post
    I enjoyed Wrath and Cata because I don't like living inside a video game. Capping valor wasn't a chore, and if you wanted to take a day to chain run the dungeons, you could get your 7 bonus valor runs in 1 or 2 sessions. Blizzard seems unable to distinguish between "things to do" and what I would refer to as "artificial gating". They haven't given us more. They took what was there, spread it out and restricted you so that it takes longer to get. It's less of a problem now that we're past the first patch, but its still there for anyone looking to catch up an alt to change roles, or bring a friend on board.
    This is exactly my feeling. They've extended the time requirement to complete content, but they've done so by making it more restrictive. For years we farmed reps by running certain dungeons or wearing certain tabards, and until recently they had decided that was wrong and that rep is only to be quested for, they cut the number of dungeons in half, and put everything behind a double high wall of daily rep and VP requirements, or in the case of Shado Pan/August Celestials walling their grinds behind another rep grind altogether. I think it's a sign that the rep and reward system is broken when people are actively looking for ways to minimize their time spend acquiring rep, and when and item has to be introduced that makes revered takes less time than honored. When people are sitting on piles of gold and VP because they can't spend it anywhere without rep, that's a sign the current reward model for nonraiders or PvPers is too restrictive. It's beyond rewarding people that play only one character - it's now punishing people who dare to even try another class in their limited free time.
  1. Nathiest's Avatar
    Don't bother with Marvel Heroes. I've played the beta and it sucks. Understand that I'm a huge Marvel fan. The main storyline is prolly the weakest crap story ever for a video game. It'll literally bore you to tears.
  1. Galaddriel's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Noblia View Post
    On PvP: "We have some pretty bold plans going forward".

    I wonder what these bold plans are?
    Don't know. Still waiting on the Bold and Spectacular plans they said they had for MoP to fix low pop realms that they said over a year ago XD
  1. Kazuchika's Avatar
    Players expect change in a game, especially to flawed systems, otherwise they become burned out or bored. New expansions should have roughly 30% new stuff, 30% old stuff, and 30% old stuff that has been evolved a little bit.
    So uh.. what's the other 10% then? >.>
  1. SumoSizeIt's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kektonic View Post
    So uh.. what's the other 10% then? >.>
    Mage and warrior nerfs, probably.

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