World of Warcraft Raids, Gameplay, Questing, and More

World of Warcraft Raids, Gameplay, Questing, and More
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Raids
  • The Blackrock Foundry will be the second raid available at release. It is the center of the Iron Horde and has 10 bosses in three wings, with a non linear layout.
  • The feel of looking down in BRD or UBRS and seeing more of the area was nice.
  • You will still be able to raid with similar flexibility in boss order as Flex has now.
  • The new Normal will be as difficult as Flex is today.
  • The new Heroic will be as difficult as Normal is today.
  • The new Mythic will be as difficult was Heroic is today.
  • All levels of difficulty except for Mythic will be cross realm on release.
  • Each raid difficulty has its own lockout. They will be loot based lockouts, allowing you to kill the same boss multiple times per week and only get loot once a week.
  • There is no more dynamic difficulty switching in raids. Now you have Mythic trash and Mythic trash loot.
  • Raid Finder will be the only kind of raid you queue for now. Normal (current Flex) will require you to zone in.
  • Loot will scale based on the number of players, giving you a higher chance for another piece of loot the more players you have. This ensures there are no optimal breakpoints that would limit raid size to get more loot.
  • Right now boss abilities still have some breakpoints. Going from 14 to 15 adds a third target for a certain mechanic in SoO right now, but in the future it would have a scaling random chance to have a third target so that there isn't that breakpoint.

Quests
  • Quest chains that are important and have important lore and story will be indicated with an icon.
  • There will be more optional content and less quest hubs that have to be unlocked by another chain first.
  • The dynamic events from Timeless Isle will appear in the world when you are leveling and Level 100. Right now they are mostly soloable rare spawns, but the WoD events will be more complex and not soloable.
  • Treasures will be hidden down paths that quests don't send you down and found frequently. They also will have a small amount of story to go with them.
  • Quests will have a chance to give you rare or epic rewards.
  • The quest UI has been updated to combine the map and quest log and help guide the quest experience better.
  • The map will show you where you left off on the important storyline quests.
  • The world will be more dynamic and less predictable.

Level 100 Content
  • There will be few or no daily quests at level 100!
  • There will be more max level content than ever before.
  • People really liked the Patch 5.1 daily quest story line, as well as the Timeless Isle reward system. These will be combined to create big zones with long progressive story lines that are more free form.
  • There will be some environmental gameplay, similar to Troves. It gives you an opportunity to use your class skills that are normally not used to earn rewards.

Garrisons
  • When you build your Garrison, you will get a few starting buildings.
  • The Town Hall is your main point of interaction and is automatically placed.
  • All profession buildings are in the Small Buildings category. They will allow you to use an engineer follower to run missions to get engineering recipes and items.
  • The pet stable will have a trainer you can fight.
  • Large buildings are something you would expect to see in a WC3 base. Each building has a bonus. For example, the barracks will let you have more followers.
  • Buildings start out small and are upgraded over time.
  • Some upgrades can be purchased, but some are blueprints that you find in the world. They can be faction rewards, quest rewards, random world drops, or found in other ways.
  • Specializations allow you to customize a max level building. They can be changed once each day and may have a cost. You pick from one of three specializations.
  • Some buildings will allow you to assign followers to them. If you find a miner follower, he can work while you are offline collecting ore.
  • Managing your followers will be an important part of garrisons.
  • Fill plots to upgrade your tier. Plots come in multiple sizes.
  • Followers can be sent on Quests, Scenarios, Dungeons, or Raids. Raids may take party of a week and many followers.
  • You put the followers into a party and send them on missions. You get a bonus if you match traits on your followers to the missions.
  • When you send your follower somewhere in your Garrison, you will see the follower there.

Systems
  • World of Warcraft is a game you play with friends. WoD will remove barriers that stop you from playing with friends and encourage you to make new friends.
  • Random matchmaking is going to feel like a last resort.
  • Raid Finder is there to let you see the content and story, almost like a Tourist mode.
  • Group Finder will work cross realm and work for many different types of groups. Finishing Shadowmorune, RBGs, Raids and more!
  • Stacking the Deck will give you bonus Valor for queuing with friends or queuing again with the same random matchmade group. (~10% bonus Valor)

Leveling
  • Leveling doesn't feel as exciting as it used to, so WoD will try to address that.
  • From level 91 to 100 you will get upgrades to your core spells. Some will be slight class changes, some will be passive bonuses, similar to old spell ranks. Some of the boosts will definitely be easy to feel.
  • See the slides for examples of leveling rewards!

Itemization
  • Getting new items should be exciting. Right now it feels like you have to do a lot of work when you get a new item.
  • Hit and Expertise don't feel like a bonus, so they are now gone!
  • Dodge and Parry, gone!
  • Reforging, gone!
  • Enchanting is still around, but fewer items can be enchanted. There will be more enchant choices for those items.
  • The number of items with gem sockets will be gone. Only one gem slot per item. Gems are more powerful. Sockets are a bonus that don't count towards item level budget. No more socket bonuses or meta gems.
  • The stats on armor will now change based on your spec. Plate drops and it will have whatever stats your class needs, no more Intellect plate! No more PvP Priest Healing set and PvP Priest DPS set, just a Priest set.
  • Jewelery, cloak, trinkets, and weapons will be more role focused and might keep stats.
  • Armor will become a good tanking stat again, Spirit will be good for healers.
  • Tertiary stats are bonus stats that can appear on gear that don't count towards the item level budget. Lifesteal, avoidance, sturdiness, movement speed (stacks with other bonuses), cleave, and more.
  • Item squish is in! All of the big jumps from old expansions and raid tiers will be flattened.
  • Your relative power won't change, just the numbers. The speed at which you kill things won't change. You can still solo old content.

Q&A
  • Connected realms will make it possible to find a Mythic group on realms that are currently low population.
  • The transition to 20 player Mythic raiding will be difficult, but it will be good for tuning and the game as a whole.
  • Scaling raids to 30 is a possibility, but isn't planned right now.
  • Scaling player level is being worked on still. When the team comes up with a good way to scale and reward old content there will be more to talk about.
  • Followers do content that is unique to Garrisons, not anything that players can do.
This article was originally published in forum thread: World of Warcraft Raids, Gameplay, Questing, and More started by chaud View original post
Published on 2013-11-09 07:31 PM
149 Comments
Comments 149 Comments
  1. Azrile's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Aaros View Post
    As long as the chance of getting epics from that are (VERY) low, then I'd be OK with this. No epics from this would be a plus, but I'm sure that's far outside the realm of possibility, tho.

    Off-topic, is there any word on whether heroic 5-mans in this coming xpac will require a zone-in, as few as they are?
    Just to put this ´new system´ in context. Do you realize that leveling in MoP it was very easy to get epics becore level 90? in fact, there was a lizard guy in Jade Forest that dropped an epic BOE Crossbow and he respawned about every 30 minutes.

    Don´t be scared by the word ´epic´..
  1. Dimmune's Avatar
    I understand the concept of not having loot for each difficulty. But, my argument is back in LF we had 2 lockouts, and 2 chances at gear. I always had something to do. Ever since that was removed, having one lockout across the board was boring, I had almost nothing to do. Now with this I can run every difficulty as much as I want but only get gear from the 1st kill of the week? Mixed emotions about it.
  1. Lumocolor's Avatar
    It's nice to hear that they are finally giving up the whole daily quests idea as 80% of the non raiding content of the game, at the same time it is sad that the decision to do so came 3 years after dailies had worn out their welcome. I like some of the big changes, no endless dailies, stat squish finally (I remember the first month of cata when i got my first crit for 150k and how overinflated and dumb it felt), housing finally, but i still don't see myself rejoining at this point. Once i cut ties to something, i unfortunately don't go back; The only miracle that might get me is if a bunch of my old raiding guild from BC & WOTLK wanted to come back and make a good 20 man raiding guild.
  1. Azrile's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Yuyn View Post
    Slight bit of a shame that reforging is dropped entirely. I liked the reforging system in general, the only big (and I mean freaking huge) problem was how it interacted with hit/exp.

    Also hope they partly reverse the daily quest decision, as they got the balance right in 5.1 and were only a little heavy in 5.2, as far as numbers of 'relevant' dailies went. It really was only the plain 5.0 content (and somewhat Molten Front before it) that were too heavy on dailies.
    And not even the 5.0 dailies. It was mostly just Golden Lotus that was terrible. I enjoyed AC and Klaxxi as well as the serpents, cooking and fishing.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by trauma443 View Post
    Hit and Expertise don't feel like a bonus, so they are now gone!
    Dodge and Parry, gone!
    Reforging, gone!


    [...]

    They have lowered the entry barrier and now even a 3-year-old baby can play this game.

    So be it. Welcome to World Of DumbCraft (again).
    Only a fairly dumb person would think that the current ´hit/expertise´ system is challenging or makes the game hard. For those of us with a bit of intelligence, it was just an annoyance.

    But I get it, I guess there are adults who find those little ´find the object´ magazine games in the doctor´s office waiting rooms to be challenging also.
  1. Morendo's Avatar
    I got a kick out of them saying "We're removing dodge, and adding things like Lifesteal" - but the example loot piece for Lifesteal shows +77 DODGE and +77 Lifesteal. Clearly just an oops, but it made me giggle.

    Now to the important thing - the question that MUST be asked. If reforging is gone, who's is gonna replace the Reforge-npc on my Mammoth and Yak?!
  1. Azrile's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kektonic View Post
    Yeah Paragon obviously had hundreds of people beating down their door which is why they had to downsize to 10 man right? It wasn't like they even blatantly said "we went to 10 man because the talent pool for quality Finnish speaking raiders wasn't large enough"

    You can have a million people beating down your door to get recruited but if they're shit they're worthless.
    Finnish speaking people who are willing to spend 60+ hours per week for a few weeks every time a new tier is released.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by everydaygamer View Post
    The point is to have something that accomplishes the same thing as daily's but is more fun.
    But what? I would greatly prefer the 5.1, 5.2 and even most of the 5.0 dailies (besides golden lotus) to grinding mobs on timeless island for emperor rep.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by lichbane View Post
    Clearly Garrison Missions have been inspired by STO's Away Team system. It's a nice addition that will add more things to do in game .... kind of like an alternative/supplement to crafting.
    There are dozens of online games that have similar things. The problem I may have with it is that it adds very little gameplay. Ok, you go into the screen, select 5 followers, send them on a mission to do a dungeon. Log back on in a week and get your reward. It is a neat little addition, but doesn´t have a lot of gameplay involved with it because you don´t actually see your followers do the dungeon or control them in any way.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by KillerChinchilla View Post
    I never want another rep farm like the Shahao rep ever. again. I'm currently just over 2k rep into revered and I actually can't face the fact I have to spend 6+ more hours farming Yaungol to gain rep to get exalted. I just wish there was other things to actually do to gain rep, it's so pointless. & I like dailies as well tbh. I don't think there's anything wrong with dailies if they're done correctly like the Dominance Offensive storyline.
    I quit once I hit revered. I will go back at lvl 100 and faceroll the mobs for the mount. You can save yourself a lot of boredom if you have patience to get the ´exalted´ vanity rewards an expansion late.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by meroko View Post
    one size "heroic" difficulty really allows for better balancing and the class homogenization will probably go away for the most part. The only reason classes were becoming similar is because 10 man heroic raiding needed every buff and wanted to min/max just like any other 25 man guild. I think 20 man is a sweet spot, 25 have to drop 5 (let's be honest there is always someone you carry in a 25 man)....10 man have to just recruit another 10 or merge with a respectable 10 man guild. I personally like this because if you merge you can still do heroic together then move towards Mythic as a well organized and prepared team.

    One difficulty for Mythic makes things MUCH better in terms of encounter design, it is going back to the way it used to be and personally I welcome this change.

    For the record, I am a 10 man heroic raider.
    And for the record.. before this begins.. All of the sever connections should be done, which should make recruiting a 20 man raid group much easier.
  1. Keren's Avatar
    i might reconsider this game after 3 year pause
  1. proteen's Avatar
    Stoked to see reforging getting the boot (such an unnecessary step in gearing). Also, very glad to see lifesteal, cleave, etc. being added in - fresh air!
  1. mmoccc7f1a1bc3's Avatar
    I guess a lot of people will be mad that the game "becomes much easier", but honestly, most of the itemization stuff wasn't really up to the players choice anyway since there were some caps that one had to hit for optimal performance - and calculators like MrRobot told everyone what they needed to do anyway. So it was just additional work after every new item, like mindlessly reforging everything again - neither challenging nor entertaining. I'm quite glad that they will cut a lot of it and make the system less bloated.
  1. Cirque's Avatar
    Inb4 lifesteal farm for pvp, heroic mode, etc.... Lifesteal tends to have the side-effect of being too damn powerful in almost any game I played with lifesteal in it - stuff like Avoidance won't even compare to a stat like lifesteal.
  1. TrollShaman's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Jeza View Post
    I guess a lot of people will be mad that the game "becomes much easier", but honestly, most of the itemization stuff wasn't really up to the players choice anyway since there were some caps that one had to hit for optimal performance - and calculators like MrRobot told everyone what they needed to do anyway. So it was just additional work after every new item, like mindlessly reforging everything again - neither challenging nor entertaining. I'm quite glad that they will cut a lot of it and make the system less bloated.
    Well said, I was under the impression that the game was getting easier in terms of itemization until I thought it's just another chore to get the right stats and all.

    The loss of Dodge and Parry though...
  1. ElDoorO's Avatar
    So back to loot drama for Flex? *sigh*
    Suppose that solidifies that WoW is no longer for me... became too much drama and this merely adds to it.. for what? To gear up the main teams? Sweet....
  1. Stabatya's Avatar
    Can anyone confirm details about the new looting system for me (or point me in the direction of answers)?

    The stats on armor will now change based on your spec. Plate drops and it will have whatever stats your class needs, no more Intellect plate! No more PvP Priest Healing set and PvP Priest DPS set, just a Priest set.
    Does this only apply to picking up items? Or will it change dynamically? I really dont like that they used a priest in this example... Why not a hybrid class example? Aka: A leather helm will be int/stam/spirit if your resto and will dynamically change to agi/stam/crit when you respec feral.
  1. Ichifails's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    Only a fairly dumb person would think that the current ´hit/expertise´ system is challenging or makes the game hard. For those of us with a bit of intelligence, it was just an annoyance.

    But I get it, I guess there are adults who find those little ´find the object´ magazine games in the doctor´s office waiting rooms to be challenging also.
    Well you know... getting ReforgeLite (or w/e) and pressing Reforge was a huge quest that had the attunement of getting a browser.
  1. notorious98's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ichifails View Post
    Well you know... getting ReforgeLite (or w/e) and pressing Reforge was a huge quest that had the attunement of getting a browser.
    I hear in order to get the browser attunement, you first had to run heroic Internet.
  1. Yuyn's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    And not even the 5.0 dailies. It was mostly just Golden Lotus that was terrible. I enjoyed AC and Klaxxi as well as the serpents, cooking and fishing.
    I really didn't even mind Golden Lotus. Any of them in a vacuum were decent, but the problem was the "Gotta do everything to be optimal." (overemphasized by VP gating, epic rewards at exalted for two factions, etc.). That's largely why I singled out 5.1/5.2 as better, because there was only one daily hub per patch and they weren't too long (except 5.2 when the entire island was open -- it was a few dailies too long for doing every day).

    Though they did rather suck if you were still working on any of the 5.0 ones, of course.
  1. Arbs's Avatar
    Mythic you can only do once a week as it has a Static ID, the rest only have a loot lockout.
  1. Akkyaks's Avatar
    Anyone know what panel this was from?
  1. Heppu's Avatar
    So basically there is no longer any difference in loot stats except for item level and appearance (which the latter can be transmogrified)? I really wish they would just remove the whole stat system all together. It's outdated and dumb since you cant have players make decisions about anything anymore because the average player doesn't even understand he has been asked a question. He is just curious about the silly fire on the ground and the EPIC loot he will be rewarded in the end for his "accomplishment".
  1. kenshinag's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Bahska View Post
    So because Mythic is a set 20 players. Ten man guilds after they complete heroic (Which is just normal mode) have nothing left to do? If so, thats Pretty lame.
    You know what you can do with all that extra time you have?

    Start looking for 10 more players.
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