Raid Browser, WoD Heroic Dungeons, Dec 11 Hotfixes, Connected Realms, HS Beta Update

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Patch 5.4.2 - Raid Browser
Just a quick update to yesterday's post about the Raid Browser. It seems like it isn't completely cross-realm, but instead cross realm for each datacenter (in the US), with the Phoenix and Los Angeles datacenters being combined. You can see which of the three groups you are in on this WoWPedia page.

People also appear to be having trouble finding the Raid Browser. There are four ways to find it, one is the "Other Raids" button on the Raid panel, you can also type "/rb", you can also assign a key bind in the key bind settings, or you can use the button on the PvE finder frame that is added by the LFRAdvanced addon.



Raid Browser - Warlords of Draenor
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The new Group Finder tool in WoD (6.0) will completely replace the Raid Browser, and you will also be able to find it in a much more noticeable location.

We’re focusing our efforts in polishing the Group Finder in order to make it as good as it can be, maximizing its potential from the very start.
This is something we’ve learnt from the past, if the tool isn’t good enough from the very start or it’s not very accessible, it might lose its momentum, and once that happens it’s very hard to “jumpstart” it again.

It’s a tool that depends on player numbers for its own success, we want you to see other players using it every time you go there, and the risk is if you don’t, you might never go there again, and eventually that behaviour tends to spread out.

We also don’t have any plans to change the current Raid Browser until it gets replaced by the new tool.

The Group Finder will be a big improvement both in terms of functionality and visibility; we definitely want players to know where to find the tool in very intuitive manner, and hopefully trade chat spam will become a thing of the past. (at least in it comes to forming groups…)

Heroic Dungeon Difficulty in Warlords of Draenor
You can take part in some ongoing discussion on our forums in this thread.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
I’d like to start out by saying that we’re completely aware of the demand from the community for dungeons at a very high difficulty level.

As you know, WoD will (re)introduce the normal and heroic difficulties for 5man's at max level, which is already a very nice change in my opinion.

There are players who have been playing WoW for a very long time, they’re extremely skilled and will only be satisfied with the highest level of difficulty that we throw at them, that’s “perfect entertainment” for this type of players.

We also know that not everyone can raid in very high difficulty environments due to its big time commitment. Sometimes life changes, and suddenly instead of 3-4 hours every 2 days, some of these players will only have 1 or 2 hours, and that makes shorter/smaller instances with the same difficulty level as “mythic” an extremely appealing concept.

Challenge modes will probably be interesting for some of these players, but we also know that when people talk about TBC heroic 5man difficulty levels, they’re not talking about mindless zerg/rush timed runs. They’re talking about planning, strategy, CC, improvisation, randomness and sheer insane mobs/bosses power, but the “timed” part is still an important concept in game design to keep everyone on their toes.

We know all that, and we’re doing our very best to provide the most diverse content we can for the next expansion.

Your feedback can change a lot of things, just keep providing it and we’ll be sure to recognize your needs, devs are very interested in high quality feedback, and it can go a long way in changing some priorities during the development of WoD.

Having said that, the current planned difficulty scheme for 5mans at max level is Normal, Heroic and Challenge mode. Right off the bat, we can clearly say that WoD heroics will be much harder than MoP heroics.

Now, we’re not actually planning in making them as hard as the hardest heroics of all time, like the hardest from TBC, or GB and Stonecore from Cata, but nothing is set in stone yet, we’re still thinking about what will be the right difficulty level for anything WoD, and your continued feedback will definitely help us find that elusive sweet spot for a perfect tiered difficulty system.

We also think that we can rework a little bit the whole concept of challenge modes, right now people tend to think about them as purely timed runs, but they can be so much more than that.

I mean, the “timed part” doesn’t necessarily have to imply disregard for control and strategy; hopefully, we’ll be able to make challenge modes much more compelling to the highest skilled players out there, especially those that can’t raid but want to experience equivalent difficulty content to mythic raids in a 5man environment.

If you have any particular views on the subject, I’d love to hear what would be the “perfect challenge mode” for you, specifically in regards to reward structure and gameplay philosophy concepts.

I'm sorry but Cata heroics weren't really hard for organized groups.
You’re right, they weren't as hard as let's say, Shattered Halls HC. Our current goal is to make WoD heroics similar to the difficulty level you had in Vortex Pinnacle heroic for example.

To be honest, I loved Stonecore, it was fun trying to make a clean run where no one would do any mistakes, it wasn’t super hard, but I’d say most bosses had very unforgiving mechanics. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing of course, but bosses like Ozruk for example, need to have better visual cues when they have one-shot mechanics.

Good design needs to be more intuitive, it’s not really that fun to read through the full dungeon journal and memorize everything before fighting any boss, it’s much cooler when something is so well implemented that even if it’s completely unexpected you can still try to “guess” what it does and adapt, react to it on-the-spot, just like you would do with anything unexpected that happens in real life.

before or after the nerf to heroics?
Pre-nerf

Patch 5.4.2 Hotfixes: December 11
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
  • Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
    • General
      • Deterrence modified by the talent Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera should now correctly provide immunity to physical interrupt effects.
      • Revive Pet now has a casting time of 2 seconds (down from 4 seconds).
    • Talents
      • Resolved an issue where Battle Pets were incorrectly receiving the Spirit Bond talent.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
  • Siege of Orgrimmar
    • Paragons of the Klaxxi
      • Hisek the Swarmkeeper will no longer hit players with Fire if the channel effect of Aim is broken.
      • Korven the Prime will now always apply Vicious Assault's bleed effect to the target of his Shield Bash, and will pull the tank towards them during Vicious Assault if they're over 12 yards away.
      • Skeer the Bloodseeker will now only pull the tank towards them if they're over 13 yards away (up from 12 yards away).
  • Throne of Thunder
    • Durumu the Forgotten
      • Resolved an issue where a cone of light would not target another player if the targeted Holy Priest dies with Spirit of Redemption.

Battlegrounds and Arenas
  • Arenas
    • Arena matches should correctly have a maximum duration of 20 minutes again.
    • Hunter aspects and Trap Launcher effect should no longer be removed at the start of an arena match.
    • Mage armor buffs should no longer be removed at the start of an arena match.
    • Paladin seals should no longer be removed at the start of an arena match.
    • Priest's Inner Fire, and Inner Will should no longer be removed at the start of an arena match.

Connected Realms Update
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We will be connecting the realms listed below on Monday, December 16th during a scheduled maintenance beginning at 6 a.m. PST through approximately 11:00 a.m. PST. Once maintenance is finished, these realm connections will be complete.

  • Andorhal and Scilla/Ursin
  • Crushridge and Anub'arak/Chromaggus/Garithos/Nathrezim/Smolderthorn
  • Icecrown and Malygos
  • Quel'dorei and Sen'jin

We will be connecting the realms listed below on Monday, December 23rd during a scheduled maintenance beginning at 6 a.m. PST through approximately 11:00 a.m. PST. Once maintenance is finished, these realm connections will be complete.

  • Anetheron and Magtherdion/Ysondre
  • Darrowmere and Windrunner
  • Demonsoul and Coilfang, Dark Iron, and Dalvengyr
  • Draka and Suramar
  • Velen and Eonar

We will be connecting the realms listed below on Friday, January 3rd during a scheduled maintenance beginning at 6 a.m. PST through approximately 11:00 a.m. PST. Once maintenance is finished, these realm connections will be complete.

  • Akama and Dragonmaw
  • Executus and Kalecgos
  • Galakrond and Blackhand
  • Shandris and Bronzebeard
  • The Forgotten Coast and Balnazzar, Gorgonash and Warsong
  • Undermine and Anvilmar

Please note that as a part of the connection process realm times may change to match each other. Plans for these connections may change at any time, but we’ll provide additional updates on specific dates for future connections as we can. *Please note this list does not encompass all potential future connections. Please check back for further updates.

Connected Realms Update
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Hey all, now that patch 5.4.2 is live we will be continuing with our realm connections, beginning next week. Below you will find the latest realms we hope to connect:

English Realms
  • (PvP) Aggra (Portuguese) and Grim Batol (English)
  • (PvP) Lightning’s Blade and Karazhan

French Realms
  • (PvP) Arathi and Naxxramas/Temple Noir
  • (PvP) Ner’zhul and Garona

Spanish Realms
  • (PvE) Minahonda and Exodar

German Realms
  • (RP PvP) Das Syndikat and Die Arguswacht

Free Character Migrations (FCM) 11/12
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
The following Free Character Migrations are scheduled to be available until December 17, 2013:

Horde
Draenor (PvE) -> Killrogg/Runetotem (PvE)
Draenor (PvE) -> Wildhammer/Thunderhorn (PvE)
Stormscale (PvP) -> Shattered Halls/Talnivarr/Chromaggus/Boulderfist/Daggerspine (PvP)
Twisting Nether (PvP) -> Ravencrest (PvP)
Twisting Nether (PvP) -> Frostmane (PvP)
Kazzak (PvP) -> Ravencrest (PvP)
Kazzak (PvP) -> Frostmane (PvP)
Ragnaros (PvP) -> Shattered Halls/Talnivarr/Chromaggus/Boulderfist/Daggerspine (PvP)

Alliance
Sylvanas (PvP) -> Ravencrest (PvP)
Sylvanas (PvP) -> Frostmane (PvP)
Outland (PvP) -> Shattered Halls/Talnivarr/Chromaggus/Boulderfist/Daggerspine (PvP)
Silvermoon (PvE) -> Killrogg/Runetotem (PvE)
Silvermoon (PvE) -> Wildhammer/Thunderhorn (PvE)

Please note: FCMs are opened based on realm population tracking and analysis, not by request. If you’re looking for a specific migration (from realm A to realm B), you should in most cases use the Character Transfer service.

Character Transfers (CT)
All realms follow the regular CT rules, found here:
http://eu.blizzard.com/support/artic...rticleId=20416

Guild Transfer: Although Free Guild Master Realm Transfers are not possible at this time, the Free Character Migration will allow you to retain your guild membership and reputation, provided that the guild master completes a Guild Master Realm Transfer first and the faction remains the same as that of the source realm.

Please note that the FCM service can be closed at any point in time.

Dismiss Pet Changes
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
As a followup: we've got a hotfix in the works to lower Revive Pet's casting time to 2 seconds. Our goal was to remove the awkward gameplay of dismissing/swapping pets to bypass cooldowns and debuffs, not to make it harder for Hunters to have a pet active. With Revive at 2 seconds, you should have a much easier time getting your pet back on its feet.

We're also investigating the reports of Revive Pet being interruptible through Deterrence.

Hearthstone Beta Patch 4217
Hearthstone had their first patch in some time this week, with some nice changes, like being able to abandon a daily quest, the new ranking system, and some amusing new cards.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Raid Browser, WoD Heroic Dungeons, Dec 11 Hotfixes, Connected Realms, HS Beta Update started by chaud View original post
Published on 2013-12-12 10:11 AM
59 Comments
Comments 59 Comments
  1. chaud's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by fa3sr011 View Post
    I need some help understanding the new 5.4.2 Raid Browser changes. I've used it this week for Celestials and for Ordos and had no problem finding the interface in the old location. My question is after I've listed my name for the given Raid I've selected does Blizz match-make the raid group or does it take a physical player picking names and hitting the invite button?

    When I listed my name I had an invite within minutes which was great but it left me wondering. Both of my raid groups were full 40-man groups so did it take an enthusiastic "raid starter" to hit the invite on 39 other player names?
    A player puts together the groups.
  1. Hatredsheart's Avatar
    Lightning's Blade merge - is this US or EU?
  1. Feigr's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by papajohn4 View Post
    Why you didn't run them with the people you were supposed to raid with once you get that gear? Or the plan was to also raid with randoms? As far as I know LFR was first made much later in cata...

    Anyway, content shouldn't designed for random anonymous un-enchanted/ungemmed afkers(no talking for you here, but for the general random wow player). Especially the content with the prefix "heroic"
    Maybe they were busy already doing dungeons or doing something else, I don't remember very well. I also did not want to bother other people too much.

    Content should be designed so that there is something for all players, and I am completely fine with 5-man heroics being for the people who are maybe not as dedicated or skilled at the game. There are still heroic/mythic raids, challenge modes, scenarios etc that can all be tuned to be challenging if need be.
  1. Kazuchika's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gungrir View Post
    This will be a disaster, after MOP heroic easy mode dungeons making a 180° turn and slapping the people that grew accustomed to the "difficultly" and maybe going back to Cata difficultly (deja vu?) will throw allot of people for a loop.

    Blizz should stop sending those mixed signals every new expansion. I can already smell the pug wiping in all those dungeons a mile away and the fallout of all the whinebombs.
    Then maybe they should not suck at this game then.
  1. IKT's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gungrir View Post
    This will be a disaster, after MOP heroic easy mode dungeons making a 180° turn and slapping the people that grew accustomed to the "difficultly" and maybe going back to Cata difficultly (deja vu?) will throw allot of people for a loop.
    Relax kid, it's Heroic Vortex Pinnacle level of difficulty, aka not difficult at all.
  1. mmocee9d117667's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kektonic View Post
    Then maybe they should not suck at this game then.
    Doesn't work like that with devs developing a game.

    I recall Shattered Halls HC and what not from back in the old days.
    Can't see why people want that stuff back.

    Difficulty =/= Fun and replayable.
  1. Darkinfinity's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Hatredsheart View Post
    Lightning's Blade merge - is this US or EU?
    (PvP) Lightning’s Blade and Karazhan
    This is EU.
  1. fa3sr011's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by chaud View Post
    A player puts together the groups.
    Thank you for that clarification.
  1. Gungrir's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by IKT View Post
    Relax kid, it's Heroic Vortex Pinnacle level of difficulty, aka not difficult at all.
    Sigh, i was just stating what i observed over the expansion cycles. Changing the difficulty every expansion to the opposite direction is really a weird decision and most of the time it will reflect in the backlash from the community.
  1. Ktulu85's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gungrir View Post
    Sigh, i was just stating what i observed over the expansion cycles. Changing the difficulty every expansion to the opposite direction is really a weird decision and most of the time it will reflect in the backlash from the community.
    It is a good point. BC was difficult, WotLK was faceroll, Cata pre-nerf was difficult, MoP was faceroll,

    So based on previous trends, it will come out difficult, people will cry, and they will nerf.
  1. Nuvuk's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sting View Post
    I wonder how's that gonna play out lol
    You will eventually come across someone you cant understand and cant understand you I suppose.
  1. Phuongvi's Avatar
    I just hope they will adjust the reward in heroic.

    Why would I go in pug and waste my time (whippe and wait 30 min ifor my queu to pop) in 5 men heroic when I can buy better gear from the AH or craft better loot than those crappy reward ( see Cata and MoP) ?
  1. Hatredsheart's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Darkinfinity View Post
    This is EU.
    FINALLY. Thanks for the info m8.
  1. Darmalus's Avatar
    Unless Blizzard has something up their sleeve, this sounds like a repeat of the Cata heroic disaster. I was expecting Normal, Heroic and Mythic dungeons (as well as CMs), not just cranking up the difficulty. MoP heroics were plenty difficult before we utterly outgeared them.
  1. Necrotica's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Phuongvi View Post
    I just hope they will adjust the reward in heroic.

    Why would I go in pug and waste my time (whippe and wait 30 min ifor my queu to pop) in 5 men heroic when I can buy better gear from the AH or craft better loot than those crappy reward ( see Cata and MoP) ?
    Would you be happy if the Heroic 5man quality gear that dropped was on-par with say the first tier of the new xpak's LFR?

    That way people doing raids could also run those to fill out pieces or at least feel another option was available...

    However, I don't know if I want them to increase the difficulty and gear quality every major patch in those afterwards. There's a lot about vanilla and BC I miss, but having to do all the old content and then do all the older tier raids, just to gear up enough to join your mates in current tier was rather annoying. The part I hated the most about it was if you lost 1-2 key people, you had to put progression on hold (if you couldn't recruit someone of that gear quality) and gear up some alts or new people that was undergeared.

    I like that people can quickly catch up. I was asked to start tanking on an alt DK that I literally only decided to finish leveling to 90 a few weeks ago. I did the Timeless Isle stuff for a day, had enough gear to start queuing up for LFRs and then guild ran through a TOT Heroic with me tanking in the 496's and I did fine, and got a bunch of 535 gear. I'm now doing SOO LFR and Flex perfectly fine and my DK alt has been 90 for less than 2 weeks.
  1. mmoc1e4c5b7903's Avatar
    .



    1.TBC : hard heroics . "We want them to be a challenge"
    2.WOTLK : easy heroics. "We thought the heroics were too long , too harsh , too much crowd control. Let's make them easy".
    3.Cataclism : The heroics were too easy . Let's make them again hard , let's bring back the crowd control,let's make them longer.
    4.Mists : We actually think the heroics were hard , and this time we will make them easy , shorter . And without cc required .
    5.WoD : Well, let's make them hard again !!


    To be honest , this roller-coaster game design just show their incompetence . And keep losing them money. This hard-easy-hard-easy-hard-easy-hard just piss of everyone , the hardcore and the casual crowd.

    If I would have been their boss I would have asked them to chose a game direction , no matter what , and fkin stick to it . Right now is just a mess.

    And if they will manage , in their "infinitely wisdom" to make some heroics like those in Cataclysm , then WoD indeed will be a Time Travel Expansion.
    They will return at the moment when they lost 2 milions players because of the hard heroics. And will live again that moment .
  1. Moraven's Avatar
    And once people wipe 50 times on heroic Warlords heroics and whine about how they are to hard for pug groups... they will nerf them and be boring again.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Phuongvi View Post
    I just hope they will adjust the reward in heroic.

    Why would I go in pug and waste my time (whippe and wait 30 min ifor my queu to pop) in 5 men heroic when I can buy better gear from the AH or craft better loot than those crappy reward ( see Cata and MoP) ?
    TBC heroics were played for the challenge by a lot of people. The timed events like in Shattered Halls were great putting a goal for your group to obtain after you have cleared it a lot already.

    It would be interesting to see Heroics scale based on your iLevel.
  1. Necrotica's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Moraven View Post
    And once people wipe 50 times on heroic Warlords heroics and whine about how they are to hard for pug groups... they will nerf them and be boring again.

    - - - Updated - - -



    TBC heroics were played for the challenge by a lot of people. The timed events like in Shattered Halls were great putting a goal for your group to obtain after you have cleared it a lot already.

    It would be interesting to see Heroics scale based on your iLevel.
    Rather just see Challenge Mode 5man Dungeons then... You have to have a preready group and then can que up... Boom, done.
  1. Klapaucius5691's Avatar
    I love the harder heroics. The problem I and many others have with harder dungeons are those Latin/Brazilian servers on the Chicago datacenter servers. We have all the Latin/Brazilian servers and as most of you on this datacenter know, these people can be extremely difficult to deal with. Running Cataclysm heroics which these people was ridiculous and "planning, strategy, CC, improvisation" is almost impossible to do.
  1. papajohn4's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Feigr View Post
    Maybe they were busy already doing dungeons or doing something else, I don't remember very well. I also did not want to bother other people too much.

    Content should be designed so that there is something for all players, and I am completely fine with 5-man heroics being for the people who are maybe not as dedicated or skilled at the game. There are still heroic/mythic raids, challenge modes, scenarios etc that can all be tuned to be challenging if need be.
    But the sad part is that back then heroics was not for the dedicated hardcore raider but for casual players as well. The only difference is that the way groups were formed and how much people cared for each other and how much they cared for themeselves to perform well and make a good name on the server. Casual = good player with not much time back then.
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