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. Ohforfsake's Avatar
    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?

    PS: roflol @ Ozruk comment. Yeah.. If you are gonna tune the dungeons for baddies that can't even move their character once in a while to avoid a perfectly predictable and slow cast..
  1. marrakoosh's Avatar
    I think it has been working all along and this is just to try and quell the QQ'ers.

    None of us would probably know if it was working or not. At least we wouldn't see much of a difference.

    But meh, I rarely pug anyway, so whatever they want.
  1. Granyala's Avatar
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    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.

    ./facepalm

    Why don't you add a 30% zone wide buff to the Raids while you're at it?
  1. Indiglo's Avatar
    Because random 5 mans are serious business, right? People won't be able to get gear like we did in LK as easy, if at all. I don't see why this is a big deal.

    Quote Originally Posted by Granyala View Post
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    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.

    ./facepalm

    Why don't you add a 30% zone wide buff to the Raids while you're at it?
    Because "nerfing" 5 mans is directly related to how the raids will be tuned?
  1. dotSeed's Avatar
    This is a great idea; however I think that it's too much considering the difficulty reductions already planned. They should really revert those (except ability/AOE clarifications) if they're going to go with this system.
  1. reverendball's Avatar
    why so much qq?

    IF YOU ARE JUST DOING GUILD RUNS THIS CHANGE WILL NOT AFFECT YOU

    everyone keeps going on about how they only run everything in guild now
    yet everyones qqing that this buff is like the ICC buff and will make everything ezmode

    i know most of my runs will only see a 5% increase at most
  1. vizzle's Avatar
    Elitists go away. Let the casuals have their heroics. The good players are raiding heroic modes.
  1. Coar'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.
    Yeah your right, they shouldn't.

    Casuals don't play for that OMG WE KILLED A BOSS AFTER WIPING ON IT FOR 2 MONTHS feeling.

    We can't get that feeling if everything is so fucking easy you never wipe, and that is the direction it's going.

    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.

    Now it's become the same wrath grindfest. (Not saying heroics are hard, but I can clearly see where blizzard is going with this. There will be across the board nerfs to these current raids before 4.1)
  1. Strafer's Avatar
    I wonder what Totalbiscuit is doing right now.
  1. Cerabret's Avatar
    Oh cool, now all the people who bitch about things being too hard are going to go rest in their holes momentarily while all the leet pr0 skillz people will come back out and bitch about how things are now too easy despite the fact that if they were as good as they allude, they'd already be focusing on raid content at which point heroic 5 man difficulty doesn't really matter.
  1. neanoa's Avatar
    Bullshit excuse to nerf heroics. And instead of adjusting or dumbing down specific encounters, they just flat out make ALL of it shit-easy.
  1. Astrella's Avatar
    I don't think the buff to LotD is a big deal. It helps PuGs without nerfing the content. I run with guild groups so I don't get the buff, thus it doesn't affect me. Hell, more people should be running in guild groups anyway.
  1. Susej's Avatar
    I took comfort in the fact that pugs COULD NOT DOWN ANYTHING IN HEROICS.

    I hate how blizzards responce to all problems is "Pour some sugar on it" 15% X Y or Z will balance things.


    Ghostcrawlers standing was "Heroics are hard, QQ more" To "LOLOLOLOL ICC WAS HARD HERES 30%DAMAGELOLOLOL"


    RiP Arathi Basin rateds.
  1. greyghost'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.
    I'm going to say this and hope all of you morons are paying attention (although I doubt you'll read this).

    This change is done for bad and lazy players.

    Casual =/= bad or lazy.


    I play perhaps 1-2 hours a day and I spend the majority of that time doing daily quests and farming vanity pets. Yet somehow I never had trouble doing any of the heroic dungeons for the occasions I spend 3+ hours online. This change was done in regards for players who despite being shown time and time again that it would be ideal for them to team up with a guild on their schedule or other persons they know to do heroics, they decided to shove their hand into the Random LFG oven and get surprised when they get burned. And do this over and over again, because they are too lazy to actually find an online peer group to do things with. Or in some cases, they're just too terrible to figure out that after the 8th wipe that you need to get away from Rom'ogg Bonecrusher after breaking out of the chains. If you actually even break out of the chains.

    This change is an oven mitt. But note that oven mitts do nothing if you decide to shove your hand right into a casserole pan full of boiling potatoes and cheese.
  1. marinos's Avatar
    Ok can you pretty please buff heroics now?
  1. Krystal's Avatar
    I'm fine with this change. OH GOD it's going to make random heroics actually doable??? The horror! It's not like raids are getting a nerf or anything. Sheesh. Calm down, people. I know I'm not alone with my opinion because I can't count how many times I've read LFG stories on MMO.

    For the record, my main has been raid ready since within a week of Cata launch since I ran lots of heroics in that time. However, it would be nice to have a little fun on my alts without wiping for hours in these heroics because people don't know what they're doing. Lawl can't wait to see how high my mage's dps will now get on that first pull of Halls with that buff. I <3 spellsteal.
  1. leivadith's Avatar
    Blizzard and a lot of wow players have no integrity.

    "QQ homework's hard, nerf school." I hope GC never ever is involved in education, else young people will become stupider and lazier than they even are today.
  1. Doombringer's Avatar
    This is a good tweak for PUGs.

    I know many posters here feel the heroics are easy enough as it is, but let's remember that Blizzard has hard data. I doubt they are doing this solely because members of the community are whining on the forums. I think they have actual data showing what groups are killing what bosses and when. They also have GMs who observe encounters - they monitor the world firsts. so having these people watch PUGs and take notes isn't far off the mark. There are milestones, where they want to see bosses being downed and loot being given out... if they're not reaching these, then the playerbase as a whole is struggling.
  1. Doddilus's Avatar
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    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.
    Random heroics too hard?
    L2 pla.... oh wait, our bad
  1. Duster505's Avatar
    And they add this buff 3 months to late... Alot of ppl have left already and think of Cata with horror trying to run LFD. The bad experience so early in an expsansion will hurt big time.

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