Dragon Soul Difficulty Changes Impact, Blue Tweets, Comics, MMO Report

love comics

Well, the spike is there, but not crazy as people thought it out to be. And they thought it would ruin the raid instance.

OH they are SO bringing back Illidan.

Well, according to that data it seems what Blizzard was going for happened. They said when they put in the nerf that a lot of guilds were roadblocked on heroic content, and it seems like heroic kills saw a spike, but regular is still going up steadily. I'd say it shows that gear coupled with somewhat elite skill is required for heroics, whereas regular is far less gear dependent (and less skill dependent as well).

Originally Posted by Renwin

Well, the spike is there, but not crazy as people thought it out to be. And they thought it would ruin the raid instance.

Lol, Waiting for people to come on and go OMG LOOK HOW BIG THE GRAPH GETS without taking into account the scale bars. Remember as said this is out of a sample of 5.6 million and the scale is in SINGLE thousands.

Please guys dont freak out without thinking through what youre saying.

The big thing with Spine wasn't just a 5% nerf, but an additional 15% less hp on the tendon. On 25, getting 2-2-2 is pretty easy now. It doesn't surprise me that the curves for Spine and Madness look pretty similar because once you down Spine, the Madness kills only 1-5 days off. It took my guild two full nights to down Madness. Eventually one plate is going to be feasible on 10 man with Heroism, and that's when you'll see another significant spike. A 10 man 8/8 guild I'm friends with said they weren't far off when they tried, but a 10 or 15% nerf should allow them to do it consistently.

Thanks for the graphs, they're always cool.

Oh I wish they could some how bring Illidan back into WoW. I think a really awesome idea would be to actually have a War of the Ancients raid where you follow both Malfurion and Illidans side of the story, and have players involved in the battle fighting against the Burning Legion somehow. Would be good to include the battles of the demi-gods that fight there too. Otherwise I really would want to see Turalyon and Alleria back in the mix since they are currently MIA, and even more Medivh would be great. Blizzard should play it safe though and not bring anyone back from the dead, but re-incorporate old characters back in through means of Caverns of Time (as they did with the Well of Eternity instance).

Just to think that over 1.5 million people were raiding in wrath just in 25 man raiding format alone. Oh where have all the raiders gone.

Originally Posted by DarkPhoenix

Lol, Waiting for people to come on and go OMG LOOK HOW BIG THE GRAPH GETS without taking into account the scale bars. Remember as said this is out of a sample of 5.6 million and the scale is in SINGLE thousands.

Please guys dont freak out without thinking through what youre saying.

The "thousands" from 5.6 million is as it should be - doubt all 5.6 million are heroic users
Now to wonder what does other people do since most guilds are still stuck at normals and heroic guilds are almost clearing the raid already. Also yes, please please strong females apart from Sylvanas (who has been little silent). Now to cross fingers "enemy female story" doesnt turn into "lol sylv went bad"

Originally Posted by MrExcelion

The big thing with Spine wasn't just a 5% nerf, but an additional 15% less hp on the tendon. On 25, getting 2-2-2 is pretty easy now. It doesn't surprise me that the curves for Spine and Madness look pretty similar because once you down Spine, the Madness kills only 1-5 days off. It took my guild two full nights to down Madness. Eventually one plate is going to be feasible on 10 man with Heroism, and that's when you'll see another significant spike. A 10 man 8/8 guild I'm friends with said they weren't far off when they tried, but a 10 or 15% nerf should allow them to do it consistently.

Thanks for the graphs, they're always cool.

I can confirm it's similar on 10-man; we've just started progressing on it, and we're not seeing major issues downing the tendons with 2 lifts of each plate. I can, however, see how this would have been an uphill struggle before the nerfs, and really commend the people who managed to do it.

Great comic from Dark Legacy. Love it.

I have a question about these graphs: Are the lines between datapoints just interpolated spines or real data? if not it would be easier to interpret on first sight without the lines but with markings for special events like the date of the nerf.

Originally Posted by Hightotem

Just to think that over 1.5 million people were raiding in wrath just in 25 man raiding format alone. Oh where have all the raiders gone.

Of which like 1m were getting locked to Marrowgar every week ^_^

Dark legacy was hilarious.

The real interesting comparison, and I think it's not currently possible due to Blizzard hiding the data from the Chaud's of the world, is how many in that same sample had completed Dragon Soul on LFR difficulty.

The reason that would be an interesting comparison is that a total of less than 400,000 (heroic/normal DS achieve) seems low to me. It may well reflect a "negative" impact of LFR in that having "seen the content" and gotten welfare epics the incentive to continue at "higher" difficulty levels may have been greatly reduced.

If LFR, in actuality, is lowering the incentive and/or desire to do normal/heroic raids then it's introduction may have had unintended consequences that will have a significant negative impact on the future of what we now refer to as "raiding" in WoW.

Originally Posted by Mormolyce

Of which like 1m were getting locked to Marrowgar every week ^_^

More then 1.6 million downed anub 25 in 25 man raiding guilds alone, this excludes the strict 10man guilds.
1st 2 wings of ICC also had over 1.6 million in 25 man raiding alone.

Hands down best Dark Legacy comic ever.

Maybe I am not reading the graphs correctly but it looks like the rate of new kills decreased in each case the week the nerfs went live. The week leading up to the nerf (ending 31 January) is steeper than the week following it.

OK, how the HELL did I not know about Earthrise? Only to learn about it after they announce the closure of the servers >< God dammit! I just spent about an hour watching vids of that game, it's like Tabula Rasa! GRRRRRR!

Originally Posted by ares1023

Oh I wish they could some how bring Illidan back into WoW. I think a really awesome idea would be to actually have a War of the Ancients raid where you follow both Malfurion and Illidans side of the story, and have players involved in the battle fighting against the Burning Legion somehow.

Can we please stop bringing characters back? The game is stale enough as it is, resurrecting YET ANOTHER lore figure is only going to make it worse.