PTR Patch Update - A Few Skill Updates

Patch 5.3 - Heroic Scenarios
A few things have changed since the last time we looked at Heroic Scenarios.

Your first Heroic Scenario of the day now offers 120 Valor Points for completion and just 30 Valor Points for completing the bonus objectives. You will also earn a Heroic Cache of Treasures, which has a chance to drop epic item level 516 gear.

Doing another scenario after the first reverts to the old Greater Cache of Treasures and 70 Valor Points / 30 Valor Points for the bonus.

The scenarios are still difficult, but a healer makes them trivial to do. However, this means you give up the bonus objective, as it requires a very high amount of DPS to complete. The patch notes still say that a group is required to join, but you are currently still able to queue solo!



Patch 5.3 - Challenge Mode Daily Quest Reward
Patch 5.3 adds another reason for some players to attempt challenge modes with the addition of a Heroic Cache of Treasures to the Challenge Mode Daily Quests. This gives you a chance at the item level 516 loot, better than what you can get from Raid Finder!



Patch 5.3 - Titan's Grip and Polearms
Ghostcrawler has been updating us on which tooltip changes are just fixes recently, so take a look at the last patch notes again to see what has changed! He also mentioned that Titan's Grip with Polearms is unlikely to make Patch 5.3, even though it appears to work.



Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Dungeons and Heroic Scenarios
Dungeons and scenarios just aren't equal in the time and effort required to create them. Dungeons and raids, however, are equal in the time and effort required. When looking at the current progression landscape we have to say ok, is it worth cutting down on the size of the next raid so we can have a new dungeon? Is that what will benefit players most and create the best experience? When you consider the progression path right now, which requires a few dungeons and then hop-skip-jumping to Throne of Thunder in about a week, what is to gain from additional dungeons, and does that warrant cutting large amounts of content from future raids?

I don't think there are any silver-bullet answers to that, different players want different types of content, but we make decisions on what we believe the majority of players will benefit from most, and what is overall best for the experience of the game. Certainly some people will say they don't care about raids, or they'd prefer a raid be half the size so they can have a new dungeon. There's not going to be a full consensus on these kinds of things. On anything, really.

With Heroic Scenarios we can give some of that dungeon experience with difficult encounters, they require coordination, there are some stretch goals, and competitive rewards. We'd like to see if we can take the experience of a dungeon and present it in another way, and see if it scratches that same itch. We'll be interested to hear what people think once they try them.

So we faceroll content for a week and jump to the last tier? I hope I don't strain myself in this epic adventure.
The majority of people coming in mid-expansion want to try to catch up to where everyone else is. You can take your time, if you like; really experience everything the expansion has to offer up to this point, but we want to ensure people can catch up in a relatively quick amount of time if they want to so they can have fun with their friends/guilds - or at least see some of the newest content. It's going to really come down to drops. One week is probably unlikely for many.

Why is creating large raids AND lots of 5 mans so hard now compared to the Wrath/ BC days?
Because those examples remove the context of time. A lot of the content that released through the lifetime of BC and Wrath was in development before those expansions released, and was intended as launch content. It was delayed and finished off later. Not to mention the life cycles of those expansions was just much, much longer than where we are now. I think there's a misunderstanding that development cycles are much shorter than they actually are, or that we don't begin work on the next patch until the current one is released. With 5.2 we heard that people wanted to see some additional dungeons, but even if we began working on them then you probably wouldn't actually see them until long after 5.4 where they wouldn't make sense any longer.

But we can make Scenario content relatively quickly, we think Heroic Scenarios can get at that same kind of gameplay, and we'll have to see how everyone likes the additional challenge. Like I said we don't think it's going to be a replacement for dungeons, or will appeal to every single player, but we hope it's something everyone will at least try and we look forward to hearing what you think. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Heroic Scenarios and Dungeons
On patch 5.3 scenarios are getting some cool upgrades (such as heroic mode) as well as new and improved rewards, so hopefully that'll make them more attractive for you Stono.

We still like 5-man dungeons and there will be more in coming expansions, but right now, the developers feel the content they're currently working on (raids with their varying difficulty modes (LFR, normal, Heroic) normal and Heroic scenarios, world bosses, quest content...) for this expansion's cycle is more attractive to a bigger number of players.

I just wish more of the dungeons we have would be available when leveling.
In patch 5.3 the developers are going to tweak at which point dungeons are made available on the whole level 1-90 range.

I'd rather see every single scenario out of the window for 2-3 more 5 man dungeons. Scenarios all come down to the same thing: You kill some stuff, do a few objectives and that's it. There are no real mechanics you have to deal with (Oh you mean those big elite 'bosses'?). It's outright boring, and adding a Heroic mode and giving it more rewards will definitely not attract more people to this obnoxious form of PvE.
I realize plenty of you don't care about Scenarios as they are right now. Which is alright, to be frank, I usually run them just for valor, so that sentiment some people may have in the sense of "these aren't quite useful for me" it's not alien to me.

However, having said that, keep in mind Heroic scenarios are indeed harder and tuned to a higher item level. There'll be new rewards and items as well coming from them, so, while I completely understand you might not like them as they are right now, I'd encourage you to go to the PTR as the patch continues to be developed and see how Heroic scenarios are shaping up. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Ra-den Difficulty
Well the limited attempts made it one of the longer races to be sure. Whether it was more difficult than others, maybe not(?), but difficulty is in the eye of the beholder. We've had bugged or overtuned bosses in the past that were essentially impossible to beat, but for those not involved sometimes that turns from "impossible" to "an epic struggle!"

Probably most important though is that while the world first race is awesome and we all love watching it and seeing who wins, we still want the fights to be possible for high-end progression raids that are not vying for world firsts. We're not trying to make boss fights impossible for the sake of tripping everyone up and laughing as no one can kill them for months. We can make impossible bosses. That's not the point, though. Bosses are made to die. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

In-game Support Site Access and Tools in 5.3
I know your impulse is to not share any of this, but it's going to be figured out eventually. You may as well make it easy for the people who want to help to find issues before the people who want to exploit it find something to take advantage of.
We’re glad that there are so many who want to help test the functionality of this new system and appreciate the questions. You’re right that the development team is continuing to take player privacy and security very seriously. Here’s what we can answer for you:

I know this is a trade off between security and useful testing, but can/will you tell us anything about the browser tech you're using? Which rendering engine, etc?
We’re using the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) for the browser functionality within the system.

Is it going to have access to any of the active game information (for example, will you need to log in to the Customer Service website while you're in the game, or will the game authentication somehow be passed through?
We plan to have a single sign on process, which will alleviate the need to re-authenticate. We plan to have this implemented in the near future.

Will the character currently logged in be automatically selected, game state information be captured for ticket data, or client logs be available to include (or automatically included) with ticket submission?
Tickets will capture some data relevant for Customer Service to be able to work effectively such as a player’s location for ‘stuck’ bugs (which allows a GM to teleport to the player location.) This is done on the backend.

Where will browser session information be stored on the local PC? Will any of it persist between game sessions?
We are minimizing the amount data stored on player’s machines and the data we persist between sessions. The browser will not be able to access ‘general purpose’ sites.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that this system is being devised not to remove GM assistance when it’s needed. It’s meant to make it easier for those that want to find “self-help” options without the need to contact Customer Support should they wish to. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hearthstone - Mage vs Shaman Duel
Blizzard released a video of another casted game today, this time between Jaina and Thrall. The new cards from the video have been added to the cards list.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Heroic Scenarios, CM Quest Reward, Titan's Grip and Polearms, Blue Posts, Hearthstone started by chaud View original post
Comments 81 Comments
  1. Shadee's Avatar
    So they make heroic scenarios because they are too lazy to make 5 mans?
  1. Msi's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadee View Post
    So they make heroic scenarios because they are too lazy to make 5 mans?
    No, because 5 man dungeons don't have a purpose anymore....
    Don't be so negative.
  1. TrollShaman's Avatar
    I find 5-mans more enjoyable than 3-mans, but 3-man Heroics are okay too I guess.
  1. Railander's Avatar
    what a noob jaina.
  1. Monomania's Avatar
    Scenarios are boring as hell. I'll resub when they put in more five mans since that's what I have the most fun with.
  1. mmocef2fdcc82b's Avatar
    surprise surprise thrall won the duel
  1. Torais's Avatar
    A Shaman beat a Mage...?

    This truly is a brave new world...
  1. Bowserkills7's Avatar
    Liking the look of Hearthstone. The gameplay looks really good.
    I love card games, so that is right up my ally.
  1. Korru's Avatar
    But Thrall had the Doomhammer...
  1. Noctus78's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadee View Post
    So they make heroic scenarios because they are too lazy to make 5 mans?
    Thats a bit short sighted.

    Remember when they implemented new 5mans in cataclysm halfway the expansion. people were sick and tired of running the same 2 or 3 dungeons all the time (first ZA/ZG, later the 3 caverns of time dungeons) and there was MASSIVE complaining.
  1. Propane's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Galeos View Post
    No, because 5 man dungeons don't have a purpose anymore....
    Don't be so negative.
    If 5 mans dungeons have no purpose then neither do scenarios.
  1. lordjust's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadee View Post
    So they make heroic scenarios because they are too lazy to make 5 mans?
    Did you read the bluepost? They said doing new dungeons takes a lot of time and if they started now they were ready after 5.4 is released. Also Blizzard doesn't want us to use dungeons or scenarios to quickly gear up for the newest content.

    Making scenarios is quick because all the things needed are already done. They always use the same mobs and areas and only need to do some scripting and they're finished. Dungeons on the other hand need at least the dungeon in itself which is more work than doing some scenarios and when looking at dungeons from the past they want to do also mobs, bosses and gear that fits the dungeon.

    As they said it's about what fits most to the playerbase. You want more dungeons? OK, but you won't get content as fast as now. Instead of a new raid you would get a new set of dungeons (maybe 2-3) so that one raid tier would last like 10 months or you get smaller raids.

    I think investing more time into the raid tier and adding some quick and dirty scenarios for people who don't raid is better for everyone especially since heroic dungeons are just normal lvl90 dungeons and nothing special anymore. The raid tiers so far are great and the filler patches are great too with story progression and all.
  1. Static's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Torais View Post
    A Shaman beat a Mage...?

    This truly is a brave new world...
    I don't understand. Are you saying there's absolutely no way for, say, an Enhancement Shaman, to beat a Mage in a duel? Given that both players are equally good?
  1. IxilaFA's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shambulanced View Post
    I'm also not seeing how SHORT (3 bosses, tops) dungeons would be that much more work than scenarios, tbh.
    The way I see it, most Scenarios take place in locations that already exist in the world, while dungeons have to be created from scratch in their own instance. So it requires creating new terrain, layouts, new bosses, trash packs, and then balancing it all for a group of 5-man to be able to down confidently and quickly, without too many issues based on Class comp, etc.

    With Scenarios, you just copy the area you want, paste it into a new instance, sprinkle some mobs and quest objectives here and there, and then throw down a boss or two. So designing a Scenario is like making some new quests, designing a dungeon is like making an entire new zone from scratch.

    Something like that...
  1. Tehstool's Avatar
    Also Jeeves got an icon update:

  1. ThatsOurEric's Avatar
    Dual-wielding Polearms is going to look very ridiculous. I'm disappointed they're making them TG-able.
  1. Ilnezhara's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Galeos View Post
    No, because 5 man dungeons don't have a purpose anymore....
    Don't be so negative.
    Scenarios are retarded. They take too long, you can't faceroll rush them because there's a stupid ass story I don't care about, I always get put with like... THE DREGS of the game. Yeah scenarios are the epitome of not fun.
  1. Huntaer's Avatar
    That heartstone video. Is it me, or does buying a better deck simply give you victory?
  1. Monomania's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Wowalixi View Post
    The way I see it, most Scenarios take place in locations that already exist in the world, while dungeons have to be created from scratch in their own instance. So it requires creating new terrain, layouts, new bosses, trash packs, and then balancing it all for a group of 5-man to be able to down confidently and quickly, without too many issues based on Class comp, etc.

    With Scenarios, you just copy the area you want, paste it into a new instance, sprinkle some mobs and quest objectives here and there, and then throw down a boss or two. So designing a Scenario is like making some new quests, designing a dungeon is like making an entire new zone from scratch.

    Something like that...
    The reasons why they're so easy to create are the same reasons why they're so boring. They just feel like group quests, whereas five-mans feel like theme parks. I don't like that they're accepted as a replacement for five-mans, as if interesting, medium-length (compared to raids) content isn't necessary to maintain their momentum.
  1. Reyzzz's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ilnezhara View Post
    Scenarios are retarded. They take too long, you can't faceroll rush them because there's a stupid ass story I don't care about, I always get put with like... THE DREGS of the game. Yeah scenarios are the epitome of not fun.
    Then don't do them, problem solved.

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