Patch 5.4 Legendary Quest Line Update, Upcoming Raid Testing, Blue Tweets, News Recap

On Monday, June 24, and Tuesday, June 25, we will begin our testing of raid encounters in the Siege of Orgrimmar raid. We'll begin with 10-player Normal testing, and then move on to Heroic and then 25-player mode as the PTR cycle progresses.

Each encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below for all Public Test Realms.

Monday, June 24
Fallen Protectors - 10 Player Normal - 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST)
Kor'kron Dark Shaman - 10 Player Normal - 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST)

Tuesday, June 25
Immerseus - 10 Player Normal - 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST)
General Nazgrim - 10 Player Normal 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST)

As this is our first testing session of many to come, there is probably a slightly higher than usual risk of bugs or other issues interfering with the planned testing, so thank you in advance for your patience. If you're unable to participate in this session, don't worry, there will be plenty of other opportunities to check out these bosses. Also note that several of the art assets and sound associated with the encounters being tested are non-final, but we'd like to get started testing and gathering data and feedback on the mechanics as early as possible in the process.

As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session, change the boss being tested, or cancel a test entirely, due to bugs, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback.

Important Testing Notes
Q: How do I get into the raid zone?
A: In northeastern Vale of Eternal Blossoms, in the exposed foundations of the Mogu'shan Palace, there is a staircase descending towards an instance portal. That is the entrance to the Siege of Orgrimmar raid.

Q: What gear do I use to test the raid?
A: Whatever gear you have. As we did for Throne of Thunder raid testing, we will be scaling players' gear inside the raid in order to facilitate testing. Gear will be scaled (up or down, as appropriate) for the purposes of testing the encounters, depending on difficulty and their location within the zone.

Character / Items
Can you say anything about new character models? I'm sure you get asked this a lot. But even a maybe will make my day!
There is no maybe. It's happening. We just haven't announced when it will be done. The Pandaren model alone took months. (Source)

Need a non-RNG "salaried" character advancement. RNG should only be used for "bonus" advancement.
The non RNG element is supposed to be Valor. (Source)

2hand to polearm transmog will be on 5.4?
Hopefully. I can't promise. (Source)

Is there any reason why the legendary cloak is unique? As ms healer I would love to buy one for my ret os for brawlers guild.
Do you mean the epic cloaks? (Source)
yeah i havent encountered this yet but that does seem odd. i can get tank/dps meta but only one cape?
No promises, but I could see changing that rule. It is a little harsh for hybrids. (Source)

Can u elaborate what you mean by end-game gearing direction? It was pretty stream-lined in the past
In the past it was so streamlined that WoW ceased to feel like an MMO. It was an instance-based game, in our opinion. (Source)
It's hard to see how you can make the gearing process take a variety of actions but also make it streamlined at the same time
MoP fixed that by offering a lot of outdoor content and other options but it was a crazy quilt that was hard to navigate. (Source)
in MoP, it was hard for some players to navigate the end game gearing options. We didn't provide enough direction at 90. (Source)
Particularly when e.g. 5.2 came out and it wasn't clear if you were supposed to run older 5.0 content or newer 5.2 stuff. (Source)

is there any chance to avoid drops at 10man that doesnt fit to anybody in raid? Like: "no rogues" then "no dagger(agi)"
What if you then stacked 8 rogues to make sure your real rogue had a good chance at a dagger? (Source)
We don't want you to feel obligated to game your comp to try to force different loot options. (Source)

LFR
LFR does not count as increasing raid participation, this flawed assumption is hurting the game (+participation=durable subs)
Why is it hurting the game? It gives many players something fun to do that they didn't have access to before. (Source)

His main point about LFR is "2 days played time at 90 and i've killed Lei Shen already. what's left in the game?"
How about content that actually challenges you? If that's not your thing, then stick to LFR. Everyone's happy? (Source)

It's the fact that so many players are now simply content to do LFR, and it's harder to find normal raiders.
Most of the players doing LFR just didn't raid at all before. They were never really eligible for recruitment. (Source)

and the trivial nature of seeing completing content /no difficulty curve in general is negatively impacting that.
In my experience, most players complaining about LFR aren't doing so with the noble goal of the new player experience. (Source)
They didn't claim to be noble. Just that they believe LFR reduces interest in tier quickly & hurts raid recruiting.
Maybe, though I suspect some of it is they feel LFR devalues their raiding accomplishments or it just offends them. (Source)

do you feel that LFR has limited the mechanics we can see in bosses? I doubt we'll ever see a Chimaeron or Atramedes again
Or normal and heroic can just have different mechanics.... (Source)

It is definitly worth the cost cause it's way more fun. No one talks now. What was wrong with the LFG tool in TBC?
It wasn't fun to spend your night of WoW hoping an Arcatraz group would form. Could literally be your whole night. (Source)

Heroic Raids
Those who want challenges have heroic raids; you held this view in WotLK, and now it's changed. Worth the cost?
Challenges are very personal. Normal raiding may be challenging for me but gold challenge modes are for you. (Source)
But that felt bad both for players who had accomplished a lot and those who never got to finish. (Source)
This gets back to progression - as long as everyone has some, players tend to be happy. Everyone need not be at the same place. (Source)

Only 1% of players are playing in hardmodes: are you absolutely sure, game needs them?
Yes. I don't think your arguments here work. You are equating popularity with whether something is good for the game. (Source)
For example, an invulnerability toggle in the outdoor world would, I bet, be very popular. It's hard to argue the game needs it. (Source)

I was always a fan of "hardmode via approach (Ulduar)" Not sure if I love or hate flexraids yet...Only one way to find out...
Ulduar, was cool, but we could only do the "interesting approach" so many different ways. We even copped out on Mimiron. (Source)
I dont know, being the guy that pushed the big red button that said "dont push" was kinda fun.
No doubt. But don't you think it would lose its charm if Horridon and Durumu and Iron Qon all had big red buttons too? (Source)

Scenarios
Not being able to do any scenarios until I've gotten some friends together to do a heroic scenario that day really bites
We are reconsidering that design. We were trying to give players less to do, but the problem you describe may be worse. (Source)

How about we skip 3-4 months over widespread debate and just make the H Scenario's "random-able"?
Because then everyone will demand we nerf the difficulty or let them kick the players that offend them. (Source)

PvE
I do want to debunk the myth that hard content (with no other options) will force socialization. (Source)
We are experimenting with that idea a bit with heroic scenarios. We'll see what the response is. (Source)

Re: Cataclysm heroic dungeons. As a player, I liked them. I like strategy > gogogo. (Source)
But, Cat dungeon difficulty did not play well with random matchmaking, and those players felt like we offered them no alternatives. (Source)
One strategy is to hope players stick with the tough dungeons but bail on the random matchmaking and find friends and guilds to run them. (Source)
But that's not what happened. A lot of players just gave up on heroic dungeons and then had no other PvE endgame. (Source)

Fast food since cata, MoP did a great change, but still lacks enough non-raiding content outside of leveling.
We haven't yet found anything else that provides the longevity of raiding. Possibly completing PvP Conquest gear. (Source)

why is it that we see this attitude of "more difficulties = more content" when it really doesn't? it seems to cause less
I could see that argument in the ToC era, but ToT is a big raid (and so is the next one). (Source)

In old days you were able to get tier sets and good nonsets via VP. Isn't is what players want now?
We wanted looting the boss itself to be more exciting. Valor eclipsed the dragon horde. (Source)

What's the reasoning behind CDs resetting after kill/wipe if >5 min, but not if >3 min?
We felt by the time you recovered and rebuffed that 3 min wasn't long to wait. (Source)

Id have to say that this expansion's dungeons are the least unique of any expansion to date. Rehashed plus reused.
Gate, Brewery and Jade were dungeons first that were inserted into the outside world for consistency. (Source)
Siege IIRC was added after the outside world was done. (Source)

Imperfect, but a quick and dirty analysis of what you're doing to raiding.
We appreciate the effort, but it's comparing raids at very different points in their life cycles. (Source)
Totally - it's the inference from T14 and on that people seem dramatically more willing to give up than before.
Your data (I assume that's you) doesn't show player willingness to give up though. It shows boss kills. (Source)
Then how do you explain the dramatic drop off in raiders starting the expansion with a boss kill and not moving to Jin'rokh?
Part of it is that the new tier requires higher ilevel (literally in the case of LFR) and not everyone is there yet. (Source)
No, thats not part of it. Jinrohk started with 20k kills and has 23k ones now. You wont see a flux of ppl doing it
I don't understand where the 20K number is coming from. Is that a theoretical example? (Source)
http://t.co/TjFIpnls8b 20k was what Jinrohk had after 4 weeks and its both 10 and 25 man.
I should add that I am excluding LFR and I am talking about accounts not alts in those examples. (Source)
So, slower gear catch up, less alts and linear raids are the cause of the drop, not difficulty? That seems your implication.
Not sure how alts figures into it. Our data suggests difficulty is about where it has been for some time. (Source)
You guys can debate whether finishing an old tier first or jumping right to a new tier is more fun. Not cut and dried IMO. (Source)
But faster patches and no instant catch up means guilds can't switch on a dime to a new raid tier, which they could in Cat. (Source)
I prefer the cata way. I really wonder if you just listened to an echo chamber those days.
The problem we had then was players would give up quickly on a tough boss because they knew a new patch would bring tons of gear. (Source)
It was if they were just gearing from patches and not from killing bosses. That's an effective but not very fun way to play. (Source)

In the (recent) past we would have immediately invalidated all previous content when a new patch hit. (Source)
ToT LFR felt like it invalidated T14N, was that the intention or should they have been efficient catch-up raids?
LFR makes it very complicated to have traditional normal tier progression. (Source)
Even if you ignore the gear, it's a little weird to be fighting N Sha of Fear in and killing LFR Lei Shen at the same time. (Source)

In MoP we tried for a slightly more vanilla feel where you finish 5.0 before going to 5.2. We provide more catch up than vanilla. (Source)
The problem with MoP catch up is that it's entirely random; there's literally no guarantee a player will ever get gear up.
Most of our rewards are random. As long as the income rate is okay, it works out. (Source)

I thought the new coin system was in to prevent bad streaks, I used 3 coins last week and 2 so far this week and still nothing
Our concern is that player expectation is to get loot frequently, but epics are just about the best reward we have in the game. (Source)
That's the biggest problem of raiding - casuals want to get loot at 5ppl's rate. That's why LFR can't replace 5ppls.
There is some truth to that. To earn a new boss kill in normal might take hours, maybe days. In LFR you burn through it all fast. (Source)

Are you happy with world bosses? Or wont we see many more in the next expacs?
We're happy with the "easy" Sha / Nalak verion. Still iterating on the "harder" version: Galleon / Oondasta. There will be more. (Source)