Ghostcrawler Interview, Timeless Isle Armor, 5.4 Notes Update, Blue Posts, TCG Art

Originally Posted by lyphe

The person that logs in and logs back out to ever return, is likely a medically-certified moron.

People will log in and play, or log out depending on how good the expac and content and new character models are. They will stay logged in or log out depending how good the game is. If somebody logs into an incredible new expac and then logs back out because they're iLvL is lower ... well ... do I really need to explain further how ridiculous your comment is?

Some people care about their character progress.

Does item level squish really matter? Not being able to solo old content is what really matters. Say no to the item level squish. Or say goodbye to good old wow players.

people dont seem to understand what an item squish is. All numbers are being tuned down to manageable levels of perception.

this isnt a HUGE nerf to damage while everything has impossible amounts of health. the ratio's of damage to health will remain the same as they are now (as well as the overwhelming level a lvl 90 will have on a lvl 80 dungeon boss) but the numbers on all sides will be tweaked lower .

10k dps will be the new 547k, not just 10k dps as we see it now at lvl 90.

It will be like calculating feet in kilometers instead

instead of saying iam traveling 328084 feet, you'll say 100 KM

Originally Posted by Thyranne

Some people care about their character progress.

Item squish doesn't take away any of that. DnD (or at least the older editions) manages to keep the scaling very tight and no one complains there is no progression there, so I don't think any reason why WoW couldn't manage it.

Does item level squish really matter? Not being able to solo old content is what really matters. Say no to the item level squish. Or say goodbye to good old wow players.

I have played since Vanilla so I am one of the old wow players, and I don't recall "soloing" being a staple or unique feature of the old WoW when back then you required a group for almost anything.

Originally Posted by Ruck

They definitely went out of their way to design that new armor...

I don't really expect something super awesome from account bound gear that can be bought with coins or found in chests.

Originally Posted by corebit

If Blizzard truely supported soloing old dungeons as a feature, they would have balanced the classes accordingly instead of only a few select classes/specs able to solo almost all content and other classes having almost no chance unless they outlevel it severely. Most transmog runs to 80/85 content are still done in groups.

Removing the group requirement and putting pets into the super old raids would just be a temporary measure, because a thing like item squish is a massive undertaking. This kind of token effort really doesn't sound like support to me.

Also, I read the Chinese interview. Unless the interviewer mistranslated GC's words, the certainty was very strong: "...we WILL do the item squish.." (...我们会压缩...)

There is nothing stopping you from leveling one of said toons, also old content to them are the ones they tune to allow you to solo them, like bwl. It's also the ones they put pets into. They don't care if you can solo cata content.

Originally Posted by lyphe

The person that logs in and logs back out to ever return, is likely a medically-certified moron.

People will log in and play, or log out depending on how good the expac and content and new character models are. They will stay logged in or log out depending how good the game is. If somebody logs into an incredible new expac and then logs back out because they're iLvL is lower ... well ... do I really need to explain further how ridiculous your comment is?

Every time I see WoW in a news article or a gaming article I always scroll down to the comments and it's always filled with, "I quit that game cause of the stupid new talent system" or "They dumbed the game down too much". If you honestly believe casual players who don't go to the forums (Which is the majority) aren't going to freak out when the squish happens then I don't know what to tell you. I can't help your ignorance. The talent changes to me weren't that big of a deal, but I can see why many freaked and quit. The squish would be a bigger deal to a lot more players.

All i'm saying is that fixing in numbers doesn't look very important compared to people having to compete with others for old content mounts and transmog gear. It's going to be very frustrating if we'll have to group for that elusive onyxian mount only to see it go away in a very bad roll like in wrath days. That is something we don't do now, and won't like it to happen either.

Squish does not matter. Only to people's damn E-peens. Completing content is what matters, and you will do that regardless.

OT, I really miss those days of spamming in Westfall for a group to complete the quests in the northern towers with the elites....ANYONE ELSE???!!! These days everything is so simple. Everything is soloable (quests while leveling). Bring back some tough quests with good rewards while leveling. The rares in MOP kinda helped, but I miss group quests.

So, beyond the debate about the squish, I find another bit of info in this release more interesting.

You will be able to get better gear by grinding out 535 pieces in the Timeless Isles than you will be able to running LFR. This looks like Blizzard's not so subtle attempt to get players running Flex raids instead of LFR to 'see' the content. I think that the number of LFR users will definitely drop if there is a non-raid alternative to get upgrades, and will massively drop once people may be down to a slot or two left to upgrade. Just as Blizzard seemed to try to artificially boost LFR usage by making it the only gearing path for alts and catch-up gearing in the first 3 patches, it seems like now they are reversing course and sabotaging its particiipation numbers by giving players a non-raid alternative to getting better gear, while at the same time boosting participating in their new feature 'flex' raiding. Manipulating game play through reward to prove that their latest feature is great, because they can then back it up with participation numbers, is a pretty slick trick. Players follow the gear, that is what drives the game, and Blizzard uses this to validate their changes. Don't get me wrong though, I think Flex is a great addition to the game, so for me this would be a fantastic shift in design.

It begs the question tho "Is this the beginning of the phasing out of LFR and a push towards Flex being the alternative raiding source in the next xpac?"

Originally Posted by ganush

So, beyond the debate about the squish, I find another bit of info in this release more interesting.

You will be able to get better gear by grinding out 535 pieces in the Timeless Isles than you will be able to running LFR. This looks like Blizzard's not so subtle attempt to get players running Flex raids instead of LFR to 'see' the content. I think that the number of LFR users will definitely drop if there is a non-raid alternative to get upgrades, and will massively drop once people may be down to a slot or two left to upgrade. Just as Blizzard seemed to try to artificially boost LFR usage by making it the only gearing path for alts and catch-up gearing in the first 3 patches, it seems like now they are reversing course and sabotaging its particiipation numbers by giving players a non-raid alternative to getting better gear, while at the same time boosting participating in their new feature 'flex' raiding. Manipulating game play through reward to prove that their latest feature is great because they can then back it up with participation numbers is a pretty slick trick. Players follow the gear, that is what drives the game, and Blizzard uses this to validate their changes. Don't get me wrong though, I think Flex is a great addition to the game, so for me this would be a fantastic shift in design.

It begs the question tho "Is this the beginning of the phasing out of LFR and a push towards Flex being the alternative raiding source in the next xpac?"

People won't even run LFR for valor points because heroic scenarios give way more VP and are faster with no AFK.

Warlock tears are the sweetest nectar to Blizzard?
Good thing I have a mage to raid with next teir

Originally Posted by ganush

So, beyond the debate about the squish, I find another bit of info in this release more interesting.

You will be able to get better gear by grinding out 535 pieces in the Timeless Isles than you will be able to running LFR. This looks like Blizzard's not so subtle attempt to get players running Flex raids instead of LFR to 'see' the content. I think that the number of LFR users will definitely drop if there is a non-raid alternative to get upgrades, and will massively drop once people may be down to a slot or two left to upgrade. Just as Blizzard seemed to try to artificially boost LFR usage by making it the only gearing path for alts and catch-up gearing in the first 3 patches, it seems like now they are reversing course and sabotaging its particiipation numbers by giving players a non-raid alternative to getting better gear, while at the same time boosting participating in their new feature 'flex' raiding. Manipulating game play through reward to prove that their latest feature is great, because they can then back it up with participation numbers, is a pretty slick trick. Players follow the gear, that is what drives the game, and Blizzard uses this to validate their changes. Don't get me wrong though, I think Flex is a great addition to the game, so for me this would be a fantastic shift in design.

It begs the question tho "Is this the beginning of the phasing out of LFR and a push towards Flex being the alternative raiding source in the next xpac?"

What do you mean like Valor gear is 522 compared to LFR 502?

People read so much into so many things (and some people get frustrated when the things they have made up don't happen).

LFR is for randoms.

Flex is for PUGs and Friends.

Normals and Heroics are for Raiding guilds.

Do I think this is to many levels of difficulty?

Sure I can see that.

But I think I would rather they merged Flex and Normals (and tuned Normals slight lower than say Horridon was) and keep LFR, than get rid of LFR.

Originally Posted by rsmiskell

I'm so done with whoever made this expansion - let's move onto the next one and get back to WoW content that doesn't suck.

You are acting like Cataclysm did not suck. I am sorry to disappoint you but I think the days you want are gone.

Originally Posted by ganush

So, beyond the debate about the squish, I find another bit of info in this release more interesting.

You will be able to get better gear by grinding out 535 pieces in the Timeless Isles than you will be able to running LFR. This looks like Blizzard's not so subtle attempt to get players running Flex raids instead of LFR to 'see' the content. I think that the number of LFR users will definitely drop if there is a non-raid alternative to get upgrades, and will massively drop once people may be down to a slot or two left to upgrade. Just as Blizzard seemed to try to artificially boost LFR usage by making it the only gearing path for alts and catch-up gearing in the first 3 patches, it seems like now they are reversing course and sabotaging its particiipation numbers by giving players a non-raid alternative to getting better gear, while at the same time boosting participating in their new feature 'flex' raiding. Manipulating game play through reward to prove that their latest feature is great, because they can then back it up with participation numbers, is a pretty slick trick. Players follow the gear, that is what drives the game, and Blizzard uses this to validate their changes. Don't get me wrong though, I think Flex is a great addition to the game, so for me this would be a fantastic shift in design.

It begs the question tho "Is this the beginning of the phasing out of LFR and a push towards Flex being the alternative raiding source in the next xpac?"

And when the queue times start going up a lot of people will just say screw it, snowballing it even more. I'm all for the death of LFR, I feel it's ruining the game. Rewaring afking and ignoring mechanics while basically soloing a raid since the 24 other people might as well be bad AI is not what an mmo is about.

People saying that they will unsubscribe for the next patch because of the item squish

"yeah guys, im not playing anymore"
"why?"
"yeah you know, they are scaling down the damage, so i wont see big numbers on my screen now.. and i wont simply play an mmo that doesnt let me see big numbers on my screen to make me feel awesome"
"oh ... ok, bye!"

Disregarding a whole expansion of new features, leveling content, raiding content, etc for 1 systems change .. yeah you better quit now and save yourself the money

Originally Posted by Antherios

People saying that they will unsubscribe for the next patch because of the item squish

"yeah guys, im not playing anymore"
"why?"
"yeah you know, they are scaling down the damage, so i wont see big numbers on my screen now.. and i wont simply play an mmo that doesnt let me see big numbers on my screen to make me feel awesome"
"oh ... ok, bye!"

Disregarding a whole expansion of new features, leveling content, raiding content, etc for 1 systems change .. yeah you better quit now and save yourself the money

You do know what a tipping point is right? Nobody quits this game because of one reason. It's usually a myriad of reasons and eventually one thing comes along and you just think yeah k I'm done now. I really doubt all the people they lost from the new talent system were perfectly happy with everything else in the game. That was just the tipping point.

Originally Posted by Quilzar

What do you mean like Valor gear is 522 compared to LFR 502?

People read so much into so many things (and some people get frustrated when the things they have made up don't happen).

LFR is for randoms.

Flex is for PUGs and Friends.

Normals and Heroics are for Raiding guilds.

Do I think this is to many levels of difficulty?

Sure I can see that.

But I think I would rather they merged Flex and Normals (and tuned Normals slight lower than say Horridon was) and keep LFR, than get rid of LFR.

I could care less if LFR exists, because I have quit running it. It'll be nice to have alternatives to grinding valor to get gear upgrades that aren't LFR, so I may dust of an alt or two in 5.4. I can promise that the only way I will ever use LFR again is if for some reason it becomes a place I can improve my main again. I hope that is not the case. It's existence is meaningless to me unless I'm lured in for character progression again. I think with the new gear levels in 5.4 that LFR participation will drop quite massively, especially if people find flex raiding managable and rediscover what it is to raid casually with friends as opposed to 24 random people, some of whom are usually rude idiots. I don't 'hope' for anything to happen, but I believe the game would be better right now if LFR wasn't forced down the throats of the player base.

I can't care less about Item level squish!

Originally Posted by Qanlayeni

'The Lesser Charms that may be added to the Asian store are there as a convenience item for players that may not have time to do their daily quests that week or players who just want to save time. There are no plans to add items to the store that will increase player stats.'

Maybe if the western market mass quits, maybe we will get some love too! Like buying premade lvl 90's for those who want to 'save time' lvling up and maybe we can buy a set of full pvp bop gear for those of us who want to 'save time' from farming honour. Hell maybe we can buy the full list of achiv's and HC gear to 'save time' from even playing this game!

Seriously a massive joke how much more blizzard is a money hungry grabbing company as opposed to back in the old days.

Well they have to make up for all of the subs they're losing in some way!

Most likely the game engine uses 32bit integers. The engine that runs on the servers. This limits the servers to 4bil. The client uses Lua 5.1 for the UI and all mods. Lua uses float for all math and wouldn't have a problem going beyond the 4bil limit. But I think numbers are too big and would be in favor of the squish.