The Comma is Coming, Interview with D1 and D2’s Lead Designer, Feedback Needed for a Ladder-Like System, Clarifications on the Console Version

Arena Deck Building Contest, Daily Blue Wrap-up - EU Beta Access, Turn Timer, Pyroblast Buff

Item Level Squish Feedback
Demonstrating why we warn you about taking translated interviews as fact, Ghostcrawler mentioned today that he did not confirm an upcoming item squish, along with answering a few common concerns. You can take part in the ongoing discussion here.
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
mmo-champion says item squish soon confirmed. Please do not regress my character. I worked hard to get him to where he is.
I didn't confirm it. Still we think there are a lot of good reasons to get numbers down to more parsable levels. (Source)
100m, 100k, and 100 are all equally 'parsable'. It's all about formatting.
We describe automobile speed in miles / kilometers per hour and not inches / cms, because big numbers are awkard. (Source)
Exactly. We use KILOmeters per hour. What's the problem with using KILOdamage per second?
That's the mega damage solution, and we're just worried it will look a little silly. You crit for 200 MEGADAMAGE! (Source)

I now have to find 24 other people to do BT/DS/BWL/ICC and follow mechanics just for pets and mog gear? no ty!
I have said several times that item squish would not affect the ability to solo old content. That's not the intent. (Source)

But can you nerf every player without in anyway effecting soloing low level content? Keep everything the same but the numbers?
"If player enters old instance, then buff all their stats." (Source)

Patch 5.4 - Kor'kron Dark Shaman Preview
The Kor'kron Dark Shaman is the 7th encounter in the Siege of Orgrimmar Raid.


Name Points Category
Heroic: Kor'kron Dark Shaman Defeat the Kor'kron Dark Shaman in Siege of Orgrimmar on Heroic difficulty.
10Pandaria Raid
Rescue Raiders Rescue a set of caged prisoners, a group of unwilling combat participants, and Ji Firepaw before defeating the Kor'kron Dark Shaman in Siege of Org...
10Pandaria Raid

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
  • Spirit Link - Damage dealt is shared between Earthbreaker Haromm and Wavebinder Kardris.
  • Bloodlust - When the Dark Shaman reach 25% health remaining, they will go into a blood frenzy, increasing all damage dealt by 25% and haste by 25%.
  • Darkfang and Bloodclaw - The riding wolves of the Dark Shaman, Darkfang and Bloodclaw will viciously defend their masters.
    • Swipe - Inflicts 300,000 Physical damage to targets in a 8-yard cone in front of the caster.
    • Rend - Viciously rends a player, causing them to bleed for 16,000 Physical damage every 1 sec. for 15 sec. This effect stacks.
  • Totems - The Dark Shaman will drop Totems during the fight that grant them new abilities.
    • Poisonmist Totem - Poisonmist Totem grants Earthbreaker Haromm the Toxic Mist ability, and grants Wavebinder Kardris the Toxic Storm ability. The Dark Shaman drop Poisonmist Totems upon reaching 85% health.
    • Foulstream Totem - Foulstream Totem grants Earthbreaker Haromm the Foul Stream ability, and grants Wavebinder Kardris the Foul Geyser ability. The Dark Shaman drop Foulstream Totems upon reaching 65% health.
    • Ashflare Totem - Ashflare Totem grants Earthbreaker Haromm the Ashen Wall ability, and grants Wavebinder Kardris the Falling Ash ability. The Dark Shaman drop Ashflare Totems upon reaching 45% health.
    • Rusted Iron Totem - Rusted Iron Totem grants Earthbreaker Haromm the Iron Tomb ability, and grants Wavebinder Kardris the Iron Prison ability. The Dark Shaman drop Rusted Iron Totems upon reaching 95% health.
  • Earthbreaker Haromm
    • Froststorm Strike - Strikes a player with frost-lined weapons, inflicting 325,000 Frost damage and causing the player to take 25% additional damage from Froststorm Strike for 30 sec. This effect stacks.
    • Toxic Mist - Injects several players with a toxic mist, inflicting 50,000 Nature damage every 3 sec. for 30 sec and causing growing Toxicity. Due to the internal nature of the corruption, Toxic Mist pierces all immunities. This ability is granted by Poisonmist Totem.
      • Toxicity - Increases Nature damage taken by 10% per stack.
    • Foul Stream - A stream of foul liquid inflicts 220,000 Nature damage to all enemies on a line. This ability is granted by Foulstream Totem.
    • Ashen Wall - Summons a line of stationary Ash Elementals that will attack any nearby enemies. This ability is granted by Ashflare Totem.
    • Iron Tomb - Inflicts 500,000 Physical damage to players within 3 yards and creates an Iron Tomb. This ability is granted by Rusted Iron Totem.
  • Wavebinder Kardris
    • Froststorm Bolt - Fires a bolt of bitter frost, inflicting 450,000 Frost damage.
    • Toxic Storm - Summons a powerful toxic storm that inflicts 300,000 Nature damage to players within 9 yards every 2 sec. and periodically creates Toxic Tornadoes. The storm will move around and lasts for 60 sec. This ability is granted by Poisonmist Totem.
      • Toxic Tornado - Toxic winds inflict 300,000 Nature damage to players within 5 yards every 1 sec. and knock them up.
    • Foul Geyser - Conjure foul water that inflicts 450,000 Nature damage to players within 4 yards every 0.5 sec. for 8 sec. Each splash creates a Foul Slime. This ability is granted by Foulstream Totem.
      • Foul Slime - Foul Slimes are coated in Foulness.
        • Foulness - Inflicts 150,000 Nature damage to players within 3 yards every 1 sec.
    • Falling Ash - Summons a core of smouldering ash that will fall over 30 sec. Inflicts 999,999 Fire damage to players within 17 yards and 160,000 Fire damage to all players on impact. This ability is granted by Ashflare Totem.
    • Iron Prison - Encases the player in a prison of iron that slowly asphyxiates them, inflicting 100% of maximum health as Physical damage after 60 sec. This ability is granted by Rusted Iron Totem.



Raid Testing Schedule - July 31-Aug 1
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
On Wednesday and Thursday, July 31 and August 1, we will continue testing raid encounters in the Siege of Orgrimmar raid. We're moving on to 10-player Heroic testing at this time and finishing up 10-player Normal, and will 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.

Wednesday, July 31
Galakras - 10 Player Normal - 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST)
Garrosh Hellscream - 10 Player Normal - 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST)

Thursday, August 1
Kor'kron Dark Shaman - 10 Player Heroic - 13:30 PDT (16:30 EDT, 22:30 CEST)
General Nazgrim - 10 Player Heroic - 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST)

Patch 5.4 - Change to RPPM Mechanics
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We think the cooldown lineup at the start of PvE encounters has gotten out of hand, and it’s having some rather negative effects on gameplay. Particularly with the number of RPPM procs most raiders have these days, the pull has just become way too important. It’s affecting gearing, it’s punishing classes that can’t capitalize on it as well as others, and it’s not how we’d like raiding to work.

To that end, we’re going to make another change to how RPPM mechanics work on the pull. Starting a raid encounter will set every RPPM proc’s “time since last proc” to 90 seconds. That means the more frequent procs will still be more or less guaranteed to go off, but the rarer (and more powerful) procs will just have a high chance. This should hopefully chill things out a little bit, without changing how you play too dramatically.

Can we clarify what 'rarer' RPPM procs are? We talking the meta-gem here?
We're not changing the actual RPPM proc rates at all, just how much time is "banked" before the pull. The underlying math that determines what the actual chances are isn't changing.

So, here's a couple hypothetical examples using very rough napkin math. I don't remember RPPMs for actual trinkets off the top of my head (and they're not particularly necessary for illustration purposes):

Trinket A has an RPPM that allows it to reach a 100% proc chance if it hasn't fired after 60 seconds. This trinket will have a guaranteed proc on the pull.

Trinket B has an RPPM that allows it to reach a 100% proc chance if it hasn't fired after 100 seconds. It will not be guaranteed to proc immediately, but will proc within the first 10 seconds.

Trinket C has an RPPM that allows it to reach a 100% proc chance after 2 minutes. It will not be guaranteed to proc immediately (regardless of how much time you've spent out of combat), but will proc within the first 30 seconds.

Make sense?

My 502 UVLS doesn't have a guaranteed proc chance 2 minutes in though. Lore's example needs a trinket D, which is only guaranteed in excess of 6 minutes of no procs.
This is true -- some trinkets will now be unlikely to proc immediately (which is the point of the change). However, it should be noted that it's extremely unlikely for any RPPM proc to take until it hits a 100% chance to activate anyway.

Guilds are still going to wait. This change is good, but it's not good enough.
Aside from the fact that most groups wouldn't be ready for another pull within 90 seconds anyway, waiting has no effect whatsoever. As soon as a raid encounter is pulled, the time since last proc for all RPPM mechanics in the raid will be set to exactly 90 seconds. Doesn't matter if it's been 10 seconds or 10 minutes since the last pull.

I do want to say, this is distinctly a nerf to fun. It WAS A LOT of fun to open up full force pot, cloak, enchant, 2xtrinkets, meta, stormlash, + elemental + lava burst. I was hitting 75,000 spellpower
I feel like the "nerf to fun" argument gets overstated quite a bit. We're not nerfing it because it was fun, we're nerfing it because it was breaking the game.

I'm sure a lot of players would find it fun to be able to take down Heroic Lei Shen with a single spell. That doesn't make it good gameplay.

I'm skeptical to the idea that not getting a proc in the initial burst will somehow make these trinkets not worth using. After that first proc on the pull, the time since last proc is 0 anyway. It'll tone back the initial burst, definitely, but I'm not convinced that the entire value of a trinket like Unerring Vision of Lei Shen depends on that first proc.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Patch 5.4 Arena Changes
Yeah, i miss the teamnames but the patch is still going to be really good.
We understand that there are some players that will miss the customization and comradeship that came with arena teams. We're looking into ways in which we will be able to retain these particular feelings in arena after these changes occur, but at this time we don't have anything to share in this regard.

I wonder how the ladders will look now. Players with highest ratings etc? I hope they thought this through thoroughly.
The ladders will show individual players and their rankings will be based off of their personal rating. End of season rewards will still be awarded in the same manner as they are now, to the top "X"% of competitors, the percentage of course being different depending on the reward.

So it's all 100% individual? If I play with a team to 2600 and one of my teammates ends on 2560 and cutoff is 2570 he wont get a reward?
Well, while you may play with a few specific players and you consider yourselves a team, you're not actually in a set team. But this is also the case as if he also got the title just for playing with you, because there are no teams in 5.4 you could also feed the title to anyone that you wanted who was just under the cutoff.

Don't encourage wintrading...
I feel that I need to clarify on my last post as there was some misunderstanding of what I meant. I was not promoting win trading, nor was I saying that you will be able to feed your end of season rewards to others. I wanted to point out that if the system worked as Easydragon questioned, then you could feed your rewards to others if they were just under the cut-off because there are no set teams. Don't worry as you won't be able to feed the title to others by playing with them, the rewards are based off of your own personal ratings alone.

I apologize for any confusion my post may have caused, I have now rephrased it to clarify the above points. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Utility and Hunters
So, this isn't solely specific to Hunters, but since it's an issue I see you guys bring up a lot, I want to talk briefly about "utility."

From a top-down perspective, our design philosophy regarding utility goes something like this: everyone brings some sort of benefit to the group, but no one gets an invite based solely on that benefit. We feel that current class mechanics satisfy the first part of that. We're mostly there with the second half, with some exceptions.

Sometimes we just make something too strong to the point that it feels mandatory. That's absolutely true. A current example would be Demonic Gateway, particularly in PvE. It gives a very large benefit in many encounters, and since more Gateways are nearly always a good thing, many raid teams will seek to bring as many Warlocks as they can (though obviously, Warlock DPS has been a factor as well). In that particular case, we're making some changes in 5.4 and, if necessary, may continue to make changes.

The reason I bring that up is that it has the tendency to cast a harsher light than is probably fair on other classes. We feel that, ignoring the extreme outliers like Demonic Gateway, Hunters bring an acceptable amount of utility. Every Hunter has Trueshot Aura and access to an array of buffs and debuffs through their pets (even if not specced Beast Mastery), and abilities like Misdirection and Ice Trap which can be valuable on some encounters. If that's not enough utility to guarantee you a raid invite... then good. We'd rather you get your invite by being a solid raider with good performance.

I'm also slightly confused as to the logic behind some arguments, specifically those along the lines of "our DPS is low, so we need more utility to justify our raid slot." If that's the case, wouldn't you prefer we fix your damage output and/or tone down the overperformers?

I know this doesn't address every concern that's been brought up, and I apologize for that. If and when we have more to share, we will. But I did want to at least shed some light on our thoughts on the "utility" issue overall, for the sake of discussion.

Oh, one thing I can share: we like the idea of removing the focus cost from Dash, so we're going to. That includes Dive and Charge as well.

As has been mentioned in other "utility" threads, part of the problem here is that nobody agrees on what "utility" is. Is the dev definition of the word something you can shed a little light on? (I realize that may raise the "it's a trap!" alarm, so feel free to ignore if you think that would do more harm than good.)

My own working definition for a few years now has been: anything that is beneficial to the group, while in combat, that doesn't pertain directly to my personal performance in my role. Which basically, for a DPS class, would mean anything that doesn't cause me and only me to deal additional damage, and isn't an out-of-combat thing like summoning.

This is probably pretty close to our definition. As you mention, it's the sort of thing that I'd be hesitant to try to define precisely (it's something of a fluid term even internally).

Do you think it's fair that certain abilities (namely Ancient Hysteria and battle rez) are locked to Beast Mastery only? If it's a 25 man situation, probably, but in 10 man you do run the issue of not having either of these. Sometimes that could lead to Hunter's feeling as though they must have Beast Mastery as a spec.
It's something I can bring up again, but we do like these as Beast Mastery perks. Note that, at least in the case of Ancient Hysteria, 5.4 is adding Drums of Rage (a consumable form of Bloodlust/Heroism made by Leatherworkers) that, while not quite as effective as the Beast Mastery buff, should make things at least a little more flexible for 10-mans. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
RPPM scaling with Runespeed Mechanics
As an update to this, since we've seen some confusion, Improved Unholy Presence is getting the same treatment as Unholy Presence, meaning it will now grant additional haste, not just additional attack speed and rune regen. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PTR Testing and You
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
From Zul’Gurub and Ahn’Qiraj onward, we have made extensive use of our Public Test Realms in order to help find bugs and improve the tuning of our raid content. We have an extensive team of Quality Assurance testers and an internal raid group, but it’s impossible to replicate the sheer breadth of information we get from having hundreds of real raid groups attempting diverse strategies as they experience encounters for the first time. We learn a tremendous amount from that testing, both in the form of written feedback on these forums, which is carefully read by every encounter designer, and from spectating raids and observing how they fare.

Now, that’s what we get out of the PTR. Speaking pragmatically, we understand that not everyone's motivation in logging on to the PTR is to give us feedback. They want to check out the new content firsthand, see what’s coming to the live servers in a few weeks or months, and, in the case of raiding, get some competitive edge that will help them clear the content faster on the live servers when the patch is released. That’s fine. We thoroughly appreciate everyone who takes the time to give measured feedback, or goes out of their way to methodically test new features and report bugs they find. But at the end of the day, we’d rather have a packed PTR with a small percentage giving direct feedback, than a nearly-empty PTR where everyone gives it. Bugs that require very specific conditions are much more likely to occur with thousands of testers than with hundreds, and it’s clearly beneficial to everyone for us to find and fix those issues before they affect millions in a live environment.

When it comes to raid testing in particular, there’s a symbiotic relationship: The bleeding-edge guild that intentionally wipes to a boss at 5% so they can set up their boss addons, try out unusual strategies, and practice execution is there for competitive reasons. But we gain information even just from silently observing that will help us make our encounters better, and fundamentally, that is the purpose of raid testing on PTR. Our raid testing times are scheduled to coincide with our core work hours, so that designers can observe as much of the testing as possible, with the exception of LFR and Flexible tests which require more open-ended scheduling given their nature and target audience (and even then, if you were doing a PTR Flexible raid this past weekend, odds are decent that I or another developer was spying on your group – creepy, I know). When it comes to Heroic testing, we try to keep the testing windows as brief as possible, in order to minimize the impact of PTR testing on the progression “race.”

But that symbiotic relationship requires that we be around in some capacity to observe. Players who find a way to access bosses (especially Heroic bosses) that aren’t currently being tested should let us know, so we can correct the problem. We discovered that over the weekend a progression raid group accessed the Siege of Orgrimmar raid and spent hours on a Heroic boss in the middle of the night, after copying fresh characters with generic names, presumably with the hope of going unnoticed. Those actions go against the intent of the PTR, the spirit of fair play, and were clearly intended to go against our wishes for specific boss testing periods. PTR testing is a privilege, and we reserve the right to revoke PTR access from those who have shown an intent to abuse it.

If you come across an oversight in our testing protocols, or a serious, abusable bug or exploit in the course of your testing of a boss encounter on PTR, and you want to let us know without alerting everyone, please note that we can read edited or deleted forum posts. (On the live servers, please use the in-game bug reporting interface.) Otherwise, carry on with the fantastic feedback that we’ve been receiving about all facets of 5.4 content thus far, and we look forward to seeing you on the Public Test Realm!

Blizzard Art Update
Blizzard added five pieces to the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Art gallery.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Item Level Squish, Kor'kron Dark Shaman, 5.4 RPPM Mechanics Change, Blue Posts, Art started by chaud View original post
Comments 105 Comments
  1. Shaede's Avatar
    To me there is absolutely no difference between doing 10k dps against a boss with 61 million health (LK 25) and doing 150k dps against a boss with 990 million health (25 player lei shen). Stop acting like a bunch of crybabies. Seriously, it's embarrassing.
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    I'm one of those watch the world burn kind of people. Even though I'm against the squish I'd like them to do it. Just to see the carnage. If they have the balls to piss off their playerbase when it's in the process of bleeding subs already then I have to hand it to them. I do enjoy big balls. Let it burn!
  1. tyrindor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Cipero View Post
    To me there is absolutely no difference between doing 10k dps against a boss with 61 million health (LK 25) and doing 150k dps against a boss with 990 million health (25 player lei shen). Stop acting like a bunch of crybabies. Seriously, it's embarrassing.
    Key words "to me".

    Just because other people feel differently doesn't make them crybabies. Don't be so selfish. If doing 150k DPS or 10k DPS doesn't bother you, then why would you even bother posting about the item squish? If true, you obviously wouldn't care if it happened or not.
  1. Unholyground's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by tyrindor View Post
    Key words "to me".

    Just because other people feel differently doesn't make them crybabies. Don't be so selfish. If doing 150k DPS or 10k DPS doesn't bother you, then why would you even bother posting about the item squish? If true, you obviously wouldn't care if it happened or not.
    Or he was voicing the fact that many people do not care either way. Both are loud minorities.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    I'm one of those watch the world burn kind of people. Even though I'm against the squish I'd like them to do it. Just to see the carnage. If they have the balls to piss off their playerbase when it's in the process of bleeding subs already then I have to hand it to them. I do enjoy big balls. Let it burn!
    The worst that could happen is WoW goes free to play and gets a huge chunk of player base back, and with the amount of stuff they are developing for the online store there will be no shortage of income in the end.
  1. tyrindor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Unholyground View Post
    Or he was voicing the fact that many people do not care either way. Both are loud minorities.
    Most of the people who would not like this change are casuals, which is the majority of the fanbase. They will be confused, hate the fact they feel nerfed, and quit. These players don't research the game, they just sign on and play when they can and don't like changes. The majority will not even know about this stuff until it has happened. If they go through with this, the subs will drop by a very large chunk. I would argue it'd probably be the biggest sub drop in WoW history. We'll just have to wait and see what happens?

    If WoW goes F2P, it will turn into a microtransaction game and ultimately cost more to play than it does now if you wish to stay competitive. You'll end up having to buy character slots, bank space, consumables, etc. Then if it's really bad they'll add buffs items, dungeons, raids, quests, and other types of P2W items to the store like many F2P MMOs have.
  1. Unholyground's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by tyrindor View Post
    Most of the people who would not like this change are casuals, which is the majority of the fanbase. They will be confused, hate the fact they feel nerfed, and quit. These players don't research the game, they just sign on and play when they can and don't like changes. The majority will not even know about this stuff until it has happened. If they go through with this, the subs will drop by a very large chunk. I would argue it'd probably be the biggest sub drop in WoW history. We'll just have to wait and see what happens?

    If WoW goes F2P, it will turn into a microtransaction game and ultimately cost more to play than it does now if you wish to stay competitive. You'll end up having to buy character slots, bank space, consumables, etc. Then if it's really bad they'll add buffs items, dungeons, raids, quests, and other types of P2W items to the store like many F2P MMOs have.
    No F2P would not ruin the game or cost more you still have to PAY FOR THE GAME, that is one thing that boggles my mind when people try to take it there. You pay for the battle chest and all the previous expansions beyond the chest plus the current ones, that's like 80$ going to Blizzard right there. Then on top of that they have all the vanity shit that a lot of people already buy, then xp, justice, and valor boosts. They would not ruin the game and they can still keep it to where progression is still necessary to have the best of the best shit. Pessimism will be the end of this world not optimism.
  1. Shaede's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by tyrindor View Post
    Key words "to me".

    Just because other people feel differently doesn't make them crybabies. Don't be so selfish. If doing 150k DPS or 10k DPS doesn't bother you, then why would you even bother posting about the item squish? If true, you obviously wouldn't care if it happened or not.
    It really does tho. The damage you do only matters in relation to how much health the mobs and bosses have. You can hit for 300k dps but if the bosses have 80 billion health, you are going to look weak as shit. Crying is exactly what you are doing because the reality is the strength of the characters will still be progressing in relation to the boss' healthpool.

    p.s. I hope for an item squish and when it doesn't happen because all of the complainers need to be carebeared, I will hope that blizzard makes the mobs healthpools insanely large to make you feel like weaksauce anyway. That's what I would do. Then you can see your 2 million crits flash on the screen and still have to fight for another 5 minutes to kill something. SO STRONG..SO PROGRESSED.. LOL like I said it's embarrassing.
  1. cherb's Avatar
    I hope they build a dam for the item squish for the inevitable flood of delicious tears that will spill from the game. Also, if you are the person saying that "old content won't be soloable", please stop. You look like an idiot.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    Bullshit. Provide source.

    - - - Updated - - -



    Exactly this. The whiny vocal minority wanted heroics to be hard and we had catacalysm mess. Now we have the whiny vocal minority wanting a squish. If they have the balls to go through with this there is going to be an insane backlash from the majority of players, the ones who don't go to the forums, when they log in that day and see how insanely nerfed they are it's going to be hilarious watching servers become ghost towns. I'm actually looking forward to the carnage.
    You're pretty fucking whiny to be complaining about people whining.
  1. Iyarashii's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by cherb View Post
    I hope they build a dam for the item squish for the inevitable flood of delicious tears that will spill from the game. Also, if you are the person saying that "old content won't be soloable", please stop. You look like an idiot.

    - - - Updated - - -



    You're pretty fucking whiny to be complaining about people whining.
    Than explain to us all how it WON'T break old content soloing oh all knowing master.
  1. Azrile's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Cipero View Post
    To me there is absolutely no difference between doing 10k dps against a boss with 61 million health (LK 25) and doing 150k dps against a boss with 990 million health (25 player lei shen). Stop acting like a bunch of crybabies. Seriously, it's embarrassing.
    I am with you, it is funny how irrational people are about a random number. Has no one realized that when you level 1-60, your main attack spell almost constantly does the same amount of damage vs the mobs in the zone you are fighting. You kill a boar in westall, your icebolt does 28% of the boars health. you kill a boar in Blasted lands, your icebolt does 28% of the health of the boar. How does not ´make you feel less powerful´..

    This is definitely one of those times where GC is listening too much to the vocal crybabies who don´t understand what they are even crying about. Yeah, it will feel ackward for about the first 1 day after the switch.. then it will feel normal again. I mean, i am at the point now where bosses health make absolutely no sense, especially in cases where it is inflated due to certain mechanisms.... everything comes down to %´s anyway.. the absolute numbers don´t matter. If I told you we wiped when Mags was at 81,000,332 health, most people would not even be able to tell if we were close or not. Everyone uses %s anyway, and in the case of dps and recount.. it is all relative to other classes. If I did 80,000 dps on a boss, nobody knows crap unless I follow that up by complainign about being last, or bottom half or whatever.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by tyrindor View Post
    Most of the people who would not like this change are casuals, which is the majority of the fanbase. They will be confused, hate the fact they feel nerfed, and quit. These players don't research the game, they just sign on and play when they can and don't like changes. The majority will not even know about this stuff until it has happened. If they go through with this, the subs will drop by a very large chunk. I would argue it'd probably be the biggest sub drop in WoW history. We'll just have to wait and see what happens?

    If WoW goes F2P, it will turn into a microtransaction game and ultimately cost more to play than it does now if you wish to stay competitive. You'll end up having to buy character slots, bank space, consumables, etc. Then if it's really bad they'll add buffs items, dungeons, raids, quests, and other types of P2W items to the store like many F2P MMOs have.
    No, casual players will shoot three icebolts at a boar and watch it die, same as always. You do not feel nerfed because of the numbers that fly up, you feel nerfed if suddenly you had to cast 5 icebolts for a boar to die. The people crying are the people with recount installed, who like to brag about thier 1M crits every 5 mins over vent.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Unholyground View Post
    No F2P would not ruin the game or cost more you still have to PAY FOR THE GAME, that is one thing that boggles my mind when people try to take it there. You pay for the battle chest and all the previous expansions beyond the chest plus the current ones, that's like 80$ going to Blizzard right there. Then on top of that they have all the vanity shit that a lot of people already buy, then xp, justice, and valor boosts. They would not ruin the game and they can still keep it to where progression is still necessary to have the best of the best shit. Pessimism will be the end of this world not optimism.
    what boggles my mind is the people who do not even know the basics of the game, yet talk about it. All of the old expansions are included in the original battlechest. You do not have to buy old expansions separate, and it is very easy to buy the battlechest for $5.

    But the biggest question about F2P is ´why?´ If people could read finiancial statements they would realize that revenues are great. The lost subscribers were almost all the very cheap ones fro China. WOW is earning as much money now as it ever has. So... WHY would the devs spend months of dev time breaking up the game to make it ready for f2p.. WHY? would blizzard mess with it´s cash cow and risk losing that 1B per year? You are wasting a lot of dev time, and risking a huge cash cow to go f2p which has very limited upside.

    And finally. SWTOR, AOC, EQ2, LOTRO... EVERY major game that died as a subscription model is also dying as free2play. Free2play is not some magic bullet. In fact. DDO online is the ONLY game that ever announced it was making more money after going f2p, and that is because it was the first AAA game to make the switch. SWTOR, EQ2 and AOC certainly haven´t magically recovered.

    People need to stop thinking of f2p as the ´modern´ way to go. No, it was a last grasp of breath for DDO, that worked, and then for a bunch of other games where it didn´t work. When EQ2 or SWTOR start announcing 1B per year in cashshop sales, then you can think it is right for WOW.

    Simply no way Blizzard is going to risk what they have now, even if they were making half as much as they have now. It is solid, stable money.. you simply don´t risk that for some crazy system that hasn´t worked for any other MMO except 1.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dirty Wounds View Post
    Than explain to us all how it WON'T break old content soloing oh all knowing master.
    Wow... can you read? check out the blue text above that you are replying to.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cassidin View Post
    I understand the idea of an item/stat squish but personally I don't see the need for it. If I crit for 500,000 or 50,000 why would most people find one more confusing than the other? Higher numbers are not more difficult to understand imo. What I do believe though is that seeing my numbers go DOWN because suddenly we have all been squished will feel very meh to a lot of people (myself included). Yes we would still have the same power in relation to mobs/bosses as we have now, and in most cases it probably will not make low level content harder to solo (some exceptions could be as you get to previous expac to current maybe), but it would still FEEL like we are less powerful. That to me would feel very disappointing. If it happens, then after a few months we probably wont feel that way anymore but I still don't want to have my characters go through a phase in their "lives" where they went though a strange world event whereby everyone/thing turned into a weakling.
    I think the reason for it is 2 things. First, it is a display issue. For combat logs, and on our screens, there is just too many numbers flying around and it is too fast. it makes it unreadable. the second is a performance issue... the more digits in a number, the more bits it requires.

    I agree with you about the brief adjustment phase, but I think people would get over it fast. In questing, you basically know how many spells kill a quest mob... the numbers aren´t that important.. if you miss, you know you will need another one, if you crit maybe one less.. but in most cases.. 5-7 spells kill a quest mob. In dungeons.. you are doing your rotation regardless.. and most people have bosses on %´s... the actual numbers are very unimportant except for epeen.
  1. BrerBear's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Dirty Wounds View Post
    Than explain to us all how it WON'T break old content soloing oh all knowing master.
    Until they explain it in detail, I'm in your camp. Something will be lost.
    If we're getting a buff, will it be permanent when we wander around the world? Only in instances?
    Details are needed.
  1. Blur4stuff's Avatar
    I support a squish. Once numbers start getting too big they lose meaning. It just doesn't seem like a big deal and can be silly. I can remember being a lot happier about that first 1k hit or 1k dps than 100k.
  1. MrKnubbles's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by tyrindor View Post
    You didn't really answer his question though, why exactly does this bother you? It makes the game feel rewarding. If people are raiding 8-16 hours/week, or even more, they want to feel rewarded. That's why we see large gear upgrades in raids over the course of an expansion, and also why new characters going into a new expansion see massive upgrades. I *love* getting to a new expansion on alts and seeing these massive upgrades, it makes leveling more fun and rewarding.

    Why would people want to spend 8-16 hours a week raiding for minor stat upgrades that don't really make all that big of a difference? The gear gaps are there because they are a large part of the game being fun, at the current ilvl, if we were only getting +10 main stat upgrades per piece of gear, it wouldn't even be noticeable with a full set of new tier gear. There would be no real reason to put tons of effort into raiding for most people, and many people would quit because their basically "gear capped" already. There are other MMOs out there, like GW2, that allow you to spend hours and hours doing dungeons and raids for virtually no stat difference in gear. The #1 complaint I see on GW2's forums is the fact there is nothing to do because there's no gear worth getting.
    I don't think you understand. This is to normalize previous gear and streamline the transition of old gear to current content. Raid gear will continue to increase in power at the same rate that it has in the past. You're not losing any power.

    You may like getting huge upgrades from one expansion to another but I feel that it makes the game much easier. I'm under powered if I don't take the new upgrades but I'm over powered with them. By normalizing the stats, we would be, well, normal powered.
  1. tyrindor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MrKnubbles View Post
    I don't think you understand. This is to normalize previous gear and streamline the transition of old gear to current content. Raid gear will continue to increase in power at the same rate that it has in the past. You're not losing any power.

    You may like getting huge upgrades from one expansion to another but I feel that it makes the game much easier. I'm under powered if I don't take the new upgrades but I'm over powered with them. By normalizing the stats, we would be, well, normal powered.
    I understand what this is doing perfectly, it's going to give 1-94 gear a linear gear curve, then a steep gear curve for level 95s. He was making it sound like he wanted ALL gear to be a very steady linear curve, which would result in an unrewarding raid experience. The values at 95 would still be a very small fraction of what they are now at level 90. We would go from getting 250-350k crits to 5k crits, and that is a power loss in my eyes. I don't care if it's relative or not. To me, it feels weaker and it is weaker, and it ruins my immersion and nostalgia from previous expansions. I totally get why some people don't have this mindset, but many of us do feel this way.

    As for solo content, it will definitely impact it. You are going from multiple steep curves, to a linear steady curve. The difference from a raid in classic and a raid in BC would be very small in terms of numbers. Our ilevels would be much closer to old content too, and that is why GC said in order to make it so we can still solo they'd give level 95 characters a stat buff when in old raids. This is a bad design and makes everything feel fake.

    I think i'm done discussing this for the time being though. It's either going to happen or not going to happen. If it does happen, I expect heavy sub loss especially from the casual community. Hopefully I am wrong. I'm still holding hope that they don't do it.
  1. Cassidin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MrKnubbles View Post
    Yes, you would see your damage decrease but the amount of time it takes to kill enemies wouldn't be any greater because the enemies would be scaled back as well.
    I've got this great new idea to make F1 racing safer. Make it a requirement for the teams to make cars that cannot go faster than 60MPH and shorten the tracks so the race still takes about the same length of time. It will make the race so much safer and because all the cars will have the same kind of limitation and the track so much shorter it will still be just as exciting I'm sure. Um.... Ok, maybe not...
  1. tyrindor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Cassidin View Post
    I've got this great new idea to make F1 racing safer. Make it a requirement for the teams to make cars that cannot go faster than 60MPH and shorten the tracks so the race still takes about the same length of time. It will make the race so much safer and because all the cars will have the same kind of limitation and the track so much shorter it will still be just as exciting I'm sure. Um.... Ok, maybe not...
    Excellent example.

    I understand why some people don't feel that number size matters... but a good chunk fanbase does feel strongly about it. Most of the people pro-squish really don't care if it happens or not. On the other side, the anti-squish people feel like their game will be ruined and i've seen multiple comments the last fews day where people say they would quit when/if it happens. I've not seen anyone say they will quit if the squish doesn't happen.
  1. Cassidin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    I think the reason for it is 2 things. First, it is a display issue. For combat logs, and on our screens, there is just too many numbers flying around and it is too fast. it makes it unreadable. the second is a performance issue... the more digits in a number, the more bits it requires.

    I agree with you about the brief adjustment phase, but I think people would get over it fast. In questing, you basically know how many spells kill a quest mob... the numbers aren´t that important.. if you miss, you know you will need another one, if you crit maybe one less.. but in most cases.. 5-7 spells kill a quest mob. In dungeons.. you are doing your rotation regardless.. and most people have bosses on %´s... the actual numbers are very unimportant except for epeen.
    I can't really comment about the "too many numbers on the screen" issue as I just don't personally find that an issue. Maybe some do, so ok. As for the number of bits required - sure it will take a few more ns to calculate how to update the screen on the client - similarly on the server. Overall I cant see it making more than about 0.01fps difference to gameplay. I CAN see it freeing up a few bytes of a very old game that has a lot of stuff very hard coded (remember how they had to remove the keyring to free up the bytes required for something else?) for them to utilise for something else so maybe that is a concern for them.

    I also personally think you are mistaken as to how quickly people will get over seeing themselves as nerfed. You are totally correct about general questing and just knowing how many attacks it takes to kill something and that's the important part.... However I know myself and from what others say to me that together with this I just like to see my character getting more powerful and this ISNT just down to how fast I can kill something. Imagine I can kill a strong tiger in 10 hits. Then someone nerfs me hard. At the same time they declaw the tiger so it cant damage me as much. Am I going to feel just as strong? No, I know I can maybe kill the tiger as fast but I know I can do this because it too is nerfed. We are both weaker and we know it. The actual numbers ARE unimportant theoretically, just like the colour quality of the items. It wouldnt MATTER if all items were suddenly white quality. Somehow I don't imagine many end game raiders would be particularly happy to be rewarded with white gear (however many people on here claim they wouldn't care - I personally do not believe that would be the real majority view). Perception is 9/10 of reality so the saying goes......
  1. grandpapeckinpah's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by tyrindor View Post
    Most of the people who would not like this change are casuals, which is the majority of the fanbase. They will be confused, hate the fact they feel nerfed, and quit.
    Seriously? First you tear into someone for voicing their opinions on the matter, then go on to make assumptions on behalf of "the majority" of the fanbase? Well as a casual player you can take that assumption and stick it up your ass. In no way to I want someone with your questionable reasoning skills speaking on my behalf.

    As for myself, I really don't care about the squish as long as they are committed to keeping the old raids soloable, which as of right now it appears they are.
  1. Cassidin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Blur4stuff View Post
    I support a squish. Once numbers start getting too big they lose meaning. It just doesn't seem like a big deal and can be silly. I can remember being a lot happier about that first 1k hit or 1k dps than 100k.
    So was I...... In fact it was more like... "WOW I killed something yay! I think I'm going to like this game!" It's called being a new game and an exciting new experience. I have made MANY alts over the years and I can honestly tell you I do not at ALL thinking ANYTHING about the numbers I achieve in the first few levels of the game - its just a blur to get up to a higher level. The lower levels of the game now - after all these years - is no longer "gameplay" to me. I still enjoy it, but the enjoyment of levelling now is the challenge to myself to level as fast as I can. What I actually DO while leveling isnt any longer important to me.
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by cherb View Post
    I hope they build a dam for the item squish for the inevitable flood of delicious tears that will spill from the game. Also, if you are the person saying that "old content won't be soloable", please stop. You look like an idiot.

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    You're pretty fucking whiny to be complaining about people whining.
    I think it's cute that you're whining about me whining. I also think it's adorable that you said "You look like an idiot" to the people saying you won't be able to solo old content. So you're calling ghostcrawler an idiot? Think on that for a second. Cause he said you won't be able to solo old content if they do the item squish. That's why he said they will add a buff when you enter old instances, genius. Think before you post so I don't have to waste my time explaining this dumb crap to you.

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