Warlords of Draenor Dev Interviews, Proving Grounds Requirement in WoD, Blue Tweets

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Warlords of Draenor Developer Interviews
There were a few developer interviews at the recent press events, so today we are taking a look at interviews with Ion Hazzikostas from Mamytwink and JudgeHype. A few of the important points are below, along with the fully translated interview.

Dungeons and Raids
  • The first raid will open on the 2nd week of the expansion, with the second raid opening a few weeks later. Only Raid Finder difficulty will be gated by wing, all other difficulties will be fully open when they are released.
  • Raids will be less linear, giving you more choice of which bosses to do every night.
  • Raid encounters will have more interesting mechanics for healers, allowing them to avoid the boredom that comes with just spamming the same skill over and over.
  • The first world boss will be released with the expansion, with more being released as time goes on.
  • Proving Grounds will be updated and expanded, making it a requirement to queue for random heroic dungeons.
  • The amount of loot that will drop when you are not using Personal Loot depends on the number of players in the raid that are eligible for loot on that boss. If almost everyone in the raid is locked out of loot for a boss for this week, there is a chance it won't drop any loot.
  • Normal dungeon loot will give you enough gear for Raid Finder, while Heroic dungeon loot will help you gear up for Normal raids. This will be important at the start of the expansion, as Heroic dungeons will be open before Raid Finder, making it the best way to gear up for Normal raids.

Misc
  • Challenge Mode daily quests have (a chance?) to give you an epic item of Raid Finder quality if you complete it with a Bronze or better time.
  • If the Level 90 boost gives you your first high level character, there will be a starting experience that introduces you to your skills slowly, rather than giving them to you all at once.
  • About 20% of class skills and abilities have been removed to help address ability bloat.
  • Ashran will use players from multiple realms to balance factions in the zone, rather than a buff like the one used in Wintergrasp.


JudgeHype
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Dungeons
  • From a design perspective, the revamp of Upper Blackrock Spire was a challenge similar to the creation of a new dungeon. The dungeon already exists but Blizzard doesn't just increase the health of the monster there. New mechanics will appear and developers need to give a real challenge to players while maintaining the nostalgy you get when you revisit a dungeon already played in the past. Of course, the fact that the bosses and dungeon itself already exist definitely saves times, even if the models are updated.

Raids
  • It will now be easier to figure out which PvE guild is the best. Right now, it's hard to draw the line between 10-man and 25-man difficulty and it's hard to say if Method or Paragon is the best guild for example. With the 20-man Mythic raids, this will be much simpler.
  • The Highmaul raid will open after the release of the expansion, most likely on the 2nd week. Just like the Mogu'shan Vaults in Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard wants to give enough time to players to experience the new zones while leveling without having to rush to level 100 to start raiding. Highmaul will be located in Nagrand and have 7 bosses.
  • The Blackrock Foundry raid will open a couple weeks later, it has 10 bosses.
  • All the bosses will be available when a raid opens, except in LFR where wings will be unlocked progressively (just like the Siege of Orgrimmar). Blizzard wants players to discover the bosses with their friends and guild before they rush through LFR.
  • Ion's favorite encounter in Mists of Pandaria is Lei Shen. The mechanics are simple to understand but hard to counter, and a lot of things are happening that make the fight extremely interesting. The team is very proud of this encounter, you can probably expect bosses in the same style in Warlords of Draenor.
  • Raids should be less linear than in Mists of Pandaria, the goal is to do what was done with Ulduar where guilds could pick their bosses depending on the roster available that night. This is only possible if your raid has multiple wings, and Warlords of Draenor raids shouldn't be too linear.
  • Encounters will include more classes mechanics, especially for healers. Healing in Mists of Pandaria wasn't very interesting. In Warlords of Draenor, Blizzard wants to deploy interesting mechanics for healers and make sure their role isn't to just spam the same skill again and again. They will have to chose the right skill, at the right time, on the right target.

World Bosses
  • World bosses will be the biggest and most brutal creatures of Draenor.
  • One of them is an ancestor of the Gronns we know, but 3 or 4 times bigger. He's made of stone and will attack players with stone shards and other earth-based attacks.
  • The 2nd world boss will be one of the giant plant that lives in the jungle of Draenor.
  • World Bosses will be activated progressively, the first one will be launched with the expansion.
  • Loot will be interesting for the tier during the boss is unlocked. The objective is that when Blizzard unlocks the 3rd boss, its loot will be interesting compared to what you can find in PvE at that time.

Proving Grounds
  • Proving Grounds will be updated for Warlords of Draenor and Blizzard wants to expand its functionality. It will be used as a prerequirement for raids. For example, players will need at least a silver medal in the Proving Grounds to queue in a dungeon. If you want to play in an instance with your friends or your guild, no problem, but if you want to join a random group you will have to prove that you know how to handle some mechanics of the game. This should be ready for Warlords of Draenor. Blizzard hopes it will improve the experience of players in LFD and LFR, and each player in the group should have the minimum knowledge required to fight the bosses.

Level 90 Character Boost
  • The LVL90 character boost will work differently if you already own a high level character or not. If it's your first character and you boost it to level 90 directly, the game will offer you 3 or 4 skills in the first place to let you familiarize with the game, and will give you more abilities progressively. You unlock your skills progressively, for example, a mage could start with Frostbolt, Frost Nova, and Polymorph.
  • This will be included in Warlords of Draenor. Blizzard is aware that the boost will be available before this but feels like the huge majority of people who will use the feature before the expansion are already experienced players who already know the game very well. This is one of the limit of the system: Blizzard wants players to be able to use this feature but also understands that there's a danger to see poorly played characters because of a lack of knowledge.

Ashran PvP Zone and Garrosh Hellscream
  • Ashran is somewhat-based on Alterac Valley, when the battleground could last 30 or 40 hours before a faction wins. You will be able to go in the zone to do things that aren't PvP related such as gathering resources for your faction. Of course, the other side will do the same and it will most likely result in PvP anyway. Resources will have multiple uses, including summoning creatures just like in Alterac Valley.
  • Garrosh will be in the expansion but it's unlikely players will fight him again. There is many other enemies to fight and kill and it's not really worth going back to Garrosh again after players already defeated him.



Mamytwink
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Will each Warlord have its own raid?
Sometimes, there will be 2 Warlords in one tier. Ner'zhul will be fought in a dungeon, the Shadowmoon Burial Grounds (level 100). There's no formula, what is sure is that Blackhand will be the final boss of Patch 6.0, as the end boss of the Blackrock Foundry.

There's an updated loot system in Warlords of Draenor. Why make it so flexible? Is it to adapt it to flexible raids?
It's an essential change. It was one of the big challenges to allow us to adapt flexible raids to other difficulties (normal and heroic). Personal loot is a good option for LFR or pick up groups but it doesn't work as well when you play with friends and your guild, it's essential to be able to give loot the raid member who needs it. It's a social aspect of the game that we don't want to ignore.

The only problem was the number of loot. If we had chosen a fixed number of items, we would have had problems with the number of players. We instead agreed on a system where the amount of items depends on the size of the raid and the players elligible for loot. For example, a 10 player raid will receive 2 loot when a 20 player raid will receive 4. If 18 of these players already received an item from this boss earlier this week, which means that only 2 people are elligible, you could have 0 items.

Are Garrison planned on the long term or is this more of a Warlords of Draenor specific feature?
Garrisons are tied to Warlords of Draenor, they are bases that each player builds to help in the fight against the Iron Horde, the goal is to have players build an army.

However, the technology we used to create Garrisons will most likely be reused in the future.

You plan to increase the difficulty of Heroic dungeons in Warlords of Draenor. Will it be the same as WotLK/MoP or more in line with Cataclysm?
In between. You can probably say the difficulty will be equal to the easy heroic dungeons in Cataclysm such as Vortex Pinnacle and the Lost City of Tol'vir. On the other hand, Stonecore or Grim Batol were heroic dungeons that were too hard for most players (in PUG)

The big difference in Warlords of Draenor is that you will also have a normal difficulty for level 100 dungeons, it should be easier for players who just want to join a dungeon through the LFD tool.

Players will only need normal dungeon loot to be able to join the LFR queue. Heroic dungeons will allow raids who want to go in normal raids to gear themselves up.

Is LFR going to negatively impact heroic instances if you can find better gear there?
At the beginning of the expansion, LFR won't be available and will only open wing after wing. Heroic dungeons will be available immediately and will offer the best way to gear up for raids.

Additionally, we're adding an interesting reward to challenge mode daily quests: an epic item of LFR quality. Regardless of the medal you get (bronze minimum), the daily quest will get you epic loot! Of course, Silver and Gold medals will still award cosmetic rewards.

Is Ashran (the PvP Zone) going to be cross-realm? cross-battle.net?
The current plan is to have it available on each server individually, but we could make it cross-realm to fix balance issues between factions. We do not want to reiterate the Wintergrasp scenario with the Tenacity buff.

Is Ashran a level 100 zone?
Yes, it's an "end game" PvP zone.

Is there anything you can tell us about Patch 6.0? Will there be a scenario or a world event?
As usual Patch 6.0 will introduce most new features from Warlords of Draenor: new models, item squish, new raid modes. Only Draenor will not be available yet.

The patch will also include an event in-game, but I can't say anything about it yet.

The new character models are really awesome, but racial mounts are starting to look old next to them. Do you have any plan to update them as well?
We continuously try to upgrade every aspect of the game, for example with the spells upgrades we did. The fireball from a Mage looks a lot nicer than 7 years ago, but we can't do everything at once.

The new mounts released over the past few years are a lot more detailed, and I can understand that it will be weird to use racial/faction mount with the new models. This is something we might work on in the future.

Do you plan to add "bonus" bosses to Mythic raids like you did with Ra-Den in the Heroic Throne of Thunders?
Potentially. Like we did in the past with Heroic bosses, some of them might have an extra phase, for example Garrosh in Stormwind. We also like to have optional bosses like Algalon, Sinestra, or Ra-Den but only when it feels appropriate.

We're obviously open to continue doing this with Mythic modes, and I can already tell you that when of the boss of the raids available in Patch 6.0 will have an important difference in Mythic mode. A nice surprise is waiting for you.

A lot of players complain about the reduction of spells and abilities to play a class. Do you plan to keep reducing them further?
We indeed removed skills and abilities that didn't feel essential to the game, a lot of DPS classes ended up combining them in a macro to launch them simultaneously. A Warrior for example would create a macro with Recklessness and Skull Banner, this is why Skull Banner was removed and some of its effects added to Recklessness.

We removed about 20% of class skills and abilities, even if we will probably have to add a couple more. Players will probably ask for it during beta.

In the end, we want to reduce the amount of buttons required to play and make the game easier for players who come back. The goal is to make the game understandable for every player, each button must have a very clear goal.

Developers had fun with Karazhan in the past few builds, do you plan to reuse it in the expansion?
Karazhan is a place with a lot of nostalgia and fun memories. We could revisit Karazhan at some point.

We originally planned that Karazhan would play a role in the event that would precede the release of Warlords of Draenor, we thought of a phased scenario taking place in Karazhan. The place has links to the destruction of the Dark Portal and you would have been sent there to investigate on the subject. Finally, we decided against it and developers then had fun with the dataminers from MMO-Champion.

Sorry but I have to ask ... when does the beta of Warlords of Draenor start?
Soon™. You have to ask me this question, I have to give you this answer.



Warlords of Draenor Heroic Dungeons - Silver Proving Grounds Requirement (Random Matchmaking)
When we looked at Proving Grounds stats last month, 27% of players already had Silver for at least one role, with no real incentive to do so right now. Out of the players that did at least Bronze in one role, 58% were able to get Silver in one role.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
To at least get everyone on the same page in terms of information, since a summary of a translated version of a translation of a few sentences in a single interview may not be the best foundation for a 24-page discussion, here's an overview of our current thinking:

  • We will have Normal and Heroic versions of our max-level dungeons. (Note that we did not have Normal level 90 dungeons in Mists.)
  • There will be no special requirement other than basic level/ilvl requirements on queuing for Normal dungeons or LFR.
  • Level-up quest gear will get you into Normal dungeons/scenarios, and Normal dungeon/scenario gear will get you into LFR.
  • Heroic dungeons will be more challenging than the Normal version (not brutally difficult, mind you -- just somewhat more demanding).
  • You will need a Silver Proving Grounds medal in a given role in order to queue for random matchmaking for a Heroic Warlords dungeon. If you form a premade group, you can zone in regardless and no such requirement applies.

In the past, challenging content and random matchmaking have often not gone so well together. Relying on item level does nothing to prevent a random group from getting, for example, a tank who may literally have never tanked before. Everyone has to learn somewhere, but we'd rather not have that learning come at other players' expense. One option would be to require a full premade group to do Heroic Dungeons, as we do with Heroic Scenarios, but that would present a very high barrier to entry (finding 4 other people with rigid role requirements is much harder than finding 2 other people with no role requirements). This solution represents a compromise in order to allow the content to see a broader reach via matchmaking, while minimizing frustration.

And yes, we realize that by formally using Proving Grounds as a qualification, it will be incumbent upon us to further refine their balance and mechanics. We'll be updating them for Warlords, and we're confident that we can make them a fair test of baseline ability within a given role.

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Warlords of Draenor Beta
You have to talk to us guys. You guys can't just ignore us. We are fans AND customers. 12 Months of SoO?? Yes or No?
We're not ignoring you; we're just not ready to announce a release date yet. (Celestalon)
We'll give you plenty of notice, when we're ready to announce a date. We're excited for Warlords to come out just as much as you. (Celestalon)

Is it really typical for game studios to give a lot of advance notice for beta?
For a beta? No, we likely won't give a ton of notice for beta starting. That's fine though, we don't need to. (Celestalon)

Proving Grounds
is there any real reason that the Proving Grounds doesn't magically keep your hit/expertise capped like Challenge Modes do?
It does. It uses the exact same tech. (Celestalon)

Thoughts on PGround enemies scaling up, not gear iLvl down? Would make for much more consistent practice/xperience across xpac.
This is definitely something we're considering, but it makes tuning more difficult. Very interesting prospect, though. (Celestalon)

Art
what r the odds Orcs won't look like monkeys posture wise, w/hunched over gape mouth in WoD?
The iconic orc 'hunch' is a part of their silhouette and distinctiveness, doubt the art team would budge on that. (Source)

No.1 hate atm is Silvermoon/exodar not fixed. And I hate that Cata may u guys so scared. Inconsistant world looks terrible.
Honestly a revamp of Silvermoon alone is an ENORMOUS task. We'd lose a raid wing. And it would have little impact on game. (Source)

Classes
Something people bring up is the removal of all race-class restrictions. I'm against this, but is that ever considered?
Wholesale removal, no, but plenty of debate about opening up new combinations. (Dave_Maldo)

A little peek at what class design entails... The obvious part of our job with the new talents is designing them. But there's another side.. (Celestalon)
...Implementation! WoW's engine allows us to turn virtually any idea we have into reality (in-game, anyway). But how much work is required to do that can vary greatly. It can involve lots of data entry, knowledge of combat nuances, coding/scripting, creativity, etc. (Celestalon)
Some talents are super quick to implement (Malfurion's Tenacity, for example). Some require extensive work to get right, but are worth it. (Celestalon)
What, for you, has been the most challenging talent or ability to implement to your satisfaction thus far in your WoW career?
Top contenders: Stagger, Storm/Earth/Fire, Eclipse, Divine Star, Alter Time, Chi Wave, Green Fire. Still not happy with some. (Celestalon)

Are we getting a pre 6.0 "stat change" patch before WoD? Would give time to get used to it before WoD.(hit/exp in particular)
What you're referring to is the 6.0 patch, which will be before WoD. (Celestalon)
yea blonde moment, but are we getting any changes like stats etc in that patch?
Yeah, 6.0 includes all of the systems changes. (Celestalon)

PvP
Hey with the new season are you guys going to be raising the PvE ilvl from 512 to something else?
Yes. It will increase gradually to 540. (holinka)

Getting to a point in the season where we can compare this season to last directly. A bit blown away by increase in 3v3 participation. (holinka)
8 specs have more characters playing than the most popular spec last season (i.e. no, it's not all warriors) (holinka)
Do you think it has to do with the removal of the team system? I know it has gotten me to 3v3 more.
yes that certainly contributed (holinka)
Just curious if there's any interest in sharing those stats more often/transparently or would it do more harm than good?
always made a good point that it may lead to players focusing too much on data and not enough on their experience (holinka)
Mmm, agreed. Having data available doesn't necessarily lead to accurate analysis. Trends are simply cool to examine.
certainly agree. I hassle our data folks to no end. (holinka)
but look at how obsessed people are with representation numbers even though they are only 1 part of the picture. (holinka)
The ladders are a good metric of how strong/weak a spec is. It's not the be all/ end all, but the numbers are important.
It's the only number people have so they fixate on it. (holinka)
What other metric do you believe would be better? Too often players dismiss the numbers in favor of their own opinions.
I think it's challenging to find the right metric in WoW. Leveling a new class requires significant investment. (holinka)
In a perfect world, everyone would play every class an equal amount and we'd have great data. (holinka)
Self-selection bias makes this nearly impossible as people choose characters for a variety of reasons. (holinka)
What's a stronger fantasy? Conan, Gandalf, Legolas or a moon-worshipping Owl Man? (holinka)
And which class, exactly, is Gandalf the fantasy for? Hmmmmm? (Celestalon)
The thing is that players at glad level dont pick a class because of lore
They also don't switch classes from season to season as frequently as some people think. (holinka)

is the 3's participation in part due to the mount incentive linked to the ach?
It has a lot to do with it no doubt. Removal of teams and cross-realm probably helped as well. (holinka)
those mounts were a really good idea. first time doing serious 3s this season, had a lot of fun!
People love ponies (holinka)

Pets and Pet Battles
Not sure if you're still using this feed but a battle/companion pet version of the Ghost Iron Dragonling would be cool
As it turns out, was just talking about mechanical dragonlings as built Battle Pets the other day... (Dave_Maldo)

Misc
Yeah sure ure not able to. At least u have enough time to design new epic Shopmounts!
One mount versus 11 armor sets on 13 different races. Quite different workload. (holinka)

Heroes of the Storm - Illidan
Illidan is just one of the WoW characters that appear in Heroes of the Storm! You can see more on our new Heroes of the Storm fansite, Heroes Nexus.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Warlords of Draenor Dev Interviews, Proving Grounds Requirement in WoD, Blue Tweets started by chaud View original post
Published on 2014-02-23 08:42 PM
128 Comments
Comments 128 Comments
  1. Arvandor's Avatar
    this shitty pg requirement will only work on shitty elitist forums.. meantime all other normal players have only one question.. why should i play heriocs, when i force to do other shitty things? pls blizzard give me a reason to do this...
  1. Giscoicus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Arvandor View Post
    this shitty pg requirement will only work on shitty elitist forums.. meantime all other normal players have only one question.. why should i play heriocs, when i force to do other shitty things? pls blizzard give me a reason to do this...
    Why should good players end up with windowlickers in their dungeon groups? Why should everything be nerfed so terribads can do it?
  1. Arvandor's Avatar
    R.I.P. heroics.. your are not forgotten.. its a shame to see that this is another wasted developing time.. providing ground and the scenarios, its all failed in this xpac.. pls blizzard let these features in mop!

    - - - Updated - - -

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Giscoicus View Post
    Why should good players end up with windowlickers in their dungeon groups? Why should everything be nerfed so terribads can do it?
    the true good player help the other not so good player.. do you understand?
  1. Farabee's Avatar
    I'm all for reducing ability bloat. Honestly, some classes have ridiculous rotations right now (fury warriors have way too much overlap in particular) while others hit maybe 3-4 buttons the whole fight (destro locks) and top meters. It's reminiscent of the end of WOTLK where classes like enhancement shamans just macro'd everything to one button. I'd rather have one ability that was used in a certain situation than a ton of buttons that do nothing.

    Everything else...meh. I like how heroics are going to be a bit more heroic this time though, and give loot on par with LFR.
  1. mmocea9cec0ead's Avatar
    We originally planned that Karazhan would play a role in the event that would precede the release of Warlords of Draenor, we thought of a phased scenario taking place in Karazhan. The place has links to the destruction of the Dark Portal and you would have been sent there to investigate on the subject. Finally, we decided against it and developers then had fun with the dataminers from MMO-Champion.

    Hilarious
  1. mmocb3b572baf9's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Arvandor View Post
    the true good player help the other not so good player.. do you understand?
    I do help my friends that are not so good yea, but why would I want to help some completely random person? Who most of the time don't even want to get better and just want a free boost?
  1. tylenol's Avatar
    Normal dungeon loot will give you enough gear for Raid Finder, while Heroic dungeon loot will help you gear up for Normal raids. This will be important at the start of the expansion, as Heroic dungeons will be open before Raid Finder, making it the best way to gear up for Normal raids.

    So if I'm understanding this correctly, heroic dungeon loot isn't better than LFR gear but since LFR isn't open the first 2 weeks, heroic dungeons are the best way to gear for normal raids just because its the best gear you can get for 2 weeks till raids/lfr opens?
  1. cursero's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Granyala View Post
    Silvermoon is HUGE. Reconstructing is FROM SCRATCH in 3D (much of it are just flat textures) is a very large undertaking and needs to be done by the people that design environments. (THAT INCLUDES RAIDS)

    So it would - literally- take people away from raid develeopment.

    It's not an excuse, it's the simple truth.
    Whether some random internet hero believes it or not, doesn't change the fact, that even Blizzard does not have infinite resources and never will have them.
    So? they can eliminate one raid wing, and finish the old world.
  1. Siddown's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by cursero View Post
    So? they can eliminate one raid wing, and finish the old world.
    To fix a city that nobody goes to or even cares about? Building software is about picking your battles wisely, "fixing" Silvermoon is just not a battle that needs to be picked.
  1. Yriel's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Siddown View Post
    Was PvP any worse in TBC or WotLK with less abilities?
    Actually i wouldn't be surprised if he had more abilities in TBC. They already removed a lot of them and we only got one new ability in Wrath, Cata and MoP. Shamans, for example, definitively had more abilities back then with all the totems. Healers, too with all the downgrading.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    That was the attitude they took with cata dungeons. Oh just wait, they'll learn to stop being bad. We saw how that worked out. Making a blog and telling players to l2play doesn't miraculously make them l2play. It's a stupid idea and it will be abandoned very quickly. I give it a couple months before they take the PG requirement out.
    On top of that i'd guess that most players do know how to play correctly but are just too lazy to do so. They just want to get the dungeon over with and don't want the hassle of moving out of the fire or focusing and ccing a target.
    The PG requirement will change nothing.
  1. Siddown's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Yriel View Post
    Actually i wouldn't be surprised if he had more abilities in TBC. They already removed a lot of them and we only got one new ability in Wrath, Cata and MoP. Shamans, for example, definitively had more abilities back then with all the totems. Healers, too with all the downgrading.
    I knew someone would bring up Totems.

    In TBC, most classes had dramatically less abilities than they do today. Shamans and Hunters (with both Melee and Ranged) are probably the exception. For casters, downcasting was used more in PvE than PvP.

    We could go class by class, but I think you'll find that most classes have a lot lot keybinds than they did back in TBC. Nobody says that TBC was easy mode because a Rogue had eight less abilities than they do now, now maybe there were balance issues, but the game wasn't any worse because of it.

    EDIT: And the reason I am speaking about PvP in particular is that PvE rotations tend to use far less abilities than you would use in PvP.
  1. mmoc2462c4a12d's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Arvandor View Post
    the true good player help the other not so good player.. do you understand?
    Not in queued groups with completely random players who can't even be bothered to say "hello" or even make any kind of effort. That just doesn't work.

    If you want a place for newcomers and inexperienced players to learn (either learning together or being helped by veteran players), then look towards premade groups. Dungeon Finder is not the right place for people to learn how to play their class.
  1. mmoca197a4343c's Avatar
    Awesome model of Illidan, have never been a fan of the "LoL and Dota" games.. but im definitely gonna try HoS :P
  1. Sainur's Avatar
    Fare thee well, dungeons. Fare thee well.

    R.I.P.
  1. Siddown's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sainur View Post
    Fare thee well, dungeons. Fare thee well.

    R.I.P.
    How so?

    Right now, 27% of the player base as gotten Silver in at least one spec despite the fact that Proving Ground doesn't mean anything. When it actually matters, as in you have to do them (and I imagine you'll get the quest automatically when dinging 100) that number will be much higher.

    You have to consider a few things:

    1) Who are the people who actually queue up for Heroic 5mans?

    2) Aren't they already the kind of people who could get a Silver in PGs if they needed to?
  1. Katharine's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by cursero View Post
    The That-or-a-Raid argument again... Seems like a new catchphrase along with "soon"
    Indeed. And it's a silly argument. Silvermoon is the city I call home while raids are just something I'd run a few times and then will never set foot in again.
  1. Gray_Matter's Avatar
    IMHO, if they want to get people doing HC dungeons they should put the loot somewhere between LFR and Flex and make them the appropriate difficulty. I really enjoyed the hard HC dungeons that we used to have. You don't need to start putting requirements on them. People will kick bad players soon enough.
  1. Siddown's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Katharine View Post
    Indeed. And it's a silly argument. Silvermoon is the city I call home while raids are just something I'd run a few times and then will never set foot in again.
    If you put out a poll that asked the player base do they want another Raid or Silvermoon to be rebuilt, the vast majority would pick another raid.
  1. Harmann's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by RoKPaNda View Post
    I think the idea of an LFR piece for bronze challenge mode is kind of amusing.

    My only annoyance is Ner'zhul in a 5-man. Hopefully he doesn't get shanked in the 5-man, otherwise Blizzard has such a hate on for that guy. First Arthas emos and kills Ner'zhul with his mind after Ner'zhul gave him everything he had (and took away everything he had before really.) and now he's relegated to 5-man boss duty. Oof.



    It very likely is only a first tier thing, as that was the only point where it's really a problem. Beyond the first tier if a guild is forcing their raiders to run LFR then your guild was abusing you, plain and simple.

    At launch normal 5-mans will provide you gear to make you capable of running LFR. Heroics will be close enough to LFR gear to allow you to skip LFR. LFR gear will be below normal gear, and so on.

    When the next raid patch launches there is no need to do anything at all to 5-man loot, or older LFR loot. Entry level 5-mans are obsolete and so is the gear from them, old LFR gets you gear for new LFR, old normal gets you gear for new normal, and so on. If they add new heroic 5-mans (unlikely based on past history.) then it can reward slightly better loot than the older heroics, but at that point it no longer has to compete with LFR.

    Probably the easiest way to fix all the tears about guilds forcing raiders to do LFR.
    That's great at the start of the expansion, but what about people who join up later into it? That's my situation with MoP, and I'm basically forced into this horrid LFR system if I want to gear up for raiding...because without LFR ilvls, you're going to have trouble getting into Flex groups, and without Flex it's a little tough to get geared up for Normal SoO, let alone Heroic.

    Previously, the entry level raid catchup gear was available from 5 mans + badges. That would get you ready to start performing well in Normal raids.

    Let's look at WotLK for example. When Ulduar was current content, its 10 man version was dropping ilvl 213 gear. The Heroic 5 man and badge gear was ilvl 200. You were barely behind the raiding item levels.

    When ICC was current content the 10 man version was ilvl 251; the Icecrown 5 mans were dropping 232 (only 19 lvls behind 10M raid drops), and the badge gear was ilvl 264 (same as 25M/10H drops).

    Now let's look at SoO and 5.4:

    The normal raid difficulty items are ilvl 553/559. 5 man dungeons drop only blues, max level 463. Badge gear is ilvl 522 (31-39 behind Normal raid), but it takes weeks to buy them...after which you have no VP left over to upgrade your gear. Timeless Isle is 535, but has bad stat distribution generally and no sockets...still a viable beginning towards getting raid ready. The only other avenue towards gear is LFR, and with being locked @ 1 kill per week, RNG might make it take 2-4 weeks before your character's ilevel is high enough to consistently find Flex groups. My Rogue is now finally ilvl 530 after 3 weeks of many hours playtime, and it's still hard as hell to get accepted to Flex groups...let alone find any remotely solid Normal/Heroic groups.
  1. SpartanJet's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by tangers58 View Post
    *sigh* be great if they stopped removing abilities every expansion to cater to the dumb dumbs
    Right because the amount of skills you can bind = skill. Sorry but I have no interest in getting carpel tunnel trying to bind 50 abilities using combos of shift/alt/ctrl. I have a Logitech G13 completely filled with abilities (not macros, straight abilities) which is 24 buttons and its not enough. There is ZERO need for that much abilities. The key to skill is having less buttons and more meaningful times to use them.
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