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  1. #1

    Flex Item Levels, January 14 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, HS Beta - Opt-In Accounts Flagged

    Ghostcrawler is Now Lead Game Designer at Riot Games

    Difficulty Changes, No Account Wipe With The Next Patch, HC and the 'Lower Difficulty' Feature, Affixes and CC, Item Discussions

    Opt-In Beta Invites Wave, Hearthstone Wiki Updates, MG Interviews, Community Spotlight: Cake

    Flex Item Levels
    Watcher commented on the item level requirements of many PuG Flex groups, as well as sharing that usually people who do Wing 1 and 2 are somewhere in the 530s and Wing 3 and 4 are in the 540s.



    Patch 5.4.2 Hotfixes - January 14
    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
    Classes
    • Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
      • General
        • Snake Trap now uses the same version of Mind-Numbing Poison debuff as Rogues; reducing the target's casting speed on player targets by 10% (down from 25%).

    Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
    • Siege of Orgrimmar
      • Paragons of the Klaxxi
        • [Requires a realm restart.] Resolved an issue that could cause tanks to be unable to interact with a fallen Paragon.

    Blue Posts
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    WoW Customer Loyalty Program
    This has been a topic of constant discussion and debate for years now, both within the community and internally here at Blizzard. It's a surprisingly controversial subject on all fronts, but I'm sure tagging this thread with blue won't kick up any dust... (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Leveling and Arena Ratings
    We're working on a hotfix for this issue right now. The intention is that only players at level 70, 80, 85, or 90 should be able to queue for Arenas, and that as soon as a player levels up, their ratings will be reset.

    lore can you guys reset the people that have leveled to 90 with level 89 ratings
    Yep, that's the plan. It may not happen at the same time that the hotfix applies, but we'll be resetting ratings for those characters. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    A Day in the Life of Blizzard
    We had a short run of something similar to what you describe with our "A Day in the Life" series, released during Blizzard's 20th anniversary: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company...nterviews.html (Even our team's own Bashiok is featured!)

    There's definitely some value to opening up our doors a bit more, so to speak, and giving the community an opportunity to get to know more of the names and faces within Blizzard, and the work-related responsibilities those people have.

    That said, it does take a fair amount of resources from multiple departments to put features like that together. When possible we like to couple them with other announcements or initiatives to provide more background and context for what we're working on.

    One thing we do fairly often as well is sit various developers and other Blizzard content creators down with fan/media sites for interviews. Ideally that allows for more community-driven questions to be answered, as opposed to any of us rather aimlessly talking about our day-to-day operations. They're also easier to pull off given that we're not publishing the content ourselves -- meaning much fewer resources on our end are required. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Legendary Questline
    I posted about this somewhere before, but I can't find it now...

    I'll largely avoid the tedious vs. challenging conversation as I'm not feeling very eloquent right now, but I will say that it's about variety. There need to be a wide variety of things to do with a wide variety of requirements to build a whole experience and appeal to any particular player at any particular moment in their schedule, knowledge, or skill with the game.

    Ok, in any case, with the Legendary questline in Mists we wanted to have a reward that everyone could follow along with as the expansion progressed, and to create a story and gear-upgrade thread throughout the expansion, ultimately leading to a Legendary item of some kind. Also while developing the expansion it was important for us to support this fairly new system called LFR, and so for the Legendary to also be accessible regardless of the raid difficulty you were involved in. Obviously both have been really successful, and we're happy with hitting the goals we set for ourselves. That said we definitely learned a lot of lessons, and definitely agree on the 3000 VP step being wholly un-Legendary in particular. We think there's certainly room to improve for a future Legendary or Legendaries, and bigger goals to set to provide a challenging and rewarding experience to appeal to and be accessible by a wide range of players - to be completely vague about it. Overall I'd say we're on the same page. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

    Hearthstone Beta - Opt-In Accounts Flagged
    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
    The majority of the final round of invites to the Hearthstone closed beta test have now been completed - We have now directly flagged most Battle.net accounts that have met both of the following criteria:

    • The account was opted into the Hearthstone beta test before January 7th.
    • The account does not have a Hearthstone license already attached to it as of January 7th.

    If your account was successfully flagged for beta access, your account was also sent an email with instructions on how to download and install the game. If you cannot find this email for any reason, please go to your Battle.net Account Management page - The Hearthstone license should be visible under “Summary” - “Your Game Accounts” if your account was flagged for beta access. If your account has not yet been flagged for the beta test, we are still going through all of the accounts and we will provide another update at a later time.

    The Battle.net desktop app is required in order to play Hearthstone, so make sure to install the Battle.net desktop app first. If you run into issues with downloading or installing Hearthstone or with the Battle.net desktop app, please visit our Support site for more assistance.

  2. #2
    Im glad to see the success rate of flexes isn't requiring an absurd ilvl. Nice to know what it's generally balanced towards.

  3. #3
    Bloodsail Admiral Narshe's Avatar
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    Funny, was doing flex 1 and 2 at 520 when it first came out, no one batted an eye. Weeks later those same toons are scoffed at even though they have the achieve.

  4. #4
    This is unusual, my partner didn't get any invites at all and all her opt-ins were unticked, yet I ticked them before the 7th.

    She was really looking forward to playing Hearthstone
    Looks like we're just going to have to share my Beta profile for now.

  5. #5
    I pulled some quick armory stats, without the usual amount of verification that I do for ones that go on the front page. Unfortunately we don't have access to all of that nice data Blizzard does, so keep in mind I was working with what we have:

    • ~41% of people with an item level over 540 and no Normal or Heroic Garrosh kills have killed Garrosh.
    • The average item level for someone that killed each boss in flex and has not killed in in normal or heroic:
      • General Nazgrim - 538.2
      • Spoils of Pandaria - 539.3
      • Siegecrafter Blackfuse - 542.4
      • Garrosh Hellscream - 546.4
    Last edited by chaud; 2014-01-15 at 08:55 AM.

  6. #6
    I find it hard to believe that there's a portion of the playerbase AGAINST a customer loyalty program. It's something i've wanted ever since i saw Rift's several years ago....and honestly i think it's about time...

  7. #7
    Deleted
    Most of the Flex Recruiter ive seen on my server wants people to link that ahead of the cuve Garrosh Hellscream Achievement. its really annoying

  8. #8
    Personally I find it extremely annoying watching trade, looking for a flex group and they are like "LFM Flex 1&2. Must be 545+" and then they want you to show them your ahead of the curve achievement. Seriously? To do a lesser version of a raid you want me to show that I've done a HARDER version of it? There is little logic in this.

    I understand that some people want their "quick runs" and that's fine...but it's becoming a rampant trend now to require people to OVERGEAR content to get an invite to a raid group. Even moreso than in the past.

    Believe me, I'm all for giving folks the opportunity to raid on their own time/terms and whatever...but it's not really fun when I'm sitting @ a 549 item level and keep getting denied invites to FLEX groups because I haven't killed Garrosh on normal or my ilvl isn't high enough.

    I hate ilvl and I hate what it has done to peoples' expectations. It's just yet ANOTHER way for players in this game to be elitist and exclusionary.

  9. #9
    Ilvl demand for flex will probably keep going up.
    Whats max ilvl u can get and never enter a normal raid? Around 560?

    Had some 560 ppl in flex grps do sub 100k dps, ilvls keep rising but not dps/hps

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by BergErr View Post
    Whats max ilvl u can get and never enter a normal raid? Around 560?
    Around 555 or so depending on your luck and how good Ordos pieces are for your spec.

  11. #11
    That flex information is awesome to know. Now maybe someone should tell the people shouting for flex on Frostmane EU about it. Some of us don't always have the ahead of the curve achievements!
    Customer loyalty program? Yes please!
    Last edited by Clare; 2014-01-15 at 09:36 AM.

  12. #12
    I think the best solution would be in the end players that open groups themself: ilvl requirement is the same as in the LFR-Browser; only restriction is that they must be fully enchanted and gemmed. For me a player that enchants and gemmed their gear completely is much more worth than someone without gems but high ilvl.

  13. #13
    Deleted
    well i have an item level of 565 on my resto shammy. more than capable of downing all on normal with my skill set and yet i do NOT have the normal Garrosh kill so no ahead of the curve. each time my guild killed him i've been either unavailable for it or dropped out early due to drinking too much booze=P

    getting people to link achievements is a dumb idea in my opinion. thankfully i am in a position in my guild where i don't need to pug at all. but i can defo understand peoples frustrations on this subject. it's been around since wotlk

  14. #14
    Deleted
    As a pvp´er I hated the legendary questline. Forced into soooo much mindnumbingingly boring pve, being forced into the soulcrushing pit of retardation that is LFR (just so blizz can call their retard loot pinata a success) for a legendary ach. Gating content behind the cloak was retarded.
    Last edited by mmoc3eb006e951; 2014-01-15 at 10:25 AM.

  15. #15
    Legendary! snuzzle's Avatar
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    Personally it would be nice to see the average ilevel of Flex groups being a little lower. For a successful group to require the item level of gear that drops in the raid seems a bit high to me. It's not too absurd, but I think you should be able to do it with a gear level a bit lower than the level of gear that drops, 530 to successfully complete all of Flex (with perhaps the exception of Wing 4 being around 535) would be ideal imho.

    Although with the ability to upgrade our gear's ilvl via VP, perhaps that's why they can require such a high ilvl for success.

    If I had never been told the stats for successful groups' ilvls, I would have been pretty happy with the difficulty of Flex. Although as someone whose ilvl is 540 right on the nose, I find some of the Flex mechanics a bit trivial (but some still pack a good punch). Overall, very happy with Flex.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Bantokar View Post
    As a pvp´er I hated the legendary questline. Forced into soooo much mindnumbingingly boring pve, being forced into the soulcrushing pit of retardation that is LFR (just so blizz can call their retard loot pinata a success) for a legendary ach. Gating content behind the cloak was retarded.
    that's funny because as a strict pve'er I absolutely hate the pvp portion in the questline lol =P

  17. #17
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Residentdead88 View Post
    that's funny because as a strict pve'er I absolutely hate the pvp portion in the questline lol =P
    The pvp part is miniscule compared to the tedious farming in LFR and the rep grinds etc.

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Residentdead88 View Post
    that's funny because as a strict pve'er I absolutely hate the pvp portion in the questline lol =P
    This. Although it werent too bad being horde. 1 or 2 shot for a BG victory. Albeit the time consumed doing this probably wont compare to the time PvPers are using on PvE content to get the cloack. But it is a PvE cloack, sint it ? (aka not usable in arenas etc).


  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Bantokar View Post
    As a pvp´er I hated the legendary questline.
    If you want to do something you hate solely for an achievement that's your own prerogative.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Bantokar View Post
    As a pvp´er I hated the legendary questline. Forced into soooo much mindnumbingingly boring pve, being forced into the soulcrushing pit of retardation that is LFR (just so blizz can call their retard loot pinata a success) for a legendary ach. Gating content behind the cloak was retarded.
    Why even get the cloak if your a pvper?

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