Heroic warfronts promise to be comedy gold!

[Soon-TM]

No, you are less salty vs NPC. The NPC is not "better" or "lucky". It's just a script running. I have played so many pvp/pve games, the saltiest people are ALWAYS in PvP.

Have you never seen those window lickers in LFR foaming over their mouths after a wipe (in LFR lul)? It's a Mt. Everest-sized chunk of salt

Anyway, I doubt many people will bother with HC warfronts, since collecting pearls will yield 430 gear eventually, and M+ are spammable and far easier to organise. 425 ilvl from HC warfronts is low enough to discourage good players from joining (except during the first month, maybe), while being high enough to encourage your typical LFR dweller to try his/her hand there

[Unholyground]

Have you never seen those window lickers in LFR foaming over their mouths after a wipe (in LFR lul)? It's a Mt. Everest-sized chunk of salt

Anyway, I doubt many people will bother with HC warfronts, since collecting pearls will yield 430 gear eventually, and M+ are spammable and far easier to organise. 425 ilvl from HC warfronts is low enough to discourage good players from joining (except during the first month, maybe), while being high enough to encourage your typical LFR dweller to try his/her hand there

This is why I only do random content when I am high as fuck so that I can just laugh when the group wipes and not care at all.

[Flurryfang]

.....I think Blizzard don't talk much about them, because they know it will be a trainwreck of a feature.

There is not really anything fun in Warfront implementation, no matter how easy or hard you make it.

The idea of spending 10 min just running up and down a mine shaft to gather iron ore does not get better by having the kobolds hit harder or by having alliance troops attacking once in a while, its still boring. The same with lumberyard, running around for trees.

Allied troops are also mostly useless unless you stack them up in the late game, and the upgrades you give them seems like a waste of resourses at all points of the scenario. Why would i want to waste 600 resourses just to give allied troops a 30% HP buff? O.o

And the importance of the different camps are also close to irrelevant. Aside from catapults, why would you even bother with Elements or Stables? O.o

There are so many things, that they would have to change to even make it remotely engaging, especially for people who look for a challenge on a different level than normal warfronts.

........I think we just have a good example of how Blizzard can waste time on concepts, that are just bad in generel.

[Qnubi]

.....I think Blizzard don't talk much about them, because they know it will be a trainwreck of a feature.

There is not really anything fun in Warfront implementation, no matter how easy or hard you make it.

The idea of spending 10 min just running up and down a mine shaft to gather iron ore does not get better by having the kobolds hit harder or by having alliance troops attacking once in a while, its still boring. The same with lumberyard, running around for trees.

Allied troops are also mostly useless unless you stack them up in the late game, and the upgrades you give them seems like a waste of resourses at all points of the scenario. Why would i want to waste 600 resourses just to give allied troops a 30% HP buff? O.o

And the importance of the different camps are also close to irrelevant. Aside from catapults, why would you even bother with Elements or Stables? O.o

There are so many things, that they would have to change to even make it remotely engaging, especially for people who look for a challenge on a different level than normal warfronts.

........I think we just have a good example of how Blizzard can waste time on concepts, that are just bad in generel.

The sad part is that instead of the warfronts we could have 1-2 additional cool dungeons instead of the same since launch.

[dcc626]

Ilvl 425 ... meanwhile collecting pearls upgrades to 430.

actually benthic gear only goes to 425.

[Atraxxa]

I’m really surprised there hasn’t been more talk about heroic warfronts! I know standard warfronts are divisive, I personally love them as cyclical content, because they’re inevitable and a good source of “Apply time and win,” but heroic will give upgraded gear, and they have all the makings of a glorious train wreck!

-Premade groups
-reactive, trinity-role-agnostic strategy as the flow is shaken up by random occurrences like the opposing general riding out to run people over and the need for resources!
-a non-inevitable outcome for a similar time sink, set to bigger combat numbers
-apparently a need for cohesion and leadership to win
-people will try to pug it.
-cohesion means one voice, one person living out their armchair battleground general fantasies with a no-vote kicking situation
-I can only imagine what the group finder descriptions will look like: “bob is in charge, listen to bob or you’re out.”
-again, premade groups only, General bob can kick you!

I imagine it will be fun for guilds who can field a team, but man... PUGs of these will be a hilariously unholy garbage fire! I can’t wait to read about it!

I mean is this any different than the last 12-14 years of the game? I would say that its getting slightly better actually, its not uncommon to see pugs clearing higher end mythic content even nowadays.

[tmamass]

btw wasnt there supposed to more then just 2 wfs?....

[Cosmic Janitor]

btw wasnt there supposed to more then just 2 wfs?....

There was a bit for a barrens one datamined, but that was probably scrapped earily on. Also after the darkshore one it's probably better. They actually managed to make it worse than the hinterlands one.

[Lurker1]

actually benthic gear only goes to 425.

Yeah honestly why people keep saying its heroic base ilvl when its below it lol!

[Paulosio]

I feel like warfronts should have been end of zone one off quests in the same way that Battle for Undercity was the climax to Dragonblight back in Wotlk. A 1 off scenario / event quest that you do once per character. I'd also have liked to have seen less focus on the gathering of resources. It's just tedious waiting for ore chests etc to respawn.

As repeatable content they just don't work in their current form. I don't believe even 1% of player base looks forward to doing them more than once. Plenty probably do bother with them for the 1 off quest but I doubt they are enjoying it for anything more than the item reward at the end.

[Powerogue]

The anarchy sounds like a lot of fun honestly, you've only made me more hyped. Honestly I heal PUG groups from time to time purely to bask in the players acting so stupid and having to be the glue that keeps them all alive and moving forward.

[Briselody]

.....I think Blizzard don't talk much about them, because they know it will be a trainwreck of a feature.

There is not really anything fun in Warfront implementation, no matter how easy or hard you make it.

The idea of spending 10 min just running up and down a mine shaft to gather iron ore does not get better by having the kobolds hit harder or by having alliance troops attacking once in a while, its still boring. The same with lumberyard, running around for trees.

Allied troops are also mostly useless unless you stack them up in the late game, and the upgrades you give them seems like a waste of resourses at all points of the scenario. Why would i want to waste 600 resourses just to give allied troops a 30% HP buff? O.o

And the importance of the different camps are also close to irrelevant. Aside from catapults, why would you even bother with Elements or Stables? O.o

There are so many things, that they would have to change to even make it remotely engaging, especially for people who look for a challenge on a different level than normal warfronts.

........I think we just have a good example of how Blizzard can waste time on concepts, that are just bad in generel.

I mean, you upgrade the troops and get the side camps for the advanced troops so that they can deal with the constant enemy NPCs waves so the players can focus on pushing the front.

I find Warfronts marginally entertaining now (they're worth stomaching to get the only good armor sets in BfA, at least) so the idea of Heroic ones is fairly exciting to me.

I'm also still hopeful we'll get one more before 9.0, maybe the Barrens one or a Silvermoon.

[arkanon]

Are they really that hard? 2 tanks and 2 healers would make the previous version easily managable, even if it was 4-5 times as hard.

Things would get overrun VERY quickly with only 2 tanks and 2 healers.

[Omedon]

Things would get overrun VERY quickly with only 2 tanks and 2 healers.

Yeaaaah, that approach totally overlooks the fact that while 2 tanks and healers might be able to hold one location, as that location pushes slowly onward you’ve got enemies taking the other routes that said team is not defending. Plus resource gathering isn’t really a solo undertaking any more because any NPC resistance encountered anywhere is beefier.

There’s another huuuuge part of this: No one has ever commanded a warfront. At the onset of heroic, no one can claim copious experience at doing this, so any and all leadership positions are easily questioned among the community at large because there’s no sense of “experienced raid/BG leader” that applies to warfronts. General bob is a nobody at this, just like everyone obligated to listen to him on threat of time-wasting kick!

This will be a fascinating social experiment as PUG content!

[Soon-TM]

There was a bit for a barrens one datamined, but that was probably scrapped earily on. Also after the darkshore one it's probably better. They actually managed to make it worse than the hinterlands one.

Iirc the Barrens warfront has been definitely scrapped, but there is a big question mark about the other datamined warfront, the one taking place in Eversong/Silvermoon. It was (is?) supposed to be the climax of the AvH war, but although there is a good (and interesting) chunk of datamined info, including dialog, no one knows for sure what will happen with it.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Iirc the Barrens warfront has been definitely scrapped, but there is a big question mark about the other datamined warfront, the one taking place in Eversong/Silvermoon. It was (is?) supposed to be the climax of the AvH war, but although there is a good (and interesting) chunk of datamined info, including dialog, no one knows for sure what will happen with it.

Well it will be interesting how we'll dethrone Sylvanas and beat her loyalist faction, skirting around the "it's totally not Garrosh2.0" defense, it might be via a warfront and a dungeon at the end. I guess it will also depend on how successful the new heroic mode is. Since world quests have outscaled warfronts 4 times over by now, warfronts have lost all appeal besides grinding out the sets (which is something I still appreciate over the shitty wow pvp) for transmog.

[kamuimac]

The stables' troops do insane damage. A fully buffed stable troop does as much damage as a decent dps player. As a tank with two of those fully upgraded I usually do 3 times as much dps as the next person in Arathi on the boss

on aoe packs its doing much more then most players. especially undergeared players.

people just have no clue. whenever im doin arathi warfront on DH and pull all trash behind gates + last boss and aoe + my troops do aoe im always 200k+ dps. and people are like "how?" .

i blame blizzard for not showing the importance of troops and their upgrades.

but its all due to how easy WF were from beggiing. people just didnt have to learn,

[Flurryfang]

The stables' troops do insane damage. A fully buffed stable troop does as much damage as a decent dps player. As a tank with two of those fully upgraded I usually do 3 times as much dps as the next person in Arathi on the boss

And yet, it is not the slightly needed. Most Warfronts i have been in, have been completed with 0 stable troops, with people just pushing through.

I am all for, that some troops are needed, or atleast very usefull for the last part of the stage, but that would require a bit of a redesign. How would you create a Warfront stage, where players can't take a camp without stables/elements, aside from just blocking them completly?

Also, what could be done to make it so that buffing troops is actually something you want to do while also building up your camp? If 1-3 players can fight an entire wave, why even use time on your own troops?

[kamuimac]

You can just tune things up? I don't see why there is any controversy here. Early on you get fewer attack waves so you can fight it mainly with PCs. Later on the attack waves are more frequent and you need more and more NPCs. Most people will be able to get the basic troops pretty fast (sure you don't get the chargers but even the basic troops are decent damage). In an optimized group you could probably do iron runs with just 2-3 people and 2-3 more doing wood runs. The rest would slowly push and protect the base.

the problem is not with "tune things higher" but "much much higher do you tune them " ?

why there were not hc warfronts aviable on ptr to test them ?

[Vrinara]

Calling it. People will cry and say "It's TOO hard! YOU SUCK BLIZZ!" and Blizz will nerf it that very same day. Cause as we saw with the WM Exp buff. Blizz can be bullied into anything lol