Instead of the AOE limit, why not add a sort of enrage mechanics to the mobs ?

[huth]

so why are Pestilence and DnD capped then?

Same reason, except neither of those two is. It wouldn't even make sense for Pestilence since it isn't by itself an AoE, just a proc off one.

[Alkizon]

froschhure
or lowering damage up 70, 50, 30, 10 while above x target.

Well, it seems to have worked like this before (in any case, it was one of "fixes" that I remember during period of my subscription), was this moment changed somehow between WoD and BfA? (haven’t played already for a long time, don’t know) and if it was changed, then why not go back to that... I mean, I can at least somehow understand, for example, cap for certain CC abilities (although this was not a particular problem before, dr has already cutting it hard for control spells), but "no damage at all"... Why not give out 3-4 corresponding abilities to mobs as a group (instead of heresy in the form of affixes, mobs themselves can produce "these same affixes" and the further players pull them along, the more of them accumulates and they're more diverse under such conditions) that will stack (de)buffs/auras, do heal, throw controls, assist each other, fall enrage/uncontrollable state with random switches and threats' drops and won't need "to be afraid" much of "aoe farm"

(each class has certain set of them, at least had at certain stage, in addition they were really effective only when certain number of mobs were happened, and they were weak enough and useless for 2-3, same with cleave stuff, they were quite costly/ineffective when used on one mob, and were no longer used for 5+ mobs, but their AoE alternatives), player uses them if it's impossible/not-necessary to do otherwise, more abilities = more choice, more talents for each of them = even more choice...

Strictly speaking, it wasn't so necessary to cut amount, just do significantly increase/emphasize reduction of base damage, which will be cut by each next target, thus cap will remain "soft", but "with massive influx of recipients" cleaves abilities will be much inferior to real mass ones. That is, there will be division, but at the same time there will be much less reason to raise a special hype. Something like each new N target will cut damage by another 15% from previous one (i.e. from N-1, with no reduction if N = 1, so 100(1)/85(2)/72(3)/61(4)/51(5)/43(6)/36(7)/30(8)/25(9)..% of base damage), while leaving high "price" of resource for ability, which will continue to make it unprofitable for use on 1 target.

(I can understand, that some "intellectual" growth of mobs in open world can technically create certain problems, but in local instance it will only be welcomed, or even kind of must have).

In essence, if shove all their scaling elements back to their "where it came from", then there is nothing unusual or bad about this at certain stage (when content become passed stage, which means, that, after significant overgrowth, it turns into relatively trivial one) if people will "pass" it faster (this could be element of catch-up mechanics, what's wrong with such?) striving further along path of content and progress. Although you already know my attitude to M+. On the other hand, don't forget about one of main factors in organizing encounters - threat and its management by the group (somewhere deep down, I believe that this also had at least some significance in accepting discussed, albeit unsuccessful, change), also revised their attitude to growth rate/jumps/appletud of progress as set of characteristics, itemization (inflation doesn't go anywhere, in fact, just another set of lazy decisions was made, also not even going to remind about "borrowed powers").

They'd better work directly with these all, but for some reason they literally took up on abilities.

imo very controversial and unsuccessful decision.

ps. O-oh yeah, I forgot that this too complicated, long and expansive. What I'm even talking about, silly me

Monkeymootwo
Yes! They did that in Cata and it was received so well and everyone cheered and loved it and not a single person complained!

Cataclysm had many problems (phasing as organization of leveling, altering Azeroth's face, partial mockery on classes&talents&characteristics, unreasonable entrance requirements - obligatory "story" passage to get there, which brings us back to first, and many other things), but I still think, that ironically attributed one by you now wasn't such (within my social circle, before "entering out to public" - on forums, I had never heard of it at all). This is rather massive delusion (which, perhaps, devs themselves put as excuse), people were able to adapt and overcome this factor as such in absence of, for example, stuff above. It failed/led to overall negative perception as sum/complex, as expansion's global result, not like this being private significant factor.

[huth]

Why not give out 3-4 corresponding abilities to mobs as a group

Because the point here is at least partially to balance AoE vs. cleave, and that can't be mob-side, which would affect everybody.

[Alkizon]

huth
Because the point here is at least partially to balance AoE vs. cleave, and that can't be mob-side, which would affect everybody.

I don't see your point

There is no need to "balance" amount, it's enough to balance numbers and ability/expediency to press buttons, which depends entirely on devs and their organization of encounters aka characteristics and actions of mobs and personal mechanical features of the battle.

random delirium
1) Group of mobs consists of paladin (and/or) shaman, 3 warriors, 2 hunters, priest and mage. Paladin (not being in control) gives certain auras for absorbing damage to all mobs in radius by XX%. Shaman puts totems (total CD for each tatem is Y seconds, but mob doesn't place them on top of each other, only if they are absent), which give periodic heal (and/or) aoe group of players. Warriors can reset control, go into enrage/drop threat, partially ignoring the tank, do own cc stuff with interrupting/disarming/misdirection. Mage, with insufficient attention to it, silence healer/range-members, sheep and control attackers, same do hunters with their pets. Mobs have enough life pool to survive for ZZ seconds.
this is for a start...
2) now we need to think about threat management, taking into account healing and over-healing included with group controling, problematic for tank to group all mobs in one pile and maintain threat's required level (especially considering amount of "problems" that will hang on it), and they'll try to move out of close range, switch to the rest of group.
well, kind of offhand...
3) Here goes directly encounter itself, mechanics of specific battle, in specific dungeon and on specific necessary requirements/sequences/conditions. These will be randomly passing mobs, and maybe bosses in this area, these can be "not disarmed" traps, all kinds of reliefs previously set in front of the group (switches/useful NPCs with buffs, etc., which will affect specific achievements, kind and size of loot, as well as ability to "extend" your passages in this particular dungeon = open passages somewhere into additional wing or be in time before it collapses/explodes and other stuff).
any kind of such interesting stuff...
4) Place similar groups or with your own setup in rather large and somewhat confusing maze and you'll get such kind of good dungeon, also where collecting several groups and do AoE isn't very convenient.
how was that?

...but wait, how can we cram all this into straightforward fifteen-minute races with random affixes, scaling and incomprehensible timers

[huth]

I don't see your point

There is no need to "balance" amount, it's enough to balance numbers and ability/expediency to press buttons, which depends entirely on devs and their organization of encounters aka characteristics and actions of mobs and personal mechanical features of the battle.

Not balance in the sense of tuning. This is about things like action economy and what the particular niches of the various abilities are.

how was that?

Completely missing the point.

[Alkizon]

- snip -

Thanks for link (no really, didn't have it), only stuff I see here just "devs' speech", not players, but during game "then" I communicated directly with players without reading any devs and no one did say anything about it. Myself either didn't feel any such problems. Did we understand each other? Sorry, won't give you any links, because, you know, this is personal experience directly in games, and not presented stuff by devs as facts/promises.

You understood me correctly, I didn't feel like this was significant/main factor, rather delusion/preconceived opinion within framework of unsuccessful chosen global strategy, by which devs were quick to cover up their lazy "buzzwording @$$es"

things like action economy and what the particular niches of the various abilities are

economy of what?.. I still don't understand problem within context, there are AoE abilities (each class has certain set of them, at least had at certain stage, in addition they were really effective only when certain number of mobs were happened, and they were weak enough and useless for 2-3, same with cleave stuff, they were quite costly/ineffective when used on one mob, and were no longer used for 5+ mobs, but their AoE alternatives), player uses them if it's impossible/not-necessary to do otherwise, more abilities = more choice, more talents for each of them = even more choice... what to economize here?

It's clear that there are certain class features (and this is very good), but in general - somewhat like this.

I mean, yes, I clearly missed the point, but apparently just because I still don't see it.

Edit
I read stuff what you wrote before, but somehow still confused, do they blurred concepts between cleave and AoE abilities during period between WoD and BfA? and now they making restriction only on some of them, but not for all? also restriction strict enough and amounts to only few mobs, but not "a lot"? because from complaints here I understood only that they limit absolutely all mass abilities, but also doing it quite illogical within range of X mobs... so no any smart tight cleave/AoE underlining tuning here happened, just "senseless and merciless overkill".

As for comments about limits earlier, I'm not sure, sounds doubtful, I don't have any screenshots, but I'll ask my friends, maybe someone has something useful left one or two with "AoE". Will put here...

"got one" <- friend's image description says 23.05.2010

more than 20, isn't it? (chit-chat result) there could be two kind of damage on picture - frost and fire, but it's not "for sure", so I'm still not certain (friend usually hid abilities under simple shift/alt/ctrl macroses, so fire AoE's CD can't be seen here)

[cozzri]

I miss the old days of pulling entire dungeons/raids with keg toss when it had no cooldown/damage and proceeding to kill a massive pile to loot.

Most things that are fun/efficient in this game are absolutely annihilated because WoW devs are narcissists; whenever they make a statement addressing the community of changes screams of it; it trickles down from the top...

[XDurionX]

The AOE capping is a typical example of 'Nerfing Fun'
Pulling a big amount of mobs (15+) and destorying them with your CC and damage cooldowns feels good! You will do everything you can to try to kill them ASAP, while still worrying that those mobs could kill the tank and than the whole group. It is fun, and it fseel great. It even makes adrenaline soaring, this is we want to experience in a game.
In 9.0, we will fight 4/5 mobs in a row, yeah, very RPG in 2020!
But the tension and excitement is gone.

It's not fun to those who are not playing the FotM-Classes.

[dcc626]

I miss the old days of pulling entire dungeons/raids with keg toss when it had no cooldown/damage and proceeding to kill a massive pile to loot.

Most things that are fun/efficient in this game are absolutely annihilated because WoW devs are narcissists; whenever they make a statement addressing the community of changes screams of it; it trickles down from the top...

most of the things that are 'fun/efficient' are fun because they aren't intended.

sorry if the only thing that feeels fun is hurrying through things so yuou have more time to complain about something else. im sure there is another game somewhere thats more fun.

[plz delete account]

Same reason, except neither of those two is. It wouldn't even make sense for Pestilence since it isn't by itself an AoE, just a proc off one.

Outbreak is definitely an AOE in how it behaves. same as DnD. I don't mind the festering wounds nerf, but DnD and Outbreak are definitely AOEs.

[huth]

Outbreak is definitely an AOE in how it behaves. same as DnD. I don't mind the festering wounds nerf, but DnD and Outbreak are definitely AOEs.

Outbreak is an AoE debuff, single target damage. DnD didn't change much from before, only the Strikes are more limited now. So i'm not entirely sure what you're trying to get at here.

[Unholyground]

If you look there are actually multiple kinds of caps in-game for spells as well not just the 5 and 8, not sure if it was mentioned but some of them with those caps still do damage beyond those caps just at a much lesser amount.

[huth]

If you look there are actually multiple kinds of caps in-game for spells as well not just the 5 and 8, not sure if it was mentioned but some of them with those caps still do damage beyond those caps just at a much lesser amount.

That's actually been the case for pretty much the entire existence of the game. The exception was the re-introduced hard-caps for the last few expansions.

[Unholyground]

That's actually been the case for pretty much the entire existence of the game. The exception was the re-introduced hard-caps for the last few expansions.

Even with the hard capped abilities a lot of them still hit more than 5 or 8 targets that limit currently but it looks like most of the ones that do it are tank abilities which makes sense for AoE aggro generation.

[Varaben]

Or just do the 20/6 rule instead of hard cap. Or the square root stuff. Just silly to hard cap at 5, especially for melee abilities that have animations...that literally spin and hit everything.

[cozzri]

most of the things that are 'fun/efficient' are fun because they aren't intended.

sorry if the only thing that feeels fun is hurrying through things so yuou have more time to complain about something else. im sure there is another game somewhere thats more fun.

I guess pulling a whole dungeon because you have accumulated strength as a character is not intended; why even have items/progression if it does fuckall for your efficiency and clear speed? Now, I only play WoW the last 2 months of expansions since MoP after all the catchup incentives are in because that is when playing WoW feels fun. Raid grind, borrowed power grind, whatever you want to call it all gets reset, so just play for the story and quit. There is quite literally no point in wasting time with these systems, even more so now since you don't get much faster with the AoE cap in place. Sometimes I even wonder if the devs even play their own game at this point.

[Hyrican]

the blue post is a preview on the changing in the dungeon system coming in mop, wod and legion.

one reason we got challenge mode and later mythic dungeons... they clearly have a bit of a barrier and allow harder content... but still have enough play options at max level with heroic dungeons even at the start of the expansion.

The journey at the start of the expansion feels good.

Where it turns more complicated is if you try to push a timer on top of difficulty...
Then you want to maximize dmg. How? pull more, pull bigger trash groups .... or play smarter actually?

How to Limit this pull more mentality: one way is to limit aoe so dmg does not scale so well. The decision is not so clear cut any more. Certain classes do not have such a clear cut advantage anymore.

[huth]

I guess pulling a whole dungeon because you have accumulated strength as a character is not intended; why even have items/progression if it does fuckall for your efficiency and clear speed?

That's fallacious. Gear and progression still makes you stronger and faster, and never did anything for efficiency to begin with. We couldn't pull whole dungeons in ealier expansions either.

Raid grind, borrowed power grind, whatever you want to call it all gets reset

And has been since TBC, so that's not much of an argument against anything in SL. We also had those hardcaps for years before they got removed from the game, and now Blizzard decided that was a bad move and brought them back.

There is quite literally no point in wasting time with these systems, even more so now since you don't get much faster with the AoE cap in place.

Again the fallacy. Just because you can't aoe everything down doesn't mean you're not getting noticeably stronger. Your point is just "i'm not getting what i want, therefore nobody has a reason to bother with this". Which is complete nonsense, since others may not be in it for the same things as you.

[Echo of Soul]

Go outside with a hockey stick and surround yourself by 40 people. If you can hit every single person in a single swing I'll agree that the AOE cap is stupid.

[huth]

Go outside with a hockey stick and surround yourself by 40 people. If you can hit every single person in a single swing I'll agree that the AOE cap is stupid.

Don't forget that said 40 people also need to occupy an area of about 3m^2