Cracks starting to show?

[Rokal]

How are you making gear with Maelstrom crystals?

Maelstrom crystal=/=chaos orbs. Sorry, I really misread that patch note. It's still a nice change, but much less important than what I thought it was.

Edit: It's still an example of Blizzard listening to player feedback, but it's much less relevant to the current discussion than chaos orbs with honor/justice points.

[sinij]

New GC Blog Post!

One topic we’ve been discussing lately is the role of Hit and Expertise on tank gear

Yes, because hit and expertise on tank gear is such hot and important topic these days.

I have seen GC nicknamed Goatcaller by the community. You know you hit the very bottom when player base starts mocking you.

[Paelos]

I like the posts from GC ideologically. It sounds like a good idea if they use it for what could be some information think-tanking of sorts. I doubt that's the way it will work, but I can dream.

What I could do without is him starting every post by saying how happy he is with Cataclysm so far.

[Ingmar]

You know you hit the very bottom when player base starts mocking you.

...what? The player base in every game ever mocks the devs, usually from 2 years before release on.

[apocrypha]

[snip]3 of us from my guild have all joined another guild with 1 char each, to see if we can see some of the raid content. [snip]

In WotLK this wasn't necessary.  Another perspective on this is Ingmars, "I don't want to kick my friends who aren't terribly good at this game to the curb just so that I can see more content" (paraphrasing here).

I dunno, 3 months into WOTLK were ICC pugs a regular occurrence? I don't remember that being the case.

You may also be misunderstanding our position. We're in an odd guild, all friends, but a couple of the guild are antisocial to the point of being unable to group with people they don't know. So we've been unable to recruit more members and haven't had enough people to do even 10-mans, ever.

Back in LK the 3 of us who wanted to raid were able to regularly get into pugs by the end of the cycle. Right at the start of the new content cycle the pugs aren't really viable yet - plus the 10/25 shared lockout has screwed that a bit anyway. This way the 3 of us who want to raid can do so, while at the same time keeping the old too-small-to-raid guild alive separately.

I've just come from my first raid with this new guild and it was a good laugh. We got Magmaw & Omnitron down and got Maloriak to under 2% before people had to leave. Npt bad for a first attempt and good fun at the same time.

My only real gripes with Cata at the moment are the 10/25 shared lockout, which I think is a mistake, and the fucked up professions, which feel universally useless atm.

[Ingmar]

3 months into ICC's release ICC PUGs were certainly a common event on my server. Not from the start of WotLK obviously but I assume that's not what you meant.

[Merusk]

It's probably dependent on your server and server culture.  My server always had a strong raiding presence. (Being the original home to the #1 & #2 US guilds from vanilla to WOTLK did that for it)   As such, there were pugs of Naxx within the first few weeks of WOTLK launching.

[Koyasha]

I still disagree. You can weight things. You can track where kills happen in zones. You can assign all kinds of statistics in any metric. Is it easy? No, but it would be hugely effective.

Yeah, it would be insanely difficult to do, but it is certainly possible.  That's what I thought they were getting at when, if I remember correctly, they talked about how difficult it was to track an individual's actual contribution to victory in a battleground at the time when they introduced the rated BG concept (but did not say that it would be 'arena teams, but bigger').  I expect that at that time, that wasn't their plan, but it got too hard for them to accomplish and they switched over to what it is now when it started taking up huge amounts of dev time.  Because creating such a system requires huge amounts of dev time and a lot of very specialized methods of tracking players' actions, and then it will forever need lots of constant attention, to adjust to players finding ways to game the system, which would need to be patched immediately, not in four months, and to adjust to players finding new strategies that are effective, but the system doesn't reward, which would have to be included to actually be properly rewarded.

For a quick example of a 'place to start' with this kind of design, you could do AB this way pretty easily: Each flag can have a certain radius around it in which the system thinks you 'should' be.  If you're outside those radii, anything you do counts for less depending on how far away from any flag you happen to be.  Doesn't have to be a circle either, can vary according to the terrain, but the point is so that guys fighting at a useless location, like say the bridge between the mine and the farm, get nothing.  It might even reduce their rating to do that.  Then there's too few and too many defenders.  By tracking the positions of the enemy, it can be determined how many defenders a particular spot 'needs' at the moment.  This will obviously never be a perfect calculation, but it should be good enough.  If there are no enemies nearby, then the optimal number of defenders goes down.  If there are many nearby, the optimal number goes up.  If a spot is below the optimal number, then you get more credit for defending it, while if it's above, you get less credit.  So if you tried to pile 12 people on one node that's not being attacked by a zerg, you get no credit for it.  There's dozens of other things that can be measured too.  Did a single attacker capture a flag when there were multiple defenders?  He gets extra credit.  Was the flag defended successfully?  Little extra credit.  Was the flag defended successfully against an overwhelming number of attackers?  More extra credit.  And many many more, which is exactly why 'this is hard'.  But also very worthwhile.

People might learn to game such a system, but it would probably require more effort to game it than simply trying to win, especially when the developers are constantly adjusting and adding further ways to detect what you're doing and the value of that.  There are many situations where the best system might make mistakes and you won't get credit for something great, or you will when you were useless, but if the system is designed well, it can work overall.  The errors will be small enough vs. the good data to make the good data dominant, and make the ranking relevant.  That's all that's really needed: a ranking system that is relevant enough.  It doesn't need to be perfect, just needs to be capable of matching up relatively similar players regularly.

[Kail]

People might learn to game such a system, but it would probably require more effort to game it than simply trying to win, especially when the developers are constantly adjusting and adding further ways to detect what you're doing and the value of that.

It's not just people consciously trying to game the system as some kind of cheat, though.  If you reward people for doing X, they will do X.  In AV, you don't get much reward for actually PvPing, so it's not uncommon for the Alliance and Horde zerg to ride past each other on the field of strife, not because they're evil, selfish bastards, but because that's what the game is telling them to do.  You tell people that they get more points in BGs by standing around flags, then that's what they'll do.  Even if it's not particularly helpful, they'll stand there all day and bitch about how much more fun the game was when you weren't just pressing your ass against a flagpole for a half hour.

That's one of the things that's fun about BGs, there are a lot of ways to help your team.  Throw in a CPU ref giving out points based on an arbitrary "thou shalt not" system, and a lot of those become instantly invalid.  For example, I was in an AB a while back when my rogue saw two DPS and a holy priest headed towards our flag.  I sent out a warning, then sapped and killed the priest, the DPS didn't notice and attacked the flag without heals, and the two guys guarding the flag managed to defend it.  According to your system, I am a bad player, and should be penalized for my stupid mistake, since I wasn't near the flag.

I'm not denying that you can track a lot of numbers and look at a lot of statistics, what I'm not sold on is the idea that they'll mean anything about "player skill" or "win chance" or whatever they're supposed to measure.  There are too many variables to track, and there's no model to apply them to.  In your example, If I'm the fifth man guarding a flag that needs four, how much closer to the flag would I have to stand to keep my chance to win the match the same as if I was the fourth man?  If two of the players leave the flag, how much better at this game have I become? This kind of thing is INCREDIBLY difficult to quantify on it's own, but take in to account the fact that much of my success or failure depends on the people I'm playing with and against, who you also don't have an accurate measurement for yet, and I'm getting a migrane just thinking about the amount of statistical data you'd need to gather to make even a vague stab at that, assuming there's even a correlation there in the first place.

[WindupAtheist]

Just give points for kills/heals, double them near an objective, quadruple them for the winning side, and get on with life already. Sometimes the shitty guy in the PVE group wins the roll on a sweet item. Whatever. It doesn't need to be perfect.

[caladein]

Yes, because hit and expertise on tank gear is such hot and important topic these days.

It actually is for Death Knights and for tanks as a whole until they decided on the stop-gap of making all interrupts unable to miss.

[Zetor]

What Kail said. Fighting midfield in AB is actually a good stalling tactic if your team has the lead. Usually this manifests in farming the defiler's den graveyard, but sending out groups to intercept enemy teams and cripple / slow them before they reach a node allows reinforcements to arrive in time, and the 'distraction' people will just resurrect at the node by the time the attackers get there. Same goes for farming kills in WSG, as long as you can keep the enemy offense locked down this way (and they don't group up into an overwhelming zerg -- they usually don't, btw).

And this is just one of the 'easier to create an automated referee for' aspects... I don't think you can create a hard-and-fast rule and expect it to not be broken / gamed to uselessness immediately.

[Ashamanchill]

When I played my prot pally I would routinely run into a node defended by three or four people while my team was assaulting other bases. I would have no chance of taking it, and I had no chance of surviving, but I would laugh as I died knowing I tied down a few at a good time.

That being said, fuck, I'd be happy with a system that just tracked wins, and a method to kick afkers if X amount of people report them. Would it be abused? ya probably, but not as badly as AFKers are already.

[apocrypha]

3 months into ICC's release ICC PUGs were certainly a common event on my server. Not from the start of WotLK obviously but I assume that's not what you meant.

It's probably dependent on your server and server culture.  My server always had a strong raiding presence. (Being the original home to the #1 & #2 US guilds from vanilla to WOTLK did that for it)   As such, there were pugs of Naxx within the first few weeks of WOTLK launching.

Yeah, sorry, didn't mean ICC :)  So how does the difficulty of the current raid tier stack up alongside others? I missed out on BC raiding, Naxx and Ulduar so I don't have much to compare it to.

The impression I get from these forums is that it's harder than Naxx & ICC were and about the same as Ulduar? If that's the case then is that really a bad thing? Ulduar is the raid that I see most people saying they liked the most.

[Sheepherder]

Ulduar is also the raid that got the least play, broke up a few guilds, and caused people to unsub.

[Merusk]

I can't speak for current raids as they started after I'd quit playing.  That's one of the most notable things with this x-pac, it took everyone a LOT longer to get up to "raid ready" gear levels.  Not sure why, exactly, but it took almost 2 months for my guild to get enough geared folks to raid.  Even the bleeding edge guilds took a few weeks, from what I remember.

As for Ulduar, it was one of the least favorites among my group of folks.  Took forever to learn and then you ran it over and over and over and it still sucked. I don't think any of the encounters ever felt really Fun, they were all just work.  Even at the end of WOTLK we couldn't get enough people together to go back and do the mount achieves.  They preferred to run Hard Modes in ICC to trying Ulduar stuff again even though we vastly outgeared it. vOv

[Paelos]

Ulduar is also the raid that got the least play, broke up a few guilds, and caused people to unsub.

I'm pretty sure all of those things were worse with Sunwell.

[Paelos]

Guild challenge feature tease. I'm unsure as to how it's different than the things you do for guild xp now, but there's probably a lot more to it.

We haven't shared much information about this feature because it's remained very much in development. That said, we're about ready to release Guild Challenges for testing on the PTR soon. We'll also be sharing more information on how Guild Challenges work in the near future.

[...] What about if Guild Challenges gave experience above the cap, functioning like rested experience and moving the cap further relative to the experience gained through completing said challenges?

Don't worry. I can read, I swear. I'm referring to experience and not rep.

Ok now you're just tormenting us Zar. How about a one-sentence teaser about what guild challenges actually are?
Built into the user interface, Guild Challenges will be separated into three categories: Guild Dungeon Run, Guild Raid, and Guild Rated Battleground. You just need to be in a guild group to complete each category a set number of times per week, earning your guild achievements, experience above the cap, and gold deposited into the Guild Vault (a lot more gold if the guild is level capped). We'll have more details for you probably by next week.

Are these challenges only going to be able to be completed at level 85? It would be nice to see some love for low-level members in the guilds!
As I understand it, you'll be eligible to contribute equally to things like the Guild Dungeon Run challenge, provided the dungeon you're running is level-appropriate for the guild group.

That's pretty disappointing. Isn't this what guilds are already doing anyway? I thought it would be more like guild quests that create a phased challenge somewhere in the world for your guild to complete. This just promotes even more LFG queueing while sitting in town. Some love for world zones in endgame please.
We're working on something sort of along these lines as a much more robust content feature for the future, but I can't put a date or patch number on that yet. It also won't necessarily be centered around guilds.

Was that ambiguous? I've never been ambiguous before, so I wouldn't know.

[Sheepherder]

I'm pretty sure all of those things were worse with Sunwell.

I was just speaking strictly in terms of Wrath.  SWP was indeed something else altogether.

[Paelos]

I'm pretty sure all of those things were worse with Sunwell.

I was just speaking strictly in terms of Wrath.  SWP was indeed something else altogether.

Ah, yes well with Wrath I completely agree.

[Stabs]

Was that ambiguous? I've never been ambiguous before, so I wouldn't know.

Is that actually a designer? Sounds like someone's senile old grandfather....

[Ingmar]

Was that ambiguous? I've never been ambiguous before, so I wouldn't know.

Is that actually a designer? Sounds like someone's senile old grandfather....

Zarhym is a CM.

[Mnemon]

Malakili:  That's an interesting idea, but there would still have to be some control over it.  Just by even having the "item" of a visible house and portal might be enough when multiplied by 10k to be an issue with connection stability for many. 

Perhaps you have designated "housing" in different areas throughout the world.  Each one is represented by some type of graphical representation of a "village."  To start, it looks like a very small gathering of maybe 3 houses.  As soon as you step into the area, you are instanced to the "village."  There will then be a large area with a few houses to visit.

As the "village" is populated more, the outer world graphic of it will grow to look more impressive, etc.  When you zone into it, the area is the same size, but with obviously more houses/structures.

Another benefit to this could be that a "village" could work together to get improvements to their graphic of their town.  I'm thinking moats, walls of different materials, flags, etc.  All of it would be fluff, but that's really all we are talking about here.  Those items would change the instance for the "village" too, so people can build pride into their accomplishments as a community.

So with that idea, there would just be maybe 6 "villages" for each faction in different areas.  That wouldn't clutter anything up but could give people a feeling of space yet an easy way to reach their "village" and home/guild.  If the 6 areas fill up, Blizzard can implement more.  Make sure there is a UO like rule of only keeping structures that are actually used regularly too.  That keeps the number down significantly over time.

Damn it!  You guys got me talking about it again and I want it again.  I'm going back to dreary reality now.  Thanks...

Basically livable, instanced versions of cities in the Civilization franchise ...

[Simond]

Prediction: ZA/ZG are going to be 'harder' (slower, more tedious) than the rest of the heroics.

[Rokal]

Prediction: ZA/ZG are going to be 'harder' (slower, more tedious) than the rest of the heroics.

ZG and ZA probably have less trash than any of the other 85 heroics. You can complete them in the same amount of time as any of the other heroics, and faster than heroics like SFK or DM, once you know what you are doing. Your first time through them will probably be long, just like your first time through any of the other 85 heroics when they were new, but they aren't any longer or more tedious than the other 85 heroics.

[Simond]

And by "If you know what you're doing" you mean "you have a full set of raid gear" of course.

[Ashamanchill]

I was gone for three weeks, and I made it home just in time for the tail end of my WoW subscription to lapse. Holy Shit, my server's population is downright post apocalyptic. I know it's just anecdotal evidence, but Jeeze Loise does it feel funny when you see it up close.

[Rokal]

No, I mean "know what you are doing" as in "understand how the fight works". The first time you do Zanzil, you aren't going to know what to use each cauldron for during the fight or when to use them, just like people didn't know that the levers on Anhuur had cast times on heroic, or the order to kill Isiset's 'split' adds, or to kill the seedlings on Ammunae, or to kill the portal on Setesh and ignore the adds unless you were tanking, or what to interrupt on Rajh and that he would have a +dmg debuff when he channeled his big fiery spell in the middle of the room.

HoO heroic took me a couple hours the first time I ran it because nobody in the group knew how the fights worked (on heroic). Now PuGs can do HoO in less than an hour. ZG/ZA will be the same, and it is not inherently more tedious or time-consuming than any other heroics. If anything, they are less tedious because they have less trash overall in favor of more bosses.

[Kageru]

Happy to cancel. Ghostcrawler has always been an idiot and this new model of "work for your fun" and gameplay geared for ADD console kids is just not what I want from a game. I don't mind challenge if the higher levels are optional (Wrath was perfect in this) or single player where I can fail repeatedly and only annoy myself, but the current design direction is not for me. I'm even enjoying Eve not because it is a good game (it's not, can be epic though) but because it can be quite relaxing and there's time enough to chat. Even made me realise most of the best times I had in EQ was just chatting while camping a dungeon. Might even be the game that weans me off any interest in regular raiding and just become an MMO hobo.

Guild has also gone from 3-4 raid groups to less than 1, with the hardcore leaving for more progressed raid guilds and the casuals drifting away which makes it even easier.

[Simond]

No, I mean "know what you are doing" as in "understand how the fight works"

So you're saying that someone freshly geared for heroics but know all the gimmicks would be able to PUG one of them faster than another random heroic?

[Ingmar]

No, I mean "know what you are doing" as in "understand how the fight works"

So you're saying that someone freshly geared for heroics but know all the gimmicks would be able to PUG one of them faster than another random heroic?

Someone freshly geared for heroics can't queue for these, they require a higher ilvl I believe.

[Malakili]

No, I mean "know what you are doing" as in "understand how the fight works"

So you're saying that someone freshly geared for heroics but know all the gimmicks would be able to PUG one of them faster than another random heroic?

Heres the REAL catch for pugs - all 5 people need to know what they are doing.  Thats why gear matters so much for them, because gear makes up for mistakes, and when you are with 4 strangers you are going to make more mistakes, even if you are a good player.  But if all 5 people understand how the fight works, and you are properly geared for the instance, I would go as far as to say ANY fight is doable in WoW right now.  The problem is that PUGs have very little team cohension, and when "how the fight works" requires team cohension - you're in trouble.

[Rokal]

No, I mean "know what you are doing" as in "understand how the fight works"

So you're saying that someone freshly geared for heroics but know all the gimmicks would be able to PUG one of them faster than another random heroic?

Assuming the player met the gear requirement somehow (346): if that player knew the fights well, as did the rest of their group, they will probably be able to run ZG or ZA faster than many of the other random heroics, yes. For example: my friends and I can probably finish ZA faster than we can finish heroic Deadmines or SFK. ZG has more optional stuff (comparable to HoO, sorta), so that's more of a toss-up depending on whether you bother with optional stuff or not.

Once people know the dungeons well, they will be shorter runs than many of the other random heroics. The amount of time that a run currently takes it just a factor of people still learning the dungeons.

[Samprimary]

Are there any readily referenceable numbers indicating an exodus? Are subscriber numbers really down?

[Merusk]

The shareholder conference call for Q1 is May 9th. There won't be anything concrete until then.

http://investor.activision.com/