Cataclysm

[Fordel]

LFR is the most popular form of raiding in the history of WoW, ever.


By leaps and bounds.


That should tell Blizzard all they need to know.

[Simond]

That's actually a pretty well-put, realistic analysis of the problem.

Where I will diverge a bit from the conclusion that Blizzard may draw, it's that (as Fordel mentioned) most of their playerbase has no interest in being taught/ramped-up/transitioned for harder content. They still have to get over that mental hurdle of desiging what THEY want, instead of what the customer wants. And granted, that's tough, considering that designing content for the masses is probably fuck-all boring to the design boys.

If all Blizzard learnt from Cata was that "you design for the playerbase you have, not the playerbase you'd like" then I'd be happy. Given that they've also said this:

The downside to creating these stories is that the zones on the whole ended up being way too linear. For example, because we wanted to show your character re-growing the burning devastation of Mount Hyjal, there was really only one way to play that zone: you started at point A, and you worked your way through to point Z. Pretty glorious the first time, but frustrating on your second or third character because there's only one way to do it, and no way to skip around. That's a lesson we’re going to carry forward for sure. We want big sweeping stories, but we want to give players the freedom to explore those stories on their own terms.

Then I'm thinking MoP's going to be a lot more enjoyable (also someone had better point out the storyline thing to EA before they waste $200million on designing an MMO around linear unbranching storylines...oh, wait).

[Merusk]

I think it is possible that a few people saw you say "heroics" and thought you meant heroic dungeons? Otherwise I really don't get why anyone gives a shit if heroic raids are ballbusters.

Certainly how I took it. The vernacular is that the word "heroics" implies dungeons while heroic raids are referred to as hardmodes.

[Rokal]

Where I will diverge a bit from the conclusion that Blizzard may draw, it's that (as Fordel mentioned) most of their playerbase has no interest in being taught/ramped-up/transitioned for harder content. They still have to get over that mental hurdle of desiging what THEY want, instead of what the customer wants. And granted, that's tough, considering that designing content for the masses is probably fuck-all boring to the design boys.

It's a second reason that there should have been as much, if not more, normal mode content compared to heroic. If players were eased into heroic 5-mans and still said "no thanks, this isn't for me," there should have been plenty of non-heroic content for them to keep doing. Instead of 3 normal mode dungeons at 85 and 9 heroics, there should have been something like 9 normal modes and 4 heroics. This would have meant having less leveling dungeons from 80-84, but it's a small price to pay for a healthier end-game.

The question under that model becomes 'what gear incentive do people have for running heroics?'. The answer is pretty simple at this point: you give them LFR gear. People that aren't interested in hard 5-man dungeons can just run LFR for gear upgrades. People that aren't interested in an easy raid to gear up for normal can just run heroic 5-mans.

[Ingmar]

With only a 5 level spread to cap I think they could pretty safely skip leveling dungeons entirely.

[Sjofn]

I think it is possible that a few people saw you say "heroics" and thought you meant heroic dungeons? Otherwise I really don't get why anyone gives a shit if heroic raids are ballbusters.

For me it was less "gives a shit" and more "simply thinks that will happen." I was fine with never doing heroic versions of raids either, really.

[Selby]

With only a 5 level spread to cap I think they could pretty safely skip leveling dungeons entirely.

Except the sheer amount of the population that ONLY levels in dungeons would be angry ;-)

[Ingmar]

Level 80 dungeons are still green at 85! 

[Ratman_tf]

The thing with Blizzard and raid difficulty...

Blizzard, despite appearances to the contrary, never made a casual friendly game. They were trying to make a game that would "teach" casuals to be hardcore. That's why we get these cycles.

My favorite example is how shocked that Blizz seemed when people went nuts over haircuts. 

[Sjofn]

They were also apparently completely blindsided by how popular transmog is.

[Azazel]

And this in a game full of otherwise-useless holiday-themed "dress-up" gear...

[Nevermore]

They were also apparently completely blindsided by how popular transmog is.

You mean that feature people had been begging for since the release of the game, making thread after thread after thread on the forums about it constantly for years?  Yeah, who could see that coming?  

[Paelos]

Remember, these guys don't understand why people would want something that doesn't have stats on it. I mean, cause it's useless right? Just bolt some skulls on it, add 10 ilvls and let's rock!





Where's everyone going?

[Lantyssa]

I think it is possible that a few people saw you say "heroics" and thought you meant heroic dungeons? Otherwise I really don't get why anyone gives a shit if heroic raids are ballbusters.

Yes.  I don't give a shit about raids, normal or hard.

[Fabricated]

the current model allows for both. The 9 derp friends will work great in the current normals. They can probably even try and do a couple of the easier heroics with normal gear and 10-15% of the buff. We're considering doing 1 fight on heroic on our casual run this reset, and that has at least 3 hardcore casuals on it.

No offense, Wolf, because I know you play the game at a high level. You don't get it. Making the game less accessible will not work anymore.

I mean I just gave up on SWTOR. I'm literally RIPE for the picking by WoW if they don't fuck up in the next 6 months on their way to expansion.

One of my friends that split from my now dead release-day guild convinced me to get him a free month with a scroll of resurrection and they really have started turning the difficulty dial back down.

The noise in trade was horrific though. The community was bad when I quit and it's insufferable now. I refuse to hit randoms with my tank without 2-3+ friends since people just drop in and out randomly at this point.

HOWEVER, if you have like a group of people to run with, it's not bad. The Hour of Twilight heroics literally shit loot all over you and take like 20 minutes with no wipes. I went on my tank blind, in shitty gear (remember I quit at the start of Firelands with nearly no raiding done in T11 much less T12), with one of my friends telling me what to do as I was pulling and we facerolled straight through everything outside of 2 wipes on Benedictus at the end because we had a pubbie healer who hadn't ran it before (and he was glad we stuck around). I was literally tired, drunk, out of practice, in bad gear, and had 2 random pubbies and I still rolled them over. There's maybe 2-3 spots that might trip people up and it's all based on trash.

Even funnier is that about half of the loot is better itemized than the equivalent Firelands drops. I bet that really stuck in the craw of the raiders.

I have to say they didn't do much with the visuals though. They made a lot of neato vistas and so on but you're very neatly filed into these narrow corridors and bucket-like areas that prevent you from seeing anything interesting.

[Paelos]

Honestly, facerolling through 5 man dungeons is pretty much my idea of good fun with friends while you shoot the shit on vent.

[Simond]

Have you spotted the monkey-inna-hat pet yet, Paelos?

[Paelos]

Have you spotted the monkey-inna-hat pet yet, Paelos?

They have one?

[Hutch]

Yes, but you have to do the Darkmoon grind to get it 

[Paelos]

Yes, but you have to do the Darkmoon grind to get it 

OMG! How hard is it to get one?

[Wolf]

the current model allows for both. The 9 derp friends will work great in the current normals. They can probably even try and do a couple of the easier heroics with normal gear and 10-15% of the buff. We're considering doing 1 fight on heroic on our casual run this reset, and that has at least 3 hardcore casuals on it.

No offense, Wolf, because I know you play the game at a high level. You don't get it. Making the game less accessible will not work anymore.

I mean I just gave up on SWTOR. I'm literally RIPE for the picking by WoW if they don't fuck up in the next 6 months on their way to expansion.

Even funnier is that about half of the loot is better itemized than the equivalent Firelands drops. I bet that really stuck in the craw of the raiders.

I have to say they didn't do much with the visuals though. They made a lot of neato vistas and so on but you're very neatly filed into these narrow corridors and bucket-like areas that prevent you from seeing anything interesting.

Firelands got hit by the nerfbat so hardcore everyone was in 391s top to bottom. And last tier is always perfectly itemized they've talked about this before. If all tiers were perfectly itemized you'd just be exchanging loot for +15 stat every tier.

[Hutch]

Yes, but you have to do the Darkmoon grind to get it 

OMG! How hard is it to get one?

It costs 90 Darkmoon Faire tickets.

The next Faire starts this Sunday (3/4) and runs for a week.

Here's Wowhead's guide

There's a bunch of daily quests, and a bunch of once-per-Faire quests, and the rewards include tickets.

You use the tickets to buy pets and mounts and various assorted and sundry.

I have been getting roughly 75 tickets per Faire thus far. I know you can get more, but I haven't been so dedicated.

[Paelos]

A monkey in a fez. Damn that's a really stupid reason to resub.

And yet... maybe after tax season...

[luckton]

A monkey in a fez. Damn that's a really stupid reason to resub.

And yet... maybe after tax season...

[Rokal]

Chances are monkey in a fez hat will still be available when MoP launches. 

[Merusk]

Yes but you'll be distracted by all the cool new content and unable to do the repetitive DF grind!

[FieryBalrog]

While I'm generally in the hated "I like ballbusting 5 mans" crowd and I actually am masochistic enough to have enjoyed healing ZA/ZG in 346 gear, I gotta say End Time is a great example of how to make a dungeon fun without making it ballbustingly hard.

On the other hand the Escort Green Jesus heroic is like the opposite.

Also it does feel nice to have some limited ability to heal through stupid late into the expansion's life cycle. I didn't mind the complete inability to do that at launch, but it's a nice change of pace.

[Zetor]

I also like challenging 5mans (doing the 45min strat run Back In The Day was pretty exhilirating), but I have no problem with pug-facerollable heroics. Thankfully MOP will have challenge modes for me, so yay!

I actually like the mechanics in the new dungeons and agree that the first one is the most interesting. The second and third one are so... boring gameplay-wise. It doesn't help that they have some of the most (intentionally?) hammy terribad voice acting I've heard in any game ever. Including GW1.

[Rokal]

End Time is clearly the winner out of the 3 new ones in 4.3. Slight randomization for bosses keeps it at least a little interesting on repeat runs, a couple interesting mechanics in boss fights, and a cool story hook without a shitload of scripted scenes.

If they never make an instance like Well of Eternity again, I will be thankful. It's easy to feel let down by the small size and low quality of the raid in 4.3, but then I remember that Well of Eternity was supposed to be a raid and I wonder if we really dodged a bullet. Nobody wants to run another Battle for Mount Hyjal weekly.

[Sjofn]

I also like challenging 5mans (doing the 45min strat run Back In The Day was pretty exhilirating), but I have no problem with pug-facerollable heroics. Thankfully MOP will have challenge modes for me, so yay!

I actually like the mechanics in the new dungeons and agree that the first one is the most interesting. The second and third one are so... boring gameplay-wise. It doesn't help that they have some of the most (intentionally?) hammy terribad voice acting I've heard in any game ever. Including GW1.

Illidan sounds like he's camping it up on purpose, and I love him for it. Azshara seems to be doing it on purpose too. EVERYONE ELSE is amazing in how horrible they are.

[Fabricated]

Well of Eternity was pretty much my least favorite of the 3. It was annoying to run at PUG break-neck speeds since I wasn't up on the place. Easy bosses in general but the last bit is basically fighting a gigantic zoo of easy to kill trash with fire and shit all over the screen. What a mess visually. I didn't even notice the gigantic cool looking well of eternity until the end.

[FieryBalrog]

I haven't wiped yet on Murazond (it's basically impossible to) and yet still a very fun fight.

Only disappointed they don't have an achievement for doing it with 0-1 hourglasses. Seems like a natural idea for an achievement.

Well of Eternity has a lot of blathering but it was still somewhat fun for me because of the carnival of mobs and sparkly lights and RP it turns into at the end. I am kinda tired of it though.

Hour of Twilight is just boring as fuck and Thrall is boring as fuck.

It doesn't help that they have some of the most (intentionally?) hammy terribad voice acting I've heard in any game ever.

Illidan. What are you doing. What is in that vial. Where is my horrible Russian accent coming from.

I will be the Savior of our people. I will FULFILL MY DESTINAYYYY

etched into my brain.

[Sjofn]

As I said before, I LOVE Illidan's terrible acting, because I could listen to that man shovel vast heaps of scenery into his gaping maw all day. I like to think he's doing it that way on purpose. No one else is as fun in their Acting! and if you're not going to have good voice acting (and WoW has made it clear that by and large, they will not be having good voice acting), at least have it be ENTERTAINING in its badness, dammit.

[Wolf]

I haven't wiped yet on Murazond (it's basically impossible to) and yet still a very fun fight.

You haven't pugged enough as a solo healer 

[FieryBalrog]

I haven't wiped yet on Murazond (it's basically impossible to) and yet still a very fun fight.

You haven't pugged enough as a solo healer  

I play as a solo healer 99% of the time