Cataclysm

[caladein]

It'll cut down on tanks selling runs in trade chat, but that's about it.  The incentive for doing it with friends and guildies is that you might have some fun with them and you know what you're getting, that ideally being good players.

That's like saying that the scaling Luck of the Draw buff disincentivizes guild/pre-formed groups, which relatively, it does.  There is now a non-trivial downside to completely pre-forming your group whereas before there wasn't.  In context though, the benefits of queuing with people you know outweigh the new benefits for not doing so, just like they will under this system.

[Lantyssa]

I like to play with my friends.  LFD is to fill out the remaining slots.  I also like fluff rewards, so at best it would encourage a style of play I don't enjoy.  That would actually hamper my enjoyment, quite possibly making me resent it.

In the end I don't think it will have much of any impact on the queues beyond the first month.

[Arrrgh]

Yes, the solo queue requirement kills it. I'm not putting up with four idiots for that reward.

[Paelos]

Yes, the solo queue requirement kills it. I'm not putting up with four idiots for that reward.

The whole point is to get people to put up with four idiots.

[Lantyssa]

Maybe they should just make dungeons easier.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Or make tanks and healers fun to play?

[Nebu]

... or allow us to replace idiots with NPC's? 

[Ingmar]

We're all dancing around the real issue, which is that random DPSers are all incompetent assholes. 

[Malakili]

Or make tanks and healers fun to play?

I've never really understood the DPS is more fun argument.  Certainly all the roles have their strengths and drawbacks, but DPS doesn't seem somehow inherently better designed or something.  Then again, the reality is obviously that most people like that the most.  Is it just big numbers?

[Ingmar]

Or make tanks and healers fun to play?

I've never really understood the DPS is more fun argument.  Certainly all the roles have their strengths and drawbacks, but DPS doesn't seem somehow inherently better designed or something.  Then again, the reality is obviously that most people like that the most.  Is it just big numbers?

It's mostly because you have less to pay attention to overall, I think. You don't have to worry so much about what other people are up to, you just do your thing and shit dies.

[Kail]

I've never really understood the DPS is more fun argument.  Certainly all the roles have their strengths and drawbacks, but DPS doesn't seem somehow inherently better designed or something.  Then again, the reality is obviously that most people like that the most.  Is it just big numbers?

I don't know about mechanically more fun, but it's certainly more interesting from an, I dunno, story point of view?  If that makes sense?  Your DPS is beating the shit out of enemies, which is pretty much every action hero ever.  Your tank is getting the shit beaten out of him, which is kind of badass role, but not really the kind of thing "heroes" usually do.  And your healers are basically sitting in the back waggling their fingers and making a bar go up, which is kind of meaningless.

I can get what a warrior does when he hits a guy with an axe or what a fireball does when it hits a bad guy,  I can roughly understand what a tank is doing even if it doesn't seem to be terribly realistic, but I have no idea what happens when I cast Holy Light, other than a bar goes up and people don't die.  You can make wizards look badass, or tanks look awesome, or rogues look deadly, but I don't know how you're supposed to portray a healer and go "WOW I want to do THAT!"

[Malakili]

I've never really understood the DPS is more fun argument.  Certainly all the roles have their strengths and drawbacks, but DPS doesn't seem somehow inherently better designed or something.  Then again, the reality is obviously that most people like that the most.  Is it just big numbers?

I don't know about mechanically more fun, but it's certainly more interesting from an, I dunno, story point of view?  If that makes sense?  Your DPS is beating the shit out of enemies, which is pretty much every action hero ever.  Your tank is getting the shit beaten out of him, which is kind of badass role, but not really the kind of thing "heroes" usually do.  And your healers are basically sitting in the back waggling their fingers and making a bar go up, which is kind of meaningless.

I can get what a warrior does when he hits a guy with an axe or what a fireball does when it hits a bad guy,  I can roughly understand what a tank is doing even if it doesn't seem to be terribly realistic, but I have no idea what happens when I cast Holy Light, other than a bar goes up and people don't die.  You can make wizards look badass, or tanks look awesome, or rogues look deadly, but I don't know how you're supposed to portray a healer and go "WOW I want to do THAT!"

But the biggest shortage is of tanks, not healers, so even if what you say is true, it can't be the main thing that is driving the problem.   Also, I've always liked playing healers in games most of all, so I don't particularly relate.  I like the idea of supporting allies more than nuking enemies, by and large when it comes to RPGs.   

Would healers, by your understaning at least, be more fun if there was somehow damage modeling?  A healer is invoking magic (or a gods power, or whatever the lore) to heal grievous wounds instantly.  Kind of like that last scene in XMen 3 where Wolverine's skin is getting ripped away and healing up immediately due to his power.  If you could somehow visualize your impact on the encounter in a way that wasn't bar-related would that make the experience more fun to you?

[Kail]

Would healers, by your understaning at least, be more fun if there was somehow damage modeling?  A healer is invoking magic (or a gods power, or whatever the lore) to heal grievous wounds instantly.  Kind of like that last scene in XMen 3 where Wolverine's skin is getting ripped away and healing up immediately due to his power.  If you could somehow visualize your impact on the encounter in a way that wasn't bar-related would that make the experience more fun to you?

It would be more interesting if there was some indication of what exactly I was doing, like some kind of Trauma Center style minigame or something that showed HOW this green beam was making everyone feel better, but I don't think that would really be feasable in combat.  I don't know that adding decals to the characters would change much; it's more a problem of visualizing what the magic does than how it looks.  I can understand the concept of fire magic or ice magic because I know what happens in real life when someone gets hit with fire or ice.  I have no such frame of reference for healing magic.  It's "in lore" effects are vague and inconsistent (I guess people in Azeroth can die, but sometimes they can be resurrected, but sometimes they can't, and when they can sometimes it takes a complex ritual with a lot of reagents, and sometimes it just takes about eight seconds of concentration...) and it has no real-world analogue, so it's hard for me to wrap my head around.

I agree that this probably isn't applicable for tanking, but then, I enjoy tanking so *shrug*

[El Gallo]

I farmed the motherloving shit out of that raven lord, even levelled a druid to 80 to spawn the quest boss for me.  I've never been one of those  "I hate it when other people get nice things more easily than I did so that my nice thing is now more common and less special" people, but I'm starting to feel something like that stirring in my gut. 

Could be the oysters I had for lunch though.

[Typhon]

[...] Also, I've always liked playing healers in games most of all, so I don't particularly relate.  I like the idea of supporting allies more than nuking enemies, by and large when it comes to RPGs.   

Would healers, by your understaning at least, be more fun if there was somehow damage modeling?  A healer is invoking magic (or a gods power, or whatever the lore) to heal grievous wounds instantly.  Kind of like that last scene in XMen 3 where Wolverine's skin is getting ripped away and healing up immediately due to his power.  If you could somehow visualize your impact on the encounter in a way that wasn't bar-related would that make the experience more fun to you?

Sounds to me like you just aren't going to get it.  Beating the shit out of enemy, ideally doing it in a visually and audibly bad-ass way, is it's own reward.  The numbers are something that comes later.  DAOC Thane, CoX force blaster.

Healing is tedious regardless of animation because you aren't beating on things that clearly need to be beat on.  Even if I could forget that I'm not beating on things, I wouldn't be looking at the animation, I'd be looking at the health bars.

If I can play a class that combines mostly-effortless healing with DPS, I find that can be fun as well (WAR Disciple of Khaine, RIFT Bard).  Don't make me look at health bars, and don't make me give a shit about whether my mates live or die because I'm going to lose interest.

[El Gallo]

If they added a 0.5% chance of getting a vanilla collector's edition pet or tyrael's hilt, I'd tank random heroics all day, every day.

[Paelos]

I've always thought it would be fun to have the holy trinity raiding game, but have the interface be a series of puzzle fights rather than "don't stand in the fire" skills. Sort of like an MMO version of Puzzle Quest.

[Sjofn]

Puzzle Pirates was fun. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

    * Honor is now purchasable from the Justice Commodities Vendor at 250 Honor per 375 Justice.
    * Justice is now purchasable from the Honor Commodities Vendor at 250 Justice per 375 Honor.
    * Conquest is now purchasable from the Valor vendor at 250 Conquest per 250 Valor.

A welcome "fuck you" to arenas.

[pxib]

Everybody has to know the basics of how fights work. Where to stand, what happens next.

DPS needs to know what order to hit people in, but after that it's just pick a target and work a system. It's a very straightforward role to play, and so long as you don't do anything obviously stupid you'll rarely get blamed for anything nasty. The better the tank and healer are, the lazier you can be.

Heals needs to watch for the major hurt and know when it's about to happen, but other than that it's just whack-a-mole the party health bars and work a system. Unless somebody else did something obviously stupid, you'll get blamed every time somebody dies. The better the tank and DPS are, the lazier you can be.

Tanks needs to know what every single other person is supposed to be doing at every moment, needs to pay attention to what those idiots actually are doing, and then has to play whack-a-mole without an interface. Tanks are also expected to mark targets, watch mana bars and control the pace as the de facto leader of every group they join. Unless you do something obviously stupid, you'll only get blamed if the whole group dies on a regular basis. Because that means it's probably your fault for not knowing every single little thing the group expects you to. The better the DPS are, the faster and more efficient everything will be. Heals just need to stay awake.

DPS is a track and field sport. Healing is a job like working on an assembly line. Tanking is a job like being manager at Taco Bell.

All of these options can be yours for only $15 a month.

[Miasma]

    * Honor is now purchasable from the Justice Commodities Vendor at 250 Honor per 375 Justice.
    * Justice is now purchasable from the Honor Commodities Vendor at 250 Justice per 375 Honor.
    * Conquest is now purchasable from the Valor vendor at 250 Conquest per 250 Valor.

A welcome "fuck you" to arenas.

Where is that coming from?  Is it real?

[Lakov_Sanite]

Was just posted on mmo-champ in the 4.1 patch notes.

[WindupAtheist]

Conquest for random-queue Battlegrounds or GTFO. I don't care if some assholes AFK their way to leetness, figure out a way to ban them or don't, but quit designing the game around them. Let rated BG and Arena people fight over tabards and titles, or just scrap both systems for all the shit that I give. It's long been their opinion that serious PVE'ers deserve serious PVP gear more than casual PVP'ers. That is to say, it's the "serious" part they care about, not what players actually do. It's not a game about PVE or PVP, it's a game about "logistics" and "YOU WILL GROUP UP WITH 25 ASSHOLES BECAUSE MAYBE YOU'LL MAKE FRIENDS AND THAT WILL AID RETENTION" bullshit.

[Paelos]

So it appears that Blizzard, in their grief that players haven't embraced their changes to the game, has moved past denial and anger and is now officially bargaining with the playerbase.

Next, Depression!

[Merusk]

We really did see denial (everything's fine. It's just great, we're happy the way things are.) and anger (the blog posts and a few blue comments), didn't we.  Crazy.

[Sheepherder]

Healing is tedious regardless of animation because you aren't beating on things that clearly need to be beat on.  Even if I could forget that I'm not beating on things, I wouldn't be looking at the animation, I'd be looking at the health bars.

Or, something different could be tried.  Like every main heal being turned into an AoE with highly visible effect, and the ability to track the most critical target in the targeting field when it was initially cast.

It's long always been their opinion that serious PVE'ers deserve serious PVP gear more than casual PVP'ers.

Fixed

[Ingmar]

    * Honor is now purchasable from the Justice Commodities Vendor at 250 Honor per 375 Justice.
    * Justice is now purchasable from the Honor Commodities Vendor at 250 Justice per 375 Honor.
    * Conquest is now purchasable from the Valor vendor at 250 Conquest per 250 Valor.

A welcome "fuck you" to arenas.

That has everything except the one purchase method I would actually use. 

[Fordel]

Which is valor, the raid points?

[Ingmar]

Yeah, justice is dungeon points, valor is raid.

[Fordel]

Meh, balls to that.

That's just replacing the old pve tier-tokens for pvp gear with pve points for pvp gear.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Source)
We’ve been following discussions and reading feedback on the Dungeon Finder Call to Arms feature, and appreciate everyone’s opinions on the topic. We wanted to share a few items though that supplement the recent announcement:

The additional reward for completing the Dungeon Finder Call to Arms (called the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries) will be Bind on Account; able to be freely sent to other characters on your account once you receive it.

An error existed in the announcement regarding flasks and potions being picked based on your spec. This is not the case. If someone earns a Satchel of Exotic Mysteries, and if it rolls the random chance to provide a potion or flask, it will be a randomly selected. This helps ensure a broad array of available flasks and potions for all characters.

We also wanted to clarify, mounts that have a possibility to be found in a Satchel of Exotic Mysteries are found with the same rarity as if you had slain the dungeon boss that normally drops them.

Backpeddle, away!

[Paelos]

It's a good change. You can move the mounts to a character you want. The flask changes doesn't really change my opinion on it, because it's all going to be gold anyway.

[apocrypha]

That made it sound like the Satchel will be BoA, not the contents, so if you want a fancy mount on an alt you have to send the unopened satchel? I only ask because only Blizzard could implement such a retarded way of doing this.

[Paelos]

That made it sound like the Satchel will be BoA, not the contents, so if you want a fancy mount on an alt you have to send the unopened satchel? I only ask because only Blizzard could implement such a retarded way of doing this.

The should make all mounts BoA so you can pass them around, but have yet to retroactively do that.

[Ingmar]

If it is like other container type things you can look inside them without binding the contents if you don't have autoloot turned on.