Title: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on August 05, 2011, 03:33:19 PM Try to pretend it isn't happening all you want but might as well discuss it here
I'm eagerly awaiting the newest troll dungeon Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 05, 2011, 03:34:13 PM What's to discuss?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 05, 2011, 03:35:48 PM I think there's still a strong chance that this is going to be a mobile or social network type game rather than an expansion, though I wouldn't be especially be bothered by it as an expansion either.
The panda stuff has generally been on the 'fringes' of Warcraft content - the non-main campaign in the War3 expansion, April Fools jokes, etc. It makes perfect sense that they'd go with that for a mobile or Facebook game since those tend to skew "cute". Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 05, 2011, 03:36:12 PM What's to discuss? the newest troll dungeon Although, I think it would be refreshing to have an expansion that doesn't exploit/rehash trolls in some way, but we'll probably end up with Asian trolls anyways :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on August 05, 2011, 03:37:19 PM What's to discuss? Blizzard pandering to unbearable fanboi wishes. .. OK. Puns have been done. Carry on. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 05, 2011, 03:37:43 PM Pandas will be a neutral race with two sub-factions. One faction favors the Horde, the other favors Alliance. There will be enough of an art difference that you'll be able to tell the difference, but as was mentioned in the Cracks thread, the Walrus model will be used.
Edit: They'll be able to be Warriors, Mages, Shamans, Druids, Rogues, Warlocks, Hunters and whatever inevitable Hero class they add. If they even try to retcon or squeeze them into being DKs, I will have lost all faith in humanity, and will personally break into BlizzCon and punch as many Bliz devs in the throat as I can. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ezrast on August 05, 2011, 03:41:44 PM I bet there are a lot of people out there who would resub to play a panda.
I might be one of them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 05, 2011, 03:41:56 PM They won't use the walrus model.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on August 05, 2011, 03:42:11 PM A rare plague turns all the undead into pandas, which are lead by the Panda King who emerges from the mists holding PANDAHOWL, his cursed blade.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on August 05, 2011, 03:45:55 PM I don't see any brooding. MUST BROOD.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 05, 2011, 03:47:01 PM Cata broke <titan cloaking device> and reveals secret panda continent on far side of world. The Alliance and Horde being so starved of resources thanks to Cata and their War, go invade the shit out of panda land because of all their delicious bamboo. Or something.
Out side of mechanical class/game thingys, the only thing I would give a shit about is are the panda people playable and by who? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 05, 2011, 03:49:12 PM Duh. The red panda people are Horde, and the regular panda people are Alliance. :crying_panda: :sad_red_panda:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 05, 2011, 03:51:03 PM Do the Red Panda people get bushy tails?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 05, 2011, 03:57:37 PM There won't be another hero class.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 05, 2011, 03:58:26 PM Why, DK's went over so well? :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on August 05, 2011, 04:03:03 PM I will resub if you can play a Pandaren.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ezrast on August 05, 2011, 04:12:26 PM Having fused with Azeroth 1,000 years ago, the moon of Pandaria is now being rejected by the World Tree, whose corrupted roots are turning the terrain into a nether wasteland. At the behest of Lord Al'pand, the Kirin Tor and Venture Co. attach magirockets to the landmass and return it to its rightful place in orbit. But what sinister alien life is left in the flooded Pandarian crater? And what dark secrets lie at the heart of the Panda Throne?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on August 05, 2011, 04:27:37 PM In one quest, you destroy a shield that is protecting a gate spawning the Burning Crusade, and then you dance around with your Pandaren friends and sing Yub Nub.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on August 05, 2011, 04:31:33 PM Having fused with Azeroth 1,000 years ago, the moon of Pandaria is now being rejected by the World Tree, whose corrupted roots are turning the terrain into a nether wasteland. At the behest of Lord Al'pand, the Kirin Tor and Venture Co. attach magirockets to the landmass and return it to its rightful place in orbit. But what sinister alien life is left in the flooded Pandarian crater? And what dark secrets lie at the heart of the Panda Throne? I'll resub if I can kill a giant panda boss.* *no I won't Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on August 05, 2011, 04:31:52 PM :oh_i_see:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 05, 2011, 04:36:04 PM In one quest, you destroy a shield that is protecting a gate spawning the Burning Crusade, and then you dance around with your Pandaren friends and sing Yub Nub. Oh shit, I hadn't even considered the possibility of an Ewok-themed quest line. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on August 05, 2011, 06:15:53 PM Pandas will be a neutral race with two sub-factions. One faction favors the Horde, the other favors Alliance. There will be enough of an art difference that you'll be able to tell the difference, but as was mentioned in the Cracks thread, the Walrus model will be used. Duh. The red panda people are Horde, and the regular panda people are Alliance. :crying_panda: :sad_red_panda: Copycats! (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=20037.msg959930#msg959930) :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on August 06, 2011, 04:29:32 AM Having fused with Azeroth 1,000 years ago, the moon of Pandaria is now being rejected by the World Tree, whose corrupted roots are turning the terrain into a nether wasteland. At the behest of Lord Al'pand, the Kirin Tor and Venture Co. attach magirockets to the landmass and return it to its rightful place in orbit. But what sinister alien life is left in the flooded Pandarian crater? And what dark secrets lie at the heart of the Panda Throne? But will the naga live in a temple in the middle of an airless desert?Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on August 06, 2011, 07:50:08 AM What's to discuss? Blizzard pandering to unbearable fanboi wishes. .. OK. Puns have been done. Carry on. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on August 06, 2011, 08:51:29 AM I went home the day the patent was found and tried to reserve the name Pandamonium but it was already taken damn it. Even though I'm 90% certain I would not want to play something based on a joke where they tried to come up with the dumbest possible premise for a new race. The worst thing is that to try and counter how stupid the race would be they will try to make them all bad-ass. The rest of the content would have to be spectacular for me to overlook such a stupid race, they would also have to come out and admit they were retarded in many cata design decisions and promise to go back to a wrath type model. And while it may not be a hero class they would at least have to add in monk.
Still hoping it's a joke. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on August 06, 2011, 09:16:39 AM I don't know why people are so hung up on the hero class label. Besides starting at higher level there was nothIng really heroic about them nor was it their intent. Except once you start labeling them heroic every mouth breather playing starts bitching about how they aren't living up to the term or they are TOO heroic.
Of course blizzard won't, as they stated, add another heroic class but I gaurentee they will add another class and just avoid calling it heroic. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on August 06, 2011, 10:18:49 AM I don't really care what they call it (or what level you start at) but I really want a new class. Ideally with extra character slots (at least 1), which I'd even pay for.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 06, 2011, 10:59:18 AM Yeah, really hoping that if they add any more classes, they also give us a way to get more character slots. Including more slots with the expansion would be nice, but I'd pay $10 one-time for another character slot. Sort of hoping that the character selection revamp they just did might have been laying ground work for more slots.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on August 06, 2011, 01:15:48 PM Marketing-wise, I think Pandaria is a good idea what with the large Asian playing population. Plus what other 'lore' can they base an xpac on? My Warcraftfoo is weak I guess, can't think of any.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 06, 2011, 01:32:18 PM Marketing-wise, I think Pandaria is a good idea what with the large Asian playing population. Plus what other 'lore' can they base an xpac on? My Warcraftfoo is weak I guess, can't think of any. They still have Queen Azshara and Sargeras hanging around as end-of-expansion Big Badguys at a minimum, but I expect they're saving Sargeras for last. If MoP is indeed an expansion I'd think that would be a possible opportunity to use Azshara since you'd want to use her in something where you have access to the regular WoW world ocean. They could probably make an expansion out of the South Seas places we haven't been yet, as well; post-volcano Kezan, the actual homeland of the Zandalari trolls, etc. That would also make sense for Azshara. There's also the Emerald Dream hanging around as an expansion destination, too. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: WindupAtheist on August 06, 2011, 01:43:48 PM What does it mean to say that they're saving Sargeras for last? When will the last WoW expansion be?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on August 06, 2011, 05:30:23 PM I hope the very first quest in Pandara is to kill 10 Chin...er Pandaren Farmers.
With MoP they can make a new continent and have a totally clean slate to cram in all their pop culture references. If they make a Hero class I'd like a Brewmaster or Monk like someone suggested. But wouldn't surprise me if it was a Facebook game. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on August 06, 2011, 07:48:22 PM What does it mean to say that they're saving Sargeras for last? When will the last WoW expansion be? Going to asume that at the very minimum there is at least one, possibly 2 full expantions left that they could wring the game for, without going full blown down the "make up completely off the wall shit to pad out expantions" route.Finally defeating the Sargeras / The Legion is easily a full expantion in and of itself. They could create an entire continent worth of stuff and set it on some Legion Throne World, probably even have the "good" Titans show up as the primary faction us heroes are working for to put down their insane brother once and for all. Maybe throw in the Outlands overahul as well. Between cata and there, we still have a bunch of shit left to deal with: - The Abyssal Maw / Queen Ashzara, asuming they dont manage to put it into cata. - The Emerald Dream / Nightmare. As a druid fan, and considering they have been building on this shit since Vanilla, i will be royally pissed if this does not get at the very least its own full zone and mini expantion. - Pirates and Trolls. They can always do more with pirates and trolls. - The "inverse" tower in Kara, where possessed medhiv was supposed to have conducted all sorts of twisted experiments. - a half a dozen things i am probably forgetting. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on August 06, 2011, 08:01:27 PM Don't forget
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pantastic on August 06, 2011, 09:06:45 PM Marketing-wise, I think Pandaria is a good idea what with the large Asian playing population. Plus what other 'lore' can they base an xpac on? My Warcraftfoo is weak I guess, can't think of any. The Burning Legion hasn't been defeated, just driven off, we haven't even hit Sargeras in-game and there's whole planets taken by them, could easily do multiple xpacs just on this. The Emerald Dream is still out there and corrupted. Outland is easy to travel from and has gateways to other dimensions, you could do a whole game around fighting with and against Ethereals while traveling with sparkly tube technology. Queen Azshara is still around out in the ocean somewhere. The current map doesn't really cover all of the landmasses, there are a ton of places that have been mentioned that don't show up in game, and you can always 'cataclysm' boring zones like Arathi Highlands and Alterac Mountains. The titans and Naaru have been just kind of there, there's a lot that could go on dealing with and finding out about them. Plus there are a ton of names that pop up in the lore that could become a major focus. It's not like Cho'gall was a big factor in the MMO until they decided to make him a boss. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: WindupAtheist on August 06, 2011, 10:35:52 PM Going to asume that at the very minimum there is at least one, possibly 2 full expantions left that they could wring the game for, without going full blown down the "make up completely off the wall shit to pad out expantions" route. Yeah, but that's where they're going to end up regardless. They'll still be making WoW expansions in 2025. Marketing-wise, I think Pandaria is a good idea what with the large Asian playing population. I don't really see Asian players looking at these fat rice-paddy-hat-wearing wacky panda caricatures, with their culture slopped together from that of multiple countries that don't even really like each other, and going "Dude Blizzard totally gets us!" UO did the whole Asian-themed expansion thing to appeal to Asian players years ago, but in that case the content and target audience were explicity Japanese, not generically Asian, and they did it in a straightfaced way. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on August 06, 2011, 10:57:51 PM No, you just don't get it. Asians love obvious yet oblivious pandering.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on August 07, 2011, 03:49:46 AM Just a quick note...
The Emerald Dream is still out there and corrupted. No it's not. One of Knaak's Marty Stu's fixed it in a novel prior to Cataclysm. That's why Mr. Elf-Bear-Chicken is awake again.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on August 07, 2011, 06:24:00 AM It doesn't really matter but they've said none of the novels are to be considered canon.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on August 07, 2011, 06:45:18 AM It doesn't really matter but they've said none of the novels are to be considered canon. Well the fact that ysera is running around being not-crazy would lend credence to the books which have been said are nit necessarily canon but lots of in game canon is still taken from them. As to number of expansions? There's a schedule out there, we've all seen it. Sure blizzard could keep doing them until the end of time but I believe they've planned when sargeras will be fought already and they aren't just going to hold onto that until there are 1mil left. Once wow is on relative life support they will crank out retarded moon cat expansions but until then I expect them to try and retain as many as they can with core storylines. As dumb as it is, pandaren are highly desired by the player base and as said before, you can still have a lot of story with azshara and the south sea isles. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: WindupAtheist on August 07, 2011, 06:54:37 AM No, you just don't get it. Asians love obvious yet oblivious pandering. Maybe some Asian MMO will add the Kodiakians, from the mystical land of Euromerica. Just big sentient brown bears. They'll run around wearing cowboy gear but with spiky Prussian helmets, smiting evil with their hockey stick cudgels and powering up by eating the national foods of Euromerica, escargot and burritos. Western players will no doubt deeply identify with and love this exciting race. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on August 07, 2011, 07:22:36 AM To be fair the pandas are Chinese/Japanese hybrids. A much better comparison would be making them all Mexican cowboys that watched NASCAR wore cow bow boots and ate fajitas..... Oh, wait
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 07, 2011, 07:53:39 AM It doesn't really matter but they've said none of the novels are to be considered canon. They said that so Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on August 07, 2011, 10:06:15 AM It doesn't really matter but they've said none of the novels are to be considered canon. They said that so So the novels aren't considered canon except for turning the king to stone and killing Cairne. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on August 07, 2011, 10:34:30 AM Effectively they're canon until it's inconvenient for Metzen.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pantastic on August 07, 2011, 10:41:47 AM As to number of expansions? There's a schedule out there, we've all seen it. You mean the schedule that matched up to the expansions that had come out and been announced when it hit the net (up to WOLK) but was completely wrong after (no Cataclysm at all)? Maybe some Asian MMO will add the Kodiakians, from the mystical land of Euromerica. Just big sentient brown bears. They'll run around wearing cowboy gear but with spiky Prussian helmets, smiting evil with their hockey stick cudgels and powering up by eating the national foods of Euromerica, escargot and burritos. Western players will no doubt deeply identify with and love this exciting race. That would be the most amazing expansion ever, and no I didn't forget green text. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on August 07, 2011, 10:49:51 AM Effectively they're canon until it's inconvenient for Metzen. They need to rez Cairne as a Panda. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on August 07, 2011, 11:10:49 AM Not sure what crack you are smoking but the one that's been on mmo champ for almost a tear now got fatalism right, not to mention wow brazil and the fact it revealed the name Titan before you know, blizzard said it would be their next mmo
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pantastic on August 07, 2011, 12:18:41 PM Not sure what crack you are smoking but the one that's been on mmo champ for almost a tear now got fatalism right, not to mention wow brazil and the fact it revealed the name Titan before you know, blizzard said it would be their next mmo It would help if you provided a link to whichever schedule you're talking about. If you're talking about the one I think you're talking about, it doesn't have any names or content information about WOW expansions, just estimated dates for the 4th and 5th, and certainly doesn't say that the 5th is the last, it's just the last one on the schedule. Guessing that the next to expansions will be 1.5 years apart just fits with what Blizzard has said about how often they plan to release expansions, it doesn't really seem like much new information. I don't really read much into someone knowing a codename for a next game, the whole point of using code names is that you don't have to worry too much about them being leaked, and it's been known for several years that Blizzard is working on a non-WOW MMO. I just don't see where the schedule I think you're talking about says anything about having Sargeras in expansion 5 or ending at 5 or anything like that. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on August 07, 2011, 12:52:08 PM Google motherfucker, do you know it? It's not up to mento research facts that you get wrong. No they never state the names of the next expacs nor do they say they will end but yes cataclysm and everything else on the list is accurate induing the new mmo so why exactly is it still a fake list? Do you need to fall on you head a few dozen more times before you subscribe go newtons law?
It is conjecture they will stop at five and I don't believe they will but I am willing to bet that the main storyline ends when the new mmo begins. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pantastic on August 07, 2011, 01:23:58 PM Google motherfucker, do you know it? It's not up to mento research facts that you get wrong. No they never state the names of the next expacs nor do they say they will end but yes cataclysm and everything else on the list is accurate induing the new mmo so why exactly is it still a fake list? Do you need to fall on you head a few dozen more times before you subscribe go newtons law? Google just gets me some schedule, it doesn't tell me if I got the one you were talking about. It is up to you to be clear about what you're actually talking about, and you still haven't actually said which schedule. I was talking about a DIFFERENT list when I talked about one being completely fake, that kind of thing happens when you refuse to clearly say what you're talking about. I'm not really sure what the schedule I think you're talking about has to do with this thread, since it doesn't say anything about what will be in the xpacs or when Blizzard will stop making them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Maledict on August 07, 2011, 01:34:57 PM I was going to say - bit of crossed wires going on here.
The most famous wow expansion list is the one pantastic is referring to. It's the one that lists a number of expansions, including level ranges, races and zone names. It's been around for a few years now, and was even known as 'the List'. It's completely fake. Te list was released just before Wrath, and had all the zone names up to wrath included, but people claimed it was released before TBC. (hence why people think it's correct - because it appeared to get TbC and wrath correct). Someone even admitted faking it a while back. Lakov is referring to the Blizzard schedule which covers all their games, and has two more expansions on it. No names, no details,and the expansions are pretty much in the time slots you would expect for a WoW expansion. As it only goes 3/4 years into the future it doesn't list anything beyond the 5th expansion, but you would have to be mad to think that was the end of them. blizzard can keep making enemies up until the cows come home. Not sure why that was so complicated or ended up in a shouting match but there you go - two, every separate lists. One fake but with lots of detail, one probably correct but with basically no detail at all and not really relevant to the discussion. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 07, 2011, 03:06:49 PM It doesn't really matter but they've said none of the novels are to be considered canon. They said that about the RPG books, not the novels. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ratman_tf on August 07, 2011, 09:01:15 PM blizzard can keep making enemies up until the cows come home. (http://images.wikia.com/diablo/images/d/de/Cow.gif) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on August 07, 2011, 09:56:29 PM They said that about the RPG books, not the novels. It doesn't matter. For Chris Metzen Chris Metzen isn't cannon. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on August 08, 2011, 04:23:22 AM As dumb as it is, pandaren are highly desired by the player base and as said before, you can still have a lot of story with azshara and the south sea isles. I don't know about "highly desired by the player base", I think there is a small group of people who are vocal about it. As a percentage of people who actually post on the official forums I'm going to pull a number out of my ass and say they seem like 40% compared to 60% who think it's a terrible idea. Now when we move to people who don't post/read the forums and don't know about an april fools joke from years ago I think their reaction to being told the new race is pandas will be "what the fuck".The number of people who want them seems similar to the number that want other terrible ideas like 'vanilla only servers' or 'remove all guards from cities'. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 08, 2011, 04:43:00 AM I'll agree it's a vocal minority. It's like saying goblins were "highly desired by the playerbase" and then discovering, oh hey, they're below even Trolls in actual representation.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 08, 2011, 11:07:44 AM Well, any new race at this point is going to have a hard time competing with people's established mains, unless it has some kind of tremendously overpowered racial or something that makes people change their existing main INTO it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 08, 2011, 11:18:56 AM I don't think there is another race that a greater % of people want to be playable. People get hung up on the fact that the race was originally an April Fools joke, as though some developer thinking draenei should be a playable race while he was taking a shit was a much more noble origin. We don't know where the original idea for many things in the game came from.
I think something like this would look totally out-of-place in the game: (http://www.blogcdn.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/2008/03/md-pandaren-exp.jpg) But if they are serious about adding Pandaren to the game, they are going to take a more serious approach to them. The only reason Tauren and Worgen don't look completely out of place is because they were given an art style that matched the game. Remember that the last 'official' pandaren thing Blizzard did was the statue. (http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/9/2009/11/pandaren.jpg) Pandaren in the game would be somewhere in between the srsbsns statue and the furry convention flier that was the "Pandaren Express" joke image. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pantastic on August 08, 2011, 11:27:11 AM The most famous wow expansion list is the one pantastic is referring to. It's the one that lists a number of expansions, including level ranges, races and zone names. And it's also the only one I've seen that mentions Pandarans as a playable race, that's why I thought of it here. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 08, 2011, 11:31:33 AM Well, any new race at this point is going to have a hard time competing with people's established mains, unless it has some kind of tremendously overpowered racial or something that makes people change their existing main INTO it. So what hideously overpowered racial do Worgen have that they outnumber Dranei? The 1% crit, the lack of a mount or the cool shapeshift feature? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on August 08, 2011, 11:32:40 AM Well, any new race at this point is going to have a hard time competing with people's established mains, unless it has some kind of tremendously overpowered racial or something that makes people change their existing main INTO it. So what hideously overpowered racial do Worgen have that they outnumber Dranei? The 1% crit, the lack of a mount or the cool shapeshift feature? Not being goats. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 08, 2011, 11:34:18 AM That explains why they both outnumber Dwarves and Gnomes, then. Fuck shorties. :grin:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on August 08, 2011, 11:38:06 AM That explains why they both outnumber Dwarves and Gnomes, then. Fuck shorties. :grin: I've yet to see a game where the midget races really take off. I tend to play them if they're not hideous, but I don't see a lot of the mainstream gravitating toward them. The dwarves in Rift are just horrid looking. You don't see a lot of them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 08, 2011, 11:38:23 AM Well, any new race at this point is going to have a hard time competing with people's established mains, unless it has some kind of tremendously overpowered racial or something that makes people change their existing main INTO it. So what hideously overpowered racial do Worgen have that they outnumber Dranei? The 1% crit, the lack of a mount or the cool shapeshift feature? Draenei were a new race too, and I believe worgen are considered the optimal DPS race for a number of classes. I'm kind of surprised if worgen do outnumber draenei overall though, on my server there are draenei girls everywhere, they definitely replaced night elves as the dude-wants-to-play-hot-chick race of choice on Doomhammer. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pantastic on August 08, 2011, 11:49:49 AM So what hideously overpowered racial do Worgen have that they outnumber Dranei? The 1% crit, the lack of a mount or the cool shapeshift feature? The game mechanics stuff helps, but really the big thing is that they're a bad-ass werewolf with a top hat. Horde races already have a lot of choices if you want to be a guy and look badass (orcs and tauren are big, trolls have the punk thing going, and undead are zombies), but the Alliance really falls short - night elves move weirdly, dwarves are tough but small, gnomes are silly, humans are big but a bit goofy-looking, draenei are bigger and goofier looking. I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of players pick their race by looks, since the mechanics benefits are so minor, and Worgen have a good look that you can't get somewhere else in the Alliance. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soulflame on August 08, 2011, 11:59:32 AM Well, any new race at this point is going to have a hard time competing with people's established mains, unless it has some kind of tremendously overpowered racial or something that makes people change their existing main INTO it. So what hideously overpowered racial do Worgen have that they outnumber Dranei? The 1% crit, the lack of a mount or the cool shapeshift feature? Tophats. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on August 08, 2011, 12:01:33 PM While I don't like the idea of pandas in game that image of the panda with a box of noodles was from a second April fools joke that made fun of EQ2's /pizza command by pretending blizzard would be introducing a similar chinese food in-game option so it doesn't really represent what they would look like.
Still, fuck pandas. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on August 08, 2011, 12:25:05 PM The game mechanics stuff helps, but really the big thing is that they're a bad-ass werewolf with a top hat. They can also look like a human with the click of a button. Same reason Blood Elves took over the Horde. Draenei females have certain... assets... and pretty faces despite not looking human.Most people like races they can identify with. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on August 08, 2011, 01:23:34 PM As dumb as it is, pandaren are highly desired by the player base and as said before, you can still have a lot of story with azshara and the south sea isles. I don't know about "highly desired by the player base", I think there is a small group of people who are vocal about it. As a percentage of people who actually post on the official forums I'm going to pull a number out of my ass and say they seem like 40% compared to 60% who think it's a terrible idea. Now when we move to people who don't post/read the forums and don't know about an april fools joke from years ago I think their reaction to being told the new race is pandas will be "what the fuck".The number of people who want them seems similar to the number that want other terrible ideas like 'vanilla only servers' or 'remove all guards from cities'. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on August 08, 2011, 01:28:39 PM In WC3 I played the Brewmaster as my first hero every opportunity I could. Damn it was a lot of fun with the bonus that it was a ... panda.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 08, 2011, 01:30:56 PM He's also the reason the first 3 CE pets were Diablo, a Zergling and a Panda. For those who didn't know why, now you do.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 08, 2011, 01:44:43 PM As dumb as it is, pandaren are highly desired by the player base and as said before, you can still have a lot of story with azshara and the south sea isles. I don't know about "highly desired by the player base", I think there is a small group of people who are vocal about it. As a percentage of people who actually post on the official forums I'm going to pull a number out of my ass and say they seem like 40% compared to 60% who think it's a terrible idea. Now when we move to people who don't post/read the forums and don't know about an april fools joke from years ago I think their reaction to being told the new race is pandas will be "what the fuck".The number of people who want them seems similar to the number that want other terrible ideas like 'vanilla only servers' or 'remove all guards from cities'. It was an April Fool's Joke for War3 before they put Chen in the expansion - so it is technically correct to say it started as one. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on August 08, 2011, 01:57:33 PM Yeah, the Pandaren express was the second time they were used as an April fool's joke. We already had a quote either here or in the cracks thread where it started as a Warcraft III April fools joke and the guy who did it was like "you can't be serious they don't really want this shit do they it was a God damn joke".
This, this was a fucking April Fool's joke and for good reason. (http://classic.battle.net/war3/pandaren/) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on August 08, 2011, 02:20:05 PM Warcraft has not been about srs bzns for a long time now. Once the goblins got added, all bets were off.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 08, 2011, 02:54:36 PM Warcraft was never serious business, at least from War2 onward. I never actually played War1.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 08, 2011, 03:08:39 PM They've always stacked the serious and the silly right up next to each other, yeah.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 08, 2011, 03:14:54 PM It's funny hearing the "there's even more trolls than goblins" thing. On Moon Guard, I have no idea what the breakdown is, but there are a lot of EVERYONE there. Blood elves win, but I'd have to say it's probably taurens or orcs I see the least of, not trolls (or goblins). RPers love inflicting the troll accent on people, I guess. And a LOT of them are druids. I've only seen one troll warlock though.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 08, 2011, 04:12:53 PM Census says orcs & goblins are 11% of Horde RP pops, Trolls & Undead are 13%, Tauren are 16% and elves are 36%
That's actually.. kind of depressing. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on August 08, 2011, 04:20:57 PM It's funny hearing the "there's even more trolls than goblins" thing. On Moon Guard, I have no idea what the breakdown is, but there are a lot of EVERYONE there. Blood elves win, but I'd have to say it's probably taurens or orcs I see the least of, not trolls (or goblins). RPers love inflicting the troll accent on people, I guess. And a LOT of them are druids. I've only seen one troll warlock though. I would have made a Troll Warlock had it been an option at the time. It's the only reason I have an undead at all.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on August 08, 2011, 04:45:22 PM It's funny hearing the "there's even more trolls than goblins" thing. On Moon Guard, I have no idea what the breakdown is, but there are a lot of EVERYONE there. Blood elves win, but I'd have to say it's probably taurens or orcs I see the least of, not trolls (or goblins). RPers love inflicting the troll accent on people, I guess. And a LOT of them are druids. I've only seen one troll warlock though. Aren't there a lot of, ahem, unique player-driven activities on MoonGuard that could easily lead to an unusual race distribution there? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 08, 2011, 04:51:41 PM That's mostly Alliance-side. (Which is not to say that Silvermoan City hasn't earned its name.)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 08, 2011, 04:53:20 PM Really, not as many as you'd think.
Like yes, if you wander around in the right places your totally going to overhear shit you never ever wanted to hear. The big difference between an RP server and a normal server, is instead of just standing in the middle of town afk waiting for your Queue to pop, the RP people make an effort to act like they are doing stuff in town. Even if it's just sitting at a bar pretending to drink while they wait for their BG/Dungeon to pop. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 08, 2011, 06:08:52 PM It's funny hearing the "there's even more trolls than goblins" thing. On Moon Guard, I have no idea what the breakdown is, but there are a lot of EVERYONE there. Blood elves win, but I'd have to say it's probably taurens or orcs I see the least of, not trolls (or goblins). RPers love inflicting the troll accent on people, I guess. And a LOT of them are druids. I've only seen one troll warlock though. Aren't there a lot of, ahem, unique player-driven activities on MoonGuard that could easily lead to an unusual race distribution there? Like Ingmar said, that's mostly Alliance side. I also don't actually go the places the Horde-side perverts tend to congregate (SMC and Brill, of all places), so that wouldn't really skew my perception much. Plus you'd think I'd see a lot more tauren. :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on August 08, 2011, 09:45:40 PM The big difference between an RP server and a normal server I very much agree. They might as well cal it Prev Servers. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on August 09, 2011, 12:21:03 AM Anyone who played Warcraft 3 and did the Founding of Durotar bonus campaign has been wanting them represented in the game pretty much since WoW launched. Umm, no. They're still fucking stupid. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 09, 2011, 12:47:00 AM They don't bother me any more than say, furbolgs.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on August 09, 2011, 05:25:10 AM The grotesque Asian stereotype doesn't bug you a little?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on August 09, 2011, 05:28:39 AM The grotesque Asian stereotype doesn't bug you a little? Seriously? Look at WoW, and THIS is the one thats going to send you over the edge? Practically every race in the game is a stereotype of something. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on August 09, 2011, 06:28:50 AM I'm kind of surprised if worgen do outnumber draenei overall though, on my server there are draenei girls everywhere, they definitely replaced night elves as the dude-wants-to-play-hot-chick race of choice on Doomhammer. In the US/Europe (all the numbers here are combined US and Europe) they don't at level cap (http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php?serverid=-1&factionid=3&minlevel=85&maxlevel=85&servertypeid=-1) and barely do in the overall numbers (http://[url=http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php?serverid=-1&factionid=3&minlevel=10&maxlevel=85&servertypeid=-1). As for Goblins, it's simple really. If your new race isn't a Human or an Elf or doesn't have unique access to a class when it releases, it's going to be second tier, at best. Of course, when you combine the two, we all know what happens. At level cap, if you subtract all the Blood Elf Paladins, Blood Elves are still the most popular race on the Horde :awesome_for_real:. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on August 09, 2011, 07:10:45 AM That's mostly Alliance-side. Whew. When nobody answered my come-ons in Mulgore, I thought I was ugly :crying_panda: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 09, 2011, 07:16:59 AM Naw, you just needed to go to Silvermoon, baby.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 09, 2011, 10:47:00 AM The grotesque Asian stereotype doesn't bug you a little? If they were hitting some existing Asian stereotype it probably would, sure, but I'm not aware of "oh those Asians, they're all fat goofy drunks" being an existing vector of racism. (That's for Scotsmen. :why_so_serious:) My Asian friends who play have complained quite a bit more about that shirtless Woo Ping weapon skill trainer guy in Stormwind than about the pandas. I freely admit I could be wrong and it would bug people in general though. See also: the great success of Kung Fu Panda in China, which would seem to indicate there's no broad "WHY MUST YOU MAKE US BE FAT PANDAS" backlash waiting to happen. I guarantee Blizzard saw that and their eyes turned into cartoon dollar signs. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on August 09, 2011, 11:17:40 AM The panda faction mount should be a rickshaw that they pull for their friends. With the left turn signal always blinking.
That would be getting closer to the racist stereotypes. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 09, 2011, 11:30:33 AM As for Goblins, it's simple really. If your new race is ugly or doesn't have unique access to a class when it releases, it's going to be second tier, at best. Fixed that for you. The grotesque Asian stereotype doesn't bug you a little? Considering how slim Pandaren are on details right now, they're much less stereotypical than say Tauren. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 09, 2011, 11:32:09 AM Yeah the giant peace pipes always struck me as a little much.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Mrbloodworth on August 09, 2011, 12:26:00 PM This thread got all Wow'd up.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on August 09, 2011, 12:31:02 PM Tends to happen in WoW threads.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Mrbloodworth on August 09, 2011, 01:08:46 PM Haha, wrong tab. My bad, its been a long day.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on August 09, 2011, 01:31:55 PM At level cap, if you subtract all the Blood Elf Paladins, Blood Elves are still the most popular race on the Horde :awesome_for_real:. When I look at the breakdown of my characters: On release - Male Tauren Hunter, Male Tauren Shaman, Female Orc Warrior, Female Troll Mage, Female Human Paladin Now - Male Tauren Hunter, Male Tauren Shaman, Male Tauren Warrior, Female Tauren Druid, Female Elf Mage, Female Elf Paladin, Female Elf DK, Female Elf Warlock, Priest, Rogue Tauren have always been the best looking Horde models imo - Male Orcs look ok but I can't get into the whole green thing, Troll females are ok until you get to the feet. I'd rather look like a badass Indian/hippie cow or female Elf then the old, dated and aesthetically average models. Having said that, my priest is going to the cow-side and I'm thinking of goblin mage for a tiny bit more variety. I wish Blizzard would revisit the older race models Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on August 09, 2011, 02:58:07 PM I wish Blizzard would revisit the older race models I used to say this till they butchered goblins. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 09, 2011, 03:17:59 PM I wish Blizzard would revisit the older race models I used to say this till they butchered goblins. This is why they'll probably never update the old models. Invariably there will be some loud % of their players that liked the old models better, regardless of the changes that are made. Doesn't matter much anyway, considering how much of your character model is covered by armor at level cap. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on August 09, 2011, 03:21:19 PM I wish Blizzard would revisit the older race models I used to say this till they butchered goblins. I thought my gobbie looked pretty awesome. So, yah.. Still probably better to not all of the sudden change the basic appearance of someone's toon they played for 5+ years, without at least making it optional for them to see it on their end. I think in EQ you could toggle Velious models on/off. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 09, 2011, 03:47:33 PM You could. Many people complained about the Velious models but I always thought they looked worlds better. Probably because I played a Half Elf and a Dark Elf. I can understand Ogres and Trolls being upset. The original models were kind of iconic.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 09, 2011, 03:57:06 PM I wish Blizzard would revisit the older race models I used to say this till they butchered goblins. wat Goblins are head and shoulders above every other race right now looks-wise, including the worgen (especially the female worgens, ugh). You may not like how they look in an aesthetic sense (which ... OK, I guess), but they have more life and detail in their left hand than the vanilla races have in their entire bodies. Also I have no idea how people play female blood elves. Their in-combat noises are so fucking irritating and their melee combat animations are stupid (actually, I guess they're OK if you're a rogue, but that's it). My breakdown race-wise for the Alliance is dwarf lady paladin (originally human lady), dwarf lady warrior, human lady DK, night elf dude druid, plus six lesser alts (two gnomes, another dwarf, a draenei, and two more night elves that are all ladies). Horde goes dude blood elf paladin, dude blood elf rogue, dude blood elf mage, orc lady hunter, plus six lesser alts (one forsaken, one tauren, two goblins, two trolls). The two goblins are up and coming, in theory I play those with my friends who never log in any more, though, so they stalled. :P Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azuredream on August 09, 2011, 08:13:10 PM Also I have no idea how people play female blood elves. Use your imagination :grin: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on August 09, 2011, 08:14:43 PM Also I have no idea how people play female blood elves. Use your imagination :grin: One handed, with a jar of Crisco and a shot glass? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 09, 2011, 08:37:51 PM But their voices, argh.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soulflame on August 09, 2011, 08:46:45 PM I really feel I should make a "they talk?!" joke, but I'll pass.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on August 09, 2011, 09:16:06 PM I don't think their animations are so bad, but their weapons being tiny really annoyed me when I was stuck on my Paladin for most of Wrath. Goblin animations though, those are rad.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 09, 2011, 11:31:24 PM She holds her shield behind her fucking back. Awful. And 2h, she looks like it's too heavy waaaaaah. Honestly, I don't even like how she fires a bow (crossbows/guns are adequate, though).
Like I said, as a rogue they're probably fine. And a fury warrior now, I guess. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 10, 2011, 01:13:54 AM BE Lady animations are indeed terrible, I bitch about the shield thing a lot.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on August 10, 2011, 08:17:24 AM Like I said, as a rogue they're probably fine. And a fury warrior now, I guess. I like her stealth animation a lot. That's about it.The GIANT FEET attached to tiny ankles still bugs me though. Blood Elf feet only look good in the heavy Wrath armor sets where it appears she has legs instead of twigs. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on August 10, 2011, 01:44:24 PM http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2407-Character-Gender-Ratios-Blue-Posts-Fan-Wallpaper-TCG-Artworks
Has this one been posted yet? Character gender ratios. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on August 10, 2011, 03:41:13 PM Female Orcs' low numbers don't surprise me. I couldn't play mine because her grunts sound like a guy, and it's the main sound you hear since it plays every time she is wounded. Never made it past level 5 on an Orc and I tried a few times.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 10, 2011, 04:20:24 PM I like the orc ladies, although their /cry sound will give you nightmares. They have one of my favorite dances, too. For some reason her booty dance comes across as dancing that way because she likes dancing that way, not because she hopes boys will like her (like the NE dance).
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 10, 2011, 04:21:27 PM I like the orc ladies, although their /cry sound will give you nightmares. HURR HURR HURR HURR HURRRRRRRRRRR Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ezrast on August 10, 2011, 05:36:02 PM For me it's the blood elf laugh. Both sexes. Cannot stand it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azuredream on August 10, 2011, 06:43:48 PM The draenei numbers do not surprise, my guild made it a point to poke fun of anyone who rolled a male draenei.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 10, 2011, 07:40:09 PM I love draenei dudes. They're big and lovable. <3
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ashamanchill on August 10, 2011, 07:46:04 PM I like male dranei for a reason I remember most of you saying you hated them, their over the top shoulderpads.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on August 10, 2011, 09:36:36 PM If they were hitting some existing Asian stereotype it probably would, sure, but I'm not aware of "oh those Asians, they're all fat goofy drunks" being an existing vector of racism. (That's for Scotsmen. :why_so_serious:) My Asian friends who play have complained quite a bit more about that shirtless Woo Ping weapon skill trainer guy in Stormwind than about the pandas. I freely admit I could be wrong and it would bug people in general though. It's not that it's an existing stereotype, it's that it's just fucking gratuitously goofy and irreverent even for a company that prides itself on irreverence. Plus you know you're going to be walking through Silvermoon one day and see a bleach blonde waif cybering a panda, and there are just some things you can't unsee. [races and sexes] Humans, Orcs, Trolls, Dwarves and Undead are all well rounded. Male Gnomes, male Dranei, and male Night Elves are just too derpy. Goblins and female gnomes are short and weird. Female Tauren just look out of proportion. Blood elves just won't fucking stop screeching, and Worgen make me want to quit alliance. It's unfortunate that Dranei and Night Elf males are so derpy, because I love the racial abilities. Combining shadowmeld and hunter pets makes for the most laughably unfair ambushes ever, because everyone will assume that you will be a retard and sitting right next to your pet. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 10, 2011, 09:45:57 PM Male NE's are FLOPPY, their ears, their feet, their arms. Flop Flop FLOP.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 15, 2011, 01:54:25 PM More Mists of Pandapeople fuel to the fire?
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2973024675 Quote Sooo- Night Elves are indeed evolved from dark trolls (suck it, Ferlion) Tauren do predate the titans (even though the recent ask CDev implied they didn't) Pandaren have a society older than that of the night elves Curse of Flesh IS what turned Vrykul into humans The orcs drove a race of giants to extinction to build their temples, but this race was not gronn The Ettin are from Draenor and are a "missing link" in the evolution of ogres The Magnataur are related to Cenarius (what, did he get it on with an elephant? Cenarius seems to be a chubby chaser) Stuff from the latest WoW magazine apparently. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on August 15, 2011, 07:42:23 PM Just when you think they can't get more silly...
Man, I love stuff like that. It's mind-melting for those that care about it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on August 15, 2011, 07:53:19 PM Man, I love stuff like that. It's mind-melting for those that care about it. This train made plenty of stops en route where they could have gotten off. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on August 15, 2011, 08:03:07 PM Been waiting a while for the troll confirmation. Suck it night elf mutants.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 16, 2011, 12:14:32 AM It's more like trolls are Chimps now.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on August 16, 2011, 01:38:54 AM You sir, are a racist.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 16, 2011, 03:20:12 AM They don't even wear shoes! :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 16, 2011, 03:37:33 AM Yeah, I would not be thrilled as a troll about that little confirmation, because of the whole way they phrased it to start with, that some group of trolls got "uplifted" by Elune or what the fuck ever. Makes it sound like the night elves are a better form of troll, and fuck that. Of course, they said murlocs "evolved" from the gorlocs and ... I dunno, the murlocs seem more like a step down. Can you evolve down?
I feel like I should stick a picture of Devo here as a response to myself. In fact, because it showed up in my search (though I wish it didn't have the stupid text): Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Mattemeo on August 16, 2011, 08:29:00 AM Also I have no idea how people play female blood elves. Their in-combat noises are so fucking irritating and their melee combat animations are stupid (actually, I guess they're OK if you're a rogue, but that's it). I've rolled 3 BElf females in my WoW history, and all of them have been Rogues. They seriously lucked out on the melee animation front compared to the other classes, and they have hands down the best stealthing animation, moving and still, of all races. their weapons being tiny really annoyed me when I was stuck on my Paladin for most of Wrath. The tiny weapons issue also doesn't have a lot of impact as a Rogue; you're kind of supposed to be shanking stuff with concealed edges. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on August 16, 2011, 10:21:04 AM ...and they have hands down the best stealthing animation, moving and still, of all races. Counterpoint: Female goblins. "Tiptoe...through the tulips..." :wink:Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 16, 2011, 05:02:19 PM Yeah, I like the goblin stealthing animation better (both genders tiptoe <3). Don't really care for the BE chick one. I hate her crouching when she's not moving, it irks me. I know a lot of people like it though.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ratman_tf on August 16, 2011, 11:19:01 PM Of course, they said murlocs "evolved" from the gorlocs and ... I dunno, the murlocs seem more like a step down. Can you evolve down? I'd post a Morbo macro "Evolution does not work that way!", but this is a video game notorious for it's silly shit, so I'll just type some stuff instead of going to bed like I should. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on September 25, 2011, 02:10:04 AM Male NE's are FLOPPY, their ears, their feet, their arms. Flop Flop FLOP. That and their oddly proportioned gorilla arms. Humans have that problem too, but not nearly to the same extent. Male Dranei look fine - decently big and bulky, but the females look HAWT! :why_so_serious: Male gnomes look like troll dolls, but the females look okay - like kewpie dolls. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on September 25, 2011, 01:36:09 PM Male Draenei need bigger legs.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on September 25, 2011, 10:44:57 PM Male NE's are FLOPPY, their ears, their feet, their arms. Flop Flop FLOP. That and their oddly proportioned gorilla arms. Humans have that problem too, but not nearly to the same extent. Male Dranei look fine - decently big and bulky, but the females look HAWT! :why_so_serious: Male gnomes look like troll dolls, but the females look okay - like kewpie dolls. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on September 26, 2011, 03:20:48 AM I'll grant you that one, though they've done that several times now. Orc women (who I think look good) look like a different race to the males with the amount of bulk difference. Night elves, to an extent. At least the Blood Elves look like they're from the same species.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on September 26, 2011, 06:01:06 AM I'd re-sup this very second if they gave undead knees and elbows. Just sayin'
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on September 26, 2011, 12:01:32 PM (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1143749/Elbows.jpg)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on September 26, 2011, 01:52:43 PM Male NE's are FLOPPY, their ears, their feet, their arms. Flop Flop FLOP. That and their oddly proportioned gorilla arms. Humans have that problem too, but not nearly to the same extent. Male Dranei look fine - decently big and bulky, but the females look HAWT! :why_so_serious: Male gnomes look like troll dolls, but the females look okay - like kewpie dolls. That's always pissed me off, too. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ragnoros on September 26, 2011, 01:55:24 PM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: pxib on September 28, 2011, 12:11:27 PM Only dwarves and gnomes even pretend to avoid it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: VainEldritch on September 28, 2011, 12:41:43 PM They won't use the walrus model. Aw... why not? The Walrusmen were cool. :hello_thar: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on September 28, 2011, 02:53:21 PM Only dwarves and gnomes even pretend to avoid it. Goblins too, now, really. I have a hard time telling them apart if they have a helmet on, in fact. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on October 21, 2011, 11:54:04 AM Blizzcon page from Wowhead. (http://www.wowheadnews.com/blog=196426/blizzcon-2011-mists-of-pandaria-and-what-we-know)
Sooo ... Pandaren Monks. My first thought: I am going to want more character slots. I hope Blizzard has a plan. Preferably one that doesn't involve a micro trans, but either way. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 21, 2011, 11:54:41 AM Who has two thumbs and was right about this expansion?
:thumbs_up: This guy.... Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 12:03:23 PM Blizzcon page from Wowhead. (http://www.wowheadnews.com/blog=196426/blizzcon-2011-mists-of-pandaria-and-what-we-know) Sooo ... Pandaren Monks. My first thought: I am going to want more character slots. I hope Blizzard has a plan. Preferably one that doesn't involve a micro trans, but either way. Yeah I'm not sure who to delete. Worgen rogue, I hardly knew ye? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on October 21, 2011, 12:09:05 PM Sooo ... Pandaren Monks FFFUUUUCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 21, 2011, 12:12:41 PM You thought you were out...
but they dragged you back in. :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 21, 2011, 12:14:47 PM Also, subscribe to wow for a year, get diablo3 free.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on October 21, 2011, 12:16:41 PM You thought you were out... I've been out for 6 years :ye_gods:but they dragged you back in. :why_so_serious: This will be interesting... :uhrr: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Jimbo on October 21, 2011, 12:18:29 PM How does that work if you have a recurring subscription? Will be awesome if I get D3 free, I was gonna pre-order it as soon as it becomes available anyway.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 12:19:44 PM You have to agree to keep the sub going for a full year, there's checkboxes and legal whatnot.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on October 21, 2011, 12:23:09 PM Pokemon.
Fucking Pokemon. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on October 21, 2011, 12:24:46 PM Also, subscribe to wow for a year, get diablo3 free. This has stopped being a good deal for me economically. Cat held on to me for an entire month. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 21, 2011, 12:28:11 PM Pokemon. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/pet-battleFucking Pokemon. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 21, 2011, 12:31:35 PM Who has two thumbs and was right about this expansion? :thumbs_up: This guy.... Sorry, my prediction pre-dated yours, so I get the credit. :wink: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Draegan on October 21, 2011, 12:32:17 PM Anyone have details of the talent system?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on October 21, 2011, 12:33:58 PM Pokemon. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/pet-battleFucking Pokemon. :awesome_for_real: Dear, God, Elena. Elena. SHUT. DOWN. EVERYTHING. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 21, 2011, 12:34:39 PM There's a entire panel devoted to the new Talent System, so expect your world to be rocked and stuff.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on October 21, 2011, 12:42:09 PM I think I may actually be 100% done with WoW now. I felt a twinge to resub for a month to check out the Deathwing 5mans, transmogging, and maybe take a few potshots at Looking For Raid. I've been reading these announcements on MMO-Champion and man, I could just give a fuck. The stink of desperation in this whole thing, particularly the D3 for a year-long sub to WoW deal is so strong.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Kirth on October 21, 2011, 12:45:24 PM So lets start the dead pool on what feature gets canned prior to release? (Examples include new dances for wotlk and path of the titans for cata).
I'm going with.....Pet battles. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: AcidCat on October 21, 2011, 12:45:43 PM I don't know if this is awesome or ridiculous, I guess both? My head is spinning.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on October 21, 2011, 12:48:46 PM Quote Developers want you to do what you want to do to progress your character. They really want you to feel like you have a menu of content where you can pick whatever you want to do, and you shouldn't feel forced to do something to progress your character. For example, daily quests will reward you with valor points but it will still be faster if you raid of course. Valor points for dailies. That's just hilarious for some reason. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 21, 2011, 12:49:08 PM Pandarans can be Rogues? :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on October 21, 2011, 12:51:11 PM Oh ahahah you even get a super badass looking horse mount for the annual pass thing.
Just hire an army of hookers to send to people's houses if they resub to WoW Blizzard, because that's what you're going to need to get back the people you utterly burnt out with Cataclysm. You told the more casual players to fuck off for most of a year and they're not only gone, but they're apparently not interested in coming back regardless of all the bones you've thrown at them in the last few months of Cataclysm. Only the aspergers crowd that will never unsub anyway will drop $120 or so for a mount and free access to a game they were going to buy anyway. Cata timeline: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on October 21, 2011, 12:52:18 PM I'm actually really excited for Pokemon in my WoW.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on October 21, 2011, 12:52:53 PM Only the aspergers crowd that will never unsub anyway will drop $120 or so for a mount and free access to a game they were going to buy anyway. Probably they'll catch some people with it. They sure as hell aren't going to profit from the deal. It's clearly a desperate attempt to keep WoW's numbers looking good on the reports. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Minvaren on October 21, 2011, 12:53:17 PM Just hire an army of hookers to send to people's houses if they resub to WoW Blizzard, because that's what you're going to need to get back the people you utterly burnt out with Cataclysm. You know, I was about to post "meh - not interested in going back to WoW after Cata," but Fabricated's plan might get a 3-month sub out of me... :wink: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: AcidCat on October 21, 2011, 12:53:51 PM Pandarans can be Rogues? :awesome_for_real: And Forsaken can be Monks. Haha. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 21, 2011, 01:00:34 PM Pandarans can be Rogues? :awesome_for_real: I just got to read their racials. "Bouncy, 50% fall damage" Combine that with rogues passive and the fall damage glyph and just call it "No fall damage, ever" I expect that to get nerfed to shit before release. I also agree with the stink of desperation for a lot of these. It's all about keeping the published numbers looking good. Coincidentally, since it went live today that means the q4 subs will still look great! Wow that's totally unplanned! So lets start the dead pool on what feature gets canned prior to release? (Examples include new dances for wotlk and path of the titans for cata). I'm going with.....Pet battles. It actually looks a little more fleshed-out than those systems were when they were announced. I was thinking PvE scenarios. I've seen no information about what those are supposed to be. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 21, 2011, 01:00:39 PM And Monks will be able to tank with the help of their "empowering beverages". :uhrr:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on October 21, 2011, 01:03:10 PM So lets start the dead pool on what feature gets canned prior to release? (Examples include new dances for wotlk and path of the titans for cata). Anything that'd make the game fun or good again.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 01:04:20 PM The pet battles won't get cut, they have an actual preview page up which those other cut systems never did I believe.
EDIT: What is with you people and wanting failure porn out of everything? :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 21, 2011, 01:05:17 PM This stuff looks fun to me, who cares if it's desperation? It's like you were eating shitty cafeteria food for years and when they finally serve up something halfway decent you turn your nose up at it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 01:06:47 PM Clearly this should have been the playable race:
(http://jstolnis.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/eeyore.jpg) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 21, 2011, 01:09:52 PM So scenarios are basically LOTRO skirmishes then?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on October 21, 2011, 01:10:33 PM Clearly this should have been the playable race: I'm the rain cloud.(http://jstolnis.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/eeyore.jpg) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 21, 2011, 01:13:05 PM Monks will not have an auto attack
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 21, 2011, 01:13:37 PM And challenge modes are gear-normalised heroic speed-runs. Should shut up the "Heroics are too easy" crowd. :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 21, 2011, 01:13:43 PM It looks like they are throwing alot of random into this expansion. It's still not enough for me. I'm just tired of WoW, I'm sure some of my friends will make me come back to try it though. I just think I'll still be balls deep into TOR at that time.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on October 21, 2011, 01:17:29 PM Blizzard: Here's some stuff we got from RIFT and watching pirate TOR streams. Yes we're copying from people who copied from us. We're through the looking glass here.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 21, 2011, 01:20:13 PM So yeah, pet battles is Pokemon: the MMO.
Suck it, Nintendo. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 21, 2011, 01:22:12 PM Wait a second.. is it me or do PVE Scenarios sound like instanced PQ's from Warhammer Online?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 21, 2011, 01:25:05 PM I'd also bet on pokemon being cut before release if any feature will be. Nintendo will never get around to making a pokemon MMO, so I think it'll be awesome if the feature actually makes it.
It seems weird that they expansion was detailed as "No world-ending bad guy, war between the horde and the alliance!" and the expansion doesn't seem to have a pvp focus? Not that I mind a pve focus, but it's a weird way to go. Monk sounds exactly like what I was hoping it would be. The disciple class in Vanguard was a great concept (dps to build combo points, spend combo points on heals), and I'd like to see it fleshed out in a game that isn't completely broken. I'm also happy with the class selection for Pandaren. And challenge modes are gear-normalised heroic speed-runs. Should shut up the "Heroics are too easy" crowd. :awesome_for_real: Sounds great! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: koro on October 21, 2011, 01:25:16 PM I would be lying if I said I'm not at least a little excited about Pandaria.
But after Cata, I give zero fucks. Sorry Blizzard, maybe next time. And I thoroughly dislike the ideas for the "new" talent system: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: AcidCat on October 21, 2011, 01:26:26 PM Yes they seem to be gutting the whole talent system. :ye_gods:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 21, 2011, 01:26:35 PM Mists notes pretty much read like "sorry, sorry, sorry about Cata". Redoing talent trees (again!), severe comeback to casual (valor via dailies), promised multiple paths to best gear (not only raiding!).. I wonder if they are preparing to go F2P as part of Titan release plan and 'casualing' the fuck out of WoW.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 21, 2011, 01:27:20 PM Well I think they are setting a trend, with every expansion they change the talent trees.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on October 21, 2011, 01:29:17 PM Basically they're giving you all the mandatory talents for free. Then they give you some sort of tiers where you can put one point per tier. Basically an attempt to force more varied builds. We'll still end up with "best" builds though.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on October 21, 2011, 01:30:08 PM Tell me when they make the formal apology and fire Kalgan and GC. As long as they are still around, the game will always teeter on the edge of sucking once they get people back in.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 21, 2011, 01:31:05 PM The disciple class in Vanguard was a great concept Or Shaman in Age of Conan - I just couldn't understand why healing should be "put a robe on and stand in the back" that appeals to such little % of population. Most people like to bash things, ideally with big glowing sticks. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 21, 2011, 01:31:46 PM Tell me when they make the formal apology and fire Kalgan and GC. As long as they are still around, the game will always teeter on the edge of sucking once they get people back in. +1 I got semi-excited reading feature set mists, but then remembered that douche GC will still find a way to fuck it up somehow. WoW exists _DESPITE_ having GC as a lead developer. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 21, 2011, 01:32:05 PM Basically they're giving you all the mandatory talents for free. Then they give you some sort of tiers where you can put one point per tier. Basically an attempt to force more varied builds. We'll still end up with "best" builds though. So basically we will get like 5 talent points and if you are a Pally you get to choose between the tank talent, heal talent, or dps talent for each tier. Awesome? Why can't they just give us better overall talent trees instead of making it more restrictive. Wasn't that the biggest bitch when they changed it in Cata? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 21, 2011, 01:32:38 PM The talent speccing changes sounds terrible.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 01:34:54 PM I don't know if this is awesome or ridiculous, I guess both? My head is spinning. It can be both. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 21, 2011, 01:35:32 PM The talent speccing changes sounds terrible. It isn't as terrible as Cata talents that had so little choice that they might as well be auto-assigned every time you get a point. Old talent trees, where you had an option of going deep into other tree and have "tier caper" abilities were good, but they give up trying to balance them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on October 21, 2011, 01:41:04 PM The talent speccing changes sounds terrible. It isn't as terrible as Cata talents that had so little choice that they might as well be auto-assigned every time you get a point. Old talent trees, where you had an option of going deep into other tree and have "tier caper" abilities were good, but they give up trying to balance them. This smells like a solution to the problem that they set for themselves, where they raise the level cap in each expansion, and thus have to decide what new talents to add to the tree. Or else, in the case of Cata, revamp the trees, and reduce the frequency that they hand out points. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 21, 2011, 01:42:04 PM What on Earth are they doing with the classes? :uhrr:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 01:43:00 PM oh god don't ruin my paladins they are perfect for me right now oh god
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on October 21, 2011, 01:43:53 PM So basically we will get like 5 talent points and if you are a Pally you get to choose between the tank talent, heal talent, or dps talent for each tier. Awesome? No I'm thinking it's going to be better than that at least. Really it sounds like they are somewhat ripping off what they thought up for D3. It'll allow different builds but that won't stop cookie cutter. Even free form games have cookie cutter. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 21, 2011, 01:44:22 PM What on Earth are they doing with the classes? :uhrr: I don't know for sure, but I am willing to bet Retribution will get redone again and Hunters will still be gimp. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Montague on October 21, 2011, 01:45:00 PM So will World of MapleStorycraft be going F2P? I don't see very many of the target demographic having credit cards.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 21, 2011, 01:45:05 PM oh god don't ruin my paladins they are perfect for me right now oh god You are one of these? You actually like combo points system? Why? You must be one of Cleric-wannabies... :uhrr: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 21, 2011, 01:45:43 PM Those talent changes killed all "well, maybe.. " left within me.
Really, fuck that noise. Unless you're going to give AA point ala EQ/ Rift you've now become the most restrictive MMO out there in terms of player decisions about character advancement. Gear is preset, all abilities are preset and now talents. Woo player choice. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: koro on October 21, 2011, 01:46:52 PM Oh my god it literally is Pokemon.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 21, 2011, 01:47:42 PM Those talent changes killed all "well, maybe.. " left within me. Really, fuck that noise. Unless you're going to give AA point ala EQ/ Rift you've now become the most restrictive MMO out there in terms of player decisions about character advancement. Gear is preset, all abilities are preset and now talents. Woo player choice. But but but, you can change your points whenever you want, like glyphs! :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on October 21, 2011, 01:47:51 PM oh god don't ruin my paladins they are perfect for me right now oh god Now that they have a new healer class they should just flat out remove holy. Let paladins be main spec melee like they're supposed to be. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 21, 2011, 01:48:41 PM Those talent changes killed all "well, maybe.. " left within me. Current WoW has two player choices: Look up the correct spec on the web, or be terrible.Really, fuck that noise. Unless you're going to give AA point ala EQ/ Rift you've now become the most restrictive MMO out there in terms of player decisions about character advancement. Gear is preset, all abilities are preset and now talents. Woo player choice. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 21, 2011, 01:49:03 PM oh god don't ruin my paladins they are perfect for me right now oh god Now that they have a new healer class they should just flat out remove holy. Let paladins be main spec melee like they're supposed to be. Holy always should have been ranged tank with self-healing and nukes. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Samprimary on October 21, 2011, 01:49:48 PM (http://i.imgur.com/uBkhj.jpg)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 01:50:50 PM Paladins in Warcraft have *always* had range cast heals. There's no "supposed" to be melee except whatever expectations you bring with you from other IPs.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 21, 2011, 01:51:39 PM Challenge Mode Dungeons scale your gear down so the challenge is consistent, and reward cosmetic armor and valor points. This is pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Even if heroics launch as or end up becoming faceroll quickly after release, hopefully this means there will be compelling 5-man content for the entire life of the expansion.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 21, 2011, 01:53:07 PM http://classic.battle.net/war2/units/paladin.shtml
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 01:54:22 PM http://classic.battle.net/war2/units/paladin.shtml Yep. See the cast heal? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 21, 2011, 01:54:38 PM Those talent changes killed all "well, maybe.. " left within me. Current WoW has two player choices: Look up the correct spec on the web, or be terrible.Really, fuck that noise. Unless you're going to give AA point ala EQ/ Rift you've now become the most restrictive MMO out there in terms of player decisions about character advancement. Gear is preset, all abilities are preset and now talents. Woo player choice. You're implying that by my rant I find the current state any more acceptable. You would be wrong. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on October 21, 2011, 01:57:25 PM Paladins in Warcraft have *always* had range cast heals. There's no "supposed" to be melee except whatever expectations you bring with you from other IPs. I'm not talking about removing heals. I'm just saying Paladin has always been about hitting things. There's no need for an EQ cleric spec. Let holy priest wear plate or something. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: AcidCat on October 21, 2011, 02:00:10 PM I wish they had the balls to make the female Pandaren just as fat as the males, but you know they are going to be these svelte little furry pinup models. ugh.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Samprimary on October 21, 2011, 02:02:19 PM I wish they had the balls to make the female Pandaren just as fat as the males, but you know they are going to be these svelte little furry pinup models. ugh. Don't forget that they're going to be the little furry ~oriental race~ pinup models from the ~oriental expansion~ from ~oriental lands~ where the native tongue is a ~bad oriental accent~ Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 02:03:08 PM oh god don't ruin my paladins they are perfect for me right now oh god You are one of these? You actually like combo points system? Why? You must be one of Cleric-wannabies... :uhrr: Healing as a paladin is fucking fun as hell right now. I also really enjoy how they work as a tank. Ret is shitty, but fuck ret. oh god don't ruin my paladins they are perfect for me right now oh god Now that they have a new healer class they should just flat out remove holy. Let paladins be main spec melee like they're supposed to be. NO. EDIT: And yes, I hope the lady pandaren are fatty fat fat. They tried to split the hot-but-not-furry difference with lady worgens, and lady worgens look fucking awful as a result. Make the chicks make sense, Blizzard. Just do it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: AcidCat on October 21, 2011, 02:05:17 PM I wish they had the balls to make the female Pandaren just as fat as the males, but you know they are going to be these svelte little furry pinup models. ugh. Don't forget that they're going to be the little furry ~oriental race~ pinup models from the ~oriental expansion~ from ~oriental lands~ where the native tongue is a ~bad oriental accent~ And they will be both factions. There will be no escape. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 21, 2011, 02:05:57 PM Class and Talent panel starting now.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on October 21, 2011, 02:06:10 PM Hell they're letting Druids have 4 specs now. They can just blind copy holy paladin straight over to priest. Give paladins a new healing spec that actually requires hitting stuff.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 21, 2011, 02:09:21 PM The talent speccing changes sounds terrible. It isn't as terrible as Cata talents that had so little choice that they might as well be auto-assigned every time you get a point. Old talent trees, where you had an option of going deep into other tree and have "tier caper" abilities were good, but they give up trying to balance them. Going from 71 talent points in wrath, to 31 in cata, to 6 in mists sounds like less and less fun. But then, I never went for the cookie cutter builds personally. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 02:09:29 PM Give paladins a new healing spec that actually requires hitting stuff. That would be so fucking annoying in PvP it is not even funny. I loved the warpriest in WAR for PvE, but it was a pain in the ass in PvP, even with their slightly-better-for-it targeting system. Paladin healing isn't broken the way you think it is. There is absolutely no fucking reason to fix it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 21, 2011, 02:09:54 PM They're going to have more emphasis on questing at level cap, and questing will reward VP so you'll actually have a reason to do it.
This is where I wish they took a page from Rift or any other AA system instead. The bonuses you gain from planar attunement in Rift are very small, but you still feel like doing any activity in the game is giving your character a permanent bonus. I thought the feature would be very grindy, but since the bonuses are so small I didn't really feel like I needed to grind out planar attunment to be competitive. Instead, I just felt like I was being rewarded for doing stuff in the game, even if the quests or Rifts I was doing didn't give me gear upgrades, etc. I'm sure AA systems are old-hat for most of you at this point, but I was surprised how well it worked in Rift. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: koro on October 21, 2011, 02:14:47 PM From a liveblog:
5:19 pm Now talents. One of the things they've learned over time is that a survivability ability next to a DPS ability in a DPS player, they will always take the DPS ability. "Really saps the actual reality of choice from the decision." What if they gave you three different survivability talents, and you got your choice? Which one appeals to you more as a player? 5:20 pm DPS to DPS abilities, survivability to survivability, mobility to mobility, etc. You get your choice among CC abilities, you get your choice among survivability, etc. 5:21 pm Warrior examples: Enrage as a passive, level 10 will choose your spec from among arms, fury, and protection with lots of implications. Some overlap when it makes sense between different specs, but abilities will largely be different. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on October 21, 2011, 02:17:35 PM Paladin healing isn't broken the way you think it is. There is absolutely no fucking reason to fix it. Whoa whoa. I don't think it's broken. I think Paladins being centered around the healing spec is broken. Basically people like you love that style so much that it ruins the rest of the class. I respect that you like that style and don't want to see it removed from the game really. I just want Paladins to be about hitting people and healing sometimes. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 02:18:50 PM Broken the way you think it is. You seem to think the fact they cast their heals is a blight on the class. Thus: broken.
It doesn't ruin the rest of the class, though. There is no reason in the world to change it. It is good the way it is now. Seriously. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 21, 2011, 02:24:31 PM (http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/blog/images/1024.jpg)
Sooo WoW adds a new "Powerball" pvp map. Hmmmmm. Ahh it's a combination of Huttball and Mourkain Temple. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on October 21, 2011, 02:25:15 PM Broken the way you think it is. You seem to think the fact they cast their heals is a blight on the class. Thus: broken. I just said I want them to cast heals. Ranged heals and everything. Melee healer in PvP isn't so much of a problem. They wouldn't do that much damage so making them unpealable isn't really a problem. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 02:28:14 PM I like the new talent system, tentatively. Feels a lot like 4e D&D to me in a way. Or Guild Wars. Pick your loadout, etc.
Actually executing on making the choices be real choices is of course to be determined. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on October 21, 2011, 02:30:53 PM (http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/blog/images/1024.jpg) Next additions: RP text wheel responses in dungeons and space combat!Sooo WoW adds a new "Powerball" pvp map. Hmmmmm. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 21, 2011, 02:33:51 PM Actually executing on making the choices be real choices is of course to be determined. I feel like they've said this for *every* talent revision they've ever done, so we'll see. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 21, 2011, 02:34:29 PM I like the new talent system, tentatively. Feels a lot like 4e D&D to me in a way. Or Guild Wars. Pick your loadout, etc. Actually executing on making the choices be real choices is of course to be determined. It sounds very bland to me. And this being Blizzard, you just know there'll be one or two awesome talents that everyone always picks and the rest will be a bunch of throwaway crap that makes no difference whatsoever. On the other hand, I saw something where they're going to make at least some achievements credit for all characters on an account. That would certainly be a nice change. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 21, 2011, 02:35:35 PM I haven't seen anything but is it true there is no auto attack now? Or is that just for the new class?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 02:36:24 PM Broken the way you think it is. You seem to think the fact they cast their heals is a blight on the class. Thus: broken. I just said I want them to cast heals. Ranged heals and everything. Melee healer in PvP isn't so much of a problem. They wouldn't do that much damage so making them unpealable isn't really a problem. If I have to hit to heal, the problem is the class becomes a huge pain in the ass to play. I already CAN hit things to build holy power faster if I want (we ALL get crusader strike). You just seem to want to make the class more annoying for no good reason. Maybe you need to explain yourself a little better. I just don't think introducing warpriest-like mechanics to the paladin is a good idea. I also don't see the point in making them more melee oriented if it's more "I want them to be able to punch people on principle." Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on October 21, 2011, 02:36:40 PM I'm always amazed at how people freak the fuck out over talent changes. And not just actual ones, the theoretical ones especially. Never mind that there's a whole slew of new content or whatever, threads devolve into back and forth over fucking paladins or druids. I especially hate the druid conversations.
:oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 02:37:20 PM Just for monks.
On the talents I think the fact that you're picking from a same-type ability at each level gives them a leg up on keeping them more relatively balanced, but yeah we'll see. I find these choices a lot less bland than 'pick this one spec and you pretty much have to always take the same stuff.' I had hopes that they would fix that in Cata, they did a little better but not much, so I do think it is time to blow it up and try something new. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on October 21, 2011, 02:40:25 PM Just for monks.
New talent system sounds like ass. Again. Regarding Amaron's :uhrr: suggestions for pallies, you're getting a melee healer in MoP. It's called monk. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 02:42:56 PM I'm always amazed at how people freak the fuck out over talent changes. And not just actual ones, the theoretical ones especially. Never mind that there's a whole slew of new content or whatever, threads devolve into back and forth over fucking paladins or druids. I especially hate the druid conversations. :oh_i_see: If they're going to fundamentally change my class (and let's face it, they will, because they change paladins every expansion ... same with druids, really), it has a big impact on how I'm going to be seeing that slew of new content. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Morfiend on October 21, 2011, 02:43:57 PM Pandas = :uhrr:
Monk = :oh_i_see: New Talens = :headscratch: I like the idea of the new talent system, but we will have to see how it works. On the other hand, I am super tempted to buy the year subscription thing. I was planning on buying Diablo 3 anyway, and I know I will be subbed for at least the next 4 months or so as it is now. Plus I am a huge sucker for a cool mount. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 21, 2011, 02:45:42 PM I'm always amazed at how people freak the fuck out over talent changes. And not just actual ones, the theoretical ones especially. Never mind that there's a whole slew of new content or whatever, threads devolve into back and forth over fucking paladins or druids. I especially hate the druid conversations. :oh_i_see: Because you experience all that content through your character, so if playing your character becomes less fun then it doesn't really matter how much new awesome content they add. I find these choices a lot less bland than 'pick this one spec and you pretty much have to always take the same stuff.' I had hopes that they would fix that in Cata, they did a little better but not much, so I do think it is time to blow it up and try something new. See, I thought cata was mostly a step backwards in that it basically codified the cookie cutter builds, where in wrath you had a lot more flexibility unless you were one of those people who *had* to squeeze out every singe iota of dps or whatever. I will say that cata really improved the leveling experience, though. So I guess Monks are like melee casters in that if they don't push a button, they get no damage? I certainly hope they have some attacks that either don't use that 'chi energy' or generates it, which I guess would make them feel sort of like melee Hunters? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on October 21, 2011, 02:46:49 PM Pandas = :uhrr: Monk = :oh_i_see: New Talens = :headscratch: I like the idea of the new talent system, but we will have to see how it works. On the other hand, I am super tempted to buy the year subscription thing. I was planning on buying Diablo 3 anyway, and I know I will be subbed for at least the next 4 months or so as it is now. Plus I am a huge sucker for a cool mount. How much is the yearly sub if you buy it al at once? If Diablo 3 is 60 bucks, which i assume it will be, thats probably worth was, 5 months of WoW at the yearly price? I guess they plan on making a lot of money in D3 off the AH, since they are basically just giving it away. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 02:48:03 PM So I guess Monks are like melee casters in that if they don't push a button, they get no damage? I certainly hope they have some attacks that either don't use that 'chi energy' or generates it, which I guess would make them feel sort of like melee Hunters? With no auto-attack, they pretty much would have to have a "build energy" attack, I would think. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ragnoros on October 21, 2011, 02:48:25 PM I don't know what yall are bitching about. Watching a pirate stream (now down :cry:) the new system looks awesome.
The changes will probably by up on their website in a few hours. Or just find your own pirate source. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 21, 2011, 02:48:43 PM They have screens of the talent trees on MMO Champ. I am seriously unimpressed.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 21, 2011, 02:53:38 PM I disagree. The way the talent trees are, it seems like there will be a lot of room for different builds.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 21, 2011, 02:55:19 PM Give paladins a new healing spec that actually requires hitting stuff. That would be so fucking annoying in PvP it is not even funny. I loved the warpriest in WAR for PvE, but it was a pain in the ass in PvP, even with their slightly-better-for-it targeting system. Paladin healing isn't broken the way you think it is. There is absolutely no fucking reason to fix it. Everything else, especially Retribution (you know, iconic paladin tree) is broken. So you have Holy (least paladin-ish tree) working, while everything else doesn't. Just rename class Cleric and delete Retribution tree. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 21, 2011, 02:55:47 PM How much is the yearly sub if you buy it al at once? If Diablo 3 is 60 bucks, which i assume it will be, thats probably worth was, 5 months of WoW at the yearly price? I guess they plan on making a lot of money in D3 off the AH, since they are basically just giving it away. There is no 'all at once'. The longest sub plan is still 6 months, you're just locking yourself into paying that price plan twice if you pick it. It essentially boils down to a yearly WoW subscription for ~$100 if you were planning on buying D3 at full price, so it's not a bad deal. Everything else, especially Retribution (you know, iconic paladin tree) is broken. So you have Holy (least paladin-ish tree) working, while everything else doesn't. Just rename class Cleric and delete Retribution tree. Protection paladin is working fine and is one of the most popular tanks in the game. Of course, I wouldn't expect one of your "everything sucks and I'm a victim" posts to actually be well-informed :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 02:56:28 PM So I guess Monks are like melee casters in that if they don't push a button, they get no damage? I certainly hope they have some attacks that either don't use that 'chi energy' or generates it, which I guess would make them feel sort of like melee Hunters? With no auto-attack, they pretty much would have to have a "build energy" attack, I would think. Well, now I've actually read a little, it doesn't look like chi is used for a lot to start with? Quote Monk Resources -Chi (energy) slowly regenerates and is only used for your Jab and Roll abilities. -Jab generates Light and Dark force, which are used for everything else. Some finishing move uses dark force, some use the light force. -No auto attack! Devs want you to have this street fighter feel where you punch a lot Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 02:57:57 PM Everything else, especially Retribution (you know, iconic paladin tree) is broken. So you have Holy (least paladin-ish tree) working, while everything else doesn't. Just rename class Cleric and delete Retribution tree. There is nothing at all wrong with the protection tree. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: koro on October 21, 2011, 02:59:53 PM Quote Choice is between survivability talent versus survivability talent versus survivability talent, or DPS talent versus DPS talent versus DPS talent. Never choose between DPS or survivability or utility talent. Quote Hunters. Frost Arrows = snare vs Arcane Arrows = recharge focus vs Venom Arrows = poison DoT. Well that sure lasted a while! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 21, 2011, 03:00:41 PM I'm always amazed at how people freak the fuck out over talent changes. And not just actual ones, the theoretical ones especially. Never mind that there's a whole slew of new content or whatever, threads devolve into back and forth over fucking paladins or druids. I especially hate the druid conversations. :oh_i_see: Well considering the mechanical changes to my class/spec was the primary reason I unsubbed in Cata. :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on October 21, 2011, 03:07:43 PM Maybe you need to explain yourself a little better. I just don't think introducing warpriest-like mechanics to the paladin is a good idea. I also don't see the point in making them more melee oriented if it's more "I want them to be able to punch people on principle." I'll try to explain better. I'm only offering suggestions. I don't really care about any particular solution. Blizzard though thinks holy paladin is a constant problem. It's very prone to becoming too popular/good and always has been. When they get it to be ok in PvE it becomes stupid overpowered in PvP. Etc etc. They are going to keep messing with it and mucking up the class forever. They are probably going to revamp it again and screw it up now that you like it. Wouldn't you rather have the play style you enjoy divorced from the problem? Having ret/prot be in a different class could be the best thing that could happen to Holy Paladins. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 21, 2011, 03:10:26 PM Quote Choice is between survivability talent versus survivability talent versus survivability talent, or DPS talent versus DPS talent versus DPS talent. Never choose between DPS or survivability or utility talent. Quote Hunters. Frost Arrows = snare vs Arcane Arrows = recharge focus vs Venom Arrows = poison DoT. Well that sure lasted a while! Looking at the rogue examples, it actually seems like they might succeed in this. The last tier of abilities will end up being min-max, but everything else seems like it will be a legitimate choice. The big problem with this new 'talent tree' is that they are taking some abilities that were baseline and are making them optional. If you are taking away abilities players used to have, they are going to be pissed. It looks like rogues might loose Sprint, for example, unless they decide to spend a talent point on it instead of getting preparation or shadow step. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 03:15:38 PM They are probably going to revamp it again and screw it up now that you like it. Wouldn't you rather have the play style you enjoy divorced from the problem? Having ret/prot be in a different class could be the best thing that could happen to Holy Paladins. By sticking it on another class I hate playing because leveling it makes my eyes bleed? No, I'd really rather they didn't. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 03:17:14 PM That hunter arrow one is really the only one that has jumped out at me as an oops.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 03:18:05 PM They are probably going to revamp it again and screw it up now that you like it. Wouldn't you rather have the play style you enjoy divorced from the problem? Having ret/prot be in a different class could be the best thing that could happen to Holy Paladins. By sticking it on another class I hate playing because leveling it makes my eyes bleed? No, I'd really rather they didn't. And also doesn't let you have your other spec be a tank. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on October 21, 2011, 03:19:17 PM What's the estimated release date for this? I need to plan when to build another quad-box setup to play this again :awesome_for_real: :oh_i_see:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 21, 2011, 03:20:49 PM Q1 2012 was the 'target' date from that leaked Blizzard product slate that has turned out to be accurate. People were guessing February, but this is Blizzard so..
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 21, 2011, 03:24:03 PM 6 months after 4.3 actually hits servers, so next summer?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on October 21, 2011, 03:26:36 PM By sticking it on another class I hate playing because leveling it makes my eyes bleed? No, I'd really rather they didn't. Like I said it's just an off hand solution. There are far better ones they're just harder. With a complete talent revamp incoming they won't pass up the chance to alter holy paladin heavily again. Regarding Amaron's :uhrr: suggestions for pallies, you're getting a melee healer in MoP. It's called monk. :oh_i_see: I don't want a melee healer. I want Paladins to stop being screwed with and ret to stop being stupid. Holy is the cause of that. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 03:26:58 PM How the fuck am I supposed to choose between bladestorm, shockwave, and fucking avatar? That is without a doubt the hardest choice the talent system has EVER offered me.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Kirth on October 21, 2011, 03:29:36 PM Just put in AA grinding. :grin:
Also I would be very surprised if this gets released in 2012, get ready for a year of farming deathwing. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 03:31:50 PM By sticking it on another class I hate playing because leveling it makes my eyes bleed? No, I'd really rather they didn't. Like I said it's just an off hand solution. There are far better ones they're just harder. With a complete talent revamp incoming they won't pass up the chance to alter holy paladin heavily again. Looking at the talents available, it doesn't look like they're going to alter it heavily. I'm sure it'll change, because that's what they do to paladins, but I don't think it will be changing so much I hate it. Like I said, there really isn't anything wrong with paladins having their holy spec the way it is. It's work, but given they made the monk the melee healer (and godspeed to people trying to play it with this UI, I am not optimistic for them), this is really just silly wankery. I like the paladin talents, although tier ... four, I think, looked pretty boring. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 03:33:47 PM The only "problem" with paladin healers as they currently stand at this point is that they have to have a whole type of gear just for them (int plate.) That's something they can just live with or fix another way without having to say 'sorry healing paladins, you don't get to be paladins anymore'.
Ret isn't :uhrr: because of holy, not anymore. And I should add the fact that they're moving some of the 'core' things like holy light to things you get from the spec makes it even easier to get rid of that issue. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 03:34:19 PM One day they'll give up and just have holy paladins want to stack str. :oh_i_see:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 21, 2011, 03:35:40 PM Maybe bears will get real tanking gear again now that Monks exist.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 21, 2011, 03:36:06 PM Looking at the rogue examples, it actually seems like they might succeed in this. The last tier of abilities will end up being min-max, but everything else seems like it will be a legitimate choice. The big problem with this new 'talent tree' is that they are taking some abilities that were baseline and are making them optional. If you are taking away abilities players used to have, they are going to be pissed. It looks like rogues might loose Sprint, for example, unless they decide to spend a talent point on it instead of getting preparation or shadow step. So far I've looked Druid: Completely spec driven. Very few choices that aren't defined by whether you're Feral, Boomkin or Resto. Mage: They've taken away abilities players used to have. You can now only take Cone of Cold or Ring of Frost, for example. That said, there's some hilariously overpowered combos you can get, like having a Frost Mage with Cone of Cold, Dragon's Breath, Greater Invisibility (instantly invisible, plus it removes DoTs!) and that currently Arcane talent that let's you instant cast any spell once every 1.5 minutes. Death Knight: Nothing terribly inspiring. A few you'd *have* to take if you tank, otherwise mostly flavor stuff that ultimately doesn't seem to make a lot of difference. Paladin: Sorry Ret, you can only have the 6 second stun or Repentance or the Seal of Justice snare. So another one that takes away abilities you already have. Otherwise it's also mostly uninspiring. Edit: Rogues: That speed talent isn't Sprint. It looks more like a self only version of Stampede; an instant short burst of speed that breaks snares instead of the longer duration Sprint. Rogues seem to have more choices to define how they want to play compared to the other classes I looked at. That said, it makes me wonder what the difference between Combat, Assassination and Subtlety are supposed to be since they seem to have taken the abilities that made them unique and made them available to everyone. That said, Subtlety gets screwed since they can only have Prep or Shadowstep, not both. Still have Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: AcidCat on October 21, 2011, 03:37:04 PM "Quests on Pandaria will provide a less linear experience, with multiple quest hubs to choose from"
This may be the best news I've heard so far. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on October 21, 2011, 03:39:03 PM Q1 2012 was the 'target' date from that leaked Blizzard product slate that has turned out to be accurate. People were guessing February, but this is Blizzard so.. Oh good that's plenty of time.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 03:41:29 PM "Quests on Pandaria will provide a less linear experience, with multiple quest hubs to choose from" This may be the best news I've heard so far. Yeah, that was easily my biggest complaint about the 80+ stuff in Cataclysm. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 21, 2011, 03:42:40 PM Will they have full voice over and story? :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 21, 2011, 03:44:21 PM Would you WANT full voice over of WoW's story?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 03:46:30 PM Fuck no. Timmy the Intern is bad enough in the small doses we already get.
EDIT: Although I wouldn't mind having the dude who voiced Van Cleef talking in my ear constantly. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 03:52:49 PM I'm not seeing druid as completely spec driven. There are are at least 2 good choices at each tier for any spec, and 3 at several, tier 6 is the only one where I think there's a cookie cutter choice but it is more of a PVP vs. PVE one than a spec based one.
Tier 1: I can see any spec wanting any of these 3. The first is a passive speed boost in ALL forms, the second is a get out of jail card for anyone, the third is a snare break. All are useful to anyone. Tier 2: The first one isn't very sexy for the 2 feral specs outside of pvp, but good for either caster and good for the ferals in pvp. The second one is good for anyone, so is the 3rd. Tier 3: First one good for anyone but non-pvp resto. Second one is an AE root, anyone can find a use for that, but you have to shift out so perhaps less exciting for the ferals. Third is any-form typhoon. Tier 4: We can't see the full tooltip for these and we don't know what the spec-specific trees do, but it appears all choices are or could be viable for all specs. Tier 5: AE disorient, good for anyone. AE pull-in-deathgrip thing, probably only bears want. DAOC grapple, anyone can find a use for that (and might be OP and go away IMO.) Tier 6: A thing that lets you emergency fill another role, the weird stacking dps buff, and the old pvp standby of shifting breaking roots but with healing piled on top. This is the least exciting tier, but we can't see the whole tooltip for the emergency role switching one yet to know if it will draw people away from disentanglement, which I see almost everyone taking. Don't make me do this for every class. >< EDIT: Also remember we are not seeing the whole puzzle here, without knowing what abilities are now core for everyone and what are spec-only we can't make any calls about 'oh they ruined what made spec X feel unique' etc. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 21, 2011, 03:54:50 PM Do it, you know you want to.
-edit- The bad thing I can see with a lot of these Druid Talents, is all that shifting is going to pile on Extra GCD's. Unless shape shifting itself is all different too. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on October 21, 2011, 03:56:59 PM Talent changes again and again. Pokemon pets and dramatic class changes again. They make Cataclysm for 'a more directed and focused experience' now they want to go back to multiple quest hubs. Change, change, change. Change it all, change everything, throw panda shit on the wall and see if it sticks.
I don't know why I'm so grumpy about this xpac, I think it's because I remember WoW before Cata. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 21, 2011, 04:00:53 PM I'm not seeing druid as completely spec driven. There are are at least 2 good choices at each tier for any spec, and 3 at several, tier 6 is the only one where I think there's a cookie cutter choice but it is more of a PVP vs. PVE one than a spec based one. Tier 1: I can see any spec wanting any of these 3. The first is a passive speed boost in ALL forms, the second is a get out of jail card for anyone, the third is a snare break. All are useful to anyone. Tier 2: The first one isn't very sexy for the 2 feral specs outside of pvp, but good for either caster and good for the ferals in pvp. The second one is good for anyone, so is the 3rd. Tier 3: First one good for anyone but non-pvp resto. Second one is an AE root, anyone can find a use for that, but you have to shift out so perhaps less exciting for the ferals. Third is any-form typhoon. Tier 4: We can't see the full tooltip for these and we don't know what the spec-specific trees do, but it appears all choices are or could be viable for all specs. Tier 5: AE disorient, good for anyone. AE pull-in-deathgrip thing, probably only bears want. DAOC grapple, anyone can find a use for that (and might be OP and go away IMO.) Tier 6: A thing that lets you emergency fill another role, the weird stacking dps buff, and the old pvp standby of shifting breaking roots but with healing piled on top. This is the least exciting tier, but we can't see the whole tooltip for the emergency role switching one yet to know if it will draw people away from disentanglement, which I see almost everyone taking. Don't make me do this for every class. >< EDIT: Also remember we are not seeing the whole puzzle here, without knowing what abilities are now core for everyone and what are spec-only we can't make any calls about 'oh they ruined what made spec X feel unique' etc. I'm not going to point by point debate stuff that's likely to change anyway. Especially since I'm not happy at all that they're splitting feral into two separate specs. Feral was the last bastion of anything resembling a hybrid in WoW. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 04:03:15 PM Game design truth: actual hybrids that can fill 2 roles simultaneously are always, always shitty. And it pains my thane soul to say it. Dual spec is the future.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 21, 2011, 04:05:28 PM Funny, I can perform both tanking and dps quite well currently.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 21, 2011, 04:08:54 PM They actually have a lot of hyrid-y stuff in the new talent system for druids. There's obvious stuff like Heart of the Wild in T6, but there are plenty of less obvious examples. A resto druid will now be able to help with CC via typhoon, vortex, roar, etc.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hawkbit on October 21, 2011, 04:11:34 PM So, I've been away from WoW for a year... so excuse the dumb questions.
For mages, are there no fire/frost/arc mages anymore? The class comes down to a series of six choices with three results each? How are they going to balance, say the DK which doesn't appear to have any talents that scream 'tank'... it seems that they will have classes that can (*gasp*) both tank and dps. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 21, 2011, 04:11:56 PM Would you WANT full voice over of WoW's story? Exactly, you couldn't click accept any faster... and who would want to have to LISTEN to that fanfic read by some developer in a monotone voice because they run out of voice-over budget? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 04:12:11 PM So, I've been away from WoW for a year... so excuse the dumb questions. For mages, are there no fire/frost/arc mages anymore? The class comes down to a series of six choices with three results each? How are they going to balance, say the DK which doesn't appear to have any talents that scream 'tank'... it seems that they will have classes that can (*gasp*) both tank and dps. There are still specs, with different abilities from each other. This is just one part of the class system, that lets you customize a bit beyond the broad "I are frost" sort of choice you make at level 10. The idea is fewer but more interesting choices, which on paper looks like they have a shot at achieving to me. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on October 21, 2011, 04:12:22 PM I can't WAIT for all of the Kung Fu Panda references. My knees will be slapped silly. /end green
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 21, 2011, 04:12:54 PM Funny, I can perform both tanking and dps quite well currently. At the same time? (which is what Ingmar meant. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on October 21, 2011, 04:13:30 PM Hawkbit, when you hit level 10 you pick a spec (Fire/Frost/Arcane for mages, etc.) which gives you a bunch* of abilities related to that spec.
Regarding druids specifically, Nature's Swiftness is going to be very nice for bears since they'll be able to brez without shifting out and risking death. *Currently you get 1 core skill a couple passives, but for MoP they're making more abilities spec specific. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 21, 2011, 04:14:01 PM Funny, I can perform both tanking and dps quite well currently. At the same time? (which is what Ingmar meant. Sure if he's a well geared Warrior. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 04:14:23 PM "Shitty" was probably an overstatement too. Feral druids are as close as it gets, yes. I don't believe even now that there's an 'all the best of both worlds' spec though?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hawkbit on October 21, 2011, 04:14:44 PM There are still specs, with different abilities from each other. This is just one part of the class system, that lets you customize a bit beyond the broad "I are frost" sort of choice you make at level 10. The idea is fewer but more interesting choices, which on paper looks like they have a shot at achieving to me. Thanks, actually I like this idea, if it plays out how I think it will. Less maths, more playing. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 21, 2011, 04:15:13 PM Funny, I can perform both tanking and dps quite well currently. At the same time? (which is what Ingmar meant. Yes, without changing my spec and only a couple of pieces of gear. And even the gear thing isn't really that necessary. And Rokal seems to have a different definition of 'hybrid' than I have. Edit: "Shitty" was probably an overstatement too. Feral druids are as close as it gets, yes. I don't believe even now that there's an 'all the best of both worlds' spec though? Feral is actually closer to that now in cata than in wrath. You do have to give up a couple of things, but it's relatively minor. On my spec, the only tanking talents I don't have are 4% (out of 6%) magic damage reduction and the triple stack faerie fire, iirc. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 21, 2011, 04:18:29 PM Well, reality is that WoW already Jumped The Shark, all of this expansion is really biding time until Titan. Honestly speaking, I don't see how they can convince average gamer to subscribe to WoW over Star Wars or even new Diablo.
I think Blizzard better shift focus on Titan, abandoning WoW was huge mistake but now it is too late to fix it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 04:19:43 PM Never say the word reality again. Even when you're accidentally right you aren't entitled to use it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hawkbit on October 21, 2011, 04:21:56 PM Outside of choosing which 'specialization' a class will be, does a player make any other choices regarding that spec, outside of the talents?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 04:22:48 PM Glyphs would be the only other thing, the major and minor glyphs are pretty customizable (not so with the prime glyphs but that is as designed.)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hawkbit on October 21, 2011, 04:30:38 PM Thanks, Ingmar. I like this idea overall. It's not radically different, but just seems more simplified and streamlined.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on October 21, 2011, 04:32:21 PM Yea it really feels like they are taking what they learned in D3 and applying it to WoW.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 21, 2011, 04:32:38 PM Quote Goals for Mists of Pandaria -Keep the experience short and focused. Dungeons should be short enough to let you run a couple of dungeons when you feel like it, not just one. Quote Dungeons -9 new dungeons in the new expansion So they're going to give us 9 dungeons instead of 7, but the dungeons will be 1/2 as long as the current ones? :uhrr: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 21, 2011, 04:33:11 PM Yea it really feels like they are taking what they learned in D3 and applying it to WoW. Sooo incoming real money auction house? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on October 21, 2011, 04:36:15 PM Hunters
Tier 1: Frost for pvp. For pve, Arcane vs Venom will be determined by plugging them into a spreadsheet. Tier 2: Silence vs Wyvern vs Intimidation. Silence vs sleep vs stun. All on fairly long cooldowns. My personal favorite out of those is Intimidation, but I expect raid mobs to be immune to these effects anyway. Tier 3: For pvp, a tossup? For pve, I'd lean towards the heal effect. But this entire tier's usefulness hinges on how often you use Disengage, so it's kind of a booby prize. Tier 4: The Iron Hawk looks like a decent choice for both pvp and pve. Spirit Bond might be useful in a raid environment, if there's not a lot of random raid damage going out. So, Iron Hawk. Tier 5: As a SV hunter, I'm a big fan of Thrill of the Hunt, because of the intermittent focus refunds that it provides. Readiness, however, is the primary cause of MM envy among non-MM hunters. Tier 6: I like Black Ice for pve. The transmorph trap is clearly designed for pvp, although Flash Freeze might be better. As has been said already, these "talents" are obviously subject to change. And I'm viewing this through the lens of a level 85 SV hunter with the abilities that are available in the game right now, as opposed to a level 90 hunter with who knows what abilities we'll have at level 90. So ymmv. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 21, 2011, 04:50:48 PM "Quests on Pandaria will provide a less linear experience, with multiple quest hubs to choose from" The overriding theme I've picked up from MoP preview stuff is "You know how Cataclysm was designed? This is the opposite".This may be the best news I've heard so far. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: koro on October 21, 2011, 04:51:11 PM Seems there are to be no level 90 Normal dungeons. Heroics only.
Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of having a "Heroic" designation for things? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 21, 2011, 04:55:33 PM DKs:
Guess what, you're getting nerfed AGAIN! You lose outbreak, runic empowerment, blood tap, and death pact as baseline abilities. Don't worry you can get them back with talents! That's fair, right? Also, hungering cold looks like it totally disappears, replaced by a stacking-over-time debuff that turns into a stun. sux2bu. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 21, 2011, 04:59:02 PM Post-nerf hungering cold is terrible anyway, so no great loss there.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on October 21, 2011, 05:08:20 PM "Quests on Pandaria will provide a less linear experience, with multiple quest hubs to choose from" The overriding theme I've picked up from MoP preview stuff is "You know how Cataclysm was designed? This is the opposite".This may be the best news I've heard so far. From the systems perspective, I don't see how you can think that. The Cata talent trees are mostly designed around "everyone gets the obvious 30-something points" and then chooses where to put a couple of 2-4. This is just stripping out the last of the required points. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Margalis on October 21, 2011, 05:32:59 PM It seems like an odd strategy to battle a new sci-fi, somewhat serious MMO with an expansion that is basically for kids and based on a joke.
I kind of suspect that a lot of people are going to play SWTOR, get some taste of more adult situations, look back over at WoW where a quest involves getting GasX pills for a flatulent panda bear and wonder what they ever saw in it. It seems Blizzard is doubling down on the difference between WoW and SWTOR at least thematically. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 05:45:05 PM It seems like an odd strategy to battle a new sci-fi, somewhat serious MMO with an expansion that is basically for kids and based on a joke. Because WoW was totally serious before. /me hops in his motorcycle with a cow-man riding in the sidecar and drives off to Brewfest to shoot pink elephants with a laser. The motorcycle still bothers me more than any of this Pandaren stuff. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on October 21, 2011, 05:45:19 PM Well, some part of WoW's appeal to me is that it can be a serious Punching Internet Dragons game in a silly setting.
The ridiculous animations my Goblin Hunter has or the fact that the villains are out of bad Saturday morning cartoons act as a nice counterweight to the "Move two feet to your left now or we all die." moments. Edit: LotRO does the same thing with The Shire or Lothlorien without being silly or pop-culture-y throughout, but they're just as essential to the game I think. Rift has hints of it, but mostly it's just a joyless slog. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 21, 2011, 05:49:53 PM Yes, people will play TOR and totally say "oh that other game was silly, let's never play that again."
Just like they never laugh at fart jokes after watching a harrowing drama. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 21, 2011, 05:55:01 PM My mistake, there are 6 new dungeons and 3 'heroic' versions of old dungeons. Scarlet Monastery counts as 2 dungeons for this count. So...
Scholomance, SM1, SM2, and 6 new dungeons that are substantially shorter than Cata dungeons? Where do I sign up? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 21, 2011, 05:57:59 PM Does seem a little thin, although I get the impression the PVE scenarios are supposed to fill part of that role as well.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 06:02:05 PM Where is my redone Stratholme. :heartbreak:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 21, 2011, 06:04:07 PM In the Caverns of Time?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 06:13:16 PM That doesn't count. :(
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 21, 2011, 06:45:13 PM (http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfpn0qTyl71qds06do1_500.gif)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Margalis on October 21, 2011, 07:36:07 PM Yes, people will play TOR and totally say "oh that other game was silly, let's never play that again." Just like they never laugh at fart jokes after watching a harrowing drama. :awesome_for_real: Want to bet money that WOW sub numbers will stay the same after SWTOR launches? Didn't think so. Yes, WoW has always been silly to some degree but as I said this definitely looks to be doubling down on that. The two big features are Pokemon and Kung-Fu Panda. Those are both children's properties. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 21, 2011, 07:45:38 PM My you've been a disagreeable shit, reading more into what's said than is there lately.
Oh wait, no, that's always. I wasn't saying that WoW's numbers weren't going to tank. They will and deservedly so at this point. Your analogy however, was about as good as one of Sand's. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Margalis on October 21, 2011, 08:22:06 PM My you've been a disagreeable shit, reading more into what's said than is there lately. Oh wait, no, that's always. I wasn't saying that WoW's numbers weren't going to tank. They will and deservedly so at this point. Your analogy however, was about as good as one of Sand's. Dear god lighten up. (I didn't even make an analogy, that was you...) By the way, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find a review of SWTOR that specifically mentions that the reviewer appreciates the more mature storylines and situations in comparison to the light fare of WoW and specifically to the Pandaren expansion. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Kitsune on October 21, 2011, 09:04:06 PM So their bangup plan for talents is to take away stuff that a player could have all of before, then offer them back 1/3 of them. Yes, that's going to go over great. When I canceled my account last night, it was just because I hadn't played in a long time and needed to save the money. I wish I'd known about this then so I could have listed it as the reason for canceling.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on October 21, 2011, 09:08:07 PM My idea would have been to remove talents altogether and make everything standard.
Because speccing is stupid. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 21, 2011, 10:08:03 PM Yes, WoW has always been silly to some degree but as I said this definitely looks to be doubling down on that. The two big features are Pokemon and Kung-Fu Panda. Those are both children's properties. Interesting, so you think they are going after sub-12 audience? If so, they are on the wrong platform. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 21, 2011, 10:09:58 PM Never say the word reality again. Even when you're accidentally right you aren't entitled to use it. In reality, feel free to go fuck yourself at any point during, or after reading this post. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 21, 2011, 11:30:04 PM Wow, I'm one of the first to get on wow's case for shit but you lot are a bunch of sandy cunts tonight.
I ought to point out, anyone who liked pokemon when they were 12 is 20-something now(red came out 15 years ago) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 21, 2011, 11:57:14 PM I ought to point out, anyone who liked pokemon when they were 12 is 20-something now(red came out 15 years ago) Jesus, it's really been that long? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on October 22, 2011, 12:19:47 AM So their bangup plan for talents is to take away stuff that a player could have all of before, then offer them back 1/3 of them. Yes, that's going to go over great. When I canceled my account last night, it was just because I hadn't played in a long time and needed to save the money. I wish I'd known about this then so I could have listed it as the reason for canceling. Not quite. Its more like they take out all the talents, and refund them in different ways.If you really look at a talent tree: 60% of it passive stuff like: "buff your spec spells by X", "increase your hit by Y", "make spell crits apply a dot" type things. Another 30 % of it is spec specific spells you unlock by spending talents (dragons breath, blast wave, etc). They can take all of that, and bake it into your actual spec choice at level 10, with some of it coming as passive abilities you learn as you level up. The last 10% are class defining abilities that were previously only available by speccing a specific way, which they thought would be better served as being allowed to be optionally chosen by all specs, or unique utility abilities that would be awesome in one spec, but always unavailable due to the way the old system worked. Now they can let you chose neat talents regardless of what spec you are. Personally, i think that if they polish it properly, the new system is likely to end up much better then the old. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Margalis on October 22, 2011, 01:13:22 AM Are talent changes really about improving the game as much as changing it to make the experience feel a little fresher, similar to Magic: The Gathering cards rotating out?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 22, 2011, 01:35:12 AM I think the Cata talent changes were a legitimate reaction to how bloated the trees had gotten.
This time around? Who knows. I guess it's the only way they can make old classes feel new again, beyond the 1-2 new spells everyone will get. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 22, 2011, 03:00:02 AM Yes, WoW has always been silly to some degree but as I said this definitely looks to be doubling down on that. The two big features are Pokemon and Kung-Fu Panda. Those are both children's properties. "Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adults themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence.... When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up". - C. S. Lewis.Also: http://awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=032910 Besides, I think SWTOR is going to have one of the same problems that Wrath and especially Cataclysm had - you play through once, and it's "Wow, fun and engaging storyline". Play it through again and it becomes "Yeah, yeah, I can see the rails now you know". (Which is why Mists moving back to hub+spoke quests rather than linear appeals to me). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on October 22, 2011, 03:39:33 AM *walks into the thread after driving 8 hours yesterday and catches up on all the Day 1 stuffs*
Hmm...yep, pretty much what we all expected. If TOR tanks, we're all coming back to this game until GW2 is out, and if we do come back, it'll still be fun. Still, Azeroth has become a silly place. Like Camelot (http://www.darkageofcamelot.com) :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Margalis on October 22, 2011, 04:07:04 AM "Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adults themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence.... When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up". - C. S. Lewis. Pokemon and Kung-Fu Panda are literally properties for children and drunken pandas that originated as a joke are silly. I'm not using those terms to be derogative; those are the terms that apply. In politics the idea of triangulation is that you have your own strengths and you negate the strengths of your opponents by claiming to have them as well. One thing WoW could have done is announced that in the new expansion everything would be voice-acted and introduced a more involved plot. Tried to dial down a bit of the random humor and throwaway stuff and dialed up the world cohesion, plot relevance, etc. Instead this is the opposite direction, throwing in something that is humorous fan service. I'm not saying that SWTOR will be more "mature" and thus a better game. I just find it interesting that rather than reacting to SWTOR with "we have these things too" instead they are doubling down on the WoW-ness of WoW. And again, I feel pretty confident saying that this point will be brought up specifically in SWTOR reviews. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 22, 2011, 04:26:30 AM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_III:_The_Frozen_Throne
2003 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441773/ 2008 "Blizzard is totally copying Kung Fu Panda, guys!". As for the "MOAR GRIMDARK" thing - previous expansions: TBC - Oh shit the Burning Legion has reopened the Dark Portal and is going to invade again and kill everyone. WotLK - Oh shit the Lich King has woken up and is going to invade again and kill everyone and then raise them as his slaves. Cata - Oh shit Deathwing has woken up, wreaked the planet, and wants to commit omnicide in the service of Elder Gods. Hell, Metzen even specifically said that the shift from "EARTH SHATTERING PERIL" to a smaller, more personal, scale was a deliberate decision for the expansion. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on October 22, 2011, 04:38:58 AM Yeah because how much trouble can pandas be? Oh no our bamboo grove has been nibbled on!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Margalis on October 22, 2011, 04:43:28 AM Do you really think you are making some sort of novel point I'm not aware of by pointing out that Pandarens predate Kung-Fu Panda? (Even though I referred to their origins in my posts?)
Nobody said anything about grimdark, you were the first person to bring it up. Nobody said that Blizzard copied Kung Fu Panda, again that was all you. I note that for all the hand wringing nobody is willing to disagree with my assertion that reviews of SWTOR will specifically contrast the tone and narrative of SWTOR to WoW and specifically the to Pandaren expansion. Quote It seems Blizzard is doubling down on the difference between WoW and SWTOR at least thematically. Does anyone believe the opposite? That Blizzard is trying to obfuscate and lessen the differences between WoW and SWTOR at least thematically? (Which is a pretty common strategy in the video game industry and most industries really) Edit: My original post did read a bit "OMG WOW is a game for babiez now!" but that's jut me being me I guess...my real point here is that Blizzard is not trying to move in the direction of SWTOR at all to maybe take the edge off the differences. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 22, 2011, 05:00:59 AM So their bangup plan for talents is to take away stuff that a player could have all of before, then offer them back 1/3 of them. Yes, that's going to go over great. When I canceled my account last night, it was just because I hadn't played in a long time and needed to save the money. I wish I'd known about this then so I could have listed it as the reason for canceling. Not quite. Its more like they take out all the talents, and refund them in different ways.If you really look at a talent tree: 60% of it passive stuff like: "buff your spec spells by X", "increase your hit by Y", "make spell crits apply a dot" type things. Another 30 % of it is spec specific spells you unlock by spending talents (dragons breath, blast wave, etc). They can take all of that, and bake it into your actual spec choice at level 10, with some of it coming as passive abilities you learn as you level up. The last 10% are class defining abilities that were previously only available by speccing a specific way, which they thought would be better served as being allowed to be optionally chosen by all specs, or unique utility abilities that would be awesome in one spec, but always unavailable due to the way the old system worked. Now they can let you chose neat talents regardless of what spec you are. Personally, i think that if they polish it properly, the new system is likely to end up much better then the old. So you missed the part where they've made some of the abilities a spec can currently get mutually exclusive so they can't get them all anymore? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on October 22, 2011, 05:49:36 AM So you missed the part where they've made some of the abilities a spec can currently get mutually exclusive so they can't get them all anymore? True you might lose access to a few of your old spec talent abilities, but you gain access to a few you never would have had before (and they have mentioned they want talent swapping to be fairly easy, which means situationallly chosing talents for specific fights / situations may be much easier and more desireable then it is now), so itwill likely all balance out in the wash.Under the old system, Spec A got abilities 1, 2 and 3, but could never get 4, 5, or 6, because those were for spec B or 7, 8, and 9 because those belong C. Now, you get to chose your flavour of X from each of the trees as you go along down the talent trees. Looking at most of the classes, the choices at each talent level usually seem to have a theme: Tier one might be flavours of faster movement, or croud controll; Tier 2 might be Different types of self healing; Tier 3 might be different methods of Resource regeneration; Tier 4 might be a flavour of damage increase (Flat damage bonus / Stacking buff that you then blow for burst / Large bonus during execute phase) etc. In the end, I will reserve judgement for when they have announced a full list of what abilities are baseline for each class, what are Spec only, and what the final talents end up looking like, but currently I am quite happy with the direction where they seem to be takeing this. Yes, you might have to sacrifice access to an ability or two you are used to having in Spec X to gain access to another one typically from Spec X, but in return you gain access to an equal or greater number of abilities that you never had access to before. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 22, 2011, 06:28:18 AM I think the new Talent Trees are highlighting how some classes had abilities spread so damn thin, and others are an overflow.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 22, 2011, 06:47:55 AM The part that bothers me is the removal of core abilities. DKs had 3 methods of resource regen because their system is slow and sometimes you needed that rune tap just to stay alive as a tank. "Access to stuff you never had before" sounds great UNTIL you realize "oh that means things that were crucial were stripped just for this novel idea."
Unless the class is getting an entire resource overhaul you're going to see big problems there. Ditto for stripping the core ability of death pact and the talent vampiric blood. This used to be a core combo survivial ability for DK tanks. What now? Is raid damage being evened out, is DK survivability being upped since they don't have block? What's being done to make sure they aren't splattered? I don't see Feral Healing on the Druid talent tree, for example, something that's been marked as very needed for them as a tank. Similarly boned are pallies who now have to choose between Ardent Defender and Sacred Shield. Oh wait, that's not really a choice as a tank you're going to take AD but lose all possibility of acces to SS. Fantastic. Removing shockwave and bladestorm from warriors then not allowing access to it again until L90? Heh. I feel bad, every other tank class seems to have gotten some pretty cool new l90 abilities. Warriors get theirs back. Oh.. and stealing Force Choke and calling it Asphyxiate.. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azuredream on October 22, 2011, 06:54:54 AM Oh.. and stealing Force Choke and calling it Asphyxiate.. :awesome_for_real: Baron Ashbury in SFK has the same thing, so their stealing of force choke predates this new expansion. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on October 22, 2011, 07:06:55 AM I like a lot of what they propose in the expac, the pets thing is a great idea especially.
They just need to prove that they recognize exactly how big of a failure that Cataclysm was, and make public promises not to do it again in this xpac. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 22, 2011, 07:07:54 AM We still don't know the spec abilities awarded by picking your tree too.
But I mean, looking at my Moonkin, I'm going to have access to shit I would have never had before and I lose very little if anything. Of course, new talents don't help if casting still feels like ass and shit. :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 22, 2011, 07:09:36 AM We still don't know the spec abilities awarded by picking your tree too. But I mean, looking at my Moonkin, I'm going to have access to shit I would have never had before and I lose very little if anything. It's a druid, they never feel the full force of nerfs other classes do. :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 22, 2011, 07:12:20 AM We still don't know the spec abilities awarded by picking your tree too. But I mean, looking at my Moonkin, I'm going to have access to shit I would have never had before and I lose very little if anything. It's a druid, they never feel the full force of nerfs other classes do. :why_so_serious: Splitting Feral into two separate specs sure feels like a nerf to me. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 22, 2011, 07:28:25 AM Splitting Feral will fix a lot of shit that's been holding both halves of the spec back. It should have been split back in Vanilla even, Cat, Bear, Caster... instead of CatBear, Casting Healer and throwrandomshitintotreeandhopenoonenotices. :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 22, 2011, 07:49:57 AM Why each class _has to have_ 3 specs? Mages for example can conceptually support only 2 - hard nuker and controller. Third one always felt like doubling on ether of these. Druids on other hand can easily accommodate 4.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 22, 2011, 08:01:41 AM Mostly tradition at this point. Thematically, it would be quite a blow to say "sorry mages, you can't be fire anymore" or whatever. People are very attached to their spec identities for good or for ill.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on October 22, 2011, 08:57:30 AM (http://i.imgur.com/eBPgL.jpg)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on October 22, 2011, 09:01:06 AM It is fun to review all of this stuff, but for the first time, I'm no where near as ecstatic for a WoW expansion as I have in the past. I guess finally wrapping up all of the story threads from the Warcraft RTS's will do that.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 22, 2011, 09:33:33 AM Apparently all ranged slots are disappearing. Hunters bows etc will become main hand for them and wands will also become main hand weapons.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on October 22, 2011, 09:49:33 AM Apparently all ranged slots are disappearing. Hunters bows etc will become main hand for them and wands will also become main hand weapons. Way to kill the "Everything is a Hunter weapon" meme :cry2: Although I'm glad we don't have to worry about stat-sticks anymore. Too much overhead and mucking up loot drops. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on October 22, 2011, 10:21:47 AM I'm actually much more excited for MoP than Cata, although it's the features that are selling me and not the "content".
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on October 22, 2011, 12:07:57 PM Mostly tradition at this point. Thematically, it would be quite a blow to say "sorry mages, you can't be fire anymore" or whatever. People are very attached to their spec identities for good or for ill. It's not so much but that the specs manage to provide different playstyles. Marks has this cadence and planted feel because of Improved Steady Shot and Aimed Shot. Survival is very different where you're resolving long cooldowns with short cooldowns and how AOE and single-target damage modes interact. Beast Mastery has its pets and its shorter, slightly conflicting cooldowns. The two Priest healing specs have been very different this expansion, as are the Rogue specs to a lesser extent. And they seem to be going forward with that with all three of the Warlock specs having their own resource mechanics. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 22, 2011, 12:30:52 PM They aren't getting red of fire/arcane/frost though. You still pick of of the three at level 10 and get abilities/buffs according to your choice. It's less of say frost spec, than it is frost specialist.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: VainEldritch on October 22, 2011, 12:55:56 PM It's less of say frost spec, than it is frost specialist. That's a good way of looking at it - though after watching Greg's presentation on "Talents 2" I am less worried that this is complete deconstruction of the talent system - it appears to more moving the good bits around, cutting more fluff and adding a few interesting new talents. Some look very OP, but at least Ret gets a snare... :thumbs_up: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 22, 2011, 02:05:02 PM Similarly boned are pallies who now have to choose between Ardent Defender and Sacred Shield. Oh wait, that's not really a choice as a tank you're going to take AD but lose all possibility of acces to SS. Fantastic. You already can't get them both as a paladin. Sacred shield is fairly deep in ret. Hell, I'm glad I can pick sacred shield instead of AD, I like how SS works better. :P Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 22, 2011, 03:19:07 PM I must be thinking of something else then. Hrm.
Anywho; Q&A covered the old models and their lack of animation. They're working on moving the old races into the new model skeletons used by worgen, goblin & pandarans but don't have a roll-out plan or date yet. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on October 22, 2011, 03:45:06 PM I must be thinking of something else then. Hrm. Holy Shield perhaps? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on October 22, 2011, 03:50:08 PM I'm upset that they're not making Divine Guardian accessible to all specs again.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ginaz on October 22, 2011, 04:30:51 PM Good lord. :ye_gods:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fukHoLqoP28&feature=related Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: K9 on October 22, 2011, 04:42:23 PM I don't know what it is about paladin players, something about the class makes so many people froth and go all "DERP SPEC IS THE ONLY TRUE PALADIN HERP!", seriously, I never see Druid players ranting about how feral is the only true druid spec and such.
On the talent trees, if this had been in at Cataclysm as an AA system or as part of a grand overhaul it would have kept me interested, as it is, the halfway house and all the other bullshit killed my interest. It is a shame, since this looks like it could be really fun. That said, from a mechanistic point of view, making it three abilities per tier for all classes is going to result in classes with more spec types having fewer choices. Rogues and hunters are going to be DPSing irregardless, so for them, their three choices are going to be genuine choices. For other classes there are going to be a lot of dead abilities in the tree. It might have been better to have a mix of spec-unique, and generic abilities in each tier for hybrid classes, and then let people mix and match. As for the Shaman tiers, it's basically a list of how many crap totems could we dream up in five minutes before the show... Seriously, there are next to no interesting new abilities in there. Compare Shaman Tier 1, to Priest or Mage. T1 Priest: Void Tendrils (AoE root, but this just sounds fucking awesome) or Psyfiemd (A pet that fears enemies) or Psychic Scream (Always useful, a great ability). T1 Mage: Ring of Frost (Awesome ability), Cone of Cold (Great ability, a classic), or Frostjaw (combined silence or root) All of these abilities either sound awesome, or have proven usefulness and appeal. Then there is the shaman T1 Shaman: Frozen Power (A root on a shock spell nobody really uses), Earthgrab Totem (A situationally useful sidegrade to earthbind totem), or Repulsion Totem (A knockback totem? Seriously...) And the trend continues. Shaman T2 is three highly situational abilities, all of which are pretty much useless in PvE. Ditto for T3 (although tranquil mind is probably a somewhat decent PvE totem, assuming Wrath of Air totem is removed....), T4 is three healing-related abilities. T6 is the first tier without a totem ability, and it is the first one with some vaguely interesting spells. T7 is somewhat interesting, but again very totem focused. There isn't a single offensive spell in the whole tree, nor a single functional heal. There are 7+ totem spells though, most of which are situationally useless. If I was still playing, and I was playing my shaman, this would underwhelm me significantly. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Selby on October 22, 2011, 04:56:13 PM If I was still playing, and I was playing my shaman, this would underwhelm me significantly. There's been a lot of that for the Shaman class for a while. Nothing exactly new ;-)Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 22, 2011, 05:20:00 PM Quote Repulsion Totem (A knockback totem? Seriously...) If you don't know why knockback is awesome, you've clearly never sent someone off a cliff. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 22, 2011, 06:12:15 PM I'm upset that they're not making Divine Guardian accessible to all specs again. Didn't they rework this ability like 6 times and could never agree what it suppose to do? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 22, 2011, 06:16:09 PM Quote Repulsion Totem (A knockback totem? Seriously...) If you don't know why knockback is awesome, you've clearly never sent someone off a cliff. I can't start imagining how annoying this going to be in PvP. Knockback = interrupt for both melee, healing and casted nukes; imagine this pulsing consistently while not taking GCDs to do so. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on October 22, 2011, 06:40:11 PM It's been a raidwide damage reduction cooldown since at least LK; back then, it was a 10p prot talent so you could spec into it as ret and holy. I'm sure they've fucked with the numbers on it (and the name, it used to be Divine Sacrifice) but it's function hasn't changed.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 22, 2011, 07:07:12 PM Repulsion totem has not been described as knockback, rather the devs said it "stops people from coming towards you". Not clear what that will entail exactly yet.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: koro on October 22, 2011, 07:11:46 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1hGj9gHs00
Pandaren animations. Note that Metzen has confirmed that no old models will be getting similar updates this expansion (though race-specific monk animations have been added). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 22, 2011, 07:14:32 PM The art guy said in the general Q&A that he is working on the old race models personally right now, but couldn't give a timeframe for when they might actually go live.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 22, 2011, 08:24:07 PM The art guy said in the general Q&A that he is working on the old race models personally right now, but couldn't give a timeframe for when they might actually go live. With the Abyssal Maw patch probably. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on October 22, 2011, 08:25:18 PM If I was still playing, and I was playing my shaman, this would underwhelm me significantly. There's been a lot of that for the Shaman class for a while. Nothing exactly new ;-)Ever since WF procs off WF procs was nerfed for me. I died a little when we lost 2H viability and this even though Stormstrike and 2x1H was cool, I miss the days of clothie-tears. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ratman_tf on October 22, 2011, 10:29:06 PM Blizzcon page from Wowhead. (http://www.wowheadnews.com/blog=196426/blizzcon-2011-mists-of-pandaria-and-what-we-know) I thought this thread was full of steamy shit speculation. Jesus fuck. Blizzard just keeps getting back in line for another whack from the retarted stick. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on October 23, 2011, 01:37:20 AM Quote Warlocks will now have a unique resource for each spec. Affliction - Soul Shards. Demonology - Demonic Fury. Destruction - Infernal Embers. What ? Why ??? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: DLRiley on October 23, 2011, 03:16:40 AM Oh ahahah you even get a super badass looking horse mount for the annual pass thing. Just hire an army of hookers to send to people's houses if they resub to WoW Blizzard, because that's what you're going to need to get back the people you utterly burnt out with Cataclysm. You told the more casual players to fuck off for most of a year and they're not only gone, but they're apparently not interested in coming back regardless of all the bones you've thrown at them in the last few months of Cataclysm. Only the aspergers crowd that will never unsub anyway will drop $120 or so for a mount and free access to a game they were going to buy anyway. Cata timeline: I think wows decline has less to do with cataclysm crazyness and more to do with dozens of free2play games nipping at the heels with less and less gamers growing up with subscriptions as the preferred model. wow used to be the coming of age game for many pc gamers, its not anymore. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 23, 2011, 03:31:35 AM The art guy said in the general Q&A that he is working on the old race models personally right now, but couldn't give a timeframe for when they might actually go live. With the Abyssal Maw patch probably. Quote Warlocks will now have a unique resource for each spec. Affliction - Soul Shards. Demonology - Demonic Fury. Destruction - Infernal Embers. What ? Why ??? E: On player models - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3424794612?page=5#86 Quote Art Director Chris Robinson spoke on this just moments ago at the BlizzCon Open Q&A panel. It was in reply to an attendee who brought up that, in the art panel, it was explained that the pandaren model has 10 times the bone structures of the classic races, allowing for many more facial animations. So yeah. New models.To paraphrase his statement -- which isn't too different from what I've said here on the forums before -- we absolutely plan on updating the existing models. As Chris mentioned, we want to make sure we preserve the look and feel of the original models players have come to know and love, while vastly improving their model and animation quality to be more in-line with the newer races. We're not going to hide behind the statement that too many players will get mad if we tamper with their models, but it's a concern -- not a concern that's going to stop us from doing it, however. I want to stress as well that it's a massive undertaking to go back and do this. And to a lot of people it's something that won't be considered shiny new content. But not only do we hear the masses of players calling for this update, we really feel it's time to bring them up to par with newer models as well. The game continues to age, but as we have no plans of slowing down on development any time in the near future, we want to keep updating and polishing it to stand the test of time (again, without sacrificing the look and feel which has brought players in over the years). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: koro on October 23, 2011, 03:50:41 AM I've played Warlock off and on over the years, and while I've never quite gotten one to max level, at no point did I ever think "Man, this feels like my Mage but with a pet and a second resource system."
I can certainly understand Blizzard's line of thinking with the addition of spec-specific resources for Warlocks, but I question how much of it is necessity and how much is change for change's sake. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on October 23, 2011, 03:57:07 AM But they expended so much blood, tears, wailing and gnashing of teeth to get rid of Soul Shards.
And now we're having 3 types of resources ? Fucking Lame. I also agree that I've never felt like I played like a Mage. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on October 23, 2011, 05:42:24 AM My destro lock always felt like my fire mage, back when I played them both in LK.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on October 23, 2011, 07:05:50 AM First they have shards, then they don't, then they do again and now they will have three. Is the mechanic that important? If so, then why no Mage stones? All the stones do is add tedium and inventory management. Maybe they have a way of making managing stones fun and useful?
I think they are just trying to change Cata lock, stock and barrel. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on October 23, 2011, 07:13:22 AM Pandas? Really?
Cock off. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on October 23, 2011, 07:16:29 AM The starter zone has a quest when you have to jump over 10 sharks to get to the island.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on October 23, 2011, 07:17:15 AM If that's not true then it should be. I lawled!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Threash on October 23, 2011, 07:27:28 AM I gotta admit those animations are so far superior to what is currently in game that i am more excited for the update than for the expansion.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 23, 2011, 08:03:03 AM Every time someone talks about how 'Pandarens are a joke' I can't help but picture them as this bloke now: http://youtu.be/9UwYSreSL3o?t=8m27s
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 23, 2011, 08:26:45 AM My destro lock always felt like my fire mage, back when I played them both in LK. Ditto. And the affliction lock felt a lot like a shadow priest with a pet. dot, dot nuke. Soul shards aren't entirely gone, though. They're not the bag item they used to be but you've got that 3-tick indicator now that starts out full but then empties. (wtf is it with the designers and 3-combo-point systems? Pallies and locks both and I expect Monks to be similar.) I think that's what they're going to have not the old system. Every time someone talks about how 'Pandarens are a joke' I can't help but picture them as this bloke now: http://youtu.be/9UwYSreSL3o?t=8m27s Me too. While I'm not thrilled with the talent changes the guys whining about Pandarans seem to take themselves and the game too seriously. There's been a constant thrum of desire for them and the brewmaster since the game first launched because of the one included in WC3. It's not a huge surprise they'd make it into the game eventually. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Kirth on October 23, 2011, 08:49:41 AM Quote Achievements will now become available at the Battle.net account level. Many achievements will be shared among characters, including those for raiding and maxing out professions. This alone almost makes me want to resub.... Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 23, 2011, 09:02:18 AM I think wows decline has less to do with cataclysm crazyness and more to do with dozens of free2play games nipping at the heels with less and less gamers growing up with subscriptions as the preferred model. I know you are trolling, but you are playing with fire by saying thing like that. Remember why these games are F2P? Because they got run into the ground by trying to compete with WoW. Even with full-on Retarlism expansion these games could not compete with WoW. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 23, 2011, 09:07:49 AM Quote Achievements will now become available at the Battle.net account level. Many achievements will be shared among characters, including those for raiding and maxing out professions. This alone almost makes me want to resub.... A player explicitly asked about mount and pet-granting achieves, these will not be account-wide when the system launches. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Kirth on October 23, 2011, 09:41:17 AM Quote Achievements will now become available at the Battle.net account level. Many achievements will be shared among characters, including those for raiding and maxing out professions. This alone almost makes me want to resub.... A player explicitly asked about mount and pet-granting achieves, these will not be account-wide when the system launches. I'm ok with that. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 23, 2011, 09:45:47 AM Ok, just wanted to state it as lots of folks seem to be excited about that so they don't have to do old raids and long strange trip on alts for the mounts.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 23, 2011, 12:40:51 PM I've played Warlock off and on over the years, and while I've never quite gotten one to max level, at no point did I ever think "Man, this feels like my Mage but with a pet and a second resource system." I can certainly understand Blizzard's line of thinking with the addition of spec-specific resources for Warlocks, but I question how much of it is necessity and how much is change for change's sake. Were you playing destruction? That's the one they specifically singled out as being 'mage like'. Affliction's resource thing isn't changing (they will still use the soul shards) and I guess demo is just going along for the ride since they wanted to fix destruction. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 23, 2011, 12:41:39 PM Pandas? Really? Cock off. Cow men, regular bear men, hyena men, wolf men, all fine... but pandas? YOU GO TOO FAR, BLIZZARD. :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 23, 2011, 12:44:43 PM HERE AND NO FURTHER!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 23, 2011, 12:46:35 PM Meanwhile, the fat silly walrus men are going "shit, I hope nobody remembers us!"
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 23, 2011, 12:55:54 PM They are having a dinner party with the rainbow colored birdmen.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 23, 2011, 01:01:01 PM (http://i.imgur.com/AK03Y.jpg)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Cadaverine on October 23, 2011, 01:03:12 PM A race of anthropomorphic pandas living on some lost continent is somehow less serious, or more ridiculous, than goat men from outer space crashing to earth? I can't fathom why gamers, and players of WoW in particular, aren't taken seriously. :oh_i_see:
I'm actually somewhat interested in this expansion, even if it's a long way off from live. Sadly, it won't fix the thing that turned me off most of all, the other players. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 23, 2011, 01:09:32 PM Meanwhile, the fat silly walrus men are going "shit, I hope nobody remembers us!" I remember them, I'd play the shit out of a fat, silly walrus woman. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on October 23, 2011, 01:10:31 PM (http://i.imgur.com/AK03Y.jpg) They forgot the snake people, cathorselion people, and birdelf people as well.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 23, 2011, 01:16:22 PM Call the bird what it is, a skeksis.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 23, 2011, 01:16:31 PM I know you are trolling, but you are playing with fire by saying thing like that. Remember why these games are F2P? Because they got run into the ground by trying to compete with WoW. Even with full-on Retarlism expansion these games could not compete with WoW. You are such a shitty troll. (http://www.gamesradar.com/xfire-free2play-is-the-future-league-of-legends-player-base-skyrockets-while-wows-declines/) Game that has replaced WoW for many people? F2P game built from the ground up as a F2P game, doing extremely well. You could have seen this by noticing how active the League of Legends board is compared to any other game-specific board or thread on this website, or by stepping out of your bunker for a few days. Honestly, just stop posting. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: koro on October 23, 2011, 01:20:49 PM I'd love a playable Arakkoa race. :sad:
I've played Warlock off and on over the years, and while I've never quite gotten one to max level, at no point did I ever think "Man, this feels like my Mage but with a pet and a second resource system." I can certainly understand Blizzard's line of thinking with the addition of spec-specific resources for Warlocks, but I question how much of it is necessity and how much is change for change's sake. Were you playing destruction? That's the one they specifically singled out as being 'mage like'. Affliction's resource thing isn't changing (they will still use the soul shards) and I guess demo is just going along for the ride since they wanted to fix destruction. Nope, I played mainly Demo and Affliction, with a little flirting with Destruction. And Xfire is about as accurate a representation of a game's population as my left nut. You may as well be quoting VGChartz. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 23, 2011, 01:38:33 PM I know you are trolling, but you are playing with fire by saying thing like that. Remember why these games are F2P? Because they got run into the ground by trying to compete with WoW. Even with full-on Retarlism expansion these games could not compete with WoW. You are such a shitty troll. (http://www.gamesradar.com/xfire-free2play-is-the-future-league-of-legends-player-base-skyrockets-while-wows-declines/) I guess there is a reason "following section is paid advertising" line put in newspapers, some people have zero ability to detect PR BS. WoW "dethroned" by LoL? LOL! As much as I want to see WoW era to conclude, it isn't happening yet. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 23, 2011, 02:00:12 PM I think a sample size of 19 million gamers is pretty valid. Whether or not you agree with the article, here is what you need to take away from it that is relevant to this discussion: there are F2P games nipping at WoW's heels that aren't failed subscription games. If you don't think a popular (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/news/youve-grown-league-legends-massive-game) game like LoL is competing for WoW's community, you are kidding yourself.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 23, 2011, 02:08:37 PM From the link:
Quote As of today, 15 million people have registered to become League of Legends players. Each month, over 4 million people log in to play. 4 mil / 12 (factor of F2P to Sub revenue ratio) = about 333K subs. Respectable number but not anywhere close to putting a dent into WoW, even if you assume every LoL player is ex-WoW and stopped subscribing to WoW to play LoL. This number DOES show that WoW should pay more attention to PvP, specifically Arenas, but even if they don't they have nothing to worry about from LoL. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 23, 2011, 03:27:42 PM http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2011/october/art12.jpg
"Long ago in an ancient land; I, Aku, shape-shifting master of darkness unleashed an unspeakable evil" etc. etc. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on October 23, 2011, 05:44:02 PM I note that for all the hand wringing nobody is willing to disagree with my assertion that reviews of SWTOR will specifically contrast the tone and narrative of SWTOR to WoW and specifically the to Pandaren expansion. Who the fuck cares? Reviewers will find a point of contrast towards the #1 game in genre in their reviews of a newer game? Really? You fucking think? Shit, next you'll be telling us that reviews of Battlefield 3 and MW3 will compare the two games. Or to paraphrase.. you: Do you really think you are making some sort of novel point ..? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ratman_tf on October 23, 2011, 08:17:34 PM A race of anthropomorphic pandas living on some lost continent is somehow less serious, or more ridiculous, than goat men from outer space crashing to earth? I can't fathom why gamers, and players of WoW in particular, aren't taken seriously. :oh_i_see: No, the whole game has gone from semi-serious with a joking side, to 4chan meme-a-thon retartedness. Oh, look! The game has murlocs! Therefore every NPC should make a fucking fart joke. :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 23, 2011, 08:37:25 PM A race of anthropomorphic pandas living on some lost continent is somehow less serious, or more ridiculous, than goat men from outer space crashing to earth? I can't fathom why gamers, and players of WoW in particular, aren't taken seriously. :oh_i_see: No, the whole game has gone from semi-serious with a joking side, to 4chan meme-a-thon retartedness. Oh, look! The game has murlocs! Therefore every NPC should make a fucking fart joke. :oh_i_see: Rose-colored glasses, dude. I wielded a rolling pin for a few levels at vanilla release, my mage friends all had radar dishes on their hats, and the hardest fight in Stratholme was a ghostly mailman that made Karl Malone jokes. WoW has *always* been silly. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on October 23, 2011, 08:37:43 PM Only two of the current playable races are animal based, Tauren and Worgen. They are based off of legends which are dark and interesting, Minotaur and Werewoves. They were pre-anthropomorphized for us, that's why they are easily tolerated. Pandas are just straight up talking animals, cute ones. Listing all the other races based off animals are red herrings.
I would hate the idea of having to group with playable murlocs and tuskarr too but at least they aren't adorably cute. Whenever I play now all I can do is imagine how I would feel about some of the cooler quests if pandas were involved. - Tirion Fordring challangeing the Lich King on top of Ice Crown citidel, he is a panda. - Following Thrall into battle in the undercity, he is a panda. - Fighting Nefarion, his humanoid form is a panda. - Culling of Stratholme, Arthas is a panda. - Panda Maiev Shadowsong confronting Illidan. - It was AV weekend, Panda Drek'thar. God damn it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 23, 2011, 08:40:55 PM OK now make them all gnomes, or goblins.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on October 23, 2011, 08:43:22 PM I'll stick with the worst case scenario - pandas.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on October 23, 2011, 09:01:29 PM Gnomes are worse unless everyone is a gnome, then it's just normal.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 23, 2011, 09:29:15 PM Yeah frankly every single one of those I think would be even more silly with some Wilfred Fizzlebang-voiced gnome compared to some serene-sounding monk panda type. Or Fat Tony the goblin who knows a guy.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on October 23, 2011, 09:59:43 PM I'll stick with the worst case scenario - Space Goats. Fixed for relevance. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on October 23, 2011, 10:02:12 PM Cow men, regular bear men, hyena men, wolf men, all fine... but pandas? YOU GO TOO FAR, BLIZZARD. :oh_i_see: To be honest my "this is ridiculous" response would be lessened if there was anything that actually sounded interesting about this expansion. Or if the pandas had some kind of long entrenched place in the game world outside of an April Fools joke and a seasonal event about beer. I'm not really finding myself reading any of the features they've announced and thinking "Wow! That sounds awesome!". The only things I've heard of since stopping playing WOW that have made me think about resubbing are transmogrification and LFR, but they weren't enough to actually bring me back. I also thought that the Draenai and Worgen and Blood Elves were pretty ridiculous too if that makes any difference. Telling me that you don't share my feelings about pandas is fine, feel free to feel how you like. But apparently telling me that how I feel isn't valid for some reason seems pointless to me. It's not going to change my feelings, but feel free to try if you want. Knock yourself out. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 23, 2011, 10:03:38 PM Hey, you don't like what you don't like. I mean, I still hate the stupid motorcylces. I just find the reactions staggeringly illogical here.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ratman_tf on October 23, 2011, 10:08:11 PM A race of anthropomorphic pandas living on some lost continent is somehow less serious, or more ridiculous, than goat men from outer space crashing to earth? I can't fathom why gamers, and players of WoW in particular, aren't taken seriously. :oh_i_see: No, the whole game has gone from semi-serious with a joking side, to 4chan meme-a-thon retartedness. Oh, look! The game has murlocs! Therefore every NPC should make a fucking fart joke. :oh_i_see: Rose-colored glasses, dude. I wielded a rolling pin for a few levels at vanilla release, my mage friends all had radar dishes on their hats, and the hardest fight in Stratholme was a ghostly mailman that made Karl Malone jokes. WoW has *always* been silly. Defias questline. Onyxia attunement quest. The Paladin mount quest. WoW wasn't always silly all the time. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 23, 2011, 10:09:43 PM A race of anthropomorphic pandas living on some lost continent is somehow less serious, or more ridiculous, than goat men from outer space crashing to earth? I can't fathom why gamers, and players of WoW in particular, aren't taken seriously. :oh_i_see: No, the whole game has gone from semi-serious with a joking side, to 4chan meme-a-thon retartedness. Oh, look! The game has murlocs! Therefore every NPC should make a fucking fart joke. :oh_i_see: Rose-colored glasses, dude. I wielded a rolling pin for a few levels at vanilla release, my mage friends all had radar dishes on their hats, and the hardest fight in Stratholme was a ghostly mailman that made Karl Malone jokes. WoW has *always* been silly. Defias questline. Onyxia attunement quest. The Paladin mount quest. WoW wasn't always silly all the time. And it won't be in this expansion either. There will be grim OMG serious bullshit just like always. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 23, 2011, 10:14:31 PM If Kung Fu Panda had never have been released, I think 95% of the Panda hate would disappear.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 23, 2011, 10:40:05 PM Rose-colored glasses, dude. I wielded a rolling pin for a few levels at vanilla release, my mage friends all had radar dishes on their hats, and the hardest fight in Stratholme was a ghostly mailman that made Karl Malone jokes. WoW has *always* been silly. He Malowned us so many times. :( Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Margalis on October 23, 2011, 10:47:25 PM If Kung Fu Panda had never have been released, I think 95% of the Panda hate would disappear. Blizz is now in a spot similar to what Mythic was in when everyone was complaining that Warhammer looked too much like WoW. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 23, 2011, 10:49:37 PM Haha, true. KARMA, BLIZZARD.
(Warhammer's dwarves were awesomer looking :( ) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on October 23, 2011, 10:57:22 PM Cow men, regular bear men, hyena men, wolf men, all fine... but pandas? YOU GO TOO FAR, BLIZZARD. :oh_i_see: To be honest my "this is ridiculous" response would be lessened if there was anything that actually sounded interesting about this expansion. Or if the pandas had some kind of long entrenched place in the game world outside of an April Fools joke and a seasonal event about beer. Sure, they dont have a hugeass wack of existing lore, but then again, the Space Goats aren't exactly far behind. When the Draenei were first introduced as playable characters, there was very practical lore for them at the time. At the time they were released, you probably could have written the entire lore for the Draenei race on a napkin, and still had space left over to wipe your mouth without smudging the notes. Blizzard retconned a bit of them, and then took the ball and ran with it, fleshing out backstory and improving the richness of the world. I dont see why they cant do the same with the pandaran. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 23, 2011, 11:08:10 PM Let's also remember (as they've finally admitted publically) that Pandaren were originally supposed to be the Alliance race in TBC. It just isn't the case that they're only just now deciding to descend into wackiness. This isn't "oh, now different people are in charge and we get silly stuff."
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 23, 2011, 11:22:39 PM If Kung Fu Panda had never have been released, I think 95% of the Panda hate would disappear. Now imagine if Nagas were all Little Mermaids, murlocks were all Nemos? I don't think WoW would feel the same. This is how Pandarian(sp?) race is seen by majority of people. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 23, 2011, 11:26:36 PM by majority of people. Your theory seems at odds with Blizzard's statement that the #1 request they see from surveys, etc., is playable Pandaren. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on October 24, 2011, 12:20:26 AM OK now make them all gnomes, or goblins. It's still not the same. There is nothing a panda can do to not look like it wants to cuddle you to death. It could be smeared in baby gore and you'd still want to give it a hug and talk it through it's issues. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 24, 2011, 01:12:10 AM by majority of people. Your theory seems at odds with Blizzard's statement that the #1 request they see from surveys, etc., is playable Pandaren. Same situation as always: people that have something to complain about go to forums, everyone that is happy just keeps on playing. Playable Pandaren is the feature I'm looking forward to most in MoP. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on October 24, 2011, 01:14:43 AM Ah, you're missing the newest one: Because we need breasts on ALL THE THINGS :drillf: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 24, 2011, 02:59:51 AM :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 24, 2011, 04:15:36 AM I..
Wha... Ugh. I don't even want to think about what kind of milk would come out of those. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on October 24, 2011, 05:32:29 AM Hey, you don't like what you don't like. I mean, I still hate the stupid motorcylces. I just find the reactions staggeringly illogical here. Probably because whether or not you like talking pandas in a fantasy game isn't based on logic but people's perceptions, opinions, desires and the whole "beauty - eye - beholder" thing?Let's also remember (as they've finally admitted publically) that Pandaren were originally supposed to be the Alliance race in TBC. It just isn't the case that they're only just now deciding to descend into wackiness. This isn't "oh, now different people are in charge and we get silly stuff." All this means is that they have flirted with a terrible decision in the past as well. They went with the still absurd (but less so) space ships in a fantasy game thing which was rightfully made fun of at the time and has been derided ever since. But that was just lollore, it wasn't a feature that was put in your face the whole time like pandas running around.Your theory seems at odds with Blizzard's statement that the #1 request they see from surveys, etc., is playable Pandaren. There are millions of people who play WoW so you are always going to have thousands of people asking for a wide range of terrible ideas. Should they all be pandered to (almost a horrible pun)? Free for all PvP, permadeath and vanilla servers all have vocal proponents despite being just awful. I would love to see them do a straight up "are you for, indifferent or against pandas" poll but that will never happen.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: kaid on October 24, 2011, 08:24:11 AM Well, any new race at this point is going to have a hard time competing with people's established mains, unless it has some kind of tremendously overpowered racial or something that makes people change their existing main INTO it. So what hideously overpowered racial do Worgen have that they outnumber Dranei? The 1% crit, the lack of a mount or the cool shapeshift feature? Two things 1) they are not space goats. 2) the movement speed buff is pretty sexy in pvp to get out of dodge especially for classes who do not have anything comprable to it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 24, 2011, 08:49:01 AM Achievement Unlocked
<Non Sequitor> <Comment Necromancy> Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: kaid on October 24, 2011, 08:49:10 AM So I guess Monks are like melee casters in that if they don't push a button, they get no damage? I certainly hope they have some attacks that either don't use that 'chi energy' or generates it, which I guess would make them feel sort of like melee Hunters? With no auto-attack, they pretty much would have to have a "build energy" attack, I would think. Yup thats exactly how it works from what I was seeing. They have a default resource CHI that they can use to power either Jab or roll. You use chi to jab and jab gives you 1 light power 1 dark power. Some skills use dark power some use light some use both. Having it generate two different types of power helps to keep you from having a lot of dead spots as you likely will be alternating between them and then using the powers that utilize both to fire off your big attacks. They did not get into to much of the panda healing but one power they did discuss was a jade serpent idol power where you can drop jade serpent idols and when you do damage everybody near those idols gets healed. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: kaid on October 24, 2011, 08:54:56 AM How the fuck am I supposed to choose between bladestorm, shockwave, and fucking avatar? That is without a doubt the hardest choice the talent system has EVER offered me. Oh yes some of the classes there are some seriously hard choices in talents with what they were showing there. The warriors at a few of the talent levels are head scratchers as to which power I would want more. DPS warriors with shockwave would be pretty sick in the I will aoe stun you then cleave fuck you into non existence but to do so you give up avatar. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ratman_tf on October 24, 2011, 09:02:31 AM by majority of people. Your theory seems at odds with Blizzard's statement that the #1 request they see from surveys, etc., is playable Pandaren. Those guys are idiots. I want to be a dragon vampire cyborg. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 24, 2011, 10:14:26 AM And you know MoP will be silly all the time, because...?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Morfiend on October 24, 2011, 11:20:20 AM And you know MoP will be silly all the time, because...? You will understand if you substitute nerd rage for logic. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 24, 2011, 11:33:30 AM aside from the fact they are pandas, none of the info shown so far has been even remotely silly. Unless panda always = silly but I don't think that's true.
I see a lot of people, specifically those raving about SWTOR harping on the pandas as their "this is why wow sucks" argument but it's sort of a losing battle. People who enjoy wow as it is, most likely don't give two shits about pandas. A better and more valid argument would be the adding of the poke and the mons to the game. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 24, 2011, 11:35:01 AM Which of course they just stole from Guild Wars anyway.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Mrbloodworth on October 24, 2011, 11:36:23 AM So does this mean this wont be a joke anymore?
(http://www.blogcdn.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/2008/03/md-pandaren-exp.jpg) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on October 24, 2011, 11:51:11 AM Wrong kind of pandas. This'll be stupid. ;D
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 24, 2011, 12:04:49 PM Wrong kind of pandas. This'll be stupid. ;D You think there won't be a red fur variant color? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ratman_tf on October 24, 2011, 12:07:38 PM And you know MoP will be silly all the time, because...? I've played WoW. Part of why I quit is because I played the goblin starting area, and the jokes got old after the first 5 minutes. In thinking on it further, I wouldn't say it's pandas or pokemons or anything specific like that. It's that Blizzard has, in general, lost their sense of humor. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 24, 2011, 12:09:26 PM I have no problem with the pandas, though I probably wouldn't make one myself. I like the screenshots of Pandaria itself, which is no surprise since it's just Cantha through a WoW lens.
No, the deal breaker for me is I'm just sick and tired of yet another complete redefinition of my characters. Aside from splitting feral in two, I'm not even pissed off at anything specific about the latest change. It's just fatigue from having to endure it over and over and over again. If it had just been the new content without them fucking around with my characters yet again, I'd have been fine with the expansion. Hell, don't change the level cap or add any new abilities. I'd have been fine with that. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pantastic on October 24, 2011, 12:10:13 PM So they're going to give us 9 dungeons instead of 7, but the dungeons will be 1/2 as long as the current ones? :uhrr: Most of the current dungeons don't have that many interesting mechanics, they just have a ton of trash that took a lot of time when the dungeons were current. For example Grim Batol had a ton of brutal trash that you had to grind through, but only 4 actual bosses. Cut the trash down by 60% and you have as much good gameplay in the dungeon but only spend half as long in there. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 24, 2011, 12:18:03 PM I have no problem with the pandas, though I probably wouldn't make one myself. I like the screenshots of Pandaria itself, which is no surprise since it's just Cantha through a WoW lens. No, the deal breaker for me is I'm just sick and tired of yet another complete redefinition of my characters. Aside from splitting feral in two, I'm not even pissed off at anything specific about the latest change. It's just fatigue from having to endure it over and over and over again. If it had just been the new content without them fucking around with my characters yet again, I'd have been fine with the expansion. Hell, don't change the level cap or add any new abilities. I'd have been fine with that. There near total lack of changes DURING Cata is what drove me away, they didn't fuck with characters ENOUGH for my taste. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 24, 2011, 12:18:46 PM Yeah, part of the issue in Cataclysm at cap for a lot of my friends (it seemed like, anyway) was how long the dungeons could be, and they were long because of filler, for the most part.
EDIT: Fordel, I was TALKING HERE. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 24, 2011, 12:20:26 PM Go back to being old in the SWTOR thread! :raspberry:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Morfiend on October 24, 2011, 12:32:02 PM Yeah, part of the issue in Cataclysm at cap for a lot of my friends (it seemed like, anyway) was how long the dungeons could be, and they were long because of filler, for the most part. I hate how long the heroic dungeons are in Cata. Give me back the 10 to 20 minute dungeons of Wrath any day. If I want to run for longer, I can just do two of them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 24, 2011, 12:35:47 PM I've always (mostly) liked the big changes expansion to expansion class-wise, it keeps it more interesting for me.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on October 24, 2011, 12:36:54 PM Blizzard has no idea how to balance a hybrid class, that's why people that play druids and pallys always have something to complain about when xpacs hit.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 24, 2011, 12:58:25 PM And you know MoP will be silly all the time, because...? I've played WoW. Part of why I quit is because I played the goblin starting area, and the jokes got old after the first 5 minutes. In thinking on it further, I wouldn't say it's pandas or pokemons or anything specific like that. It's that Blizzard has, in general, lost their sense of humor. Yeah, part of the issue in Cataclysm at cap for a lot of my friends (it seemed like, anyway) was how long the dungeons could be, and they were long because of filler, for the most part. I hate how long the heroic dungeons are in Cata. Give me back the 10 to 20 minute dungeons of Wrath any day. If I want to run for longer, I can just do two of them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on October 24, 2011, 01:02:30 PM People who enjoy wow as it is, most likely don't give two shits about pandas. You have not been reading the WoW forums since this was announced, people who enjoy wow are raging all over the place. Plus there is some lgbt thing and Samwise's terrible musician buddy said some bad things and Metzen is busy drawing up plans to destroy another alliance outpost.It's pretty poisonous over there and has been ever since blizzcon started. Edit: You know, more poisonous than normal. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 24, 2011, 01:05:20 PM It's pretty poisonous over there and has been ever since blizzcon started. It's been pretty poisonous since open beta started in 2004. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on October 24, 2011, 01:05:54 PM Hah, you beat my edit.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 24, 2011, 01:29:11 PM The LGBT thing should just show you it's trollers looking to troll. At the lore Q&A one woman.. ONE.. stepped up and asked "Why are there no LBGT characters?" The response was essentially, "We haven't had a character that felt like that was a necessary part of their arc. We're not actively looking to exclude people, but it hasn't made sense in the narrative to this point."
That was the end of it. The forums, in their usual classy way, decided this was a horde of LGBT people looking to push their agenda and gay-up WoW and damnit we can't have that! The furor would have been less if they'd said "Why aren't there any black characters?" but it still would have been there.. only it would have been deleted PDQ. I don't know about the musician thing, I must've missed it. Ditto the Metzen destroying another outpost thing... but lots of people were up-in-arms when he came into the opening ceremony wearing an Alliance hoodie, so there you go. The paradigm of all internet cesspools turns something nondescript into a bitching point.. not news. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 24, 2011, 01:39:22 PM I think that the 'musician thing' was the lead, um, singer (growler? shouter?) of Cannibal Corpse trash-talking the Alliance. Which, you know, he's been doing for a while: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW_Lv0r-l4c
Outpost-destruction? Hope nobody is bound in Theramore. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on October 24, 2011, 01:41:12 PM The musician thing came from one of the bands that played (which is, from what i can tell, a Horde themed Undead band or something) where the Lead singer of the band decided to do a bit of "heavy metal Horde Role Play" during the performance, and wsa cussing at the the alliance, and saying Horde rule, alliance suck (though appearently with a fairly heafty dose of foul language). Outraged alliance fanboys decided that this must represent Blizzards IRL opinion of Alliance Players or some stupid shit like that and got all huffy on the fourms.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 24, 2011, 02:00:21 PM Oh, right. Level 90 Elite Tauren Chieftains. I can't imagine why they'd have a song trashing the Alliance.. Tauren are so pro-Alliance, y'know. :awesome_for_real:
And as Simond pointed out, that was the lead singer for CC. Boy is he going to miss all those Alliance dollars when they do their next album! :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Amaron on October 24, 2011, 02:07:16 PM The entire creation myth of the game is that all the species started out as robots created by the Titans. That started in vanilla with Uldaman. Pandaren are god damn normal compared to that. I can understand that people feel this is more "in their face" but the game really has always been this way.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 24, 2011, 02:26:04 PM Most of the current dungeons don't have that many interesting mechanics, they just have a ton of trash that took a lot of time when the dungeons were current. For example Grim Batol had a ton of brutal trash that you had to grind through, but only 4 actual bosses. Cut the trash down by 60% and you have as much good gameplay in the dungeon but only spend half as long in there. The only dungeons that really had too much trash, imo, were SFK and DM which was due to them being remakes of long dungeons. GB had a crazy amount of trash, but if you did the dragons well it actually took less time to clear the trash than any of the other level 85 dungeons. I thought the boss mechanics were interesting for 5-mans in Cata, but that's what I suspect will be changing. We won't see anything like Ozruk in MoP. Dangerous mechanics will be gone because they 'set groups up to fail'. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 24, 2011, 02:28:23 PM There's only like a 20% chance that the dragons get done well in GB, though.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 24, 2011, 02:42:27 PM It was lower than that in my experience, but I stopped running dungeons 7 or 8 months ago. PVP for gear FTW.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 24, 2011, 03:14:20 PM Cata dungeons obviously worked much better with organized groups of friends rather than complete strangers.
MoP dungeons might work poorly for organized groups (boring transparent loot treadmill), but they will work much better for strangers using the LFD tool. It comes down to how much you use LFD. I sort of benefited from skipping Wrath, because I hadn't gotten used to using LFD when Cata launched. My natural behavior when I wanted to run a dungeon at 85 was "get 4 friends to run this with me". If I'd played Wrath a lot, it might have been "use LFD tool" which would have meant failure for most of my early runs. After playing Cata since it launched, I'm now much more used to using the LFD tool for dungeons since guildies are on less with no new content to run. I'll probably be using LFD more often in MoP. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 24, 2011, 03:15:46 PM You are forgetting that some of us have friends that are absolutely terrible at the game.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on October 24, 2011, 03:17:08 PM Cata dungeons at launch were really weird because there was about a week (maybe less) of them being the best time ever and then it all went down a cliff for a while.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 24, 2011, 03:39:21 PM Nah, I'm not forgetting. We have a few players in our guild that are awful, including a priest that we usually raid with. Dies to every single mechanic you can possibly die to. The difference is, there is some hope of him learning each mechanic with us. If we just got a PuG via LFD, every new player we are grouped with is another forced learning experience.
Ultimately, I'll get over the nerfed MoP dungeons because I'm that excited about Pandaren and Monks. I do hope that, if they plan to make dungeon content easy in greens at 90, they give everyone doing 'challenge mode' an even lower ilvl. You could have easy 5-mans with level 90 greens and still make challenge mode hard by giving everyone the ilvl of lvl 87 greens, for example. I suspect they won't do this, and challenge mode will instead be 'the dungeons are still easy but now there is a time limit'. Wrath dungeons with time trials would have still been shitty dungeons. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 24, 2011, 03:45:08 PM I liked Wrath dungeons better than Cataclysm ones, personally. Not just because of the time thing, either (I like heroic Deadmines a lot, for heaven't sake, and that takes forever), they just felt better to me.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on October 24, 2011, 04:28:53 PM You are forgetting that some of us have friends that are absolutely terrible at the game. My first time through Grim Batol, and I was tanking in barely cut-off gear, we one-shot the third boss.Noobish tank, Drach was in the party, and it went off flawlessly. Figure that one out. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Mrbloodworth on October 24, 2011, 04:30:33 PM lol @ Corpsegrinder.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 24, 2011, 04:33:15 PM You are forgetting that some of us have friends that are absolutely terrible at the game. My first time through Grim Batol, and I was tanking in barely cut-off gear, we one-shot the third boss.Noobish tank, Drach was in the party, and it went off flawlessly. Figure that one out. Pics or it didn't happen! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 24, 2011, 04:55:26 PM You are forgetting that some of us have friends that are absolutely terrible at the game. My first time through Grim Batol, and I was tanking in barely cut-off gear, we one-shot the third boss.Noobish tank, Drach was in the party, and it went off flawlessly. Figure that one out. Drach died though right? Twice? EDIT: Also... was it heroic or normal? That one has an 85 normal. You can see how my brain cannot handle the idea of Drach not dying on that fight on heroic. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 24, 2011, 04:56:47 PM You are forgetting that some of us have friends that are absolutely terrible at the game. My first time through Grim Batol, and I was tanking in barely cut-off gear, we one-shot the third boss.Noobish tank, Drach was in the party, and it went off flawlessly. Figure that one out. Drach died though right? Twice? Which trash pull did he accidentally hit hero on? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 24, 2011, 04:59:03 PM Ahh, heroism on trash is probably my favorite Classic Drachmir Move, although dying twice is a good one too. I've heard the draenei dude death sound so often, they are linked together forever. If I'm killing draenei dude NPCs, when they die, I think of Drachmir.
My least favorite, of course, is that fucking earth elemental. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 24, 2011, 05:00:26 PM Well you'll be happy to know that his wolves have their taunt turned on again too, and he doesn't seem to know how to turn it off!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 24, 2011, 05:01:11 PM Grim batol elemental death gave me a grand mal seizure.
That's not a joke. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 24, 2011, 05:15:36 PM Yeah I remember reading about some problems with the death animation on those things along those lines, I believe they changed them eventually?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 24, 2011, 05:38:37 PM Yeah I remember reading about some problems with the death animation on those things along those lines, I believe they changed them eventually? Not sure, can't say I ever went back in there. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on October 24, 2011, 05:43:51 PM Drach died though right? Twice? Heroic. No deaths (on that fight). I'm not kidding when I say flawless.EDIT: Also... was it heroic or normal? That one has an 85 normal. You can see how my brain cannot handle the idea of Drach not dying on that fight on heroic. Though I think it was the Slap "you have no right to beat this fight so easily" in the Face thing kicking in. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 24, 2011, 05:44:20 PM Fight must have been bugged. :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Shrike on October 24, 2011, 09:20:56 PM Initially, I wasn't thrilled with the whole panda-people concept. My first thought was, hey, wasn't this a joke thing way back when? Then I remembered they were (briefly) in WCIII and I really did like the art in Pandaland. Kinda tired of frozen wastelands and nuclear hells from the last two expansions, so a nice quiet bamboo forest to frolic in is a welcome change.
Now the monk thing did give me pause. I have a real hate-on for the whole Dragonball-Z "it's over 9000!" thing. Serious hate. Don't like monks/marital artists/whatever in games. Then I watched the live feed and saw...draenei monks. Heavenly lights shown, choirs of angels sang, and life was good as I contemplated putting a cloven hoof through some orc's face. Yeah, I'm down with the monk now. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on October 24, 2011, 11:10:22 PM I think that the 'musician thing' was the lead, um, singer (growler? shouter?) of Cannibal Corpse trash-talking the Alliance. Which, you know, he's been doing for a while: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW_Lv0r-l4c Outpost-destruction? Hope nobody is bound in Theramore. :awesome_for_real: That was :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Mrbloodworth on October 25, 2011, 05:38:38 AM Huh, I didn't know they added him as an NPC. (http://youtu.be/JE0IKQbInN8?hd=1)
Quote from: Gorge the Corpsegrinder "We need to get these tanks back up and runnin'! They ain't gonna fix themselves. Mobu's gonna be the one to handle that stuff. Talk to him and see what he needs. Maybe you can shut him up before he finally drives me into a berserker frenzy and I cleave his little gnome-sized frame in two! (http://www.wowhead.com/npc=25329/gorge-the-corpsegrinder#comments) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: sinij on October 25, 2011, 06:54:53 AM By comparison Cata thread was 30 pages long at this point. I am not sure if you can judge interest by thread length, but there is A LOT LESS excitement about pandas as far as f13 posting goes.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: kaid on October 25, 2011, 08:04:29 AM I am not so sure if its less interest in MoP or the feeling of being a bit burned by Cata making people a bit gunshy this time around. I still find it sad I managed in my tiny family guild to do all the wrath content except killing LK and at least we got to him a bunch.
In cata we were able to do none of the raid content which eventually blew my guild up. I know its been nerfed pretty hard but the brick wall of difficulty it initially had was so dissapointing. In wrath nax let us get people who normally never raided to enjoy raiding even if they were not the most skilled people. Now its know the entire fight before you even try it and if anybody does anything wrong even for a split second you fail. Seriously normal mode should not be that hard it should be causual pugable heroic mode is where the difficulty should be so the eppeeners can have their dick waving contests. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on October 25, 2011, 08:18:50 AM It's the burn thing.
The Game is Old. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on October 25, 2011, 08:25:46 AM It's the burn thing. The Game is Old. I'd be willing to start over and give WoW another shot if they made strides to show they never intend to cater to the hardcore again. However, I just don't think they will, even with Pandas. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on October 25, 2011, 08:40:32 AM I dunno. Having a wee play recently due to the hack and I see it back to the same state it used to be : easier to do.
What bothers me is I have to deal with the same retards with a much bigger sense of entitlement. It's just bull buggeringly unfun. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Reg on October 25, 2011, 08:44:48 AM I just got an email from them telling me my account has been reactivated for the next 14 days. I'd probably at least log in but I uninstalled it all a couple of weeks ago and it's not worth the bother to reinstall.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on October 25, 2011, 10:23:49 PM I'm sure i'll pick it up at some stage. But hell, I still haven't bothered to install my Cataclysm yet. (well, I haven't played since Jan-Feb, aside from a freebie week a few months ago).
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Mrbloodworth on October 26, 2011, 08:45:20 AM It's the burn thing. The Game is Old. I'd be willing to start over and give WoW another shot if they made strides to show they never intend to cater to the hardcore again. However, I just don't think they will, even with Pandas. What about the new talent tree? Personally, I can't get into wow, due to the fact I would have to buy each expansion at full price. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hawkbit on October 26, 2011, 08:51:17 AM Personally, I can't get into wow, due to the fact I would have to buy each expansion at full price. This is something they really need to get over. When MoP launches, they need to give everyone all their prior xpacs, and anyone buying the MoP dl or box gets the whole game. I know they make money off those sales, but it also keeps new players from entering their game due to the high upfront cost. Not that this hasn't been discussed before... but after four expansions you'd think they learned something. On a side note, for all the railing against MoP, for the first time in a year I am somewhat interesting in WoW again. I like the idea of quest hubs in zones instead of an arcing whole-zone storyline. It sounds a bit like they're trying to get back on the side of the casual players a bit. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: murdoc on October 26, 2011, 08:54:59 AM Personally, I can't get into wow, due to the fact I would have to buy each expansion at full price. This is something they really need to get over. When MoP launches, they need to give everyone all their prior xpacs, and anyone buying the MoP dl or box gets the whole game. I know they make money off those sales, but it also keeps new players from entering their game due to the high upfront cost. Not that this hasn't been discussed before... but after four expansions you'd think they learned something. On a side note, for all the railing against MoP, for the first time in a year I am somewhat interesting in WoW again. I like the idea of quest hubs in zones instead of an arcing whole-zone storyline. It sounds a bit like they're trying to get back on the side of the casual players a bit. I think when I bought Cata I was able to get the previous expansion I was missing for 75% off it's "regular" price. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 26, 2011, 10:11:05 AM For a brief window before Cata's launch they had a WOW-BC bundle for $19 and WOTLK for somewhere between $10-$14. The Bundle is still out there at that price but for some bizarre reason WOTLK is still listed at $38 on Amazon while Cata is $30.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pantastic on October 26, 2011, 10:34:35 AM The only dungeons that really had too much trash, imo, were SFK and DM which was due to them being remakes of long dungeons. GB had a crazy amount of trash, but if you did the dragons well it actually took less time to clear the trash than any of the other level 85 dungeons. The exact number of times I've seen all 4 dragons done well in a PUG: zero. Adding a weird mechanic that's got no training ground, gives no clue about the correct strategy (most bombing runs you look for specific targets, and the quest encourages that), and can't be redone if you fail is just bad design for something you expect people to casually pick up and run. The floating dungeon with Tol'Vir (it's been a while, I don't remember names) had absolutely stupid amounts of trash with really obnoxious mechanics (yes, I want to sit in place and wait for a PUG to properly time CC to avoid the triangle), and I'm sure there were others. Quote I thought the boss mechanics were interesting for 5-mans in Cata, but that's what I suspect will be changing. We won't see anything like Ozruk in MoP. Dangerous mechanics will be gone because they 'set groups up to fail'. I don't know, what I see people get frustrated on is 'spend an hour getting to the end, then fail and realize the group can't do it' not 'spend 15 minutes, realize the group fails, so grab another group and run again'. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on October 26, 2011, 10:57:56 AM The exact number of times I've seen all 4 dragons done well in a PUG: zero. Adding a weird mechanic that's got no training ground, gives no clue about the correct strategy (most bombing runs you look for specific targets, and the quest encourages that), and can't be redone if you fail is just bad design for something you expect people to casually pick up and run. The floating dungeon with Tol'Vir (it's been a while, I don't remember names) had absolutely stupid amounts of trash with really obnoxious mechanics (yes, I want to sit in place and wait for a PUG to properly time CC to avoid the triangle), and I'm sure there were others. Vortex Pinnacle, and it was (is) my most hated Cata dungeon. In addition to the stupid grouding field trash, there was an absurd amount of knockback that flung you off the edge and back to the beginning of the zone. Seriously, fuck that place.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on October 26, 2011, 11:08:17 AM The funniest thing was that I heard so much bad stuff about VP, and so few people actually wanted to do it, and it never came up on random, that I never ran the place once before I quit back in March.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 26, 2011, 11:13:46 AM VP really just has the one bad pull, but it was a pretty damn bad one early on.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 26, 2011, 11:46:02 AM When I tanked, vp was my fave, I kinda felt as though what I did as a tank there mattered in comparison to some other dungeons.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 26, 2011, 12:04:15 PM VP was probably the shortest dungeon too. The only packs I really had a problem with were the cat packs towards the end, which were stupid obnoxious if you didn't have enough CC. Other than that, I liked the dungeon and the bosses were pretty fun.
I did think it was hilarious that they designed Cata to be a better experience for new players, but expected new players to shell out $100+ to play, on top of paying a monthly subscription cost. People buying TBC/Wrath and soon Cata aren't even getting the full experience out of those expansion packs, since the leveling exp curve has been lowered so much. It's hard to justify paying $30-40 for Wrath as a new player when your total experience with Wrath will be leveling through 4-5 zones for a week. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 26, 2011, 12:06:18 PM You didn't have to pay $100+ to get the new player experience, though. You got all of that new 1-60 content (minus worgen and goblins) with just the base box.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on October 26, 2011, 12:08:24 PM I've spent the last week grouped with idiots that don't realise the healers should die first.
Fuck me. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on October 26, 2011, 12:09:15 PM I always got GB or that sandy Egypt one as my randoms.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 26, 2011, 12:14:42 PM Well when cat was released they made TBC part of the core game I believe, such that you would need to buy wrath and cat but not TBC anymore.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on October 26, 2011, 12:21:16 PM Fuck VP and that dragon boss. That encounter alone wiped more PUGs than the beam mechanic in BRD. Hell, the dragon TRASH wiped a few groups early on because guys didn't understand to pull the dragon out of the healing circle... which you'd never seen before.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on October 26, 2011, 12:24:13 PM It was also a pain in the ass to get yourself in the healing circle to make it easier. Which I always thought was kind of the point.
Just retarded. The Dragon Boss just had a mechanic that was totally opaque and obtuse at first - You literally had NO CLUE what the fuck was going on. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 26, 2011, 12:34:14 PM I love that dragon boss, it produces absolutely ludicrously entertaining dps numbers.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on October 26, 2011, 01:12:26 PM Well when cat was released they made TBC part of the core game I believe, such that you would need to buy wrath and cat but not TBC anymore. Later than that, only in 4.2 (http://www.wowpedia.org/Patch_4.2#General). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on October 26, 2011, 01:23:50 PM I just got an email from them telling me my account has been reactivated for the next 14 days. I'd probably at least log in but I uninstalled it all a couple of weeks ago and it's not worth the bother to reinstall. I'll have to check that out. I'd be happy with a couple of free weeks. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Mrbloodworth on October 26, 2011, 01:24:02 PM For a brief window before Cata's launch they had a WOW-BC bundle for $19 and WOTLK for somewhere between $10-$14. The Bundle is still out there at that price but for some bizarre reason WOTLK is still listed at $38 on Amazon while Cata is $30. Its all silly. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 26, 2011, 01:28:35 PM You didn't have to pay $100+ to get the new player experience, though. You got all of that new 1-60 content (minus worgen and goblins) with just the base box. You did if you wanted to play Draenei, BE, Goblin, or Worgen though. Given how ugly every other race's model is at this point, would a new player actually choose to play anything else? In MoP a new player will be in the same boat with Pandaren and Monks. The other problem is that, yeah, you only had to buy the vanilla box to do the 'new player experience', but that experience lasts much less time than it did in 2004. Even a new player would rocket to 60 pretty quickly, and then they need to decide whether they want to spend another $80+ on the game. I realize that players now get TBC for free too, but that wasn't the case when the new 1-60 launched initially. 60-70 doesn't last especially long either, but it does help. The dragon boss was probably one of my favorite bosses in Cata, though it was improved when they made the wind graphic more obvious. I hope they don't blow challenge mode in MoP. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 26, 2011, 01:34:31 PM As mentioned earlier Draenei and Blood Elves have been bundled with the basic set since before Cata launched. You only missed out on them if you were working from a trial account.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 26, 2011, 01:52:59 PM My point was that when the new 1-60 launched and you might have told your friends "come check out WoW", those races were still locked out to you. I think this changed shortly after Cata launched, but the new 1-60 experience launched a few months before that.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 26, 2011, 01:58:17 PM Fuck VP and that dragon boss. That encounter alone wiped more PUGs than the beam mechanic in BRD. Hell, the dragon TRASH wiped a few groups early on because guys didn't understand to pull the dragon out of the healing circle... which you'd never seen before. Absolutely not my experience. That fucking beam boss is EASILY the #1 PUG wrecker I have encountered. Hell, that dungeon is the new Occulus for me, in that half the time it'll pop and half the group drops because fuck that beam boss. VP might've been harder at the start of Cataclysm, but that beam boss still crushes PUGs. VP is a faceroll now. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on October 26, 2011, 02:17:01 PM Fuck VP and that dragon boss. That encounter alone wiped more PUGs than the beam mechanic in BRD. Hell, the dragon TRASH wiped a few groups early on because guys didn't understand to pull the dragon out of the healing circle... which you'd never seen before. Absolutely not my experience. That fucking beam boss is EASILY the #1 PUG wrecker I have encountered. Hell, that dungeon is the new Occulus for me, in that half the time it'll pop and half the group drops because fuck that beam boss. VP might've been harder at the start of Cataclysm, but that beam boss still crushes PUGs. VP is a faceroll now. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 26, 2011, 02:27:19 PM Beam boss was the last boss of the dungeon, so you could only skip him if you didn't feel like completing the dungeon and getting your LFD rewards.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Morfiend on October 26, 2011, 02:36:46 PM Is it odd that myself with 3 level 85 characters, who runs heroics on all 3 has run Halls of Origination over 40 times, and Grim Batol only once? Yes, I have only done grim batol one time.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 26, 2011, 02:43:42 PM Is it odd that myself with 3 level 85 characters, who runs heroics on all 3 has run Halls of Origination over 40 times, and Grim Batol only once? Yes, I have only done grim batol one time. Be glad, be very glad. That dungeon is just too long. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on October 26, 2011, 03:07:18 PM Beam boss was the last boss of the dungeon, so you could only skip him if you didn't feel like completing the dungeon and getting your LFD rewards. Uh, what? The beam boss (http://www.wowpedia.org/Corla,_Herald_of_Twilight) is not the final boss of BRC, Obsidius (http://www.wowpedia.org/Ascendant_Lord_Obsidius) is (the add kiting guy).Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 26, 2011, 03:23:03 PM Miscommunication, thought you were talking about the last boss of VP (who also does his triangle beam thing that I have seen wipe LFD groups). BRC beam boss is definitely the #1 pug wrecker.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on October 26, 2011, 04:26:43 PM Beam boss was the last boss of the dungeon, so you could only skip him if you didn't feel like completing the dungeon and getting your LFD rewards. Beam boss is like ... the second boss? The last boss is that ethereal dude. The skippable boss is the core hound mom. EDIT: Whoops, someone told you already. Well, whatever. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on October 26, 2011, 05:38:43 PM Is it odd that myself with 3 level 85 characters, who runs heroics on all 3 has run Halls of Origination over 40 times, and Grim Batol only once? Yes, I have only done grim batol one time. Granted I only had a month of play, but I never saw Stonecore except to walk inside the instance to unlock it. Oh, but it loved queuing me for Grim Batol as a tank when I could barely squeeze into heroics.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 26, 2011, 05:46:53 PM She's not skippable - Raz won't clear the bridge of dragon dudes after her unless she's dead.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 27, 2011, 05:31:16 PM For the paladins complaining that they have to do things like choose between Repentance and the stun:
Quote Ghostcrawler: Harvest of Life upgrades Drain Life (Drain Life turns into Harvest, which is a mechanic we use for several spells such as Strangulate -> Asphyxiate and HoJ -> Fist of Justice). Soul Harvest is being removed, but shards passively regen outside of combat or can Drain Soul in combat to replace them. Mortal Coil is the new Death Coil. So you're not losing HoJ. There are almost certainly a lot of other similar things that we are unjustly freaking out about because we don't have the context yet of the core/spec abilities in the new system. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on October 28, 2011, 07:14:48 PM (http://i.imgur.com/myLOL.jpg)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on October 28, 2011, 07:50:50 PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyDbfCbQnH8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyDbfCbQnH8) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Evildrider on October 28, 2011, 08:06:32 PM I could really care less about the Pandas, I'm done with WoW when SWTOR comes out anyway. The thing that would have drove me away anyway, is the talent revamp.
I'm tired of having that crap change every expansion. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Margalis on October 29, 2011, 08:07:29 PM In the next expansion they should add the Smurfs, then you can post that picture again.
If you didn't complain about Panda Bears then clearly you can't complain about Smurfs! That ship has sailed! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 29, 2011, 08:15:04 PM Have you seen Gnomes?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on October 29, 2011, 08:44:40 PM Unfortunately.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Margalis on October 29, 2011, 09:02:30 PM Gnomes are just small people, not small blue people who live in mushrooms and all Smurf the same chick.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 29, 2011, 09:57:10 PM So you haven't seen gnomes then. :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on October 29, 2011, 10:12:31 PM Gnomes aren't blue, but Smurfs don't have pink hair, so I'm going to call it a wash.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on October 30, 2011, 03:16:27 AM Gnomes are just small people, not small blue people who live in mushrooms and all Smurf the same chick. http://www.wowhead.com/faction=970/sporeggar:awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on October 30, 2011, 09:42:52 AM I totally forgot about those little guys, even after I farmed their damn rep up to exalted too.
"HAAALP, THEY'RE EATING USSSS! :ye_gods:" Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on October 30, 2011, 11:11:15 AM Gnomes aren't blue, but Smurfs don't have pink hair, so I'm going to call it a wash. They're also not furry. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on October 30, 2011, 05:33:26 PM RE: Talents
Quote World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Burning King 6.0.1 Patch Notes: Talents: - We have divided talents into major and prime talents, because we still don't get fucking simple shit like the fact that decreasing the total number of talent points available increases the marginal value of each talent point. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on November 07, 2011, 12:45:19 AM So anyway.. what are the current subscription options and prices for WoW? :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on November 07, 2011, 04:05:34 AM Monthly @ 14.99
3 month @ 13.99 - $41.97 6 month @ 12.99 - $77.94 The "Buy a year" deal has to be signed-up for at one of those rates of your choosing. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on November 07, 2011, 11:16:27 AM A couple people pointed out that game time cards work for the deal too. That means, if you can find something like the 'buy two get one' deal Target was doing a week or two ago, it's the cheapest way to do the yearly sub.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on November 07, 2011, 02:38:25 PM It's not really so much as "Buy A Year" but "Commit to a 1 year contract". Basicly, if you even remotely think you are going to be playing WoW for one more year, just lock yourself into the 1 year contract (pay for a year in whatever payment plan you feel like), and get Diablo III for free.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on November 08, 2011, 12:32:13 AM Hm, I havent played WoW in quite awhile, but I always enjoy it when I go back. Usually I last about 3 months before losing interest though. Free D3 seems like it might be worth the extra sub time, though - particularly given how much it's likely to cost. And of course, I'll have WoW time for the cost of the D3.
Basically, I was planning to sub to WoW for about 4 months anytime now (via timecards), I'd be buying D3 anyway, and I like vanity mounts... :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on November 08, 2011, 04:38:17 AM Huh. You do come out at about a wash with that logic, provided you aren't planning on buying one of the D3 CE packs.
3month sub + 1 month + D3 = 41.97 + 14.99 + ~60 = 121.96 (2) * 6 month = $155.88 A $34 difference but I suppose that's not too much if you're after both. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on November 08, 2011, 11:33:29 AM Well, they "value" a D3 CE Key as worth 4 months to your sub as well in their deal. How much is a CE likely to run? EB Australia is doing preorders for $148, so I assume around the $70 mark for the rest of the world? - that's $60 worth of sub time based on the monthly fee.. so it's +$20ish for the D3CE ...which sadly is also tempting. Damn these smart bunnies.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on November 08, 2011, 01:08:16 PM I remember paying $75USD for the WC3 CE back in the day. The WOW CEs were all ~$80 and I believe SC2 was as well.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 08, 2011, 01:11:31 PM The D3 CE is $99.99 here I believe.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on November 08, 2011, 07:45:59 PM SC2's CE was also $99.99.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on November 09, 2011, 04:05:41 AM The D3 CE is $99.99 here I believe. ...making it the same price as the regular here. I'll see what the UK sites have it for before I decide which way to go with it. I do like a nice art book, though. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on November 10, 2011, 06:21:18 AM Quote Monk tanks will choose between using two different types of mechanics through Dark and Light. For example, Dark may be an absorption shield which is larger depending on how many Force you consume. And Light may be increased avoidance. You can build up and store Dark for a big shield when you need it, or if you don't really need much self-survivability you then you can just spend your Dark Force on DPS instead. The Brewmaster also has drinks as short-term buffs, which restore Light or Dark Force, Chi etc. snipped from a blue post, is blizzard trolling swtor? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on November 10, 2011, 08:00:31 AM I await the Lucasarts C&D for use of Dark and Light Force.
Or did they lose that one.. I can't keep track of all their IP suits anymore. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on November 10, 2011, 12:55:32 PM Quote As a Monk you can heal competitively without ever having to target a friendly player. Sold! Well, sold if I had any intention of getting MoP, which is looking unlikely at the moment. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on November 10, 2011, 01:51:31 PM Quote Monk tanks will choose between using two different types of mechanics through Dark and Light. For example, Dark may be an absorption shield which is larger depending on how many Force you consume. And Light may be increased avoidance. You can build up and store Dark for a big shield when you need it, or if you don't really need much self-survivability you then you can just spend your Dark Force on DPS instead. The Brewmaster also has drinks as short-term buffs, which restore Light or Dark Force, Chi etc. snipped from a blue post, is blizzard trolling swtor? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on November 22, 2011, 11:03:48 PM http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2563-Mists-of-Pandaria-Talent-Calculator-Now-Available-New-Skills-Discovered! New Spells and Talents and shit. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on November 22, 2011, 11:24:13 PM Symbiosis just gave my druid a hardon. Should be interesting to see what abilities you get from each class.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on November 22, 2011, 11:58:35 PM I think all of the 87 stuff will be pretty broken. Look at the mage one. Arcane mage with double CDs :ye_gods:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on November 23, 2011, 12:05:56 AM Wow, they really broke the creative bank with that new rogue spell. Execute.... but with a dagger! Identical to backstab as it currently functions for assassination spec, although now they've given it a brand new name. :oh_i_see:
The mage, druid, and warlock spells all seem pretty cool. Paladin's new spell ought to be useful. Edit: Given that the rogue spell is lvl 70, it's probably not the 'new' spell for Mists. Instead, it's a slightly repurposed backstab for assassination spec (sub spec still gets backstab). Let's hope thats the case anyway. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on November 23, 2011, 01:32:53 AM it's a backstab that works from the front - it's directly adressing an issue and making the muti-spec not utterly useless on some encounters plus making positioning in bigger raids slightly more easier. Not enough space for all cats & rogues in the back? No problem.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on November 23, 2011, 03:58:25 AM I think all of the 87 stuff will be pretty broken. Look at the mage one. Arcane mage with double CDs :ye_gods: The mage one seems very gimmick ish, what with the 4 second window. Pop all your cooldowns, get 3 seconds of dps (like, what 3 casts when you factor in the global cooldown) then poof, back to start? Its not going to be a dps booster unless used insanely creatively.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on November 23, 2011, 03:59:38 AM The way I read it, it was much more of an 'INCOMING DAMAGE SPIKE FROM BOSS', poof, I'm saved and at full health, just to make it easier on the healers.
It all looks even more ass than Cataclysm. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on November 23, 2011, 06:31:23 AM Quote World of Warcraft: Mist of Pandaria 5.0.9 Patch Notes: Druid: - Based on internal testing the Symbiosis ability never existed. Now let us never speak of this again. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on November 23, 2011, 07:18:36 AM I do not like my priest talents and wonder what happens to all the important stuff I have in my trees now, like all the crap that actually increases how much healing I do... Whole lot of pvp stuff in there but I don't do much of that.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on November 23, 2011, 07:37:58 AM all of that is integrated into your spec. Instead of the balance team assuming you clicked your 15% increased healing on x and y talent and your z ability talent and balancing the game accordingly, they just give you the increased 15% healing on x and y and the ability z as you level up. It's like the summary skills on crack.
Think of the new talents as a combination of talents & glyphs, that you can always switch on the fly depending on what you're doing. Some stuff you use for pvp, some you use for pve, some you use for very specific pve encounters. On the new talent tool, after you pick a spec, you can filter the abilities you get by class and spec and see exactly when you're getting penance or circle of healing. I'm still not entirely sold, as the choices are a bit limited for hybrids (and I play a shadow priest myself), but check out a pure class' ones if you want to see the system shine. For example the 75lvl of warlocks. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on November 23, 2011, 08:16:26 AM It's utter wank, but I can rely on Rokal to come in and tell me how wondrous and rock hard it'll make my penis if I just GIVE IT A CHANCE.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on November 23, 2011, 09:24:31 AM To be honest I respect where they're coming from. Old talents (and cata ones to be honest) are silly - why have a talent that makes your spec heal for 15% more and then balance the game assuming everyone has that talent, instead of just cut out the middleman and have that be the baseline for the spec. Why have two glyphs one to make one ability pve-y and one to make another one pvp-y, instead of just adding those to the baseline of the abilities. Make specs/classes "different" and "cool" by them having "different" and "cool" abilities, buttons that are fun to press, and then have the stripped down, relatively clear cut choices that have limited application based on what you're doing at the moment (arenas vs battlegrounds, different raid encounters, etc). A discipline priest has a different gameplay than a holy priest by virtue of having strong shields, penance, atonement and divine aegis and having to play around the limitations and strengths of those aspects. The act of me clicking on the divine aegis talent is irrelevent to said gameplay. My issue with the system is that, like I said above, that choice is somewhat limited for a DPS spec, when the other two specs on that class are both healers, not with the system itself.
Than again, I still enjoy the game and have a staff that turns me into a lady dragon. So I might just be fanboying it up :) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 23, 2011, 09:25:40 AM I still find myself utterly paralyzed between some of the warrior choices now that I see this. That seems better to me in some way than the non-choices I was making before.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on November 23, 2011, 09:30:41 AM DK's getting an Undead Charm :awesome_for_real:
Edit: Oh fuck, they're making some heal-spells spec specific? :ye_gods: You mean...no more Prot or Ret Pallys bubbling up and spamming Holy Light? Y U NO DO THIS YEARS AGO, BLIZ?! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on November 23, 2011, 10:10:35 AM It's utter wank, but I can rely on Rokal to come in and tell me how wondrous and rock hard it'll make my penis if I just GIVE IT A CHANCE. It's changing "spec" from "diablo skill tree" to "advanced class". Which, essentially, is how "diablo skill tree"s always end up being anyway; this just removes the "Get optimal spec from class forum/EJ/etc, copy into game" part.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on November 23, 2011, 11:24:13 AM Yay !!!
No, wait. That's wank. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on November 23, 2011, 11:55:32 AM It's utter wank, but I can rely on Rokal to come in and tell me how wondrous and rock hard it'll make my penis if I just GIVE IT A CHANCE. Actually, I prefer the old talent trees that were completely bloated and the Cata talent trees to the MoP 'trees'. A couple weeks ago when we were working on heroic Beth, our Marksmanship hunter had to move some points around so that his spec was better at handling aoe. After he moved a couple points around, it was like night and day in his ability to handle spiderlings. I think situations like that are actually pretty cool. I know the counter-argument is 'well, the aoe spec is also cookie cutter' but this player found a medium that he was happy with so that he could keep one spec that was good at aoe and single target dps. I think the game should have more decisions like that, not less. Looking at the rogue 'talent trees' in MoP, 95% of the abilities are about making choices for pvp. The remaining choices that do impact PvE are very easy choices to make. I don't think the system is any better. What I was posting about with enthusiasm was the new abilities, some of which seem pretty cool. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on November 23, 2011, 12:23:45 PM The situation you described, probably involving picking up Bombardment and swapping Frenzy in BM for Entrapment in Survival, are exactly the kinds of choices that the new talent trees are about.
Outside of those 2-3 choices, everything else in the trees is fixed anyway. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on November 23, 2011, 12:35:00 PM I still find myself utterly paralyzed between some of the warrior choices now that I see this. That seems better to me in some way than the non-choices I was making before. I don't see how you could be. Someone at Blizzard should rename Warbringer "Improved Blinked Out Of", see if any higher-ups notice. Which gives you your PvE and PvP option in T1 In T2 Enraged Regeneration is for PvE, Second Wind is for PvP, and Impending Victory is for soloing old raids. All of T3 is for PvP, but Piercing Howl is the most likely one to get used in an instance. A tank might be able to put Cripple to some use. In T4 Rude Interruption is for the fury warrior, and you actually have two viable options for tanking or PvP. In T5 Deadly Calm is for burst DPS/Threat, Death Wish is really fucking weak, and Bull Rush is for DPS on any fight where you can get 2+ charges off. In T6 Bladestorm is 2H AoE, Shockwave is 1H AoE, and Avatar paired WW or Cleave is probably better AoE DPS anyways. Lastly, if we're lucky the apparent lack of a stance requirement on abilities is not a bug and nobody will take anything but Avatar because they'll be too busy hammering Whirlwind in Defensive stance. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on November 23, 2011, 12:35:52 PM I do not like the direction they are seemingly going with druids. You know whats going to make my Moonkins DPS rotation awesome, having to shift into cat for 45 seconds every 3 minutes or whatever. :oh_i_see:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on November 23, 2011, 12:42:24 PM I do not like the direction they are seemingly going with druids. You know whats going to make my Moonkins DPS rotation awesome, having to shift into cat for 45 seconds every 3 minutes or whatever. :oh_i_see: What does it matter? We'll be shooting healing bullets in less than a month :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on November 23, 2011, 12:44:13 PM Oh, I forgot. Combine Warbringer and Bull Rush. Sit back, take a long look, and think about it.
I guarantee you Blizzard didn't. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on November 23, 2011, 12:48:50 PM I do not like the direction they are seemingly going with druids. You know whats going to make my Moonkins DPS rotation awesome, having to shift into cat for 45 seconds every 3 minutes or whatever. :oh_i_see: What does it matter? We'll be shooting healing bullets in less than a month :awesome_for_real: I'll be getting the healing bullets shot at me technically, but these are posts better spent in our quest to 400! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on November 23, 2011, 12:49:02 PM DK's getting an Undead Charm :awesome_for_real: Edit: Oh fuck, they're making some heal-spells spec specific? :ye_gods: You mean...no more Prot or Ret Pallys bubbling up and spamming Holy Light? Y U NO DO THIS YEARS AGO, BLIZ?! Could be OK but it'll be mostly shit. DKs don't want to be melee hunters, swapping out undead pets based on group comp and having to re-charm every 30 mins. Hell, I think most would be A-ok without having to micromanage the ghoul in the first place. (Worst part of Unholy for me.) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on November 23, 2011, 12:50:10 PM The DK pet is one of the best parts about DKs for me.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on November 23, 2011, 12:53:22 PM Well we're going to Pandaria...I could understand the benefit of Undead charming in the frozen wastelands of Northrend where Arthas' undead army sits around shooting the breeze, but after that, just how much undead is one going to find outside of dungeons and raids in an Asian-themed jungle?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on November 23, 2011, 12:56:16 PM You'll charm some panda's dead ancestors and love it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 23, 2011, 01:01:03 PM I still find myself utterly paralyzed between some of the warrior choices now that I see this. That seems better to me in some way than the non-choices I was making before. I don't see how you could be. Someone at Blizzard should rename Warbringer "Improved Blinked Out Of", see if any higher-ups notice. Which gives you your PvE and PvP option in T1 In T2 Enraged Regeneration is for PvE, Second Wind is for PvP, and Impending Victory is for soloing old raids. All of T3 is for PvP, but Piercing Howl is the most likely one to get used in an instance. A tank might be able to put Cripple to some use. In T4 Rude Interruption is for the fury warrior, and you actually have two viable options for tanking or PvP. In T5 Deadly Calm is for burst DPS/Threat, Death Wish is really fucking weak, and Bull Rush is for DPS on any fight where you can get 2+ charges off. In T6 Bladestorm is 2H AoE, Shockwave is 1H AoE, and Avatar paired WW or Cleave is probably better AoE DPS anyways. Lastly, if we're lucky the apparent lack of a stance requirement on abilities is not a bug and nobody will take anything but Avatar because they'll be too busy hammering Whirlwind in Defensive stance. From a PVE tanking perspective: T1: Warbringer is my last choice. The other two both have good points, I find it hard to choose between them. T2: Yes, this one is obvious. T3: These are all good. You may not have noticed that concussion blow is gone. That makes throwdown much more appealing. T4: Hard choice between a ranged interrupt and an area interrupt, but I probably go with gag order since I'd have to spend 6 months learning that no, heroic throw does not interrupt, like I do every time I try to PVP as something other than prot. T5: The other obvious one. T6: No freaking clue what will be best. It would suck to lose the control aspect of shockwave in some situations, but avatar might be more versatile. Bladestorm is probably the least useful for a tank. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 23, 2011, 01:02:59 PM Well we're going to Pandaria...I could understand the benefit of Undead charming in the frozen wastelands of Northrend where Arthas' undead army sits around shooting the breeze, but after that, just how much undead is one going to find outside of dungeons and raids in an Asian-themed jungle? There are a shitload of ghosts and spirits and other undead sorts of things in Asian folklore, you shouldn't be worried. If you're really lucky, there will be some of these guys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRZ1yid7sYY :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on November 23, 2011, 01:05:46 PM Is gag order actually gone, I haven't checked the warrior specialization spells.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 23, 2011, 01:08:28 PM Gag order is a talent. Concussion blow is GONE though. (QQ)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on November 23, 2011, 01:11:10 PM I dislike the artistic style of these new talent icons, and how they've gone back and changed current ones.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 23, 2011, 01:17:59 PM What classes changed? Warrior ones look the same to me, haven't delved into others yet.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on November 23, 2011, 01:18:55 PM What classes changed? Warrior ones look the same to me, haven't delved into others yet. The T6 Mage ones make we want to choke a bitch. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on November 23, 2011, 01:30:31 PM The situation you described, probably involving picking up Bombardment and swapping Frenzy in BM for Entrapment in Survival, are exactly the kinds of choices that the new talent trees are about. Outside of those 2-3 choices, everything else in the trees is fixed anyway. In theory that's what the new talent trees would do. It's taking the few decisions that you currently make with the current talent trees, adding a few more meaningful ones, and removing everything else. In reality, that isn't the case. You won't see something like bombardment as a talent choice in MoP because it's too punishing for players that don't pick it and are picked for an aoe role in a fight. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on November 23, 2011, 02:24:01 PM thing is, what you're talking about, actually requires quite a lot of points to shuffle and is a pretty serious DPS loss on all other fights.
Bombardment is standard fair in MM specs, it's picking up Concussive Barrage, Rapid Killing, Rapid Recuperation & Entrapment, which are all but useless on all other fights. The whole idea of the new trees is to cover for that, so you don't have to go respec and respec back, but just switch out a couple of talents and get the same effect. ps: I had to handle beth banelings on my hunter once, because ours was away. Shittiest night of wow EVER. Especially since we two heal the fight and you cant just run around in the green goo :uhrr: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on November 23, 2011, 02:29:22 PM Oh, I forgot. Combine Warbringer and Bull Rush. Sit back, take a long look, and think about it. I guarantee you Blizzard didn't. Ouch. As long as they removed that 'You can Execute When Enraged'. That would suck. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 23, 2011, 02:40:50 PM I'm pretty sure they mentioned comboing bull rush with the tier 1 talents in the presentation where they introduced this all in the first place.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on November 23, 2011, 03:31:17 PM Yay !!! So you're saying people don't just take the identikit "this is the best spec" talent selections and apply them to their character?No, wait. That's wank. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on November 23, 2011, 03:35:50 PM I'm pretty sure they mentioned comboing bull rush with the tier 1 talents in the presentation where they introduced this all in the first place. Right, as long as you take one of the other two. Option 3 is a trap. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on November 23, 2011, 04:19:37 PM They brought back Fel Sac. For fuck's sake, Blizzard.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on November 23, 2011, 05:05:08 PM So now no talent to increase DK range from 20y to 30y? And they finally put Hungering Cold out of its misery and removed it completely? Once upon a time Frost was so fun...
So now what's that gnome trainee dude supposed to cast on those undead at the Frost trainer? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on November 24, 2011, 02:51:22 AM Yay !!! So you're saying people don't just take the identikit "this is the best spec" talent selections and apply them to their character?No, wait. That's wank. No. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on November 24, 2011, 11:25:10 AM Cookie cutter DPS warrior build. (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#Z!01.122) - Technically T2 does have some DPS potential, but it's marginal.
Cookie cutter DPS death knight build. (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#d!2.0121) Cookie cutter DPS warlock build. (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#V!..2101) - Less certain about this one. Cookie cutter DPS mage build. (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#e!02200.) - Scorch might be better, depends on what exists for boss fights. Cookie cutter DPS rogue build. (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#c!1.01.2) - I'm going with Vendetta, KS looks more like PvP burst. Prep is okay, but I'm not sure an extra opener is worth an instant gap closer. Cookie cutter DPS hunter build. (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#Yb!210.10) - Somebody forgot to put a cooldown on Lock & Load. Oh, and feel free to argue with me, but I'm pretty sure this is the most cookie-cutter the game has ever been. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on November 24, 2011, 01:49:00 PM Oh, come on Sheepherder, I didn't expect to catch you with that one.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on November 24, 2011, 02:23:40 PM Cookie cutter DPS hunter build. (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#Yb!210.10) - Somebody forgot to put a cooldown on Lock & Load. Lock and Load's tooltip hasn't shown its ICD ever, it still has one though. As for your build: Arcane vs. Venom Tipped is a toss up depending on the encounter and the amount of damage that Venom Tipped does. You probably picked the least useful T2 skill for current encounter design. Both Intimidation and Silencing Shot are gold on certain fights. Evasiveness in T3 could be a really great defensive CD but Posthaste is nice too. T4 between Spirit Bond and Iron Hawk comes down to the encounter, but if Iron Hawk works on what's dangerous, it's the one to go for. Readiness vs. Thrill of the Hunt depends on the value of double Rapid Fire for the spec, so it's not a clear cut thing. In T6, Black Ice is the one I'd go with as I pretty frequently use Ice Trap. So, a lot less cookie-cutter than we have now, even just from a PvE perspective. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on November 24, 2011, 02:25:42 PM Nah, he's right; it's unbelievably cookie cutter. EJ tells you what to pick and, for the most part, you pick it or you get LFG shouted.
However, the solution to that is not to say 'wow, people don't make choices really, so let's take away even the illusion'. For me, I'd like them to give us a lot MORE choices and ones that are actually viable and different. But that'd be hard and WoW ain't the main game no more. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on November 24, 2011, 02:53:14 PM Has anyone anywhere every done that?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on November 24, 2011, 03:18:43 PM Nah, he's right; it's unbelievably cookie cutter. EJ tells you what to pick and, for the most part, you pick it or you get LFG shouted. You have an incredibly broad definition of the term "cookie cutter". For Hunters, there is simply not a one-size-fits-all talent spec above the encounter level. Every tier (except the first perhaps) is going to have some situations or assignments where at least two options are the best choice, and many of them are going to depend on things specific to one's raid or one's particular play style. Yes, guidelines will exist. I outlined a few of them. But to say that because some choices will be better than others some of the time that it's all "cookie cutter" is silly in my opinion. Then you are really saying that the only way to have choice is for it to be trivial choice. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 24, 2011, 03:26:39 PM I can't tell for sure but I think some of you are talking about how things are now currently in game, and others are talking about how they will be after the change, but you're all calling it "now".
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ashamanchill on November 24, 2011, 04:38:00 PM Nah, he's right; it's unbelievably cookie cutter. EJ tells you what to pick and, for the most part, you pick it or you get LFG shouted. It hasn't been this way for a while. Since the nerfs to Cata really. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on November 24, 2011, 04:56:54 PM So you're telling me that if I went to, say, a random class board on the official forums there wouldn't be threads on "here's the spec you will use for class_role_1, here's the spec you will use for class_role_2, here's the PvP spec"?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on November 24, 2011, 09:22:50 PM Arcane vs. Venom Tipped is a toss up depending on the encounter and the amount of damage that Venom Tipped does. You probably picked the least useful T2 skill for current encounter design. Both Intimidation and Silencing Shot are gold on certain fights. Evasiveness in T3 could be a really great defensive CD but Posthaste is nice too. T4 between Spirit Bond and Iron Hawk comes down to the encounter, but if Iron Hawk works on what's dangerous, it's the one to go for. Readiness vs. Thrill of the Hunt depends on the value of double Rapid Fire for the spec, so it's not a clear cut thing. In T6, Black Ice is the one I'd go with as I pretty frequently use Ice Trap. Arcane is worth 9 focus and one freed GCD every ~10 seconds. If you drop one Steady/Cobra and add an Arcane every 10s you're down 25 focus and plus the base damage difference between Steady/Cobra and Arcane. So given the tooltips, umm, 1.1 DPS at whatever level their calculator is calculating at. It's a good thing you won't be raiding Firelands in MoP then, isn't it? Evasiveness is situationally useful. Ghetto sprint is generally useful. You won't be taking much direct damage in raids or dungeons. TotH is mathematically equivalent to a 15% reduction in shot cost if the shot costs focus. The old TotH said base focus. Is that a stealth nerf to hunter, or a stealth nerf to clarity? Either way, Readiness is also free focus and free damage, but you eschew some of the free focus if you so desire by dropping steady/cobra shots. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on November 24, 2011, 11:45:53 PM the difference in encounter design between firelands, and say, ICC, is not that big. The difference in encounter design between Firelands and the brew cavern won't be that big either. You'll have different encounters that call for add control, mostly single target, mostly aoe, more movement, less movement. Within those encounters there will be different phases, one will call for ae, another will call for a patch dps burn, and your raid will balnce their talent loadout - how little aoe can they get away with, so the burn is faster/easier.
I honestly don't understand what the argument is here. Do you argue that current talents are better and less cookie-cutter than the purposed ones? I don't agree. Do you argue that the current talents are needed? I still don't agree. Do you argue that there is a game out there right now with better character development? Rift? TOR? Then argue that, don't argue that panda talents are cookie-cutter, because that simply is not true. Or are you arguing that there's a better system out there? You can probably say there will be a list of talent load outs, broken down by enocounter, that will be considered the norm. But that will be the norm in 25m, where there are enough bodies for regular skills to handle anything an encounter throws at you and your raid only needs to worry that they make a certain DPS check. I don't think there's a single person on this board raiding 25m, and in 10m you need to worry about those other things. And honestly, what is this shouting at people in LFD everyone's talking about. I've never had that, on any of the four characters I've ran through dungeons to gear. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on November 25, 2011, 01:08:33 AM Nah, he's right; it's unbelievably cookie cutter. EJ tells you what to pick and, for the most part, you pick it or you get LFG shouted. It hasn't been this way for a while. Since the nerfs to Cata really. Yes, but I don't have to like it. In the same way that I don't have to like what's proposed either, since it's more of the same but worse. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on November 25, 2011, 01:11:25 AM My Give Up.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ashamanchill on November 25, 2011, 02:11:03 AM I'm not really a fan of the new ones (from what I can see, which admittedly is little) either. I thought the whole reason they shrunk the talent trees down was so they could build from them again, but whatever. Personally, I'd rather just see a system where they take the Wrath era talent trees, as beastly as they were, and add in the bit where you get a skill and a few perks for speccing a certain way.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Threash on November 25, 2011, 04:46:58 AM It doesn't matter what they do there is always going to be a cookie cutter build when dps is concerned. Even the most balanced system in the world is going to have a build that is mathematically slightly superior and it will become the mandated build from then on.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: K9 on November 25, 2011, 05:09:48 AM Wow those shaman talents suck balls.
'Hey gusy! We herd u liek totems!' Tossers. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on November 25, 2011, 12:01:04 PM It doesn't matter what they do there is always going to be a cookie cutter build when dps is concerned. Even the most balanced system in the world is going to have a build that is mathematically slightly superior and it will become the mandated build from then on. The only time the old talent trees ever felt like they were really working is when I played a healer back in TBC. With DPS there always ends up being a build that is mathematically superior for any given fight. With healing, some of the choices came down to personal healing style. We had about 7 raiding priests in TBC, and every one of them had a slightly different build for healing. People decided whether they wanted to invest more in disc or holy since both had attractive options after your initial 41 in holy (or 21+ in disc). They also decided whether they wanted to invest more in instant spells like shield and renew, or cast-time heals like greater heal and prayer of healing. Since then, the healing trees have seen more specific 'rotations' reinforced by talent selection, so there isn't as much room to support varied healing styles. You aren't going to ignore talents that increase renew because A) Renew is free healing with the Chakra talent that you never have to re-cast and B) the only other available choices are PVP talents. That's not really a choice at all. By contrast in Rift I looked up level 50 cleric healing builds and there were about 8-9 completely different popular builds. I looked at the one that was closest to what I already had (Sent/Purifier even split) and still decided to place ~10 points in completely different places than what the cookie cutter build suggested. I miss that in WoW, and it's not coming back with MoP talents. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on November 25, 2011, 03:00:04 PM It doesn't matter what they do there is always going to be a cookie cutter build when dps is concerned. Even the most balanced system in the world is going to have a build that is mathematically slightly superior and it will become the mandated build from then on. Here's a novel idea: if you don't want people to take something, then don't give it to them, and certainly don't make it the most attractive option. If you're going to stick 28+ talents into a tree which serve no other purpose than to facilitate the role of that tree, you should not be surprised when people ignore the rest of the shit. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on November 25, 2011, 03:52:59 PM I.e. what Blizzard is doing in MoP.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on November 25, 2011, 07:40:17 PM Sure dude, you keep telling yourself that.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on November 25, 2011, 11:47:22 PM By contrast in Rift I looked up level 50 cleric healing builds and there were about 8-9 completely different popular builds. I looked at the one that was closest to what I already had (Sent/Purifier even split) and still decided to place ~10 points in completely different places than what the cookie cutter build suggested. I miss that in WoW, and it's not coming back with MoP talents. I don't see how you could bring up Cleric, especially Purifier and Sentinel, as a positive model. The trees themselves are full of dull filler and so many of their abilities overlap. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on November 26, 2011, 02:30:58 AM You do have some overlap both late and early in the trees, but in both cases it feels necessary. Healing Invocation is a pretty boring spell if you're also running Purifier, but it's necessary to be a well-rounded healer if you don't invest heavily in trees other than Sentinel. Same situation for the spells you pick up really early in any tree.
If you point out individual talents, sure, they're not that exciting. When you add them all together they result in a really tailor-made healing style though. Same situation as the TBC talent model. Was +1% effectiveness on Renew exciting? No, but if you picked up the renew talents it would be a stronger spell and it's a choice you can make it you liked to use HoTs or instants more than cast-heals. I think the Rift soul system is pretty excellent, and Cleric Healing Souls are probably my favorite example of what makes the system great. It's what a talent system should offer in an MMO: stylistic choices based on how you play that aren't necessarily better/worse than each other. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on November 26, 2011, 05:11:02 AM I'm still waiting to see Ironwood's response to Rokal also hating the talent changes.
It's utter wank, but I can rely on Rokal to come in and tell me how wondrous and rock hard it'll make my penis if I just GIVE IT A CHANCE. :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on November 26, 2011, 08:46:11 AM Nah, my point isn't "Isn't it wonderful!?!" but it's not actually going to make any real difference other than making terrible players slightly less terrible. Right now each spec is, essentially, "pick these talents or you're doing it wrong" and post-MoP the only thing being removed is the "doing it wrong" part.
I don't know, maybe some people here enjoy deliberately picking bad specs for no reason or something? :headscratch: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Selby on November 26, 2011, 09:36:46 AM Nah, my point isn't "Isn't it wonderful!?!" but it's not actually going to make any real difference other than making terrible players slightly less terrible. Even now it's so much further ahead than in the pre-WotLK talents where people would be level 50 and have 15 points in all 3 trees, essentially being the definition of terrible. Now they aren't allowed to diversify into terrible as badly, and in MoP it will be even harder to do so if not downright impossible.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on November 26, 2011, 12:25:31 PM Nah, my point isn't "Isn't it wonderful!?!" but it's not actually going to make any real difference other than making terrible players slightly less terrible. Right now each spec is, essentially, "pick these talents or you're doing it wrong" and post-MoP the only thing being removed is the "doing it wrong" part. I don't know, maybe some people here enjoy deliberately picking bad specs for no reason or something? :headscratch: It's all about what you want. My rogue's specs were never max-damage but max-nuisance factor. Why? Because she's was an exclusively PVP character. I'd wind-up keeping people sapped or controlled or draw off 3-4 people from a node/ flag/ at a time because they're idiots and wanted to kill the rogue who'd been annoying the shit out of them. Can't do that now, you're very limited and it's not as fun a character anymore. Not all classes allowed for this, but those that did were great, great fun to run up 2-3 trees at once and cherry pick utility talents because the upper tier were only DPS because that's what the game morphed into while catering to the raiding high-end. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on November 26, 2011, 01:52:46 PM I'm still waiting to see Ironwood's response to Rokal also hating the talent changes. It's utter wank, but I can rely on Rokal to come in and tell me how wondrous and rock hard it'll make my penis if I just GIVE IT A CHANCE. :why_so_serious: My response ? That this idea is SO FUCKING BAD that even the fanbois don't like it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on November 26, 2011, 02:11:04 PM Why is it bad?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on November 26, 2011, 07:19:51 PM Because it all hinges upon the new talents being roughly equivalent in terms of desirability for any given spec/gear combination, and they are not. Not even close, they are in fact so far off that I suspect Ghostcrawler was dropping acid when he made the warrior tree. There are just some things that don't make sense unless you can see sound.
Bladestorm does roughly half damage if you have a one-hand weapon in your main hand. Death Wish is utter shit. A 3 min. cooldown with a survivability penalty which grants an effect that otherwise procs naturally every time you crit. Warbringer is a joke, trading a massive improvement in the effectiveness of charge for a root that will get blinked or trinketed or shapeshifted or freedomed. Bull Rush is basically Death Wish without the penalty on a 20s cooldown, if you also take Juggernaut it's a 12s cooldown. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 26, 2011, 07:25:19 PM Bladestorm in-game now does less damage with a one-hander. You should probably not make assumptions about how it will work in MoP. Consider that whirlwind hits with both weapons when you're dual wielding, for example. And you're massively underestimating the warbringer root. You can charge 6 times during trinket's cooldown, but sure, it will just get trinketed every time, woe is us.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on November 26, 2011, 07:46:46 PM Bladestorm in-game now does less damage with a one-hander. You should probably not make assumptions about how it will work in MoP. Consider that whirlwind hits with both weapons when you're dual wielding, for example. Dude, the tooltip is right there. 150% weapon damage. Nothing about normalizing for two-handers vs. one-handers or dual wield vs. single weapon. Also not in the SMF or TG passives either. Quote And you're massively underestimating the warbringer root. You can charge 6 times during trinket's cooldown, but sure, it will just get trinketed every time, woe is us. No, it is in fact shit. It's worth less than one point in (current) improved hamstring, is redundant with the charge stun, and is mostly redundant with the hamstring or rend (with Cripple) you will toss on. It also telegraphs to the person you're rooting that if they trinket out of your root they have an extra 8s to get distance and beat the piss out of you. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 26, 2011, 09:50:55 PM Redundant with the charge stun that more or less expires before your GCD comes back up? :uhrr:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on November 27, 2011, 07:29:17 AM At which point you drop your hamstring or rend, and crisis averted.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 27, 2011, 08:15:52 PM Which is one more GCD that I'm not dropping a colossus blow burst nonsense move on them, one more GCD for them to get an important heal, etc.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on November 28, 2011, 04:53:28 AM just curious, are there any people that still play and do mostly pvp? Arenas or casual bgs?
I honestly do not understand why pvp is in Diku MMOs at all. I guess there's a segment that plays it, but what I don't understand is why they don't play quake, starcraft, battlefield or a moba of choice. You know actual pvp games. I honestly wouldn't care but there are a number of broken things in the game that will stay broken forever because of pvp. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on November 28, 2011, 06:48:38 AM what I don't understand is why they don't play quake, starcraft, battlefield or a moba of choice. You know actual pvp games. Because they like the fact that they can replace actually being good at the game with just farming better equipment. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on November 28, 2011, 06:52:01 AM I honestly wouldn't care but there are a number of broken things in the game that will stay broken forever because of pvp. Like what ? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on November 28, 2011, 07:03:26 AM Resto shamans are the biggest issue right now.
The way totems work in general and the earthbind & tremor totems in particular. Frost mages. Shadow's main interrupt is 45s, because they have an extra instant big CD interrupt that's only usable in PvP. Mage's interrupt is 24s, Hunter's interrupt is 20s. Only thing those clases have done wrong is that they're ranged, so they get a penalty. Because of pvp. Shadow Orbs exist because of PvP and I hate every last second of it. Why don't we take the spec that has the least RNG and awards consitant play with consitant results and introduce RNG in PvE so there's GREAT BURST in PvP. Many more examples. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on November 28, 2011, 07:27:57 AM what I don't understand is why they don't play quake, starcraft, battlefield or a moba of choice. You know actual pvp games. Because they like the fact that they can replace actually being good at the game with just farming better equipment. :awesome_for_real: No, more like because my PC won't handle quake or battlefield and the micromanagement of SC is NOT PvP it's "find a build order and execute it as quickly as possible." I play WoT if I want something shooter-esque but laugh at the kids playing like it's TF2/ headshot spactic bullshit. Plus, being in my late 30's I simply don't have the reflexes of a 17-22 year old so I'm at an eternal disadvantage. That's just science. DIKU pvp is one part gear, one part tactics one part sheer luck and one part twitch. Plus there's a greater goal than "kill the most doodz." I'm totally turned off by modern shooters, the last one I enjoyed was America's Army which "Shooter Enthusiasts" panned because it penalized most of their bullshit. Bunnyhopping, run-n-gun, charge the noob or camp the gun spawn, all invalidated in that game and it was loads better for it than MW/ BF or TF2. The GCDs and hit points keep me in the fight long enough to out-think and defeat most opponents. When it comes down to pure twitch I always lose. So, I PVP in DIKU because it offers something 'traditional' PVP games don't. A chance to use your head. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on November 28, 2011, 07:53:00 AM Which is one more GCD that I'm not dropping a colossus blow burst nonsense move on them, one more GCD for them to get an important heal, etc. You're going to be applying hamstring, or rend after the charge anyways.. If you don't and whatever you're beating on is the target of an ability to gain range (Blink, Demonic Portal, Demonic Circle, Demonic Leap, Thunderstorm, Disengage, Leap of Faith) you're going to be super fucked. It's worth noting that most of the new escape abilities have either bleed removal, or slow/snare removal, but usually not both. In light of this Cripple seems too good to pass up for PvP. Also, is it just me or is Demonology Warlock about one stat-to-avoidance talent away from being a tank? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on November 28, 2011, 08:17:16 AM what I don't understand is why they don't play quake, starcraft, battlefield or a moba of choice. You know actual pvp games. Because they like the fact that they can replace actually being good at the game with just farming better equipment. :awesome_for_real: No, more like because my PC won't handle quake or battlefield and the micromanagement of SC is NOT PvP it's "find a build order and execute it as quickly as possible." I play WoT if I want something shooter-esque but laugh at the kids playing like it's TF2/ headshot spactic bullshit. Plus, being in my late 30's I simply don't have the reflexes of a 17-22 year old so I'm at an eternal disadvantage. That's just science. DIKU pvp is one part gear, one part tactics one part sheer luck and one part twitch. Plus there's a greater goal than "kill the most doodz." I'm totally turned off by modern shooters, the last one I enjoyed was America's Army which "Shooter Enthusiasts" panned because it penalized most of their bullshit. Bunnyhopping, run-n-gun, charge the noob or camp the gun spawn, all invalidated in that game and it was loads better for it than MW/ BF or TF2. The GCDs and hit points keep me in the fight long enough to out-think and defeat most opponents. When it comes down to pure twitch I always lose. So, I PVP in DIKU because it offers something 'traditional' PVP games don't. A chance to use your head. If you have a machine that runs anything, it will destroy quake live. And it will play it in your browser. And you're wrong about starcraft, but that's a whole different conversation. It requires a certain ammount of speed, I won't argue that. I'm actually much better at starcraft now, then I ever was when I was younger. I just didn't have the patience 10 years ago. Ok I get you, but isn't a moba about what you're saying though? (mostly) Without bullshit imbalances and gear to play in the picture? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Kail on November 28, 2011, 10:11:07 AM They're not really analogous experiences. Playing StarCraft or LoL or whatever is about playing the match. Playing an MMO is about playing your character. The fact that it's YOUR character and YOUR gear that you earned and so on carries a fair amount of attatchment. You're advancing your guy. You're improving your stats. You've got a goal to work towards. In StarCraft, you get none of that. Once you finish your game, you're done, your next game will be pretty much like the last one. That's why even modern shooters are tacking on unlockable guns and hats and crap onto persistent characters, to keep people playing through the times when the game gets boring or frustrating.
That said, I do wish devs would pick a game and balance it, rather than trying to shackle them together. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on November 28, 2011, 11:24:33 AM Because they like the fact that they can replace actually being good at the game with just farming better equipment. You're also given an easy out for losing. You can always say "they had better gear" even if they didn't. Remember that being able to justify your loses as being something other than your own lack of skill is important for modern games, and it's why Valve put crits in TF2. They wanted you to be able to say "lucky crits" even if you were crit 0 times, as you'd be less likely to get mad and stop playing the game if you thought that the loss was just bad RNG. No, more like because my PC won't handle quake or battlefield and the micromanagement of SC is NOT PvP it's "find a build order and execute it as quickly as possible." I play WoT if I want something shooter-esque but laugh at the kids playing like it's TF2/ headshot spactic bullshit. Plus, being in my late 30's I simply don't have the reflexes of a 17-22 year old so I'm at an eternal disadvantage. That's just science. DIKU pvp is one part gear, one part tactics one part sheer luck and one part twitch. Plus there's a greater goal than "kill the most doodz." I'm totally turned off by modern shooters, the last one I enjoyed was America's Army which "Shooter Enthusiasts" panned because it penalized most of their bullshit. Bunnyhopping, run-n-gun, charge the noob or camp the gun spawn, all invalidated in that game and it was loads better for it than MW/ BF or TF2. The GCDs and hit points keep me in the fight long enough to out-think and defeat most opponents. When it comes down to pure twitch I always lose. So, I PVP in DIKU because it offers something 'traditional' PVP games don't. A chance to use your head. League of Legends is DIKU-style pvp without persistent gear. Tactics plays a bigger role, twitch is about the same, and luck is de-emphasized compared to WoW. It also runs on just about anything (like WoW). The only reason to play WoW pvp at this point is if you get your rocks off by owning players who are poorer geared than you. It's why most of the WoW pvpers have moved onto LoL. I mean, look at these recent statistics (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114283-League-of-Legends-Muscles-Past-World-of-Warcraft). I always thought LoL was actually one of the big reasons that WoW was in decline, because it effectively removed an entire portion of the game (PVP) for a large amount of players. Without that as an option when you ran out of PVE stuff to do at 85, you had even less of a reason to stick around. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 28, 2011, 11:27:47 AM I liked playing our gimpy prot warrior/moonkin duo up to challenger in the face of people with better comps, better gear, etc. "Oh god there's no skill involved" is just not true.
And I'm hardly some epically awesome player, if I can find the fun in it I don't really understand why other people can't. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on November 28, 2011, 11:55:52 AM I play LoL as well, and the reason to play WoW vs LoL is more varied gameplay. LoL is 2 game modes. WoW PVP has AB, WSG, AV (not really pvp unless you feel like defending.) TB, TP, EoTS, Arena, Gil (which is just a variation of AB but much better for it.) SoTA and IoC. Loads more games than LoL offers, but both scratch a different itch.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on November 28, 2011, 12:21:56 PM On the other hand, LoL has more variety in each match on those same maps. Because you don't need to level your champion to 85 before you pvp, or gear your champion up, you're free to switch champions at any time. You're also (most likely) going to be doing a different item build each match, so even if you do play the same character there is a bit of variety. Which lane you play also impacts how the game goes. Playing the game as a jungler or solo top is a much different experience than a duo lane.
WoW has more BGs, but I found that when I PVP'd in WoW people really only played 2-3 of them. The rest usually had much longer queue times. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 28, 2011, 12:25:11 PM They all pop regularly if you random queue.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on November 28, 2011, 12:28:10 PM Is that what people use these days? It's surprising because, even during BG weekends during TBC, you'd still see the most popular maps with really short queue times even if they weren't the BG that weekend. There was a lower potential reward, but people gravitated towards the maps that gave more consistent rewards.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 28, 2011, 12:32:46 PM For the most part people use it, yes. Random queue = bonus rewards. There really aren't very many maps that devolve into interminable suck anymore.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on November 28, 2011, 01:41:19 PM Yeah... SOTA can be very annoying, but at least it's over quick. I don't really have a problem with any of the others, even in AV/IOC you can go pick fights in a small group if you want to (while still being useful). In 4.3 you will be able to get conquest points from random BGs, which is just awesome for me (I don't have an arena or RBG team due to timezone issues).
There's definitely skill in WOW pvp (especially in high-end arena), and (for me) it also can be fun fighting against the odds. It's obviously not as skill-focused as an FPS, but it's not meant to be. Guild Wars did the entire thing right: pvp-only characters that started at max level, a low level cap that you can hit in a day (20), and a flat hp/mana curve with very minor gear advantages -- there IS some benefit for using a shield that has 1 less skill requirement, but it's nothing compared to Johnny Levelinggreens fighting Bob Threepointfivekresilience. The issue with GW is its clunky control scheme (edit: and UI, thanks for the reminder Ingmar :p) and reliance on sub-100ms reaction times that just isn't happening in a MMOG with any latency... heck, I play with a constant 700 ping, interrupting 1/2-second casts is fun I tells ya. I'm not an amazing player either with my Rival title from season 3, but then again if you use keybinds and turn with your mouse you're automatically better than, oh, 2/3 of the random BG population. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on November 28, 2011, 01:43:08 PM My problem with GW pvp was entirely that I cannot train myself to recognize the debuff icons, they're too vague and pastel for my color-blind self.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on November 28, 2011, 07:40:44 PM what I don't understand is why they don't play quake, starcraft, battlefield or a moba of choice. You know actual pvp games. Because they like the fact that they can replace actually being good at the game with just farming better equipment. Serious PvPers basically never play against teams that don't have the same gear they do. People on top-notch arena teams are just amazingly good individually and even better in concert. It's a very different feel from fps gameplay, and I can certainly understand why some people like wow pvp more than counterstrike. I'd much rather be an excellent WoW pvper than an excellent FPSer or moba-er. Starcraft would be a closer choice for me, but you're missing the social aspect entirely. Luckily, I'll never need to make that decision, since I suck at each and every form of competitive gaming. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on November 28, 2011, 08:13:02 PM You're also given an easy out for losing. You can always say "they had better gear" even if they didn't. Remember that being able to justify your loses as being something other than your own lack of skill is important for modern games, and it's why Valve put crits in TF2. They wanted you to be able to say "lucky crits" even if you were crit 0 times, as you'd be less likely to get mad and stop playing the game if you thought that the loss was just bad RNG. Crits are in fact the single biggest cause OF rage for me. Playing something as well as I could've and losing because of an RNG is pure rage factory material. The number of times I know I can kill someone assuming we both hit everything we should, but then he gets a crit...well, that made me alt-f4 TF2 more than anything. Meanwhile, getting kills I shouldn't have via crits just make it feel cheap. Anyway, back on the topic of WoW PvP Quote from: El Gallo Serious PvPers basically never play against teams that don't have the same gear they do. People on top-notch arena teams are just amazingly good individually and even better in concert. It's a very different feel from fps gameplay, and I can certainly understand why some people like wow pvp more than counterstrike. I'd much rather be an excellent WoW pvper than an excellent FPSer or moba-er. Starcraft would be a closer choice for me, but you're missing the social aspect entirely. Luckily, I'll never need to make that decision, since I suck at each and every form of competitive gaming. I understand this, but this isn't actually the way WoW PvP is played for what, 99.9% of players? Its practically a different game in that case. If they want this to be PvP in WoW, just give everyone the same gear in PvP areans/battlegrounds, and really make it even. But they don't, because they know that's not why the huge majority of their players actually play it. In any event, I still hold by my original statement. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on November 28, 2011, 08:22:50 PM They're not really analogous experiences. Playing StarCraft or LoL or whatever is about playing the match. Playing an MMO is about playing your character. The fact that it's YOUR character and YOUR gear that you earned and so on carries a fair amount of attatchment. You're advancing your guy. You're improving your stats. You've got a goal to work towards. In StarCraft, you get none of that. Once you finish your game, you're done, your next game will be pretty much like the last one. That's why even modern shooters are tacking on unlockable guns and hats and crap onto persistent characters, to keep people playing through the times when the game gets boring or frustrating. That said, I do wish devs would pick a game and balance it, rather than trying to shackle them together. In Starcraft of LoL is my "stats" that are improving. I'm advancing "me." I've got that as a "goal to work towards." Each game is just a single round, sure, but to say each game is basically like the last one is just ignorant of the genres. I'm not sure about that last part either. Counter Strike, arguably the most popular shooter of all time (is CoD matching it? Maybe), never had any of that progression bullshit. The ability to buy weapons within a map is hardly comparable either. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on November 28, 2011, 10:01:30 PM People PvP in MMO's for the same reason kids have snowball fights in winter.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Kail on November 28, 2011, 10:47:50 PM In Starcraft of LoL is my "stats" that are improving. I'm advancing "me." I've got that as a "goal to work towards." Each game is just a single round, sure, but to say each game is basically like the last one is just ignorant of the genres. I'm not sure about that last part either. Counter Strike, arguably the most popular shooter of all time (is CoD matching it? Maybe), never had any of that progression bullshit. The ability to buy weapons within a map is hardly comparable either. That's kind of the point of the whole MMORPG genre, though, y'know? Maybe off in the clouds somewhere, someone gives a shit about what their ranking is on some stats page somewhere, but maybe he doesn't. If he's ranked nine millionth place or eight millionth place, who the hell cares, he just wants to earn enough tokens to finish his gear set or buy that newer, spikier dragon mount or whatever. For someone who doesn't care about ranking, WoW gives them a goal to aim for, and StarCraft doesn't. WoW has always been very good at giving players breadcrumbs: the game gives you a lot of goals to work towards, both in the short term and the long term. Achievements, rep grinds, questing, raiding, crafting, pets, mounts, it's all about giving players a lot of targets to hit and letting them decide which ones to aim for. Deciding you want to improve your ranking is fine, but it's just one of many goals in WoW, as opposed to the only thing you can do in StarCraft. That's why I was making the whole "character/player" distinction, and why I was saying that every game of StarCraft is the same. I didn't mean they were tactically identical, I meant that there's a lot of ways you can advance your character in WoW, but if you want to advance in StarCraft, you're going to be playing basically the same game every time. Not in terms of specific strategies, but in terms of mechanics, it's the same every game (training SCVs, harvesting minerals, building structures, etc.). In WoW, by contrast, if I get bored of raiding, I can spend the day picking flowers, or play the auction house, or solo quest, or do some PvP once in a while, and they're all quite different experiences, and all viable ways of advancing my character in some way. And as for "FPS are adding progression," I did say "modern." CS was released something like ten years ago. CoD has outsold it by more than 2:1 according to the figures I'm seeing, and there are more people online playing CoD and Hat Fortress 2 than CS right now. You might not personally like progression, but I don't know that you can really deny that it makes for VERY popular games. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on November 29, 2011, 04:12:40 AM If you just see WoW PvP as another place to farm stuff for your character, then fine I guess. I just assumed PvP actually meant people want to you know..play against another person for the purpose of competition (even if not "serious" competition).
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on November 29, 2011, 05:10:53 AM People PvP in MMO's for the same reason kids have snowball fights in winter. Clearly we're having fun wrong, Fordel. :grin: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on November 29, 2011, 05:39:35 AM if you're having fun more power to you. I just find diku pvp frustrating and, well, un-fun. Was just wondering what the other side to that coin is :)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Kail on November 29, 2011, 09:59:22 AM If you just see WoW PvP as another place to farm stuff for your character, then fine I guess. I just assumed PvP actually meant people want to you know..play against another person for the purpose of competition (even if not "serious" competition). You're starting to sound a bit "No True Scotsman" here. Obviously there are people who compete in this game. You can enjoy playing PvP even if you're not into the whole "lamentations of their women" thing to get gear, that doesn't mean that nobody takes arenas seriously. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on December 07, 2011, 03:12:23 PM Apparently they updated the Talent Calc: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3657433947?page=1#1
Quote We trust you’ve all had ample time to plug away on the Mists of Pandaria Talent Calculator. You may have even found a few mind-bottling class changes in the works (you know, when things are so crazy it gets your thoughts all trapped, like in a bottle?). To that end, we’re pleased to announce we’ve just released an update to the calculator! In addition to bug fixes, we've made some changes as a result of your feedback. Keep in mind this is still a very early preview of the Mists of Pandaria talent system, which will likely continue to evolve during development of the expansion. We also don’t plan on making further updates to the calculator until we get much closer to our testing phase, but rest assured we’ll still be considering your feedback throughout the development process. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on December 07, 2011, 03:19:37 PM Oh shit, Storm Bolt!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on December 07, 2011, 03:34:01 PM You're so easy to please. <3
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on December 07, 2011, 03:36:31 PM I can finally be a Mountain King, just in time to move on to a new game. :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on December 07, 2011, 03:41:21 PM Clearly that's why you can finally be a Mountain King.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on December 07, 2011, 03:50:10 PM Hero classes! :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on December 07, 2011, 04:33:27 PM I wonder. Storm Bolt does 300% extra damage to things immune to stun. Does this also apply to a Player Character who is "immune" to stuns due to diminishing returns?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on December 07, 2011, 04:34:03 PM It says permanently immune to stun, so I doubt it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on December 07, 2011, 05:02:51 PM That wording is referring to bosses and shit, not player characters.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on December 07, 2011, 06:40:39 PM I'm sure it'll work just like Deep Freeze in that respect.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on January 11, 2012, 09:27:20 AM Fanmade Mists login screen:
(http://i.imgur.com/bPm9d.jpg) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: proudft on January 11, 2012, 10:01:20 AM All that effort and they couldn't update the copyright year?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on January 11, 2012, 10:21:39 AM I don't like pandas but it would be nice to have something lush and green to look at for a change.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on January 15, 2012, 04:38:55 PM It's going to be a dragon roaring, but one of those Oriental-style ones instead. Innovation!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on January 15, 2012, 11:11:04 PM I wonder if you can substitute out the main screen. I'm getting tired of motherfucking dragons.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on January 16, 2012, 06:16:00 AM Hey! Maybe it'll be a Dark Portal with a Dragon sitting on top of it!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on January 16, 2012, 06:37:11 AM http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2620-Mists-of-Pandaria-Challenge-Mode-Dungeons-Class-Transmogrification-List (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2620-Mists-of-Pandaria-Challenge-Mode-Dungeons-Class-Transmogrification-List)
Challenge Modes! I like that idea a lot actually. It's a good way of making heroics look like they did back before the unpleasantness, and still making 5 man people wanting challenging content feel valued. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on January 16, 2012, 07:30:17 AM I'm surprised you can use the lfd for those, seem like the type of thing you would want to do with people you know on vent. Going to be a lot of raging for anything less than gold, interesting.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on January 16, 2012, 08:00:41 AM that's all blizzcon info, is it not? I guess everyone was too busy hating pandas at that point to pay attention to the features they announced.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on January 16, 2012, 11:17:49 AM Yeah it isn't new.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lt.Dan on January 16, 2012, 11:42:27 AM New or not, I'm still hating pandas
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ratman_tf on January 18, 2012, 02:50:29 AM http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2620-Mists-of-Pandaria-Challenge-Mode-Dungeons-Class-Transmogrification-List (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2620-Mists-of-Pandaria-Challenge-Mode-Dungeons-Class-Transmogrification-List) Challenge Modes! I like that idea a lot actually. It's a good way of making heroics look like they did back before the unpleasantness, and still making 5 man people wanting challenging content feel valued. It seems like Blizz can't decide if getting lewt is an important part of the game or not. (Yes, it's been an issue since forever, but still...) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on January 18, 2012, 05:47:23 AM loot is important to different players for different things. Loot and, the correct distribution of such, allows me and my guild to do heroic raids. Loot allows other people to outgear older content and see it. Some people just like bigger numbers. If you want to do the dungeon in challenge mode, you're bumped down to the low ilvl and you get a "challenge". What's confusing about that?
I've done ZA timed run in a full 346 group and it was one of the more fun times I've had this expansion :) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on January 18, 2012, 07:22:59 AM So long as you aren't forced to do the challenge modes to get better gear it should be fine. Offering transmog gear, pets and stuff like they are planning is a good way to go.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on January 22, 2012, 02:43:33 AM MoP talents explained (again): http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3881924100#6
Quote from: Level 1 Alt I have been looking at the MoP talent trees, and to be honest, I'm incredibly disappointed. It looks so dumbed down with very little customization, compared to where talents are right now. It almost seems like Blizzard is going backwards with talent trees; the game releases with a simple, 6 point talent tree. Then, as the game grows, developers decide to make talent trees more sophisticated with more freedom and options overall. So my question is, with only 6 'tiers' of talents after MoP, what is happening to all the other talents that are currently in game? Are they going to be skills you learn from your class trainer, either active or passive? Or removed from the game completely? Quote from: Lylirra A little of both. :) To better explain, let's divide the current talents into five categories: 1) mandatory, 2) very cool, but not mandatory, 3) sort of cool, 4) boring, and 5) useless. We're going to give you all of the "mandatory" talents to your class spec, and you'll learn those talents at certain levels like you do with core class spells. Players who skip over what we consider mandatory talents today -- like Raging Blow or Hot Streak -- are unintentionally (or maybe even intentionally) gimping themselves, and that's not what we want to have happen. We want players to be able to experience the full power of their class, so we're going to award certain talents straight-out. The second category of talents -- the cool, but not mandatory ones -- are really the heart of the new talent system (they're the talents you'll probably be choosing from in each of new six tiers). You may be glad you have talent A, but talent B and talent C are also compelling options, and it should ideally be an interesting choice about which one you take and when. The third category of talents are still pretty cool, but they just aren't at the same level as other talents. These talents make good glyphs. For example, an early version of the warrior tree had Rude Interruption as a talent, but we feel it's too situational to compete with the other talents, so we'll likely make it a glyph. The next category are boring talents -- the kind that reduce cooldowns or increase damage on some abilities. In most cases, we're just baking talents these right into the spells themselves. While there were occasionally situations where you got to decide which of these talents to take, the answers often relied on complex math problems that some other player ended up solving for most of us. Finally, the current trees (despite our best efforts) still have some bad talents. They're the talents you almost inevtiably end up with when you have a talent tree with X rows and Y columns that you need to populate. In the end, not a lot of players end up taking these talents, so we'll just cut them. We don't think they'll be missed, but if turns out that players wind up actually missing some of the Cataclysm talents in the Mist of Pandaria design, then we've probably made a mistake somewhere. Ideally, you won't miss a thing and will have more fun picking talents that cater to your play style (or, at the very least, the current situation.) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on January 22, 2012, 08:11:13 AM "They're not awful, this isn't a stupid idea, we promise. Please keep giving us money!"
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on January 22, 2012, 08:21:51 AM No matter how you structure them, as long as their are choices there are going to be good choices and bad choices. Just nuke talent trees altogether if your goal is to prevent bad choices.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on January 22, 2012, 08:36:35 AM I thought the whole point of the talent tree thing period was that you had to think about what talents you took and you could certainly make bad choices. Like it was a really small metagame. Kinda stupid to try and structure your talent trees as such that you could close your eyes and randomly assign points and still have a viable build.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on January 22, 2012, 09:01:02 AM Yeah, and then you have people who've just randomly selected all their talents bitching about how their class is underpowered.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on January 22, 2012, 09:09:03 AM Are there really that many people left that are that bad at the game? I honestly figured that as long as WoW's been out, anyone playing it has been doing so for years and has at least passing familiarity with their class, talents, etc. to the point where they're making intelligent choices and not just clicking random buttons.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ratman_tf on January 22, 2012, 11:59:25 AM I'd be happy if they dumped talents altogether.
Are talents for multispeccing? They wound up having to put a dual spec option in the game, so that didn't work out. Are talents for customizing your character? People don't use them to customize, they use them to optimize. Are talents for displaying system mastery? Then you have people gimping their characters. Ha-ha, you took the retard talent. Dumbass. Just dump all that shit, make the characters clearly what they're intended to do in the game, and stop fucking around. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on January 22, 2012, 03:58:19 PM Are there really that many people left that are that bad at the game? I honestly figured that as long as WoW's been out, anyone playing it has been doing so for years and has at least passing familiarity with their class, talents, etc. to the point where they're making intelligent choices and not just clicking random buttons. WoW is still pulling in new customers, and also just because someone has been playing for a while it doesn't necessarily follow that they'll be any good. For an example, just join a few PUGs.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on January 22, 2012, 08:22:16 PM Are there really that many people left that are that bad at the game? I honestly figured that as long as WoW's been out, anyone playing it has been doing so for years and has at least passing familiarity with their class, talents, etc. to the point where they're making intelligent choices and not just clicking random buttons. WoW is still pulling in new customers, and also just because someone has been playing for a while it doesn't necessarily follow that they'll be any good. For an example, just join a few PUGs.Or to put it another way, Blizzard used that logic and made Cataclysm. See how that turned out? :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on January 22, 2012, 10:41:32 PM Are there really that many people left that are that bad at the game? I honestly figured that as long as WoW's been out, anyone playing it has been doing so for years and has at least passing familiarity with their class, talents, etc. to the point where they're making intelligent choices and not just clicking random buttons. I had a retribution paladin casual come to one of our alt-raids. After the fact I realised he didn't have the 3% raid dmg increase/replenishment talent (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=31876). That's a talent that says 1 point for 5% personal damage, and he skipped it. So yeah, I'm all for rolling the important stuff into the spec. Ratman - that's what they're doing. You could call new talents flavor. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on January 22, 2012, 11:37:12 PM I had a retribution paladin casual come to one of our alt-raids. After the fact I realised he didn't have the 3% raid dmg increase/replenishment talent (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=31876). That's a talent that says 1 point for 5% personal damage, and he skipped it. So yeah, I'm all for rolling the important stuff into the spec. But then what will you use as your idiot filter? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on January 23, 2012, 12:24:47 AM his toon's name was all I needed :)
He's still someone's friend and we needed a warm body, plus replnishment and dmg would have been nice. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on January 23, 2012, 02:41:10 AM Are there really that many people left that are that bad at the game? Oh God Yes. Have you pugged lately ? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on January 23, 2012, 08:37:22 AM Only LFR, and with 25 people it's pretty easy to hide as a lone idiot. I wasn't going over parses or anything as long as we were killing shit, and it was rare that I noticed someone dying a lot that a simple whisper "hey stop standing in that" didn't fix. I only did the new 5 mans once for achievements; that was with 3 guildies and our lone pug wasn't noticeably terrible.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on January 23, 2012, 08:50:34 AM What the fuck are they doing without Communion ? Seriously ?
LFR is full of idiots. And people who nick my shit. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on January 23, 2012, 09:09:02 AM Last time I went to LFR I literally got shouted at for doing too much damage. I'm not joking. Something along the lines of "if you're doing the fight right, you'd be doing as much damage as everyone else". Right. Good thing I don't need anything on both characters I'm playing right now, so I don't have to go till Pandas.
And about the communion thing - I really don't know how you don't take that talent. And this dude very often complains about how people in his pug suck. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on January 23, 2012, 09:30:12 AM They suck because they're not getting the buff he didn't take. :oh_i_see:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on January 23, 2012, 09:46:14 AM And about the communion thing - I really don't know how you don't take that talent. And this dude very often complains about how people in his pug suck. That's just begging for a /g beatdown, then. At least the idiot fillers in my guilds weren't mouthing off about how everyone else sucked. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on January 23, 2012, 09:59:18 AM Last time I went to LFR I literally got shouted at for doing too much damage. I'm not joking. Something along the lines of "if you're doing the fight right, you'd be doing as much damage as everyone else". Right. Good thing I don't need anything on both characters I'm playing right now, so I don't have to go till Pandas. And about the communion thing - I really don't know how you don't take that talent. And this dude very often complains about how people in his pug suck. I've found that a lot of people are just really oblivious when it comes to math. I mean, even easy, intuitive, simple, math. They see something like 3% raid damage and 2% personal damage and think "3 and 2 are small numbers, that looks bad." People don't see the big picture very well. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on January 23, 2012, 10:01:27 AM Last time I went to LFR I literally got shouted at for doing too much damage. I'm not joking. Something along the lines of "if you're doing the fight right, you'd be doing as much damage as everyone else". Right. Good thing I don't need anything on both characters I'm playing right now, so I don't have to go till Pandas. Let me guess, Spine? The few times I ran LFR on alts, there has always been a few idiots in the group that continue to dps the amalgamation when it's low and doesn't have 9 stacks of heat, or continue to kill the corrupted tentacles after the first has died. They probably assumed that if you were doing a lot more dps than everyone else, you were dpsing things that you shouldn't have been. Most of my time (as a healer or dps) on spine is spent twiddling my thumbs waiting. The fight is pretty exciting on normal usually but it's just boring on LFR. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on January 23, 2012, 10:05:45 AM nah yorsahj. LFR spine as a healer is... there's no debuff so there's literally nothing to heal.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on January 23, 2012, 10:23:29 AM Your all thinking too small, I've seen Moonkins not spec Eclipse and ProtWarriors not spec ShieldSlam back when those things were talents. :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on January 23, 2012, 10:26:28 AM Hmmm, unless you were doing damage on those stacky things, I don't get it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on January 23, 2012, 11:34:44 AM Or to put it another way, Blizzard used that logic and made Cataclysm. What? No.See how that turned out? :why_so_serious: Cataclysm (end-game at least) was designed for the "It's fine, lern 2 plae" crowd which is why it's made Blizzard lose close to two million subscribers (and prompted the near-apology a couple of pages back). And speaking of near-apologies: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3881921390?page=2#33 Quote There are advantages and disadvantages to linear questlines. Linear, zone-length questlines are bad, mmkay? (To which, the SWTOR devs are now going "Oh shit, we copied the wrong style of quest design" :wink: )The advantages tend to flow from the effort to build epic stories for players to be a part of. When you put the player into a linear questline, you can more easily incorporate dramatic elements like foreshadowing, plot twists, and a satisfying climax that you know the player is going to be there for. The disadvantages have been well-covered: If you're isolated into a personal story too much, you lose the sense of being in an open world that is filled with alternative potential adventures. It's more difficult to hop around and partake of the glories of several different zones at the same time, and harder to join up with friends whenever you like. Group quests become less-desirable. As Dave Kosak and others have said before, we think we may have gone a bit too linear with Cataclysm. That informs one of our big philosophies for Mists of Pandaria: Give players more flexibility to play how they want to. We think that the solution may be to have linear story arcs, but have more of them in each zone, rather than making the whole zone one big story with a beginning, middle, and end. In addition to multiple linear quest lines, there will be smaller (and in some cases, one-off) quest hubs, and some of those hubs may be well off the beaten path. To make that work, we've got to tweak the orientation of quest achievements. Rather than "vacuum up every single quest in the zone", we're aiming for achievements that reward completing the main story arcs. All in all, players should feel less like their time spent playing in a zone is exactly the same as every other player. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on January 23, 2012, 11:38:39 AM It's kinda obvious though.
The whole Firelands thing shows that enormously when you go to do the high level content and realise that because you skipped Hyjal entirely, you are going to be BORED before you get anywhere. Fuck that. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on January 23, 2012, 11:41:05 AM (To which, the SWTOR devs are now going "Oh shit, we copied the wrong style of quest design" :wink: ) Actually SWTOR's design is much closer to what their stated goal for Pandaria is - one long planet story with lots of side quests and some extra hubs, etc. Which you'd know if you had actually played it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on January 23, 2012, 11:54:59 AM (To which, the SWTOR devs are now going "Oh shit, we copied the wrong style of quest design" :wink: ) Actually SWTOR's design is much closer to what their stated goal for Pandaria is - one long planet story with lots of side quests and some extra hubs, etc. Which you'd know if you had actually played it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on January 23, 2012, 12:08:19 PM I didn't say 'exactly the same' as their plan for MoP. I think it closer to that than it is to Cata after 75 levels of leveling or so.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on January 23, 2012, 12:31:26 PM Quote There are advantages and disadvantages to linear questlines. The advantages tend to flow from the effort to build epic stories for players to be a part of. When you put the player into a linear questline, you can more easily incorporate dramatic elements like foreshadowing, plot twists, and a satisfying climax that you know the player is going to be there for. If only Blizzard had anyone capable of writing dramatic elements like foreshadowing, plot twists, and a satisfying climax worth a shit. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on January 23, 2012, 12:32:16 PM Yeah SWTOR is more WOTLK's daisy-chained hubs with each hub having a story than Cata's "Ok, each quest is a piece of a greater story." Does each hub in TOR send you to similar areas? Yes. Are they all for the same quest/ story? No.
Example: Character Story: "Hey, my Sith Apprentice.. go see what this guy is doing at XYZ and kill person abc" Planet Story: "Well great, you've accomplished lmn, now go to XYZ and help soandso with this plot mcguffin." Node Story: At the flight point for XYZ: "Hey, Sith Guy; Can you help me kill / scan/ harvest/ whatever these things since you'll be in the area anyway.." In the kill area: Bonus Quest "Kill x foozles while you're here doing the other 3 things" Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on January 23, 2012, 12:49:06 PM SWTOR quest pacing actually felt pretty refreshing to me. Some zones seemed more linear than others, but there were actually quests off the beaten path on Hutta that I felt like I could have missed if I rushed through the zone. Between the rare slightly-hidden quests, datacrons, and rare mobs, the game felt like it was rewarding me a little bit for exploring instead of staring at the 'next quest objective' arrow on my minimap.
I think they're on the right track for MoP quest design. Smaller stories, less obvious rails. I appreciate that they tried to make every quest in leveling zones matter for the story, but by the end of each zone you're bored of the story they're trying to tell (and all the mobs are grey so the story was all you had left) Disabling flying till 90 will also be an improvement. I actually wish they'd disable flying at 90 for the first 2-3 months as well. Give people some time to enjoy the zones without hurting their leveling efficiency, give people a better chance to be on equal footing for world pvp (world pvp doesn't die after 1 week when people get to 90 and can harass players who are still leveling without flying mounts), and still have flying available for alts when people get to that point and they just want to get additional characters to 90 asap. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on January 23, 2012, 01:10:14 PM SWTOR quest pacing actually felt pretty refreshing to me. Some zones seemed more linear than others, but there were actually quests off the beaten path on Hutta that I felt like I could have missed if I rushed through the zone. Between the rare slightly-hidden quests, datacrons, and rare mobs, the game felt like it was rewarding me a little bit for exploring instead of staring at the 'next quest objective' arrow on my minimap. Ha, my third time through Hutta (once in beta, twice now in LIVE) I found a quest I had no idea existed. Did I feel silly! And sort of pleased I found it. Anyway, the linearity works for me in SWTOR, but it did not work for me in Cataclysm. Partly because the story was fucking terrible, partly because the zones went on too long, and partly because I couldn't skip shit I didn't like on the way to cap the way I could in WotLK (I did, luckily, like the Sons of Hodir shit, the only thing that I think was really 'required' to do level-up-wise). Essentially taking away the one level up choice you DID have (Hyjal versus Vashj'ir) was even worse. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on January 23, 2012, 01:52:51 PM Wait WoW has a story? I'm sorry I was too busy clicking accept because noone is talking to me. :oh_i_see:
Hmmm, unless you were doing damage on those stacky things, I don't get it. I was barely bothering with the oozes, the ones that give the boss buffs. Not like they died slow too... Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on January 23, 2012, 02:05:54 PM With sufficient xp bonuses (BOAs, rest, guild levels) you can get from 80-85 in ~3 zones; only on my first toon did I have to suffer both Vash and Uldum.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on January 23, 2012, 02:18:03 PM If only Blizzard had anyone capable of writing dramatic elements like foreshadowing, plot twists, and a satisfying climax worth a shit. They certainly never game me a satisfying climax.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on January 23, 2012, 02:39:23 PM I know, the fuckers. :heartbreak:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on January 24, 2012, 02:12:01 PM If only Jaina had an electric choke collar I could torture her with until she decided she loved me.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on January 24, 2012, 03:20:52 PM Umm, what?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on January 24, 2012, 04:26:33 PM Umm, what? One of the SWTOR companions is a slave in an electric shock collar whom you can torture until she loves you.(She then wants you to carry on using the collar as part of foreplay). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on January 24, 2012, 04:35:43 PM (She then wants you to carry on using the collar as part of foreplay). Holy crap I didn't even know about that part. :Bioware: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on January 24, 2012, 04:45:40 PM I'm pretty sure you have to take the collar away to progress that relationship, actually. The 'dark side' romance option for that class is with another character entirely.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on January 24, 2012, 05:01:15 PM I'm pretty sure you have to take the collar away to progress that relationship, actually. The 'dark side' romance option for that class is with another character entirely. Do I need to get her a new fut coat too, or just stop actually battering her until after the vows and she starts asking for it again? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on January 24, 2012, 09:15:33 PM I didn't say it wasn't fucked up as is. :-P
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on January 25, 2012, 06:45:48 AM Guess there won't be a blizzcon this year. They say they're too busy. Time for some wildly inaccurate speculation.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on January 25, 2012, 06:55:11 AM Theoretically MoP and Diablo 3 will both be out before Q4, which means the only thing they'd really have to show at the event would be the SC2 expansion.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on January 25, 2012, 07:10:19 AM Theoretically MoP and Diablo 3 will both be out before Q4, which means the only thing they'd really have to show at the event would be the SC2 expansion. MoP almost certainly. I was under the impression though that Diablo 3 just had it's guts ripped out and went into the rehaul bin. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on January 25, 2012, 07:16:43 AM my tinfoil hat theory is that the whole of blizzard is working on the Pandas so they can get them out for may/june at latest.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on January 25, 2012, 08:23:07 AM I'd like to see what they put out. If they push it to June it has potential to get people involved again that are into SWTOR full force. Updates will play a part I think.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on January 25, 2012, 08:58:50 AM MoP has to be relatively soon, they can't pull another WotLK and wait a year between content updates.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on January 25, 2012, 09:06:18 AM MoP has to be relatively soon, they can't pull another WotLK and wait a year between content updates. This. I'm already down to logging in once or twice a week to check auctions. We've stopped raiding because most of us can't be bothered to wipe for hours on hardmodes just to get gear that'll be replaced with greens. Kinda kicking myself for signing up for the yearly pass, but I didn't expect either a) SWTOR to be so much fun or b) Dragon Soul to be so easy. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on January 25, 2012, 09:07:03 AM Best Buy had that leaked Diablo 3 "February 1st" cardboard advertisement. I think Diablo 3 was on track for a February release date, which they backed away from committing to when it became clear that they wanted to make some large changes to the game. Still, if they were that close to release, you would think the changes they've outlined (removing a few professions, redoing some details about loot) shouldn't delay the game too much. I doubt they want Diablo 3 and MoP launching directly competing with each other within a short window, so my bet is MoP Summer, Diablo 3 fall.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on January 25, 2012, 02:55:38 PM MoP has to be relatively soon, they can't pull another WotLK and wait a year between content updates. Well, they can, it's just probably a terrible idea. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on January 25, 2012, 06:53:04 PM It'd fit with the recurring theme of Cataclysm then! :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on January 25, 2012, 06:58:58 PM There are theories running around that this is why they made the year long lock-in pass thing. Since they are subbed for a year anyways, we are free to slack again :why_so_serious:
There's also a more plausible idea that Blizzard fully intends MoP BETA to be the 'new content' for people, since all the year long passes have Beta access. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on January 26, 2012, 02:00:43 PM my tinfoil hat theory is that the whole of blizzard is working on the Pandas so they can get them out for may/june at latest. To take this further, someone with management clout has finally prevailed on whoever is in charge of Titan to say "Give me my fucking dev team back or we won't have an MMO left by the time you're ready" and they're all working on MoP.And yeah, no Blizzcon = MoP & D3 launch before October and Titan still isn't in a playable state. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on January 26, 2012, 02:24:09 PM Titan will be 2018, long after the MMO has moved on to whatever it's becoming. At first I said 2015 then realized that's only 3 years away. :ye_gods:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on January 26, 2012, 05:09:26 PM Are there really that many people left that are that bad at the game? I honestly figured that as long as WoW's been out, anyone playing it has been doing so for years and has at least passing familiarity with their class, talents, etc. to the point where they're making intelligent choices and not just clicking random buttons. I've just pulled up my L60 hunter, which I haven't played in years, and checked out the talent tree. I decided to have a look at EJ for some simple advice on levelling specs and info besides the tooltips, and the masters thesis on marksman hunters that assumes you've been playing the class for years and are 80 almost put me off playing it. Is there really a need to have your game need that level of meta-analysis? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on January 26, 2012, 05:10:50 PM It doesn't need that level of meta-analysis.
You're reading stuff intended to help world-class players squeeze out extra bits of performance in hard mode raids. Try the sticky threads in the official forums for something more approachable. EDIT: I mean really why would you ever go to EJ for a leveling spec, they explicitly ban people for talking about stuff like that, especially this far into an expansion. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on January 26, 2012, 05:11:45 PM Are there really that many people left that are that bad at the game? I honestly figured that as long as WoW's been out, anyone playing it has been doing so for years and has at least passing familiarity with their class, talents, etc. to the point where they're making intelligent choices and not just clicking random buttons. I've just pulled up my L60 hunter, which I haven't played in years, and checked out the talent tree. I decided to have a look at EJ for some simple advice on levelling specs and info besides the tooltips, and the masters thesis on marksman hunters that assumes you've been playing the class for years and are 80 almost put me off playing it. Is there really a need to have your game need that level of meta-analysis? To be fair, you did go to EJ, and are complaining its too hardcore. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on January 26, 2012, 05:51:59 PM It's pretty hard to screw up your skill tree now if you are at all literate and bother to read them. If you are PvE just ignore everything clearly meant for PvP and you are done, out of points. Do the opposite if PvP.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Selby on January 26, 2012, 05:52:07 PM Try the sticky threads in the official forums for something more approachable. The official forums used to be ass years ago, but now they are where it's at regarding getting a good leveling spec\glyphs. I don't even bother looking at EJ, since 99% of their material and threads expects you to be 85 and in certain gear and in certain conditions with certain buffs, something the average leveler doesn't even remotely come close to meeting.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on January 26, 2012, 09:24:23 PM Plus they absolutely fucking love their 200 page threadnaughts without regular updates to the original post. They really need a wiki format for their crap. Official WoW forums are now the place to look for useful data, since most of the stuff from Elitist Jerks or whathaveyou gets reposted there anyways.
It's pretty hard to screw up your skill tree now if you are at all literate and bother to read them. If you are PvE just ignore everything clearly meant for PvP and you are done, out of points. Do the opposite if PvP. Hunter (or druid) is a little bit harder to decipher if you're returning or new to the class because so many of the talents are not as simple as "this does 10% more damage." Also, depending on class there are a few PvP talents that are actually very nice for leveling. Incidentally, were I a 60 hunter I'd do the standard Survival DPS build. High DPS, very little ramp-up time, extra CC. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on January 26, 2012, 11:33:00 PM ej is balls for most specs at the moment. Some threads don't have posts in them since before the last patch and some OPs are flat out wrong in their assumptions. I wouldn't go there for reliable info on anything.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on January 27, 2012, 01:08:27 AM They really need a wiki format for their crap. They tried it for a while, but it hardly caught on with any of the writers/editors. I think it might have worked better now than a few years ago since the game's matured to where really funky stuff doesn't crop up every new patch which butted up against their "what's able to go into this section versus the regular posts" guidelines. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on January 27, 2012, 02:51:54 AM It doesn't need that level of meta-analysis. You're reading stuff intended to help world-class players squeeze out extra bits of performance in hard mode raids. Try the sticky threads in the official forums for something more approachable. EDIT: I mean really why would you ever go to EJ for a leveling spec, they explicitly ban people for talking about stuff like that, especially this far into an expansion. Well, to answer that question (and a few following that), I haven't played in a year, and even then I only played for 3 months on my mage which I was/am very comfortable with. I've seen you guys mentioning EJ quite a bit for specs, etc and to be fair, I had a look there for my prot warrior and it was much more reasonable. As it turned out, their Prot warrior build was only 2 points off how I'd already specced - and even that was in the alternate trees, and I'm comfortable with my different choices. And yeah, since i started playing at release, and despite my numerous and extended breaks from the game, the official WoW board was the last place I'd have thought of for anything resembling useful advice. Hunter (or druid) is a little bit harder to decipher if you're returning or new to the class because so many of the talents are not as simple as "this does 10% more damage." Also, depending on class there are a few PvP talents that are actually very nice for leveling. Incidentally, were I a 60 hunter I'd do the standard Survival DPS build. High DPS, very little ramp-up time, extra CC. Yeah, there's lots of stuff about regaining focus, and consuming stacks off your pet and so forth, a little less straightforward than just reading the tooltip, especially when you haven't played for a year or played this version of the class at all. I found a couple by trawling the net, they all seem pretty much the same - seems to work okay so far. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on January 27, 2012, 03:23:21 AM just use frostheim's blog for hunter info - http://www.warcrafthuntersunion.com/ he's got builds, leveling, end-game, pet talent specs, etc. It's a great resource for a noob hunter.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on January 27, 2012, 07:05:30 AM EJ pages are hit or miss. Some spec threads are updated regularly, concise, and helpful. Others like the Marksmanship thread are just a mess, or haven't been updated since T11. You really shouldn't need to read an EJ thread to come up with a good leveling spec though. The game forces you to stick with 1 tree until you reach the end of it and almost every class/spec is only choosing between PvP or PvE talents.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on January 27, 2012, 05:51:40 PM Yeah, it was more a matter of firing up a level 61 hunter and looking at trees I'd never seen before with a bunch of points to spend rather than levelling organically from 1-61. Doesn't matter now, and thanks for the link, Wolf.
edit - ha! warcrafthuntersunion was the site I actually ended up using in the end the other night. How's that? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on January 28, 2012, 03:13:50 AM EJ hasn't been worth reading since, what, Ulduar? Sometime around then.
(The best WoW forums are on SA anyway) (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/bigopinion/SA%20Emotes/emot-ssh-1.gif) And in other news: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3393349558?page=4#67 Quote I realize this thread has been around for a while but the topic is still relevant. As many of you may or may not know, weapon enchants have been a feature of World of Warcraft since the beginning. Providing iconic and recognizable looks to various enchants is something that’s added an element of uniqueness to the game and to your character. However, we do understand they can sometimes overpower the aesthetics of the awesome weapons you can obtain in game now. It’s certainly something we have discussed with the developers recently and we’ll be looking into potentially allowing an enchant toggle. If and when such a feature is introduced, we’ll be sure to let the community know as soon as possible. Bye, Landslide!Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on January 28, 2012, 07:01:02 AM It always made me a little sad that enchants override my poison visual on my rogue, although I imagine it'll just be plain ol' nothin' if a toggle goes in, as they're in the same category or whatever visually I'm sure.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on January 28, 2012, 08:28:51 AM It'd be nice to have some choice: Use existing weapon enchant, use transmogged weapon's enchant, use class feature graphic (poison, shaman self chants, etc.), use nothing.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on January 28, 2012, 11:49:13 AM Someone suggested a slider too, so you could control how noticeable the effect was. Frankly, even a simple on/off toggle would be a huge improvement.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on January 28, 2012, 03:07:28 PM A slider would be pretty great, but yeah, even just on/off is better than what it is right now. Some of the enchants are just ... well, you all know.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on January 28, 2012, 09:19:33 PM Yeah, that would be great. My gnome rogue wields a pair of glowing balls attached to their fists. Apparently.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lovro on February 08, 2012, 09:21:22 AM I don't like the idea of 'pokemons' in Mists of pandaria >.>
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/pet-battle Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on February 08, 2012, 09:40:28 AM They're trying something different that is a complete sidequest/minigame. I'm not saying I'm a huge fan but at least they're trying to add something new and fun, it's a lot more than most try these days.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on February 08, 2012, 09:48:59 AM The pet battle is the one thing about the expansion which actually interests me.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on February 08, 2012, 11:11:13 AM The pet battle is the one thing about the expansion which actually interests me. This. But I've said for years I'd be ruined if Nintendo ever made a Pokemon MMO.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on February 08, 2012, 03:10:02 PM The pet battle is the one thing about the expansion which actually interests me. I'm just curious how some of the rare pets and odd pets will function. "Silvermoon Broom, I choose you!" "Zergling, RUSH!" Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on February 08, 2012, 03:13:39 PM Probably a lot like hunter pets in that there will be certain skillsets and families of pets, rather than individual powers.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on February 08, 2012, 03:15:24 PM Boo!
:grin: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on February 08, 2012, 04:01:11 PM The pet battle is the one thing about the expansion which actually interests me. I'm nonplussed. If it's shit, I'll ignore it. If it's fun, I may tool around with it on occasion. So anyway - enchants - what would be the recommendation for inexpensive melee levelling enchants for 80-85? Also - what's all this about removing the ranged slot and classes like Hunters only using a bow, mages losing daggers and staves and instead having only wands/etc? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on February 08, 2012, 04:03:29 PM "Itemization is hard, yo and we hate stat sticks."
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on February 08, 2012, 04:23:54 PM The pet battle is the one thing about the expansion which actually interests me. I'm just curious how some of the rare pets and odd pets will function. "Silvermoon Broom, I choose you!" "Zergling, RUSH!" It's not very effective.... Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on February 08, 2012, 06:31:55 PM The pet battle is the one thing about the expansion which actually interests me. I'm nonplussed. If it's shit, I'll ignore it. If it's fun, I may tool around with it on occasion. So anyway - enchants - what would be the recommendation for inexpensive melee levelling enchants for 80-85? Also - what's all this about removing the ranged slot and classes like Hunters only using a bow, mages losing daggers and staves and instead having only wands/etc? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 08, 2012, 07:37:59 PM So anyway - enchants - what would be the recommendation for inexpensive melee levelling enchants for 80-85? You could do Avalanche, but really there's no need to bother with enchants til 85. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on February 10, 2012, 07:33:38 AM what rokal said.
Melee slot for hunters and range slot for everyone else is just a stats slot anyway, they're streamlining a bit. Doesn't keep MMO champion kids from going all like "they're killing the magic of the game". And hunter min-range had to go 2 expansions ago. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on February 10, 2012, 12:08:49 PM The pet battle is the one thing about the expansion which actually interests me. I'm nonplussed. If it's shit, I'll ignore it. If it's fun, I may tool around with it on occasion. So anyway - enchants - what would be the recommendation for inexpensive melee levelling enchants for 80-85? Also - what's all this about removing the ranged slot and classes like Hunters only using a bow, mages losing daggers and staves and instead having only wands/etc? - Hunters are losing all their mele attacks (raptor strike, etc) and their bow becomes a main hand, 2h weapon. They lose the deadzone completely. They will still be able to equip standard mele weapons that the class could previously use, but only for cosmetic purposes (so Huntards dont bitch about now having X cool weapon they are unable to equip). - Wands are being changed to a Main Hand weapon, and will be re-itemized accordingly to adjust stats for new slot. Far as i know, no weapon type changes are being made to the "wand classes", it just means that there will now be a few items that only Cloth Casters can use in main hand slots (I guess leaving the shaman / druid an actual valid reason in claming priority on caster daggers or something) - All the Totem classes (Druid, Shaman, etc) will get some kind of flat stats boost to balance the loss of their ranged slot "stat thing". - Warriors / Rogues lose throwing weapons, gain some kind of flat stats boost, and just have their abilities that used to use / require a throwing weapon adjusted to use their main hand weapon instead. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on February 13, 2012, 03:05:07 PM - Hunters are losing all their mele attacks (raptor strike, etc) and their bow becomes a main hand, 2h weapon. They lose the deadzone completely. They will still be able to equip standard mele weapons that the class could previously use, but only for cosmetic purposes (so Huntards dont bitch about now having X cool weapon they are unable to equip). - Wands are being changed to a Main Hand weapon, and will be re-itemized accordingly to adjust stats for new slot. Far as i know, no weapon type changes are being made to the "wand classes", it just means that there will now be a few items that only Cloth Casters can use in main hand slots (I guess leaving the shaman / druid an actual valid reason in claming priority on caster daggers or something) - All the Totem classes (Druid, Shaman, etc) will get some kind of flat stats boost to balance the loss of their ranged slot "stat thing". - Warriors / Rogues lose throwing weapons, gain some kind of flat stats boost, and just have their abilities that used to use / require a throwing weapon adjusted to use their main hand weapon instead. Wow. Why don't they just give everyone the same damned setup, then they won't even have to have classes. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on February 13, 2012, 03:05:42 PM Er, what?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: dusematic on February 13, 2012, 03:28:35 PM Er, what? He's saying that the homogenization is a turn off. I tend to agree. Balance is an ideal that will never be realized. As long as you have a decent player base/class ration then it's all good. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on February 13, 2012, 03:33:38 PM I'm not sure I buy that eliminating a pointless inventory slot counts as homogenization. I could see the argument when they started making the tanks more similar mechanically, but this isn't really that kind of thing.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 13, 2012, 03:48:02 PM Isn't this the opposite of homogenization? Now the weapons each class uses will be more distinct. Hunters really only had melee weapons at this point because everyone had something for the primary/secondary weapon slots and that kept classes equal. Every class basically uses one weapon and then has some sort of stat stick, whether it be a wand, a relic, or a throwing weapon. I'll be glad to see these pointless slots go.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on February 13, 2012, 10:46:46 PM Isn't this the opposite of homogenization? Now the weapons each class uses will be more distinct. Hunters really only had melee weapons at this point because everyone had something for the primary/secondary weapon slots and that kept classes equal. Every class basically uses one weapon and then has some sort of stat stick, whether it be a wand, a relic, or a throwing weapon. I'll be glad to see these pointless slots go. This pretty much summs things up pretty well. They are killing off the "stat stick" slot for all the classes. It just seems a bit more complicated then it looks because one class (hunter) currently uses their primary weapon slot as their stat stick, while a few others (warrior, rogue, clothies) had a stat stick that was largely useless but could still be used for something (thrown weapon / wand). Then you had the hybrids who simply had a pure out and out stat stick (relic items, which have absolutely no function in the current build but to add a flat amount of stats to balance against the other classes ranged slot stat sticks).Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on February 14, 2012, 12:33:43 AM I just wish all the vanilla people/anti-homogenization people would go away. No the game wasn't better back then. No it wasn't fun 16% of your damage (which is something like a full tier of difference) to depend on having 1 of 2 two classes, or keeping some hit gear around just in case your shadow priest doesn't show up. No the game wasn't fun when you had to spend 3 hours in the blasted lands getting ready for raid or sit in IF for 2 hours hoping to maybe get an UBRS run that won't fail at blackhand. Only to lose your spaulders of valor to someone that cheerfully announces it's his first run ever and isn't it great guys. Three times. (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on February 14, 2012, 01:45:03 AM Sure, but the LFR loot system needs a serious second look.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on February 14, 2012, 08:04:05 AM Isn't this the opposite of homogenization? Now the weapons each class uses will be more distinct. Hunters really only had melee weapons at this point because everyone had something for the primary/secondary weapon slots and that kept classes equal. Every class basically uses one weapon and then has some sort of stat stick, whether it be a wand, a relic, or a throwing weapon. I'll be glad to see these pointless slots go. So we can get rid of rings, and trinkets, and separate pieces of armor, and why not just make all your stats based upon the single weapon you can equip? Sounds like loads of fun in an item-centric game!Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on February 14, 2012, 08:13:53 AM So we can get rid of rings, and trinkets, and separate pieces of armor, and why not just make all your stats based upon the single weapon you can equip? Sounds like loads of fun in an item-centric game! Going a little overboard, me thinks. Wands were pointless stat-sticks for casters, thrown/ranged weapons were silly for melee, and melee weapons were silly for ranged. In all, each class is loosing one item slot that they no longer have to hope and pray drops for them and that they win the roll. I'm sure we can get along just fine trying to gear out two trinket slots, two rings, boots, legs, belt, gloves, wrist, chest, back, neck, head, and primary weapon. Would it be better if we made the shirt and tabard slots have stats instead? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Minvaren on February 14, 2012, 08:26:49 AM Would it be better if we made the shirt and tabard slots have stats instead? To be honest, I was always surprised that those two slots couldn't have stats. :grin: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on February 14, 2012, 08:55:28 AM Would it be better if we made the shirt and tabard slots have stats instead? To be honest, I was always surprised that those two slots couldn't have stats. :grin: It breaks the fantasy trope too much. What story has had the epic sweat-stained T-Shirt of Gnarl the Destroyer? Or the dingy tunic/ tabard of the crusader being hunted for its legendary power? Amulets, Rings, Armor, Weapons. Maybe body parts that can be worn as one of the above. Those are your tropes and Blizzard isn't known for creating new ones. Even cloaks w/ stats was kind of pushing it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on February 14, 2012, 08:56:50 AM Well, there are this tabard (http://www.wowhead.com/item=28788) and this shirt (http://www.wowhead.com/item=52019), though those aren't really stats, per se :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 14, 2012, 10:05:11 AM So we can get rid of rings, and trinkets, and separate pieces of armor, and why not just make all your stats based upon the single weapon you can equip? Sounds like loads of fun in an item-centric game! Trinkets don't feel like 'stat sticks' because they get flavor through unique procs or effects. BiS trinkets (until this tier and the Deathwing trinkets) varied widely between specs, so they were one of the most interesting gear slots in the game. Armor determines your appearance and also has set bonuses for anyone really playing end-game, so they are also more than just 'stat sticks'. Rings and necklaces aren't particularly interesting, and are probably the least exciting gear slots in the game next to literal stat-sticks at the moment, so I'd be fine seeing them retire in the future. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on February 14, 2012, 11:12:01 AM Sure, but the LFR loot system needs a serious second look. I'm fairly sure I remember reading that it's getting one for MoP launch - this is just the "Oh fuck we need something that mostly works for 4.3 LFR" iteration.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on February 14, 2012, 11:16:56 AM My favorite people are the ones who roll on the Deathwing weapons that they already had equipped for the entire fight (and not dual-wielders either). So far I'm 0-6 on Gurthalak, and 3 of those were people who already had one. OK, maybe one of them was getting a second one for a titan's grip fury spec. :oh_i_see:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on February 14, 2012, 11:43:34 AM Yes, that's annoying, especially when they say 'No, I just equipped it' and then you point out it's gemmed and transmogged AND reforged.
And then he gets kicked as the rest of the raid laughs except me because, let's be honest, he's got the gear and I don't. And then there's the fucking Elemental guys who are counted as DPS so they fucking take your agility shit for your enhancement guy even though their offspec is healing because they're CUNTS and you just want to Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them and Stab Them andStab Them and Stab Them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on February 14, 2012, 01:26:39 PM so you still haven't had the whisper "I can sell it to you if you want it that bad"? I'm scared at the rage this will cause
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on February 14, 2012, 01:44:20 PM You can't trade money (since the person probably isn't in your realm) but people do roll on tier pieces they already have with the hopes of trading it with the winner of a different piece they need. They basically need to make all lfr loot non tradable. Being able to trade loot for a couple hours to fix mistakes in raids was a great addition but now it's being used to screw people more often than it is used to fix mistakes (in lfr).
Overall lfr is great but Blizzard does have to take a cynical second look at how loot is handled because there are always a few pig fuckers in every lfr run. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on February 14, 2012, 02:00:07 PM They need to make it so that you can't need on something that you have, that isn't your spec or that you have an item that is better than.
Either that or fix people being broken. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on February 14, 2012, 02:07:20 PM They need to make it so that you can't need on something that you have, that isn't your spec or that you have an item that is better than. Either that or fix people being broken. Put the Unique tag on LFR drops. Done. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 14, 2012, 02:09:45 PM That's not quite enough, as there are some weapons people legitimately want two of (enh shaman, fury war, etc.). I think non-tradeable for LFR loot is way to go. Shouldn't have a vendor price or be DE'able either. There should be literally no reason to take an item you don't need, unless you are just a dick.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on February 14, 2012, 02:11:02 PM You're clearly missing the problem.
:oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 14, 2012, 02:14:27 PM There are reasons besides 'be a dick" right now which include trading for other loot that dropped, giving it to a guildie that also was in the raid, DE'ing it, or selling it. The WoW community is pretty bad, but I think the majority of the problems would go away if people had absolutely no reason to roll besides fucking everyone else over.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on February 14, 2012, 02:15:51 PM There would also be a side effect of making it a lot clearer when someone really just is being a dick, and they'd then presumably be easier to report for griefing.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on February 14, 2012, 06:13:26 PM Even cloaks w/ stats was kind of pushing it. A cloak with stats (or at least a "magic" cloak) isn't pushing it at all. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on February 14, 2012, 06:44:31 PM Removing item slots is a dumb move. People like loot, people like getting upgrades, more slots means more upgrades. The solution to people getting bored of your bullshit loot grind isn't to streamline it by removing a slot or two, it's to drop more fucking loot. Preferably by giving each person their own separate loot table for at least a few bosses in each instance. Oh, and crank the drop rates in deprecated heroics right the fuck up, give people a reason to pass on loot (more points), and remove the incentive to roll on shit you don't need.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on February 14, 2012, 06:50:02 PM Removing item slots is a dumb move. People like loot, people like getting upgrades, more slots means more upgrades. The solution to people getting bored of your bullshit loot grind isn't to streamline it by removing a slot or two, it's to drop more fucking loot. Preferably by giving each person their own separate loot table for at least a few bosses in each instance. Oh, and crank the drop rates in deprecated heroics right the fuck up, give people a reason to pass on loot (more points), and remove the incentive to roll on shit you don't need. Or hell, let's just take it to the next level and have a goblin standing by the entrance that will hand you a loot bag just for showing up to the dungeon :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on February 14, 2012, 07:14:52 PM Because
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on February 14, 2012, 07:15:17 PM I would in fact like a free bag of loot.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on February 14, 2012, 07:48:16 PM Removing item slots is a dumb move. People like loot, people like getting upgrades, more slots means more upgrades. The solution to people getting bored of your bullshit loot grind isn't to streamline it by removing a slot or two, it's to drop more fucking loot. Preferably by giving each person their own separate loot table for at least a few bosses in each instance. Oh, and crank the drop rates in deprecated heroics right the fuck up, give people a reason to pass on loot (more points), and remove the incentive to roll on shit you don't need. Or hell, let's just take it to the next level and have a goblin standing by the entrance that will hand you a loot bag just for showing up to the dungeon :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 14, 2012, 08:21:41 PM Removing item slots is a dumb move. People like loot, people like getting upgrades, more slots means more upgrades. The solution to people getting bored of your bullshit loot grind isn't to streamline it by removing a slot or two, it's to drop more fucking loot. Preferably by giving each person their own separate loot table for at least a few bosses in each instance. Oh, and crank the drop rates in deprecated heroics right the fuck up, give people a reason to pass on loot (more points), and remove the incentive to roll on shit you don't need. You're right, they shouldn't remove slots like rings. They should add more slots! 10 ring slots for each of your fingers would obviously make gear in WoW even better! :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on February 14, 2012, 08:26:48 PM I liked having a melee weapon as a hunter; properly using Raptor Strike, Wing Clip and Counterattack made one a better PVPer (at least back when I last played my hunter). Not having a minimum range is nice, I guess, but I really don't like the homogenization. Also put me in the "more slots, not less, yes I'll wear 10 rings thankyouverymuch" camp.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on February 14, 2012, 09:35:18 PM You're right, they shouldn't remove slots like rings. They should add more slots! 10 ring slots for each of your fingers would obviously make gear in WoW even better! :oh_i_see: God you're such an idiot. It's three per hand, tops. Else the enchantments interfere with each other. You can compensate for that though with extra trinkets and maybe a relic to go with your ranged weapon. Eyewear slot too maybe. No, fuck it, screw the "maybe": I want to wear a monocle under my helm. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on February 14, 2012, 10:02:26 PM You're right, they shouldn't remove slots like rings. They should add more slots! 10 ring slots for each of your fingers would obviously make gear in WoW even better! :oh_i_see: God you're such an idiot. It's three per hand, tops. Else the enchantments interfere with each other. You can compensate for that though with extra trinkets and maybe a relic to go with your ranged weapon. Eyewear slot too maybe. No, fuck it, screw the "maybe": I want to wear a monocle under my helm. The Mandarin disagrees with you. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on February 15, 2012, 12:29:45 AM I wouldn't mind if rings & amulets went. For me gear is a tool and the less stuff there is on loot tables, the better chance of a 10m team getting what they want. Also I feel like they're not thinking at times, there is NO reason for the 2 daggers in Dragon Soul to exist, other than LFR difficulty. Tier 11 had 12 bosses and 1 dagger, and back then rogues actually cared about daggers. Also 25m rogues can go to hell, so that's that :oh_i_see:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on February 15, 2012, 02:04:37 AM I think rings and necks exist somewhat to help with itemization balance. They let you get away with itemizing a few non armor slots with "perfect" itemization for a wide variety of classes, where often even a different spec of the same class may have wildly different stat priorities. If it werent for rings necks and trinkets, they would pretty much have to create spec specific sets for individual classes, or itemize like 6 different sets of boots / bracers / belts for each armor type or something like that. Necks / rings etc let them have a nice balance of "yes, this set piece is not perfectly itemized for your class+spec but you can make up the difference with this ring / neck that is.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on February 15, 2012, 02:37:09 AM That's the thing Wolf: they're only getting rid of thrown items and relics, which are with a few exceptions pretty much gone from the loots lists already anyways. In trade, you're going to cut yourself and threaten to quit life every time a bow or gun drops because there is now one class that can use them. Either that, or every hunter in the game will end up shafted (har har) because their damn weapon just won't drop from the one boss that drops it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on February 15, 2012, 03:43:28 AM that already happens. Only hunters use Agility bows, since they're itemized for them. Rogues have a pretty, awesomely itemized throwing weapon, or knife, or something on the valor vendor that they always end up using. So that changes nothing.
It's silly slots that get no use other than something you must refresh every tier, plus minrange which has been retarded for hunters for ages. No need to read more into it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on February 15, 2012, 03:50:56 AM Not that I've participated in it but it sounds like this is what LFR needs:
1) No-roll unless it's for the spec you are at the moment the boss dies. 2) Move to the TOC tokens instead of the bullshit "shoulder/ chest/ leg" token system that's only going to screw everyone. 2a) No-roll on the above tokens if you've got a full set for your spec in your bags. Weapons you can easily move to unique. Mainhand/ offhand aren't ever supposed to be the same speed anyway, unless you're an Enh shaman, right? With all the classfuckery in MoP you can't even say that Enh shaman will still need dual slows and won't be moved to the similar slow main/ fast off of other classes. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on February 15, 2012, 03:54:21 AM En Shammy, DPS Warrior, Combat Rogue, Ice Deathknight.
I think that's it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on February 15, 2012, 04:04:31 AM Ice DKs are back do DW as best DPS? They've shifted back and forth on that one and had wanted 2h to be the preferred method.
Combat is still slow/ fast paradigm from what I just looked up on Mr. Robot. Fury uses Titan's Grip with 2h weapons, so yeah that's a problem. Particularly if trying to maximize with your racial bonus as an Orc or Human. So there's some futzing that needs to be done with them and Enh shaman. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on February 15, 2012, 04:24:41 AM warriors got no place being fury at the moment anyway. Arms is so broken...
afaik frost is looking for highest DPS on weapons and really don't care if it's fast or slow. There has been 1 str one-hander in both last tiers, so it's not like there's a choice :) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on February 15, 2012, 04:27:50 AM Not really. It's the wiggly Ann Summers sword at 378 and that's it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 15, 2012, 08:02:19 AM Alternatively, rings would serve more purpose in the game if they were visible on your character. Wouldn't need to be anything complex, just something simple that will go well with whatever your class armor that tier is.
I'd actually love to see more purely cosmetic slots in the game. The trophies you could attach to armor were one of the few things I liked about Warhammer Online. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on February 15, 2012, 08:25:57 AM The solution to people getting bored of your bullshit loot grind isn't to streamline it by removing a slot or two, it's to drop more fucking loot. Preferably by giving each person their own separate loot table for at least a few bosses in each instance. This right here would solve the problem of someone taking items they don't need.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on February 15, 2012, 08:41:54 AM The RNG loot system is becoming progressively more outdated. Gamers simply won't put up with the loot lottery anymore. They want to beat the content, not farm it because the drop rates suck.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on February 15, 2012, 09:01:15 AM Farming is part of the process, I don't mind it much. RNG is bad. I can give you a couple of awesome personal examples - Chimaeron's loot table is 12 items, 2 drop at a time in 10m, he drops the only mail agility bracers in t11. We have 26 kills between normal and heroic and have not had it drop. Lord Rhyolith's loot table in Firelands has 20 items, 2 at a time - one of them the bis int mail bracer, out of 25kills - 0 bracers.
We have a number of items like that, that's not a good system. Once something drops it should have a lower chance of droping, while the rest of the loot table should have a higher chance. Between that, the valour items, etc it's ok. Some randomness to keep it fresh is not bad. What we have right now is beyond retarded. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on February 15, 2012, 09:58:48 AM Farming is only part of the process because we accept it as part of the process. More and more, people are rejecting that idea and demanding more personalized looting options. People aren't willing to put up with items dropping that have no available class in the actual raid, or the same thing dropping over and over.
Killing the same thing over and over and over? It's similar to the grinding system that got replaced by quests. We moved on from that, we need to move on from farming bosses. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 15, 2012, 10:44:11 AM DDO lets everyone in the party have their own chest for loot and I can't really say I'm a fan. It makes things more complicated when you actually do want to trade something with another player in your group (since you need to be paying close attention to what they got). I think it would be a recipe for disaster in WoW as well, if they did let you trade equipment, because suddenly you have people fighting over gear that is legitimately 'theirs' but might be considerably more useful for someone else in the group. Alternatively if loot wasn't trade-able, you're going to be really bitter when the priest in your group gets the axe you've been wanting. You could make it so that only gear you could actually use drops from, but I think that's a less exciting gear model that removes the lottery-high WoW loot provides. It would make WoW even more of a solitary experience: it's not a group of people sharing loot and then being happy for their guild-mate that got it.
Honestly, I'm pretty happy with how loot works in the game right now as someone that still mostly runs dungeons and raids within guild. Where it feels broken is in pugs where you don't even like or care about the people you're playing with, you just want loot. Going back to cosmetic items, that would be a way to increase the amount of loot that dropped from bosses and your chance to get something without increasing player power or greatly changing the loot model. If, for example, every T13 boss dropped what they dropped right now and 1-2 cosmetic items from an expanded loot table. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on February 15, 2012, 11:00:19 AM Is there a reason why all loot can't be handled via badges? Is there even a need for an RNG loot drop system anymore? Why not just take DKP to it's logical conclusion like WoW has already done with so many things?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on February 15, 2012, 11:11:24 AM I find random loot more fun personally, as long as the badge system is there as a failsafe for unlucky streaks.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 15, 2012, 11:21:59 AM Is there a reason why all loot can't be handled via badges? Is there even a need for an RNG loot drop system anymore? Why not just take DKP to it's logical conclusion like WoW has already done with so many things? A lot of people just seem to find badge loot less exciting, myself included. I found I was much happier when I got a tier piece in T13 from a boss than when I bought a tier piece in T12, for example. Badge gear is expected and you know exactly when you'll obtain it. There is no surprise, and it's just not quite as fun as the semi-RNG model. I would like to see what Wolf suggested, where items that haven't been dropping for your guild slowly get an increased chance to drop. It keeps the excitement of the RNG model while also removing some of the frustration of never seeing the loot you want. True story: I ran Onyxia for a whole year back in vanilla before my guild saw a single Stormrage (Druid T2) hat. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on February 15, 2012, 12:34:49 PM I find random loot more fun personally, as long as the badge system is there as a failsafe for unlucky streaks. You weren't saying that on Botanica run 521. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on February 15, 2012, 12:37:04 PM It's like you IGNORED the part I just said about the badges!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on February 15, 2012, 12:39:02 PM IF the badge system covered the entire loot table, you might of had a valid point.
It never has so you can go run Botanica again. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on February 15, 2012, 12:45:34 PM That's fine, I liked Botanica. :-P
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on February 15, 2012, 12:46:06 PM Not after the 500th time you didn't. I was there remember!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on February 15, 2012, 12:46:48 PM You're projecting your own issues on to me, sir.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on February 15, 2012, 12:49:10 PM "Baaaw, I have to respec to DPS"
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 15, 2012, 01:03:32 PM IF the badge system covered the entire loot table, you might of had a valid point. It never has so you can go run Botanica again. Badge system pretty much covers the entire loot table in T13. The only slots it doesn't cover are shoulders and main weapon iirc. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on February 15, 2012, 01:15:21 PM The shoulders were the piece I needed for my Paladin tank from Botanica. So I could hit the uncrushable point with holyshield up and not wipe our Kara raids.
Good times :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on February 15, 2012, 01:18:25 PM IF the badge system covered the entire loot table, you might of had a valid point. *cough* might have :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on February 15, 2012, 01:19:47 PM My context was clear, don't start with me unless you want to run Botanica too.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on February 15, 2012, 01:23:17 PM I find random loot more fun personally, as long as the badge system is there as a failsafe for unlucky streaks. Only if it's Diablo-style truly random loot. If it's just a lottery roll for a small number of items it doesn't interest me any more than a token system.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on February 15, 2012, 01:24:22 PM I find random loot more fun personally, as long as the badge system is there as a failsafe for unlucky streaks. Only if it's Diablo-style truly random loot. If it's just a lottery roll for a small number of items it doesn't interest me any more than a token system.I hate Diablo loot even more. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on February 15, 2012, 01:31:36 PM Badge system pretty much covers the entire loot table in T13. The only slots it doesn't cover are shoulders and main weapon iirc. Pretty much might as well be no. Besides, what are the two most obvious pieces on WoW characters? Shoulders and weapons. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on February 15, 2012, 01:36:11 PM And yet you could buy MH weapons for tokens / valor equivilent off the Sunwell Vendor back at the end of Burning Crusade, so it's not like they are unwilling to go that way.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on February 15, 2012, 01:41:38 PM Exactly, it's the perfect system. Drops to cover the lottery need people have, tokens to fill in the gaps.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 15, 2012, 01:47:22 PM MoP talent calculators updated:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator Only took a look at rogue. So far the changes seem decent (compared to the last talent preview). New MoP rogue ability is also a group-wide stealth with a 5-min cooldown. Pretty awesome. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on February 15, 2012, 01:47:48 PM And yet you could buy MH weapons for tokens / valor equivilent off the Sunwell Vendor back at the end of Burning Crusade, so it's not like they are unwilling to go that way. They cruelly made the Spellpower 1h a dagger, to fuck my Prot Paladin. The Cunts. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on February 15, 2012, 01:57:46 PM Exactly, it's the perfect system. Drops to cover the lottery need people have, tokens to fill in the gaps. So what you're saying is you want a more poorly itemized/lower ilvl items from badges and better itemized/higher ilvl from drop? It's basically the same since harder fights will be balanced around having the loot bits, and the RNG issue in 10m is still not addressed. Just make sure after 15 bale kills one of my tanks is not trying to kill heroic ragnaros in his 359 shield, and I'm happy with the system :) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on February 15, 2012, 02:00:59 PM I just want to walk up to a vendor and/or the AH and have my ideal suit cheaply and easily available for whatever content I am attempting.
I am in the minority, I know. I have no idea what they did to my Moonkin in MoP. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on February 15, 2012, 02:03:11 PM Exactly, it's the perfect system. Drops to cover the lottery need people have, tokens to fill in the gaps. So what you're saying is you want a more poorly itemized/lower ilvl items from badges and better itemized/higher ilvl from drop? It's basically the same since harder fights will be balanced around having the loot bits, and the RNG issue in 10m is still not addressed. Just make sure after 15 bale kills one of my tanks is not trying to kill heroic ragnaros in his 359 shield, and I'm happy with the system :) No I'm saying you put everything on a vendor as a badge cost, and the drops just either save you badges or not. Example, you get a drop and 3 badges per boss, except the last boss which drops 10 badges and weapons. Then, you adjust the badge cost of items accordingly. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on February 15, 2012, 04:08:18 PM Is there a reason why all loot can't be handled via badges? Is there even a need for an RNG loot drop system anymore? Yes, it's called "how the human brain is wired": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Effects_of_different_types_of_simple_schedulesQuote Variable schedules produce higher rates and greater resistance to extinction than most fixed schedules. This is also known as the Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect (PREE). The variable ratio schedule produces both the highest rate of responding and the greatest resistance to extinction (for example, the behavior of gamblers at slot machines) If you want to reinforce the "ding grats" gameplay (read: keep people playing) then random drops are, by far, the most effective method.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on February 15, 2012, 04:34:54 PM Yes, but the combo system I'm suggesting provides the random rewards WITH the assurance that they aren't getting screwed in the long run.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: pxib on February 15, 2012, 05:11:46 PM When they get exactly the drops they want, most people stop playing.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on February 15, 2012, 08:20:34 PM When they get exactly the drops they want, most people stop playing. Not if you introduce new elements like challenge modes and whatnot. You can move the bar without forcing people to farm. We've just been living inside the skinner box too long, and a new generation of gamers is coming along behind us that won't buy into the same bullshit we did 12 years ago. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on February 15, 2012, 08:22:35 PM Yes, but the combo system I'm suggesting provides the random rewards WITH the assurance that they aren't getting screwed in the long run. That actually makes the random drop a lot less cool because you know you would easily get it anyway.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 15, 2012, 09:05:57 PM When they get exactly the drops they want, most people stop playing. Not if you introduce new elements like challenge modes and whatnot. You can move the bar without forcing people to farm. We've just been living inside the skinner box too long, and a new generation of gamers is coming along behind us that won't buy into the same bullshit we did 12 years ago.What makes you think most players will actually be interested in challenge modes? If Cata is any indication, it will be an extremely unpopular feature. People want the best loot possible for the least effort. I really don't see challenge modes with their ilvl nerfs and no gear upgrades catching on with the majority of players. It's a low-cost solution to entertain nerds like me, but that's about it. I'm sure the next generation of gamers will be even smarter than the current generation, with higher standards. :oh_i_see: That's definitely the impression I get in my limited interactions with them when I make the mistake of playing a console shooter and interrupt their leveling/reward treadmill in games like Call of Duty or Gears of War. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on February 15, 2012, 10:15:33 PM Exactly, it's the perfect system. Drops to cover the lottery need people have, tokens to fill in the gaps. So what you're saying is you want a more poorly itemized/lower ilvl items from badges and better itemized/higher ilvl from drop? It's basically the same since harder fights will be balanced around having the loot bits, and the RNG issue in 10m is still not addressed. Just make sure after 15 bale kills one of my tanks is not trying to kill heroic ragnaros in his 359 shield, and I'm happy with the system :) No I'm saying you put everything on a vendor as a badge cost, and the drops just either save you badges or not. Example, you get a drop and 3 badges per boss, except the last boss which drops 10 badges and weapons. Then, you adjust the badge cost of items accordingly. You realize you'd still have to farm the badges, right? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on February 15, 2012, 10:47:58 PM Isn't this the opposite of homogenization? Now the weapons each class uses will be more distinct. Hunters really only had melee weapons at this point because everyone had something for the primary/secondary weapon slots and that kept classes equal. Every class basically uses one weapon and then has some sort of stat stick, whether it be a wand, a relic, or a throwing weapon. I'll be glad to see these pointless slots go. Dunno, on my warrior, I actually use the ranged weapon. It gives me an additional pull over taunt and other abilities. It also lets me gun down trash without having to chase it or wait for it to return. And then, yes, stat stick. Similar with my rogue and mage. I can see it making more differences to classes that had totems and ranged things that actually triggered abilities or special events, like Pallies and Druids, etc. edit - SurfD pointed some of this out, yes. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on February 16, 2012, 01:07:28 AM http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#ba! - updated talent trees are up.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on February 16, 2012, 01:32:50 AM spirit->hit is gone. Yay for the return of two types of int leather and two types of int mail :heartbreak:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on February 16, 2012, 01:55:14 AM spirit->hit is gone. Yay for the return of two types of int leather and two types of int mail :heartbreak: Are you basing that off of something other than the talent calculator you just linked because I see those two just fine. Elemental gets Elemental Precision at 10 and Balance gets Balance of Power at 64. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on February 16, 2012, 02:07:36 AM basing that on the missing twisted faith in shadow, and asking a shaman and a boomkin if they still got theirs and them saying no. So, scratch that :)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on February 16, 2012, 06:01:52 AM I'm sure the next generation of gamers will be even smarter than the current generation, with higher standards. :oh_i_see: That's definitely the impression I get in my limited interactions with them when I make the mistake of playing a console shooter and interrupt their leveling/reward treadmill in games like Call of Duty or Gears of War. It's got nothing to do with smarts. They are less patient. That's all that matters in a game built on an RNG system. And no, I don't believe that the larger playerbase would enjoy a straight RNG over a variable version with badge backup. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on February 16, 2012, 06:35:05 AM basing that on the missing twisted faith in shadow, and asking a shaman and a boomkin if they still got theirs and them saying no. So, scratch that :) I'm gonna assume it's baked into the spec now. Like when you go moonkin/shadow/ele your spirit auto converts to hit. I just dont see them ever wanting to open up the can of leather/mail that is shaman/druid caster gear. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on February 16, 2012, 08:50:13 AM It's just gone from Spriests which is a welcome change. There is hit gear for dps, take that and leave the spirit gear for the healers.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on February 16, 2012, 09:59:37 AM That is exactly what it is. Shadow priests will be sharing gear with mages and locks since both are cloth that requires hit. The gear already exists and offering the talent didn't remove the need to create it, it only created a competition for gear w/ healers*.
Yes, it sucks to be cloth DPS because you're competing with more people for the same gear now. Welcome to plate world. * Now the flip side to the argument is, yes, you're creating a whole set of gear that applies only to 2 specs of priests - spirit cloth. Druids and pallies don't need spirit cloth because it reduces Plate and Leather specialization. However for rings, amulets and trinkets it makes a big difference to remove another chunk of players from the competition for the gear. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on February 16, 2012, 10:13:02 AM Or Blizzard could quit fucking around and make Spirit the universal Hit/Mp5 stat because no class has ever needed both.
...Nah. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on February 16, 2012, 11:09:05 AM Pick one:
Why on earth would they do anything sensible and logical like that at this point? :awesome_for_real: Well because Spirit isn't hit, it's willpower and doesn't make sense in the physical laws of the game rules! :awesome_for_real: Hey if they don't keep fucking around with this shit how will they justify paying the designers to overhaul everything every expansion? :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 16, 2012, 11:39:27 AM Rename spirit to focus. Now it makes sense as a hit-stat for melee, ranged, and casters while still making sense as a mana regen stat.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Kail on February 16, 2012, 11:40:31 AM Dunno, on my warrior, I actually use the ranged weapon. It gives me an additional pull over taunt and other abilities. It also lets me gun down trash without having to chase it or wait for it to return. And then, yes, stat stick. Similar with my rogue and mage. I can see it making more differences to classes that had totems and ranged things that actually triggered abilities or special events, like Pallies and Druids, etc. Are they getting rid of the gun as an equippable item, or the "Shoot" ability? It seems to me that you could keep Shoot (or Throw) if you wanted to, without making them depend on you having a ranged weapon equipped. Like the way it functions in WAR, for example, where every melee class gets a ranged plink attack that they can just cast whenever. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on February 16, 2012, 11:56:29 AM You'll just be able to throw your normal weapon. You won't lose any utility that the secondary weapons gave you really, but you'll lose the slot.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on February 16, 2012, 12:08:14 PM That is exactly what it is. Shadow priests will be sharing gear with mages and locks since both are cloth that requires hit. The gear already exists and offering the talent didn't remove the need to create it, it only created a competition for gear w/ healers*. Solution: Remove spell plate, give resto paladins a "cloth counts as mail/plate" passive at level 10. Makes spirit cloth more useful and removes an armour/stat types that only one spec uses.Yes, it sucks to be cloth DPS because you're competing with more people for the same gear now. Welcome to plate world. * Now the flip side to the argument is, yes, you're creating a whole set of gear that applies only to 2 specs of priests - spirit cloth. Druids and pallies don't need spirit cloth because it reduces Plate and Leather specialization. However for rings, amulets and trinkets it makes a big difference to remove another chunk of players from the competition for the gear. Death to spell plate. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on February 16, 2012, 01:25:27 PM Im not exactl
That is exactly what it is. Shadow priests will be sharing gear with mages and locks since both are cloth that requires hit. The gear already exists and offering the talent didn't remove the need to create it, it only created a competition for gear w/ healers*. Solution: Remove spell plate, give resto paladins a "cloth counts as mail/plate" passive at level 10. Makes spirit cloth more useful and removes an armour/stat types that only one spec uses.Yes, it sucks to be cloth DPS because you're competing with more people for the same gear now. Welcome to plate world. * Now the flip side to the argument is, yes, you're creating a whole set of gear that applies only to 2 specs of priests - spirit cloth. Druids and pallies don't need spirit cloth because it reduces Plate and Leather specialization. However for rings, amulets and trinkets it makes a big difference to remove another chunk of players from the competition for the gear. Death to spell plate. Holy Paladins / Boomkin / Resto druids all appearently have a new ability in MoP that increases their Mana Pool by 400% over their normal base. Maybe this is just to adjust for them changing Int so it no longer affects mana or something, but if they are going that way, why not just do away with int alltogether on those classes and give them spellpower modifiers / conversions from agility / strength or something? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on February 16, 2012, 02:15:51 PM not mana per-se, but mana-regen. The way it works now is some classes/specs (druids/disc) regen based off of max mana, other (shaman, holy priest) use spirit for regen and holy paladins are a mixed bag. The ones with max mana are back to almost wotlk levels of spam right now and they want to remove that - that's why all the healers get 500% mana increase and no mana from int. It's basically their mana pool for the whole of the expansion, and they can balance around that.
To whoever said it's fine they're removing twisted faith. Go away :mob: I like being able to double dip and they'll have to pry that from my cold dead hands. Off to the forums to whine! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on February 17, 2012, 03:22:47 AM So we can get rid of rings, and trinkets, and separate pieces of armor, and why not just make all your stats based upon the single weapon you can equip? Sounds like loads of fun in an item-centric game! Trinkets don't feel like 'stat sticks' because they get flavor through unique procs or effects. BiS trinkets (until this tier and the Deathwing trinkets) varied widely between specs, so they were one of the most interesting gear slots in the game. Armor determines your appearance and also has set bonuses for anyone really playing end-game, so they are also more than just 'stat sticks'. Rings and necklaces aren't particularly interesting, and are probably the least exciting gear slots in the game next to literal stat-sticks at the moment, so I'd be fine seeing them retire in the future. And so would the jewelcrafters! (Speaking of "stat sticks" - thats all the whole profession is, essentially...) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 02, 2012, 01:19:41 PM Because it's another x-pack, we needed another stat revamp.
http://us.battle.net/wow/blog/4544194 Quote Our recent talent calculator changes led to some players asking questions about how character and item stats were changing, because some spell and talent tooltips suggest that changes are coming. We compiled this list to attempt to explain more of what’s coming in Mists of Pandaria. First of all, please note that we actually aren’t making many stat changes compared to the ones we made in Cataclysm (“armor penetration -- gone!”). Second, the stuff below can get a little technical. If you’re not into the subtle nuance of gear itemization, then don’t worry about it -- you don’t need to be to enjoy the expansion -- but we know there are plenty of you who enjoy some nuts and bolts talk, so here we go. Spell Resistance Spell resistance is gone. There are no buffs that improve it and there shouldn’t be much, if any, spell resist gear left. We always thought the system was hard to understand and we weren’t getting much gameplay out of it. Now taking a step back, we can imagine how to develop a game where you’d want various forms of resist gear for certain situations and opponents. Resist gear could potentially be interesting, but it isn’t currently in World of Warcraft -- the game has just been moving away from that sort of thing for years. In the absence of spell resistance, there is no need for spell penetration on gear, so we’ll remove it as well. Hit and Expertise We still think having stats that can be capped is a good game design. Rather than focusing solely on stacking your best stat, you have to decide how valuable it is to hit your target before you go back to stacking your best stat. However, we are making some changes. Hit and spell hit will no longer be separate stats. The hit stat negates melee miss and spell miss. Expertise will negate dodge and spell miss, then parry. Expertise will be listed as a percentage, just like hit, instead of having an intermediary stat. We are normalizing hit with expertise, so that 1% of each stat will require the same amount of rating. We are normalizing melee and spell hit, so that spell hit is equal to miss plus dodge. Against an equal level creature: 6% spell miss, 3% melee miss, 3% dodge, 3% parry (from the front only), 3% block (from the front only). Against a +1 level creature: 9% spell miss, 4.5% melee miss, 4.5% dodge, 4.5% parry (from the front only), 4.5% Block (from the front only). Against a +2 level creature: 12% spell miss, 6% melee miss, 6% dodge, 6% parry (from the front only), 6% Block (from the front only). Against a +3/boss level creature: 15% spell miss, 7.5% melee miss, 7.5% dodge, 7.5% parry (from the front only), 7.5% block (from the front only). Ranged attacks will be able to be dodged. Hunters will benefit from expertise and will have it on their gear, which will also allow hunters and Enhancement shaman to share gear more easily. Block The chance to block will be handled by a separate combat roll for each attack that is not avoided. In other words, we first determine if an attack misses, or is dodged or parried. If it is not, then the attack has a chance to be blocked. This gives block a consistent value, regardless of avoidance. Currently block becomes more valuable the more you have. Block will also have diminishing returns, much like dodge and parry. This doesn’t mean that the value of block will go down as you get more block. It means that it won’t go up by as much when you get more block. We don’t expect Protection warriors or paladins to get “block capped” other than during temporary effects, such as mastery procs on trinkets. Block tanks will be balanced around this change. Our intent is to make playing block tanks more fun, not to nerf them. Also notice how Shield Block and Shield of the Righteous have changed in Mists. Criticals All spells and abilities will crit for double damage, baseline. There are a few exceptions where crits can get larger, but the default is x 2.0 for everyone. This means that Enhancement shaman spells and rogue poisons will crit for double damage. Rogue poisons will also use the melee hit chance. Resilience We are renaming this stat to “Defense (PvP)” or possibly “PvP Defense.” All players will have 30% base Defense, the same way all characters have some base Stamina. PvP gear will have Defense on it, as well as a new stat, “Power (PvP).” Power increases the damage you do to other players as well as the healing you do to other players in PvP situations. If you have a lot of Power, you’ll do more damage to other players, but they likely have Defense as well. If you fight players in lots of PvE gear, they’ll take more damage. Likewise, a player in PvE gear won’t have enough Power to effectively penetrate your Defense. The names PvP Power and PvP Defense may not be final, but we’re leaning towards going with stat names that are obviously PvP-related, rather than “fluffier” names that might not be as easy to grasp. We want it to be clear to players that neither Power nor Defense have any relevance when fighting creatures, such as in dungeons or raids. PvP gear will be lower in item level than PvE gear of an equivalent tier, however the Power and Defense stats will make sure that PvP gear is more powerful in PvP (both offensively and defensively) than PvE gear. In our budgeting system, the PvP stats will be free rather than causing other stats, such as Strength or haste, to be smaller as a result of including Power or Defense. The goal of this change is to make it easier for a PvP player to participate in PvE, or for a PvE player to get started in PvP. Currently, we feel it is too large a barrier to go from one to the other, and the result has been that we see more and more players choosing to focus exclusively on only PvP or PvE. In earlier expansions, it was more feasible to use PvE gear in Arenas or Battlegrounds until you acquired the more useful PvP gear. The same was true of being able to use your PvP gear in a dungeon or raid until you acquired something better. In Cataclysm, stepping into PvP with no PvP gear would result in a player being so ineffective that it was difficult to even make progress towards acquiring PvP gear. For the higher-end of PvP or PvE (say Gladiators or heroic raiders), we believe those players will still gravitate towards the dedicated PvP or PvE gear. It is the players who are working towards those two end games that will benefit more from some cross over. That’s a lot of information, and it probably sounds more set-in-stone than it really is. We’ll continue to iterate as players poke holes in our ideas, tell us what is working out and what isn’t, and finally get to experience it first hand in beta. Can't say I'll miss spell resist, although I wonder if they'll be going back to revamp all of the encounters that relied on the players having spell resist to overcome them. Everything else seemed like it was inevitable. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 02, 2012, 01:22:24 PM Quote Rogue poisons will also use the melee hit chance. Woo! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on March 02, 2012, 01:25:29 PM :yahoo:
Still not going to come back! There is a chance I will eat those words. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 02, 2012, 01:40:20 PM Quote Block tanks will be balanced around this change. Our intent is to make playing block tanks more fun, not to nerf them. :ye_gods: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on March 02, 2012, 01:40:39 PM Quote Spell Resistance Spell resistance is gone. There are no buffs that improve it and there shouldn’t be much, if any, spell resist gear left. We always thought the system was hard to understand and we weren’t getting much gameplay out of it. Now taking a step back, we can imagine how to develop a game where you’d want various forms of resist gear for certain situations and opponents. Resist gear could potentially be interesting, but it isn’t currently in World of Warcraft -- the game has just been moving away from that sort of thing for years. In the absence of spell resistance, there is no need for spell penetration on gear, so we’ll remove it as well. About, Fucking, Time. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 02:05:45 PM I like the change to block too, from a mechanical standpoint. It should be way harder for tanks to get broken in weird ways at extreme amounts of stats.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 02, 2012, 02:06:12 PM I'm not seeing how the block changes do this:
Quote This gives block a consistent value, regardless of avoidance. Currently block becomes more valuable the more you have. They then go on to say there's no cap.. so uh.. doesn't block still become more valuable the more you have? Also, if all tanks self-heal now, doesn't this make Pally/ War the definitive best tanks? The other tanks do the avoid thing, miss and then get hit. Pal/War do all the avoidance then get block chance before getting hit. Seems like they'd be better tanks. Not that I'm complaining, I miss my BC-era Pally but it'd suck to see DK/ Druid get pushed to the bottom because the other two get an additional mitigation stat. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 02:11:50 PM I'm not seeing how the block changes do this: Quote This gives block a consistent value, regardless of avoidance. Currently block becomes more valuable the more you have. They then go on to say there's no cap.. so uh.. doesn't block still become more valuable the more you have? Also, if all tanks self-heal now, doesn't this make Pally/ War the definitive best tanks? The other tanks do the avoid thing, miss and then get hit. Pal/War do all the avoidance then get block chance before getting hit. Seems like they'd be better tanks. Not that I'm complaining, I miss my BC-era Pally but it'd suck to see DK/ Druid get pushed to the bottom because the other two get an additional mitigation stat. Read that as, 'currently each point of block is more valuable than the one before it.' The idea is to change it so that 300 block rating is only twice as good as 150 block rating, or whatever. On the other tanks, they have absorb mechanics that take the place of block (in theory). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 02, 2012, 02:13:21 PM Block doesn't suffer from diminishing returns in the current model so the right gearing/reforging decision for paladins/warriors is always "more mastery (block)". The MoP change will bring it into line with parry/dodge. There isn't a cap, but there will be a point when you want to stop getting block and start getting parry/dodge.
Personally, I find trying to balance your tanking stats perfectly against diminishing returns to be a huge hassle. It's the epitome of needing an outside source in order to understand and make decisions about your character. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 02, 2012, 02:32:17 PM Oh fuck. I agree with Rokal about tanking stats. :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 02, 2012, 02:51:19 PM Paladins and warriors getting CTC capped ("unhittable" block+parry+dodge+5% miss = ~103%) was getting retarded. And they made it even more retarded in Dragon Soul by giving mobs hit or flat-out making important attacks unblockable, so they don't get too overpowered. It's just a design issue they're addressing.
DKs & Druids also have block, it's just hidden in their mastery - they have mechanics that give them absorbs. Basically in an ideal world the numbers will come out just right and all tanks will need the exact same amount of healing to survive the same amount of damage intake. In the real world block tanks are better for some fights, druids are good for others and a perfectly played DK is mostly overpowered ^^ The idea behind the new talents is just to give more versatility without having to resort to alts. For example - Yorsahj in Dragon Soul puts a debuff on the tank - every time they receive healing, they get a stack - once it reaches 5 stacks it explodes and wipes the raid. There are two ways currently in the game to deal with that - either have a DK that can help out since his heals don't stack the debuff, or a paladin that can heal via Beacon. We used a DK alt up to this reset (10% buff went live this week) and we almost died on a boss that's been on farm for months, because we used our insanely geared warrior. I am, of course, oversimplifying the fight, but that's the gist of it. In Pandas he'd turn on some healing talents and poof, problem solved. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 02, 2012, 02:59:54 PM Quote Expertise will negate dodge and spell miss, then parry. Oh, our enhancment shaman will ruin his pants :oh_i_see: Quote We are normalizing melee and spell hit, so that spell hit is equal to miss plus dodge. Against a +3/boss level creature: 15% spell miss, 7.5% melee miss, 7.5% dodge, 7.5% parry (from the front only), 7.5% block (from the front only). So I need 22,5 hit now as a caster? Am I reading that correctly? Missing sucks, I hope ratings come out right so it's not like a warrior trying to cap hit now. Looks like a lot of cleaning house to be honest, if you understand how it works once, you won't have to re-learn it once you switch from caster to melee or hunter. Also enhancment won't require advanced math classes to get the stats right :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 04:33:12 PM I am pretty sure you need 15% spell hit. They're not going to make dodge or parry or block apply to spells.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 02, 2012, 04:38:37 PM I am pretty sure you need 15% spell hit. They're not going to make dodge or parry or block apply to spells. At least not until Wow 6.0, Emerald Dream Boogaloo :grin: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on March 02, 2012, 05:18:41 PM Quote All spells and abilities will crit for double damage, baseline. Indirect DK nerf, fuck you Blizz, cancelling forever!(Only mostly joking. Unless they give us tripled crit, or something....) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 02, 2012, 05:21:09 PM It's WoW. At this point the only thing less surprising than a DK nerf is a mechanics overhaul for Hunters or Paladins. Whose turn is it this time, anyway?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 02, 2012, 05:26:06 PM It's WoW. At this point the only thing less surprising than a DK nerf is a mechanics overhaul for Hunters or Paladins. Whose turn is it this time, anyway? Warlocks are certainly getting a fair shake-up with having more uniqueness added to each of their three specs. Druids are also going to be the first class with four-specs, as they're (finally) splitting Bear and Cat-forms into their own respective specs. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on March 02, 2012, 06:21:12 PM Quote Expertise will negate dodge and spell miss, then parry. Oh, our enhancment shaman will ruin his pants :oh_i_see: Quote We are normalizing melee and spell hit, so that spell hit is equal to miss plus dodge. Against a +3/boss level creature: 15% spell miss, 7.5% melee miss, 7.5% dodge, 7.5% parry (from the front only), 7.5% block (from the front only). So I need 22,5 hit now as a caster? Am I reading that correctly? Missing sucks, I hope ratings come out right so it's not like a warrior trying to cap hit now. Looks like a lot of cleaning house to be honest, if you understand how it works once, you won't have to re-learn it once you switch from caster to melee or hunter. Also enhancment won't require advanced math classes to get the stats right :awesome_for_real: 15% spell hit will get you hit capped (spells will not be dodged, miss, etc with 15% pure hit). Mainly applies to cloth casters (cause the idea of expertise on cloth gear is stupid). Mele Caster hybrids (Enhance shaman, DK's, maybe monks) will double dip. 7.5% hit + 7.5% expertise will get you 15% hit for spells, + Full Hit + dodge avoidance from behind for Mele attacks? Pure Mele will need 7.5% hit, + 7.5 % expertise as normal? Or something like that. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 02, 2012, 07:54:10 PM That's how I read it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on March 02, 2012, 08:34:37 PM WoW is actually copying SWTOR's PvP gearing scheme.
The separate roll for blocking is also how SWTOR does it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 03, 2012, 02:26:51 AM I don't know about the PvP thing, but the separate roll I explained why they're doing. If they could've done it mid-expansion without paladins and warriors losing their shit, they would have.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Maledict on March 03, 2012, 03:03:30 AM WoW is actually copying SWTOR's PvP gearing scheme. The separate roll for blocking is also how SWTOR does it. You mean RIFTs surely? They've had two PVP stats in that fashion long before TOR came out haven't they? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on March 03, 2012, 01:27:14 PM WoW is actually copying SWTOR's PvP gearing scheme. The separate roll for blocking is also how SWTOR does it. You mean RIFTs surely? They've had two PVP stats in that fashion long before TOR came out haven't they? I think he means that PvP gear and PvE gear can relatively co-exist until you're at the top of the gearing ladder, not the actual stats themselves. Valor/Vengeance is similar to what WoW's going to do but the itemization specifics are different, which may or may not be relevant depending on how big the item level gap is. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 03, 2012, 04:40:52 PM I don't think Fordel played Rift at all. Pretty sure he's just talking about the fact that the PVP stuff both reduces damage dealt by players and increases damage dealt TO players, which is new for WoW.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on March 03, 2012, 07:11:23 PM Yea, never played Rift and yes, I am referring too SWTORs PvP stat increasing damage/healing as well as reducing damage taken.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on March 03, 2012, 11:00:45 PM Ah alright. Either way, Rift Vengeance and SW:TOR Expertise are about the same age. I think the latter was added in with the big stats overhaul in August (and is explicitly mentioned as increasing damage done in early September) and the former was announced at the end of August (http://forums.riftgame.com/official-rift-news/news-announcements/249546-pvp-gear-improvements-now-touch-vengeance.html).
And both are predated by Flyff apparently. (http://www.flyffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95796) :uhrr: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Furiously on March 04, 2012, 11:28:45 PM :yahoo: Still not going to come back! There is a chance I will eat those words. You are SOOOO going to roll a monk just to see what it's like! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on March 13, 2012, 06:06:14 PM Imma just leave this here:
(http://i.imgur.com/IxjnR.jpg) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 13, 2012, 06:08:22 PM So, furry dwarves? Sounds about right.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 13, 2012, 06:31:38 PM So, furry dwarves? Sounds about right. Yeah, I don't think we're going to get those new character models/frameworks anytime soon. Maybe if the numbers dip below 9 million and they get 'desperate' :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on March 13, 2012, 07:28:11 PM Preparing to fap to hot four-breasted panda ladies. :pedobear:
Yes, I searched "how many nipples does a panda have" on Google to find out. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 13, 2012, 07:51:53 PM Well there's a horrifying thought.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 13, 2012, 09:27:11 PM Well, Tauren only appear to have two. I really would like to get those new models though, some are still decent, but human and NE males are particularly awful.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 13, 2012, 09:33:05 PM I'm guessing we'll see new models as one of the things coming out of the press conference this week. If they're going through the trouble of having an event all week for the press, I'd hope it had some new announcements anyway. I don't think non-Pandaren monks are possible without the model updates, and I'll bet it's the big reveal come monday.
New MoP 'screenshot of the day' too. Honestly, the style looks great. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on March 14, 2012, 11:00:57 AM I can only assume that's the new troll dungeon!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 14, 2012, 11:02:46 AM Well, Tauren only appear to have two. I really would like to get those new models though, some are still decent, but human and NE males are particularly awful. I'd love non-floaty shoulder models for female draenei Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: kaid on March 14, 2012, 11:10:15 AM So, furry dwarves? Sounds about right. Frankly after the worgen female fiasco the sooner they get the female pandarens out the better hopefully this time we can get a decent looking model unlike the worgen female who just looks demented. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on March 14, 2012, 03:59:27 PM There is a persistent rumour that the female pandaren will be based on red pandas rather than giant pandas.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on March 14, 2012, 04:05:59 PM There is a persistent rumour that the female pandaren will be based on red pandas rather than giant pandas. Paging Lantyssa... :sad_red_panda: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 14, 2012, 07:20:30 PM There's been similar rumours about one type being Horde and the other Alliance though, so I guess we'll just wait and see what happens. Both could end up using the same models and different "skin tone" for their fur colourations.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on March 14, 2012, 10:44:45 PM There's been similar rumours about one type being Horde and the other Alliance though, so I guess we'll just wait and see what happens. Both could end up using the same models and different "skin tone" for their fur colourations. Pretty sure the alliance / horde having different looking pandas was shot down by blizzard, who basicly said that everyone rolls a "panda" and at the end of your Newb Zone experience, you simply chose to side with the horde or the alliance (probably depending on some kind of branching path questline). So no different pandas for horde vs alliance.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on March 14, 2012, 11:05:08 PM Knowing Blizzard, Horde pandas will probably have horns and Alliance will have floppy pointed ears.
Horde will complain that Alliance have better looking Pandas until they release Pandas with tusks and voodoo markings. Alliance will then sulk and point out that Horde are the beloved of Blizzard. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on March 15, 2012, 09:02:03 AM There is a persistent rumour that the female pandaren will be based on red pandas rather than giant pandas. Paging Lantyssa... :sad_red_panda:Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 15, 2012, 09:10:28 PM Even if they have playable Red Pandas?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on March 16, 2012, 08:46:04 AM Goblins and Worgen didn't keep me around for Cataclysm.
I might have been gone long enough within a year of release to give a trial a shot, but it's not like I'm a furry who's been dreaming of the day I can walk around as an anthropomorphic red panda. And if I have GW2 in any form to keep me busy, the chances of even that happening are diminished. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 16, 2012, 11:11:44 AM it's not like I'm a furry who's been dreaming of the day I can walk around as an anthropomorphic red panda. /loses bet Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on March 16, 2012, 11:47:08 AM :-P
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Furiously on March 16, 2012, 02:53:46 PM Goblins and Worgen didn't keep me around for Cataclysm. I might have been gone long enough within a year of release to give a trial a shot, but it's not like I'm a furry who's been dreaming of the day I can walk around as an anthropomorphic red panda. And if I have GW2 in any form to keep me busy, the chances of even that happening are diminished. So you're going to play a charr? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on March 16, 2012, 06:26:30 PM Yeah, right. You'll have to pry the Norn from her cold, dead hands. :-P
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on March 16, 2012, 07:28:14 PM Norn and Sylvari. I'll probably have one of each of the others.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 16, 2012, 07:37:50 PM humans4life
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on March 16, 2012, 11:17:32 PM Go
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 17, 2012, 07:17:55 AM Undead in new armor :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 17, 2012, 10:10:23 AM Oh man this has the potential to be sooooooo very racist.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 17, 2012, 10:13:36 AM Oh man this has the potential to be sooooooo very racist. No way, that's... Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 18, 2014, 11:43:18 AM Shitton of new screens.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36143983&postcount=184 Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on March 18, 2014, 12:44:52 PM The lady panda is a dwarf?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on March 18, 2014, 12:57:02 PM :sad_red_panda:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on March 18, 2014, 01:07:39 PM Shitton of new screens. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36143983&postcount=184 There is a time I would've been naive enough to see a mysterious world of adventure in those screenshots. Now I just see a bunch of generic quest zones. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on March 18, 2014, 01:40:40 PM You can almost smell the pop-culture references coming off those screen shots.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 18, 2014, 01:54:10 PM Is that last shot...a tauren?! :ye_gods:
But that shot from scarlet monestary of the new human model, is all kinds of badass. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on March 18, 2014, 07:48:14 PM Is that last shot...a tauren?! :ye_gods: Marketing ploy. a) If all Tauren look like that then people will re-roll Pandas therefore justifying Panderia as an expansion. b) The forums will all go "ragggghhhh.... looks worse than the seven year old look, make it stop" and Blizzard won't modernise the models to please the community. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 18, 2014, 08:07:47 PM Is that human model actually different, or are they just indicating there will be Heroic Scarlet Monastery as a high level dungeon this time? Or that they finally gave Herod his second shoulderpad?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 18, 2014, 08:19:38 PM That is definitely a new model, if all humans use it I don't know.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 19, 2014, 12:03:08 AM mmochamp has writeup since NDA lifted.
•The final patch of Mists of Pandaria will be the Siege of Orgrimmar! Both factions lay siege to the city to bring Garrosh down and end his reign of Warchief. •The new LFR loot system will allow everyone to roll individually. Upon winning a roll, if the boss has an item that you can use, you will win it. It will only be in LFR to begin with, but can be added to other parts of the game later. •An 11th character slot has been added. •AoE Looting has been added. •There will not be an item squish in Mist of Pandaria. •No new race models are ready to be added yet. •There will be nine level 90 heroics for players as well as three raids with 14 raid bosses and three difficulties. There will be an additional two world bosses. •Scenarios will take place at level 90, in an instance, and reward reputation and Valor points. They don't need a healer, tank, and DPS, just DPS is fine. Each will take 10 to 30 minutes to complete and five or more will be available for launch. •In Challenge Modes, the vast majority of players will most likely earn a bronze medal even if they are a relatively unskilled player. After a player earns all the medals at the Bronze level, they will be rewarded with an achievement and title. Completing all of the Silver medals will earn a set of spectacular gear for transmogrification, and completing all of the gold will earn a unique epic flying mount. Challenge modes will be available for the six new dungeons at launch. •Cloud Serpents are the Pandaren's mount of choice. You can raise your own by doing 20 days of daily quests. •Warlocks got the most class changes in MoP, along with new pets. •There will be more mounts and less color swaps for different rewards. •They are adding armor to creatures to give them varied appearances, something other than just simple color changes. •There are now seven zones, up from five. This was done to add more content to the game and give players a less linear progression path so that leveling for a second or third time isn’t the exact same. •There will be one new arena and two new battlegrounds at launch. •PvP pet battles are going to be fun and causal, only tracking the number of wins and not the number of losses. When fighting another player, you cannot see the other players name or communicate with them. •Currently, every race except Goblin and Worgen can learn the ways of the monk. •The Pre Mists of Pandaria Patch will be roughly two weeks before launch and bring simple rewards. It might involve a scenario with Theramore and the Alliance vs Horde theme. Chen Stormstout might also come to the local cities and get players excited about what is coming. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 19, 2014, 01:06:18 AM Seems like the press event didn't actually tell us much that we didn't already know. We learned what the final boss of the expansion would be (likely only because of dumb player feedback that the expansion was too light-hearted and didn't have a focal villain). We learned that planned zones are being cut up and expanded so that the new landmass can support alternate leveling paths for 85-90.
If anything, rather than revealing exciting stuff about the expansion, they've backed away on some of the things they already told us they were going to do. Account-wide achievements are now a 'maybe' for MoP launch. Unlikely to be any new character models for old races at launch. Monk resource system has been greatly simplified, and the class design sounds less ambitious than what they announced at Blizzcon. We'll be getting an 11th character slot instead of being able to roll x characters total across all servers. Why bother having a week-long press event with a strict NDA if this is all they had to show? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 19, 2014, 01:22:20 AM That's all kinds of disappointing.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Maledict on March 19, 2014, 01:51:48 AM Haha, we're we just arguing about whether the game has a horde or alliance bias?
So let's see. Final patch has us all seizing orgrammar. The horde commit attrocities in war. The Horde allies with a group of 14 year old boys / monkeys with rockets launchers whilst the alliance allies with a group of wise transcendal mystics. The alliance pandaren leader is a calm, wise ancient, the horde pandaren leader is a headstrong moron. Feels like wrath all over again. Seems whenever blizzard wants to big up the faction difference the horde go do something evil again. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 19, 2014, 03:51:16 AM The last picture looks like it's using the Taunka skeleton, so I'm doubting it's a Tauren revamp. Also it'd break the fuck out of all the old armor models and I doubt Blizzard -really- feels like trying to work around a dumpster-sized head for future helmet/shoulder models.
Did they really already confirm the last raid? I mean, I figure they could actually keep that a surprise for once since there WAS no focal villain. Strange we'd actually kill Garrosh too, since the whole 1-60 experience horde-side shows Garrosh as being obsessed with honor/fair fights despite being a hotheaded asshole. He executes one of his own generals for atrocities, and flat out despises Sylvanas which makes him smarter than Thrall. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on March 19, 2014, 03:56:03 AM The last picture looks like it's using the Taunka skeleton, so I'm doubting it's a Tauren revamp. Also it'd break the fuck out of all the old armor models and I doubt Blizzard -really- feels like trying to work around a dumpster-sized head for future helmet/shoulder models. It may end up being one of those "We go in and beat the Did they really already confirm the last raid? I mean, I figure they could actually keep that a surprise for once since there WAS no focal villain. Strange we'd actually kill Garrosh too, since the whole 1-60 experience horde-side shows Garrosh as being obsessed with honor/fair fights despite being a hotheaded asshole. He executes one of his own generals for atrocities, and flat out despises Sylvanas which makes him smarter than Thrall. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 19, 2014, 04:28:16 AM The last picture looks like it's using the Taunka skeleton, so I'm doubting it's a Tauren revamp. Also it'd break the fuck out of all the old armor models and I doubt Blizzard -really- feels like trying to work around a dumpster-sized head for future helmet/shoulder models. I didn't think it was a Tauren because it looks like an Yak. I figured it was another splinter of the Tauren-type, like the Bison men of WOTLK. http://www.factzoo.com/mammals/yak-handsome-himalayan-bovine.html (Better picture than Wiki.) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 19, 2014, 04:50:23 AM Edit: wait. Looking things up.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3445148&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=103#post401695788 the mmo-champ guy on somethingawful posted this so. "No, [Garrosh] is the final boss of the Pandaria Campaign. MoP has its own final boss." Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 19, 2014, 05:04:59 AM Quote •The final patch of Mists of Pandaria will be the Siege of Orgrimmar! Both factions lay siege to the city to bring Garrosh down and end his reign of Warchief. :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: I will do the year pass, for this alone. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 19, 2014, 05:07:41 AM See, that's the Horde reaction I was expecting. Not this "Dude, he wasn't so bad." bullshit after bitching about him for 3 years.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Maledict on March 19, 2014, 05:11:23 AM Garosh has been a fucking moron since the start. Even I'm tempted to resubmit just to plant a axe in his forehead.
Just amused / slightly vexed they keep falling back on the same tropes all the time. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 19, 2014, 05:14:36 AM You'd be hard pressed to find ANY horde liking garrosh and especially if they've read the cataclysm books. The alliance got a roidrage king sure but at least he's got honor, garrosh is like a whiny teenager who at first was too busy pissing his pants to do anything, then when he finally did he became an entitled douchebag. BTW if you've done the new troll starter quests there is a conversation between vol'jin and garrosh, really hope it comes to pass.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 19, 2014, 05:21:12 AM I don't like Garrosh; I'm just finding it weird they spend portions of the 1-60 experience trying to show him learning an inkling of decency (and I think he's characterized in the books as being traumatized/troubled at actually killing Cairne?) only for us to kill him. I'd say it's a good morally ambiguous storyline (killing Garrosh because he wasn't "ready" to lead, with it being semi-tragic since he would've grokked the whole "honorable horde" thing in time if Thrall had appointed someone else warchief), but I don't think Blizzard's writing is good enough to pull that.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 19, 2014, 05:27:53 AM No their writing is not good enough and of course they wanted people to like him. I don't think they had originally planned to get rid of him at all, or anytime soon but overwhelmingly players hate him. Even in a video game people really identified as horde, there was a sense of pride and garrosh really diminished that. They did their best to try and give him some depth but the damage was already done and they aren't that good. You can't just go from killing cow-ghandi(first by even challenging him, then by winning through poison) and completely sweeping it under the rug to then feeling 'bad' about it and it'll make everything better.
Garrosh could have been an interesting and complex character set amongst the rest of the npc's but people want team captains they can get behind. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 19, 2014, 05:32:45 AM Wait, I thought that Garrosh was stupid as hell and didn't realize the whatever-the-evil-Tauren-faction-is person had poisoned his weapon?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 19, 2014, 05:38:30 AM Wait, I thought that Garrosh was stupid as hell and didn't realize the whatever-the-evil-Tauren-faction-is person had poisoned his weapon? He realized after the fact, said nothing, then cairn's death was used by evil tauren lady(magatha grimtotem) as an excuse to raid thunder bluff and kill hundred or so peaceful tauren. Garrosh finally lent some aid to taking TB back but I don't think he ever admitted HOW he killed cairne. Also correction, it was Cairne who was pretty much forced to challenge garrosh to a duel but cairne wanted a regular /duel, garrosh made it to the death in the naive hope it would make cairne back down but not realizing some creatures have 'codes of honor' etc and wouldn't ever back down. It should be noted, garrosh would have lost if not for the poison. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on March 19, 2014, 05:42:35 AM Where do you chaps get all this ?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 19, 2014, 05:55:20 AM Read a book motherfucker.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 19, 2014, 07:15:14 AM Books are Blizzard's new way of feeding lore, as I mentioned before. They realized it could be a revenue stream and they didn't have to pay artists, coders, etc to put this shit in game. One guy writes it, another edits it, they publish and change shit in game based on it. If you want to know what's going on, you have to buy the books now.
It's a lot easier (and cheaper) to just not care and chase shineys. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on March 19, 2014, 08:07:26 AM Pass.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 19, 2014, 08:23:33 AM Edit: wait. Looking things up. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3445148&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=103#post401695788 the mmo-champ guy on somethingawful posted this so. "No, [Garrosh] is the final boss of the Pandaria Campaign. MoP has its own final boss." MoP will have it's own final boss when it launches, since they are trying to make patch content stand on it's own rather than having us wait around for a year+ to fight the boss of significance in the story. Garrosh will still be the final boss in the expansion, but he'll be added as patch content (the Pandaria campaign). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: fuser on March 19, 2014, 09:24:46 AM AoE looting finally!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 19, 2014, 09:26:53 AM AoE looting finally! Gotta keep up with the Jones. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on March 19, 2014, 09:38:31 AM Haha, we're we just arguing about whether the game has a horde or alliance bias? So let's see. Final patch has us all seizing orgrammar. The horde commit attrocities in war. The Horde allies with a group of 14 year old boys / monkeys with rockets launchers whilst the alliance allies with a group of wise transcendal mystics. The alliance pandaren leader is a calm, wise ancient, the horde pandaren leader is a headstrong moron. Feels like wrath all over again. Seems whenever blizzard wants to big up the faction difference the horde go do something evil again. Theramore will still be smashed, but Orgrimmar will be fine. All the crap that happens to the Alliance leaves a lasting impression on the game world. The stuff that happens to the horde boils down to 'we don't like that guy' or 'we'll just fix this with a coup in an instance and then everything will be fine'. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 19, 2014, 09:55:08 AM I for one am liking what I'm reading thus far...with LFR in place and fleshed out, along with all the other QoL stuff being added, this is kinda getting me torn between GW2, TOR, and this.
Global/account-wide achievements are kind of a big thing for me too. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 19, 2014, 09:56:24 AM GW2 is a one-time purchase and not a sub so you can play that whenever after buying the box. Play Pandas and Spacemen until you run out of content and get bored, then unsub.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 19, 2014, 10:30:28 AM GW2 is a one-time purchase and not a sub so you can play that whenever after buying the box. Play Pandas and Spacemen until you run out of content and get bored, then unsub. This is a factual statement that I will keep in mind :grin: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on March 19, 2014, 11:33:52 AM I don't like Garrosh; I'm just finding it weird they spend portions of the 1-60 experience trying to show him learning an inkling of decency (and I think he's characterized in the books as being traumatized/troubled at actually killing Cairne?) only for us to kill him. I'd say it's a good morally ambiguous storyline (killing Garrosh because he wasn't "ready" to lead, with it being semi-tragic since he would've grokked the whole "honorable horde" thing in time if Thrall had appointed someone else warchief), but I don't think Blizzard's writing is good enough to pull that. Plus I'd still rather see Warchief Meathead rather than having fucking Marty Stu Jesus-Superman Thrall back.Oh yeah, WoW-Farmville is in MoP as well as WoW-Pokemon. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 19, 2014, 12:05:11 PM I will be resubbing after 4/15 to get in on the party. Sounds like they are doing a lot of what I wanted and heading back to the casual dungeons with hardcore stratifications that add flavor items instead of stat boosts.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 19, 2014, 12:18:23 PM Plus I'd still rather see Warchief Meathead rather than having fucking Marty Stu Jesus-Superman Thrall back. Hey, maybe Thrall and what's-her-name will pull a Bill 'n Ted, skip forward in time and bring Jr. back to take over so they can go do the ubershaman thing. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 19, 2014, 12:20:52 PM What's this about wow farmville?
edit:nm found it. Quote The Tillers faction will let you run your own farm! The farmer's market will provide daily quest to improve your farm every day, you will be able to clear plots of land and plant things like cooking ingredients, herbalism nodes, gifts for NPCs to build your reputation... etc. And you say these things like they should be bad, like them or not more choices in how you play is always better. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on March 19, 2014, 12:42:49 PM The removing Garrosh from power is going to be really fucking dumb from the Alliance PoV... again.
We can't attack the Horde unless the Horde also attacks the Horde. :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 19, 2014, 12:54:24 PM The removing Garrosh from power is going to be really fucking dumb from the Alliance PoV... again. We can't attack the Horde unless the Horde also attacks the Horde. :why_so_serious: Eh, just wait. I'm sure the Dark Iron Dwarfs will fuck up their three-way peace soon enough and we'll be raiding Ironforge. I for one would like for there to be some aftermath Cataclysm that would have the Draenei and Blood Elf cites/landmasses fall into the abyss, but that's just me ranting about silly content that serves no other purpose except taking up hard drive space :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on March 19, 2014, 01:29:02 PM Lor'themar for Warchief! :drillf:
Also: http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/03/19/mists-of-pandaria-cool-class-stuff-we-found/ Quote Glyph of Stars Transforms your Moonkin Form into Astral Form. This glyph essentially makes your character appear as a spirit instead of a moonkin. You look very nearly like you do while dead -- but people can see you this time ... and your armor, for that matter. And more.Glyph of the Orca Transforms your Aquatic Form into an orca. This one is pretty straightforward. Remember those orcas in Northrend? Yeah. Much better than your weird, snarling, rubbery seal. Glyph of the Chameleon Gives you a random appearance when you shift into Bear or Cat Form. Essentially, this one gives you a random coloring every time you shift. Great for breaking up the monotony of locked-in bear/cat coloring. Glyph of the Stag Transforms your Travel Form into a stag that other players can mount. Yes, that's right. Your pals can ride you while you're in Travel Form, and you're also a stag instead of the clearly inferior cheetah. Glyph of the Tree Lets you transform into Treant Form. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 19, 2014, 01:33:44 PM They still don't really "get it" regarding the Alliance complaints about Cataclysm etc. A Horde dude going bad so we have to kill him, is still not "Alliance does something cool" content.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 19, 2014, 01:36:55 PM They still don't really "get it" regarding the Alliance complaints about Cataclysm etc. A Horde dude going bad so we have to kill him, is still not "Alliance does something cool" content. But nobody ever really dies. Except in stupid novels. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Mattemeo on March 19, 2014, 02:51:58 PM Quote Glyph of Stars Transforms your Moonkin Form into Astral Form. This glyph essentially makes your character appear as a spirit instead of a moonkin. You look very nearly like you do while dead -- but people can see you this time ... and your armor, for that matter. Good lord, a sub-class I'm no longer locked out of due to the Moonkin form (and moonkin in general) giving me the raging heebiejeebies? Please tell me the Glyph also removes the fucking terrifying screaming noises, too. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 19, 2014, 04:51:56 PM I mean, I get that some expansions favor one side or another...at least that's how people feel and I think it's valid but really, deposing the leader of the horde isn't enough? Yeah yeah, maybe horde help too but still, in what world would this not be considered a great benefit to the alliance?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 19, 2014, 04:54:38 PM I mean, I get that some expansions favor one side or another...at least that's how people feel and I think it's valid but really, deposing the leader of the horde isn't enough? Yeah yeah, maybe horde help too but still, in what world would this not be considered a great benefit to the alliance? Teaming up with Thrall so Green Jesus can get back on his throne isn't really doing something for the Alliance, no. It's just more of their wishy-washy "let's team up the two sides against the bigger problem" nonsense - and in any case "Horde side is doing bad stuff" isn't what Alliance people want to see, in general; they want to see "Alliance side is doing awesome stuff". The Icecrown thing is a good example. The Horde people complain that they backstabbed the Alliance making them look like the evil faction, but "hey all our dudes are dead" wasn't exactly a "yay Alliance" moment either. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 19, 2014, 04:54:49 PM Haha, we're we just arguing about whether the game has a horde or alliance bias? So let's see. Final patch has us all seizing orgrammar. The horde commit attrocities in war. The Horde allies with a group of 14 year old boys / monkeys with rockets launchers whilst the alliance allies with a group of wise transcendal mystics. The alliance pandaren leader is a calm, wise ancient, the horde pandaren leader is a headstrong moron. Feels like wrath all over again. Seems whenever blizzard wants to big up the faction difference the horde go do something evil again. Maybe it's to balance the Thrall = Green Jesus story arc from Cata? :awesome_for_real: Seriously though, I agree that it sounds awful. I'd also go with Garrosh over Sylvanas any day. The horde already have a whole faction of 14 year old boys with rocket launchers anyway. They just have bronx accents at the moment. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 19, 2014, 04:57:38 PM I mean, I get that some expansions favor one side or another...at least that's how people feel and I think it's valid but really, deposing the leader of the horde isn't enough? Yeah yeah, maybe horde help too but still, in what world would this not be considered a great benefit to the alliance? Teaming up with Thrall so Green Jesus can get back on his throne isn't really doing something for the Alliance, no. It's just more of their wishy-washy "let's team up the two sides against the bigger problem" nonsense - and in any case "Horde side is doing bad stuff" isn't what Alliance people want to see, in general; they want to see "Alliance side is doing awesome stuff". I am willing to bet thrall does NOT become warchief again, everything about his story says he's beyond that. For that matter, all this thrall bashing (and look I never thought he was the bees knees) is fine except he was never all that awesome until he actually left the horde. Yeah he's an orc but you can't really call all the bullshit he's been doing some sort of horde bias. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 19, 2014, 05:00:26 PM If it isn't Thrall then it is arguably even worse, since we'd then be putting a non "neutral" character in there.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 19, 2014, 05:05:19 PM Vol'jin for warchief.
Ousting/ killing Garrosh was the fan push, why not take-up the other half of it, too. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 19, 2014, 05:06:06 PM Maybe Jaina will teleport us all away before we can finish things off again.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 19, 2014, 05:06:30 PM There really is no option besides vol'jin...maybe saurfang
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 19, 2014, 05:07:20 PM If we can pick Trade Prince Gallywix then I take back all my objections.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 19, 2014, 05:10:41 PM Maybe Jaina will teleport us all away before we can finish things off again. Cutting that bitch's head off in public would be a hoorah moment for the Alliance. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on March 19, 2014, 05:15:13 PM Lor'themar for Warchief! :drillf: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 19, 2014, 05:19:11 PM Did they really already confirm the last raid? I mean, I figure they could actually keep that a surprise for once since there WAS no focal villain. Strange we'd actually kill Garrosh too, since the whole 1-60 experience horde-side shows Garrosh as being obsessed with honor/fair fights despite being a hotheaded asshole. He executes one of his own generals for atrocities, and flat out despises Sylvanas which makes him smarter than Thrall. Yeah, this was always my perception of him as well. They might pull a "what a twist!" and have the Alliance commit the war crimes and fool everyone into blaming Garrosh. Because Warcraft needs more Katyn, dammit! Right? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 19, 2014, 05:22:28 PM Pass. Okay. This. I've just been going by the ingame stuff about Garrosh. I have too much to do (and proper stuff to read) before paying for a WoW pulp-novel. Are they as "good" as Star Wars ones? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 19, 2014, 05:23:47 PM No. The closest they get is the original Thrawn trilogy and even those are wank.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on March 19, 2014, 05:24:33 PM If the alliance 'commits war crimes' and is held accountable while all the horse shit the horde pulls just keeps on keeping... yea I don't see how that would be better at all.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on March 19, 2014, 06:48:37 PM Clearly, they should have Varian gas a town of panda orphans and replace it with a camp full of gnome soldiers wearing pandaskin loincloths so allies will have everlasting proof of their faction's awesome accomplishments and impact on the game world.
More seriously, seems kind of dumb to reveal that we'll be killing Garrosh sometime in 2014 since it kills any suspense and gets the whine train rolling years in advance (including from me, as I assume this means I get to wear my wotlk-issue jackboots all expansion to set it up). Basically everything else about the expansion seems promising, so long as the world bosses aren't particularly important. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on March 19, 2014, 06:56:01 PM Well that's the other thing, there totally going to use Garrosh as a "It wasn't the Horde, it was GARROSH's Doing!" and the horde gets to wipe their hands clean of it all... again...
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 19, 2014, 07:16:55 PM Alliance "All you horde act like oppressed victims when all you do it hurt us!"
Orc players "We expect to invade your world, slaughter thousands and then have you just accept we're better...except the undead, ignore them" Undead players "Well, yeah...we're evil, suck it" Meanwhile the tauren are off somewhere smoking weed, damn hippies. It's really refreshing to see how heated people are about this game even so many years after release. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 19, 2014, 07:47:39 PM It'd be kinda cool if the Alliance actually did something, you know, permanent to the horde insofar as the actual game world is concerned. Alliance shit is basically blown up forever in the game world, but Horde? Nah, you get to instance that shit, and the horde really didn't seem to mind it anyway.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Kail on March 19, 2014, 08:13:38 PM It's really refreshing to see how heated people are about this game even so many years after release. I dunno about refreshing, page after page of this martyr schtick is getting disturbing. I'm half expecting to turn on the evening news to see some guy in a blue space goat mask climbing a water tower with a high powered rifle crying "WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME, METZEN, WHYYYYYYYY" Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on March 19, 2014, 11:39:50 PM All you people whining about Horde bias play Alliance yeah?
See, this is why you think there is a Horde bias. Because the Horde aren't a bunch of whining pussies who obsess over stupid lore points that were written by a brain-damaged marmoset on prescription meds. The Alliance just make themselves look bad! :why_so_serious: (That's a joke btw. I have to say that, it's Internety2012). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 20, 2014, 12:08:33 AM No. The closest they get is the original Thrawn trilogy and even those are wank. So the WoW books are worse than SW books? :ye_gods: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 20, 2014, 01:21:50 AM Undead players "Well, yeah...we're evil, suck it" I rarely hear undead say this. They usually say that they're "grey" at worst. PS: For most of Cataclysm, I played Horde. I still think it was hilariously biased towards Horde in the FUCK YEAH sense. Moral highground doesn't do much for a side when they constantly lose anyway. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 20, 2014, 03:00:29 AM No. The closest they get is the original Thrawn trilogy and even those are wank. So the WoW books are worse than SW books? :ye_gods: I've only read the one book you got for free by preordering WOTLK, so I don't know if that's the case for all of them. That one was pretty lousy over-all, but it's pulp fantasy like the SW books are pulp Sci-fi. I'll say that some SW books (Truce at Bakura, Crystal Star) are much worse than the War of the Ancients book. There's been a discussion of this before in the book thread in General. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on March 20, 2014, 06:30:55 AM Undead players "Well, yeah...we're evil, suck it" I rarely hear undead say this. They usually say that they're "grey" at worst. Yeah. In LK I quested through Howling Fjord and Dragonblight, and the Forsaken are giving me quests to obtain reagents and test out plague canisters, and I'm all "la dee da xp and lewts for me". But then the Wrathgate happened, and I realized "wait these fuckers are evil, how are the Horde still allied with them?" Or, "with us", depending on which alt I was playing. (I know, I know, the answer is "because a ton of people still have Forsaken characters, and they probably didn't sign up for evil, and it would be a major upheaval to split them off into a third faction") (edit: learn to spell) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 20, 2014, 06:43:44 AM I don't think Blizzard really thought ahead with the Forsaken.
I mean, it's just everyone Arthas killed in his hometown. Basically part of a Kingdom's worth of people or so? Not exactly self-sustaining either. Thus they pulled the thing out of their asses where Sylvanas inherits the Val'nyr from Arthas for some reason, and they suddenly have the ability to create new Forsaken from people they kill. ...which makes no sense since I thought the fucking goals of the Forsaken were 1)Kill the fucker who turned them into undead monstrosities (check), and 2)Find a way to become living again. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 20, 2014, 06:48:56 AM Also here's some more lolore from the MoP stuff.
Quote Lore Figures Ahahah, if Garrosh is being corrupted by an old god I'm gonna laugh my ass off.Vol'jin will make an appearance at some point during the expansion. Blizzard has talked about turning Jaina's hair all white because of the shock, and her becoming this very violent and dangerous mage. Garrosh has become corrupted and has been doing some really nasty things beneath Orgrimmar. There may be a Labours of Hercules style quest chain that you do for Varian to show you more of the story and let you get to know him better. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 20, 2014, 06:55:09 AM Really, they've gone to the old god well WAY too many times.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 20, 2014, 06:57:33 AM Is there a main story arc in WoW that doesn't involve corruption of some sort?
I think maybe Zul'Aman is it. Zul'Jin was just really fucking honked off about the Trolls joining the same faction as the blood elves and he was building an army to fuck the world up...at which point some random assholes searching for treasure showed up and killed him. Oh well! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 20, 2014, 07:05:16 AM You heard it here first, folks. Next X-pac, kill Jaina! (Also being corrupted by an old god!)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on March 20, 2014, 07:07:01 AM Passe.
I killed Jaina tons of times in the latest dungeons. :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 20, 2014, 07:47:29 AM Passe. I killed Jaina tons of times in the latest dungeons. :why_so_serious: I can never kill Tyrande enough....never. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on March 20, 2014, 11:21:03 AM I like most all of the changes, not the pandas themselves but I'll get over it. The screenshots are looking nice, like a whole bunch of zones based on Nagrand, the bestest of zones.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on March 20, 2014, 11:37:23 AM I did love me some Nagrand. Pandas sure look fucking dumb, however. Males less so than the dwarven furverts.
LOLORE discussion. You guys.. :roll: :facepalm: :dead_horse: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on March 20, 2014, 12:11:05 PM But nobody ever really dies. Except in stupid novels. And Warcraft III. LOLORE wasn't quite so bad in vanilla. Less pop culture references, less recurring characters, less Thrall Facetome updates. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 20, 2014, 01:20:13 PM I'm impressed how much people still get worked up over WoW lore.
I treat it like MtG. There are snippets of good stuff there in the "flavor text" (like the Ulduar stuff), but the ongoing plots and characters and whatnot can generally jump off a cliff for all I care. Too much always has to be sacrificed for videogame mechanics, even if Blizzard had the writing talent, which they don't. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 20, 2014, 01:25:16 PM WoW wishes it was in the same league as the Craw Wurm flavor text.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on March 20, 2014, 01:27:38 PM Hey, it could be worse.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 20, 2014, 01:33:04 PM I did love me some Nagrand. Pandas sure look fucking dumb, however. Males less so than the dwarven furverts. LOLORE discussion. You guys.. :roll: :facepalm: :dead_horse: I'll go with that. Always liked Nagrand. It's the only zone (aside from part of Hellfire) that I don't entirely skip when running through TBC. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 20, 2014, 02:22:02 PM WoW wishes it was in the same league as the Craw Wurm flavor text. SO hot for you right now. :Love_Letters: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on March 20, 2014, 03:39:36 PM http://www.fluffyfrenchy.com/?p=73
Quote A lot of you keep asking, let’s try to answer. The Mists of Pandaria Beta is “soon” as far as I know. I don’t mean “probably in a month” soon. I mean that if Blizzard is still following their original plan, you will most likely see it this week. If it’s not this week, it will be the next one. I don’t think any Friends & Family Alpha will be involved this time, however, Blizzard employees are still able to invite people as far as I know. Stay fluffy. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on March 20, 2014, 03:49:19 PM Well they have like a million guaranteed testers or whatever with the 1year plan, right?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 20, 2014, 06:42:08 PM You know, I don't get the hating on female pandas. I mean of course they look like furry dwarves, what else could they look like, the males with tits? that is a whole new level of fugly even the female tauren can't match. Yeah there are furries out there but should we intentionally make them unappealing? Maybe other bestial races shouldn't look cute or hot but cmon...they're pandas, even in nature they don't look very menacing. Male Draenei are much more worthy of scorn imo, they don't even look possible.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 20, 2014, 08:05:30 PM The face looks super cartoony in the red-panda image they released, mostly due to the haircut and the eyes. I think it looks considerably better in the second image.
(http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2012/march/pandarenshot3.jpg) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 20, 2014, 09:26:54 PM They are a gazillion times better than female worgen, that's all I really care about. Well, and they're not weirdly skinny to the point where you wonder if they're even the same fucking race as the males. I care about that too.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 20, 2014, 11:29:58 PM http://www.fluffyfrenchy.com/?p=73 Quote A lot of you keep asking, let’s try to answer. The Mists of Pandaria Beta is “soon” as far as I know. I don’t mean “probably in a month” soon. I mean that if Blizzard is still following their original plan, you will most likely see it this week. If it’s not this week, it will be the next one. I don’t think any Friends & Family Alpha will be involved this time, however, Blizzard employees are still able to invite people as far as I know. Stay fluffy. It would certainly explain why bnet has been dying all day yesterday and they're having a real maintenance today in EU. Or it could be diablo stuff :) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on March 20, 2014, 11:42:35 PM Apparently if you pick a redpanda skin you get a tail too.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 20, 2014, 11:43:51 PM As you should!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on March 21, 2014, 03:34:39 AM At least the female pandas don't have ridiculously enormous breasts, impossibly tiny waists or built-in high heels!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 21, 2014, 04:10:29 AM Exactly.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on March 21, 2014, 05:02:33 AM Beta is "very close" plus a faq. (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2689-Mists-of-Pandaria-Beta-Opt-in-and-FAQ-Beta-is-very-close)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: fuser on March 21, 2014, 06:03:59 PM First wave invites are out I think, and the installer is downloadable.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on March 21, 2014, 08:22:28 PM Oh wow, it was an actual soon, not a Blizzard Soon™
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ragnoros on March 22, 2014, 01:04:17 AM Oh wow, it was an actual soon, not a Blizzard Soon™ I know, right. I remember when Diablo III was soon, about three years ago. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 22, 2014, 01:48:20 AM WoW teams been working under the crack of the whip. They know they need this out fast.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 22, 2014, 05:28:37 AM item reset again. Could've gone without the stress personally :heartbreak:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 22, 2014, 05:29:46 AM I was more shocked when people were saying there wouldn't be an item flattening/ reset. That's not their previous MO or the way you appeal to casual folks.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 22, 2014, 05:39:28 AM I was more shocked when people were saying there wouldn't be an item flattening/ reset. That's not their previous MO or the way you appeal to casual folks. Yeah, I thought GC wrote a fancy blog a month or two ago talking about flattening the numbers a bit? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Mattemeo on March 22, 2014, 07:13:55 AM The Yogscast have got into the beta, naturally.
Here's some nice footage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pi7mQOUND0) of the starting area, the Pandaren animations and two brit's gaming incompetance. Don't worry about spoilers, there's nothing you wouldn't expect. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 22, 2014, 07:49:44 AM I was more shocked when people were saying there wouldn't be an item flattening/ reset. That's not their previous MO or the way you appeal to casual folks. Wasn't BC -> WotLK the biggest hardcore->casual transition so far? People in sunwell epics entered naxx without redoing their items (or so I've been told). No flattening this expansion, luckton. GC confirmed it in the media blitz thing, maybe for 6.0 or 7.0 "if there's demand". Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 22, 2014, 08:18:44 AM Oh, I seem to have a beta invite. Guess I'll ... download it, then.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 22, 2014, 08:21:52 AM Those people did it with one or two pieces from Sunwell, not the majority of their gear. Those pieces that weren't replaced were because nothing had dropped or the slot wasn't itemized well, not because of a lack of gear reset.
Let's not forget that early WOTLK people were wearing greens and non-heroic blues into Naxx instead of the ilevel 200 gear because of some shitty itemization. Regardless of that, Sunwell gear was only ilevel 164 so even a shitty green was still better in most cases. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 22, 2014, 09:39:07 AM Apparently if you pick a redpanda skin you get a tail too. I can now confirm this is correct. And as a result almost all the female pandas I have seen so far are red pandas. Dude pandas do not get that option, I think I will suggest RED PANDAS FOR DUDES TOO DAMMIT. Now I am going to make a beautiful blood elf man monk. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 22, 2014, 09:50:28 AM Male pandas seem to have better animations overall so their loss. The sleep animation is :heart:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 22, 2014, 09:52:32 AM I haven't really looked at all the lady panda animations but my lady panda rogue's combat animations do not fill me with rage, nor does her run, and those are the most important ones. :P
EDIT: Ah, lady panda does not even HAVE a sleep animation yet. Well whatever! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 22, 2014, 09:57:26 AM It looked like they did, it just wasn't very interesting. Both are at ~5:20 in the video Mattemeo posted above.
Edit: Ah, they have one but it's incomplete. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 22, 2014, 09:59:17 AM Well, I typed /sleep in game and absolutely nothing happened.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 22, 2014, 10:00:01 AM Well, I typed /sleep in game and absolutely nothing happened. They used /lie specifically. I don't know what kind of person would type /lie instead of /sleep, but whatever. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 22, 2014, 10:01:39 AM The difference is ...
Are you ready? Your eyes will close (well, maybe not if you're a lady troll :why_so_serious:) if you do /sleep instead of /lie. Madness! EDIT: Also, oh my God do they need to update the older models. So bad. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on March 22, 2014, 02:45:57 PM They're working on it.
Also: Demo warlocks can be tanks now. Also 2: Blizzard forgot to put the bikini onto female pandaren. :facepalm: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on March 22, 2014, 02:48:33 PM It's how they are going to attract a new player base.
Demo warlocks tanking is like, my idea from 5 years ago. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 22, 2014, 03:09:57 PM Also 2: Blizzard forgot to put the bikini onto female pandaren. :facepalm: Wouldn't that just be...like any disney movie? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soulflame on March 22, 2014, 03:56:56 PM I demand shaman tanking!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 22, 2014, 04:49:09 PM Also: Demo warlocks can be tanks now. You have my undivided attention. Elaborate on this, please. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on March 22, 2014, 04:50:03 PM http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4246995300?page=4#79
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 22, 2014, 04:57:29 PM (http://i.imgur.com/VlmiJ.gif)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on March 22, 2014, 07:54:15 PM First positive class change I've read about MoP yet.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 22, 2014, 07:55:25 PM Don't take it as written in stone, this is probably something they'll cut if it isn't working.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soulflame on March 22, 2014, 08:38:49 PM Blizzard has my eldest's complete attention with red pandaren. :oh_i_see:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on March 22, 2014, 08:47:05 PM They could very well end up generating a lot of new subs with pandas from kids who are just getting old enough to play, aka the Kung Fu Panda crowd.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 23, 2014, 12:08:56 AM no threat modifier yet, plus meta is still timed, even if it has higher uptime it will still not be 100%. So don't get excited.
At the moment with the taunt/nocrit/some pretty major CDs, best case it can be used to off-tank specific boss abilities on specific boss encounters. Good option for me, nothing you guys should care about :) For Demo to be a full tank they need that glyph that flips demonic fury to give Meta 100% uptime, and give it a threat modifier. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on March 23, 2014, 01:12:08 AM I demand shaman tanking! If shaman could tank I'd make one called Sherman. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 23, 2014, 05:04:21 AM Was just looking at MMO-Champ's feed. Shit, they're working double time on this, aren't they. Almost makes me wonder if they pulled some folks off of Titan because there is a crapload of content and little features going in.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 23, 2014, 07:14:21 AM Quote Mists of Pandaria finally introduces real models for belts! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 23, 2014, 07:15:07 AM Quote Mists of Pandaria finally introduces real models for belts! Yeah, saw some of those. Can't wait for bracers :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 23, 2014, 07:18:24 AM Also I'm really digging this hunter set
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 23, 2014, 08:04:34 AM Digging the white one. The others, not so much.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 23, 2014, 08:05:10 AM The only set from the challenges I don't like is the priest one. Figures. Hate.
wowhead has some of the raiding tier sets too - http://www.wowheadnews.com/blog=201923/mists-of-pandaria-day-two-quest-armor-sets-challenge-mode-sets-and-3d-models#priest-item-sets Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 23, 2014, 08:15:40 AM Priest T1 set the precedent for ugly and they have kept up with it pretty well over the years.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on March 23, 2014, 08:19:00 AM no threat modifier yet, plus meta is still timed, even if it has higher uptime it will still not be 100%. So don't get excited. At the moment with the taunt/nocrit/some pretty major CDs, best case it can be used to off-tank specific boss abilities on specific boss encounters. Good option for me, nothing you guys should care about :) For Demo to be a full tank they need that glyph that flips demonic fury to give Meta 100% uptime, and give it a threat modifier. The summary post (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4246995300?page=4#79) says that Meta doesn't have a CD/duration anymore. Also that the threat mod is baked into the Demon Hunting glyph right now as well as Demonic Slash generating Fury. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 23, 2014, 08:36:15 AM I blame being hit by walls of text before I've finished my coffee.
So, the idea is to balance stuff in a way that slash gives enough fury to have 100% uptime on meta, without limiting your button presses much. That's actually pretty slick. I hope it pans out, it'll solve certain roster issues we've been having :) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 23, 2014, 08:49:36 AM Was just looking at MMO-Champ's feed. Shit, they're working double time on this, aren't they. Almost makes me wonder if they pulled some folks off of Titan because there is a crapload of content and little features going in. If you want to see how they managed to pull of MoP in such a 'short' amount of time, all you have to do is look at the Cata patch cycle. They've had a year and a half since it launched and they've released: 4.1: two troll raids re-used as troll dungeons 4.2: one new raid, new daily quest hub that uses the same tileset 4.3: raid that uses 90% pre-existing assets, three new dungeons that use 90% pre-existing assets They released only one 'traditional' patch (4.2) which had a smaller raid than people are accustomed to. They've been trying for years to put out expansions faster, and they're finally succeeding. It's not because they're iterating faster or hiring more people, it's because they're doing less work per patch and less ambitious patch content. This is the reason why Orgrimmar was selected as the last raid in MoP, rather than having you fight Garrosh in some secret orc facility in a new area. It drastically cuts down the amount of art they need to generate for the raid. The downside is of course that the raid probably won't be as interesting as it could have been, but it means another $40 expansion pack will be closer around the corner. Quote from: Wowinsider interview with Dave Kosak It's been pretty clear from the level of content that's done today, and even based on what we saw at BlizzCon, that this expansion was created a little faster than previous expansions. How did you deal with a more accelerated process? We're being smarter and more efficient and we're developing our teams so that we kind of piggyback off of each other. So while some of our teams were working on the outstanding dungeons and raids that were in 4.3, the others were working on the content for Pandaria. We have this patch plan so that all of our teams can roll out content faster, and we're just trying to be really smart about how we build content such that we can provide more content. We're committed to providing more content to players, so we're being smarter about our development time and our man hours. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: dd0029 on March 23, 2014, 08:55:37 AM Depending on how they do the resuse things, it can work. Rift has their sliver idea which is just a phased portion of a zone. This has worked well because they are using out of the way world locations that were already interesting but mostly unseen on the race to 50.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 23, 2014, 09:21:18 AM 4.3 was a pretty big patch from my PoV, even if the raid is a huge rehash of assets.
Priest set looks goofy as fuck, thanks Blizz. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on March 23, 2014, 09:35:29 AM Also I'm really digging this hunter set That's a pretty radical change for Hunters, making the monster head a shoulder piece instead of a hat. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 23, 2014, 09:39:08 AM But it's an ACTUAL head, not just some faux monster-looking piece.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on March 23, 2014, 10:04:27 AM The white hunter set makes it look like he's wearing those big bunny slippers.
And why are there three colors, do you get different ones for bronze, silver and gold because I thought only silver got the transmog gear. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 23, 2014, 10:10:14 AM 4.3 was a pretty big patch from my PoV, even if the raid is a huge rehash of assets. Priest set looks goofy as fuck, thanks Blizz. The dungeons were also largely re-used assets. Pre-existing areas, models, etc. 4.3 included large new features, but features aren't the most time-consuming effort for a new patch or expansion: art assets are. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on March 23, 2014, 01:50:24 PM Make female red panda (blue eyes, pigtail) named Ranko.
Get to Singing Pools. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 23, 2014, 04:13:33 PM 4.3 was a pretty big patch from my PoV, even if the raid is a huge rehash of assets. Priest set looks goofy as fuck, thanks Blizz. The dungeons were also largely re-used assets. Pre-existing areas, models, etc. 4.3 included large new features, but features aren't the most time-consuming effort for a new patch or expansion: art assets are. But, for actually playing the game, transmog was a complete game-changer for me. Got to see tons of old raid content I never saw, and actually had a point to it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on March 23, 2014, 04:27:35 PM I want to say the Well of Eternity is a re-skinned Sunwell, but I don't know for certain.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 23, 2014, 04:31:39 PM It's some re-used Sunwell assets combined with the felwood/darkshore tileset, iirc.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 23, 2014, 07:05:54 PM Re-doing the troll dungeons WAS lazy but for all the deathwing dungeons re-using the assets made sense and I was ok with that. At some point you have to make your world cohesive and that means you re-visit things on occasion. Of course, don't do this every single time but I enjoyed all three of the new dungeons, I LIKED wyrmrest temple being used for...something.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 24, 2014, 01:39:43 AM By contrast I hadn't been to the troll content when they were raids, so they were very fresh for me. And coming at them fresh, they seemed really well done. ZG in particular was a great callback to the days of BRD style dungeons, a living breathing troll city with a lot of goofy optional shit.
Dragon Soul doesn't seem nearly as cohesive or thematically strong. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 24, 2014, 06:36:21 AM I think there's a difference in reusing assets and reusing entire zones. Reusing models and things like that? The players will generally accept it as long as you don't make bosses look too similar. There will be a loud vocal minority on MMO Champ who scream that the frame for your dragon is the same frame as the winged guardian or some shit, but nobody listens to them.
Reusing entire zones? With the exception of Naxx, I think it's a bad idea at this point. Naxx was an isolated situation where only a minute fraction of the playerbase ever set foot in the place, so it made sense to reuse it since the vast majority of people would be seeing the updated version for the first time. I could make a solid argument that Sunwell could be redone without too much of a fuss from the players because, again, it really wasn't played by many people. Other things wouldn't fare as well, though. Redoing dungeons and stuff? That was generally not as well liked. Even deadmines, which was a favorite amongst most, wasn't appreciated in the later format. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on March 24, 2014, 08:37:54 AM From a lore perspective, I thought the new Deadmines was pretty awesome. My only complaints with it were design-oriented; it really should have been split into two wings.
The Caverns of Time dungeons (CoS, Old Hillsbrad) are another good example of reused assets; as long as the 'new' zone is different enough and there's a reason that makes sense for us to be going BACK there, I'm fine with reusing content in moderation. ZA/ZG wouldn't have been so bad if we had gotten a legit new raid (some new content to go with our recycled) that patch instead of...nothing else. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 24, 2014, 09:36:15 AM The only complaints I really remember about DM and SFK was that they were really long. I really enjoyed them both, to be honest, but they WERE really long.
Of course, I enjoyed ZA and ZG too, because I only raided ZA a little, and ZG not at all. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 24, 2014, 09:41:50 AM The Hour of Twilight dungeons did a good job of reusing assets IMO. Well of Eternity does a good job of not looking like anything that's been done before outside of monster models.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 24, 2014, 09:42:05 AM They could reuse both AQ raids much like they did Naxx as well, frankly, the number of people left in the game who raided anything past Molten Core in Vanilla has got to be awfully small.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 24, 2014, 09:44:24 AM They could reuse both AQ raids much like they did Naxx as well, frankly, the number of people left in the game who raided anything past Molten Core in Vanilla has got to be awfully small. They could, and I thought about that when I mentioned Sunwell. However, I don't think AQ would be well received today unless they fixed a lot of the issues with length. Also, the whole "bug" thing never really made any sense at all. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 24, 2014, 10:04:07 AM Also, the whole "bug" thing never really made any sense at all. This. I hated the AQ patch in vanilla. I give Bliz an A for effort in creating some original content coming off the RTS series, but the actual content itself was poor. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soulflame on March 24, 2014, 12:44:36 PM It makes perfect sense! They're bugs raised up to intelligence by an old god in order to reach step 3: Profit!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on March 24, 2014, 01:27:31 PM Also, the whole "bug" thing never really made any sense at all. This. I hated the AQ patch in vanilla. I give Bliz an A for effort in creating some original content coming off the RTS series, but the actual content itself was poor. I thought the server wide gate opening event was a pretty sweet idea, I wish they did more stuff like that. We had the 3 major raiding guilds on the server (mostly) amicably negotiate who would get the official opening, and then they organized the time to do it. Hundreds of people showed up, most MMOey experience I've had in WoW. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 24, 2014, 02:04:08 PM I did like that as well. Plus it created server pride. You got a sense of community with the races being posted on tracking sites. That's something they should do more of.
My idea would be that dailies open 5 mans, 5 man turnins open up raids. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 24, 2014, 02:25:05 PM The races were shit though. Farming 20,000 raptor flanks on your faction? Nobody wanted to do that, and even trying to contribute by killing a few hundred each day was agonizingly boring. I don't know that dailies or dungeon runs would feel any less tedious. Seeing those huge quotas you had to reach just made it feel like such a grind, regardless of your individual contribution. Having your server turn in 25,000 daily tokens would be just as obnoxious.
The AQ patch was a cool concept but it was loaded with problems. I think the size of AQ40 wouldn't be as big of a deal today as people think. Due to the way the dungeon was designed, they could remove a few of the larger tunnels without really changing the landscape of the instance much. Give players super-fast bug mounts at zone-in and portals after each boss (for wipes) and I think the instance would be fine. They'd could remove the three optional bosses, and they would probably scrap Huhuran since that fight really had nothing going for it aside from a resistance gear check. That leaves the raid with 5 bosses which is fine for a dungeon. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 24, 2014, 02:39:08 PM Given our past history though, the fact you thought it was a terrible leads me to believe that most people would love it.
In all seriousness, though. The reason they stopped doing it was because it pissed off the raiders at the time. WAAAAAAAAAAAH WE WANT OUR CONTENT NOOOOOOW WE DON'T WANT TO WAIT ON SHITTY NORMALS TO FARM SHIT!!!! Given that more people are involved in 5 mans and dailies anyway as it stands, I think you'd see a much larger acceptance and enjoyment of the potential project than you did back then. Hell, at that point in time, hardly anybody was raiding with any consistency besides the uberguilds. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 24, 2014, 02:44:33 PM I did like that as well. Plus it created server pride. You got a sense of community with the races being posted on tracking sites. That's something they should do more of. My idea would be that dailies open 5 mans, 5 man turnins open up raids. Yeah, I was exceedingly proud to have the chance to contribute to opening up a raid I would never see so the uberguilds could go in. :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on March 24, 2014, 02:51:50 PM The #1 uberguild on my server held raffles - you'd send them eleventy billion raptor butts and linen cloth, and they'd pick 10 winners in the end -- those winners would get the privilege of attending their standard weekly Molten Core run and getting all the loot they wanted!
It was just like one of those things on TV where the lottery ticket winner can stand in a money booth with $1-5-10 bills floating around him and grab as many as he can in a minute... only a lot more pathetisad. :awesome_for_real: edit: since daily quests were mentioned, I would like to take this opportunity to say fuck daily quests. Thank you, that is all. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 24, 2014, 02:56:55 PM Sadly, that's actually more attractive than what we got. We only got "server pride". Well, actually, you could sell Linen for a fair whack of money for the brief time. So that all that the grand AQ opening had for me. Something for all players! :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ragnoros on March 24, 2014, 02:57:12 PM I thought is was kinda neat the way the daily questing hub on Sunwell island opened up for the whole server piece by piece back in TBC. I don't recall it feeling grindy.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 24, 2014, 03:00:42 PM The thing about that was by that stage there actually was a point to non-raiders doing it. Money, rep, items. Bunch of dailies in a reasonable amount of space that you could run in a bunch. Even if you would never see Sunwell (I've still never been in there, how many years later?)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on March 24, 2014, 03:02:27 PM Also, the whole "bug" thing never really made any sense at all. This. I hated the AQ patch in vanilla. I give Bliz an A for effort in creating some original content coming off the RTS series, but the actual content itself was poor. As a hunter in AQ40 in vanilla, I remember farming Maudaron for that bloody nature resist gear that was massively sub-par, just for the nature resist. That had to be the worst part of AQ40. Trash was apalling and Twin Emps the ultimate measure of a raid leader's sanity. Farming to open AQ was pathetic - worse than the rep grinds today. No rose-coloured glasses here. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 24, 2014, 03:14:39 PM In all seriousness, though. The reason they stopped doing it was because it pissed off the raiders at the time. WAAAAAAAAAAAH WE WANT OUR CONTENT NOOOOOOW WE DON'T WANT TO WAIT ON SHITTY NORMALS TO FARM SHIT!!!! The problem with the AQ gate opening event wasn't that it slowed raiders down, or that most players didn't raid. It was that activities like farming 20,000 raptor flanks or 180,000 light leather were tedious and awful. That you think they stopped doing events like the AQ gate opening was because raiders disliked it slowing them down, rather than that the event itself was an awful and boring failure for every player that played WoW for entertainment, shows how crazy you are. Most raiders didn't even bother to wait for 'normals to farm shit', they just let the event auto-progress itself when it became obvious what a boring grind the event actually was. There is no situation where farming thousands of level 17 mobs on your level-cap character would be seen as fun gameplay. Ever. Having your server farm 25,000 daily tokens would be met with just as little enthusiasm. Giant grinds like that just don't work for a game as old as WoW. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on March 24, 2014, 03:18:05 PM Also, the whole "bug" thing never really made any sense at all. This. I hated the AQ patch in vanilla. I give Bliz an A for effort in creating some original content coming off the RTS series, but the actual content itself was poor. As a hunter in AQ40 in vanilla, I remember farming Maudaron for that bloody nature resist gear that was massively sub-par, just for the nature resist. That had to be the worst part of AQ40. Trash was apalling and Twin Emps the ultimate measure of a raid leader's sanity. Farming to open AQ was pathetic - worse than the rep grinds today. No rose-coloured glasses here. Yeah, solo farming a level 40 instance for the newest end game raid was a blast :oh_i_see:. I've always hated resist fights though. The trash wasn't bad until after Twin Emps though. I have nightmares about that trash. At least Blizzard realized it was hard enough that your progress was actually saved when you left. On the other hand, I think C'thun was my favorite fight I ever did in WoW. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 24, 2014, 04:41:29 PM The problem with the AQ gate opening event wasn't that it slowed raiders down, or that most players didn't raid. It was that activities like farming 20,000 raptor flanks or 180,000 light leather were tedious and awful. That you think they stopped doing events like the AQ gate opening was because raiders disliked it slowing them down, rather than that the event itself was an awful and boring failure for every player that played WoW for entertainment, shows how crazy you are. Malakili brought it up that he enjoyed it and I agreed with him. Once again you've fallen into the trap of assuming because you didn't like something that it was horrifically awful. We've proven over and over that your idea of fun isn't even close to the majority. The reality was that it wasn't awful, nor was the idea awful. They even improved the idea in Sunwell openings to include the daily quest thing. I'm not suggesting you go back to collecting 25000 bear asses, as that wasn't even the implementation they tried last. Doing dailies and dungeons to progress something larger isn't exactly a horrible oppression on your players. It's EXACTLY what they do anyway currently in the game. Attaching a larger unlockable goal to it, in addition to providing rep stuff and rewards for those participating, wouldn't be that egregious of a change. Attaching it to battlegroups for LFD options would add to it, instead of just locking it to servers. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 24, 2014, 05:06:32 PM Paelos, I think we might have a different perspective on this since we were on a half-aussie, half-american release-day server packed to the brim with people 24 hours a day. We crushed everyone on the War Effort AND on the Sunwell stuff. We only missed getting the first AQ opening because our server kept getting crashed repeatedly during the opening by 2000 fucking assholes making level 1 alts to go watch or intentionally crash the server.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 24, 2014, 05:08:36 PM Paelos, I think we might have a different perspective on this since we were on a half-aussie, half-american release-day server packed to the brim with people 24 hours a day. We crushed everyone on the War Effort AND on the Sunwell stuff. We only missed getting the first AQ opening because our server kept getting crashed repeatedly during the opening by 2000 fucking assholes making level 1 alts to go watch or intentionally crash the server. That probably plays a part in it, agreed. Certainly being involved in something like that and watching the race was, as many things are with this game, only fun if you were actually involved in it. I think a lot of that could be opened up more by making it about battlegroups instead of servers. The simple rules of cross-server LFD wouldn't let us isolate things on servers anymore, really. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 24, 2014, 05:17:08 PM Malakii mentioned that he liked the gate opening event: the end of the grind. It's easier to appreciate that concept (the whole server fighting back an army across a bunch of different zones at a specific time) than the grind that led to it. Even that event wouldn't be realistic today, as the technical limitations that led to server crashes for AQ are still a hurdle, and a scheduled event that only lasts for a few hours alienates all your customers that aren't available on that time/day (See: 1st Rift world event).
I don't think the Sunwell dailies would fly these days either. The event didn't have quite the same feel of your server working together towards a goal, and people liked it because at the time dailies were still fresh. It was a great way to make gold with some faction rewards attached. The fact that it unlocked the Sunwell raid was meaningless to most players, as shown by the continued popularity of the daily quests after Sunwell opened and the fact that less than 1% of players actually did anything in Sunwell. Dailies are old hat at this point, and there aren't any alluring gold sinks at this point (like flying mounts/training) to make people want to do them. It's not hard to imagine how this would have worked in Cata: The Hyjal dailes for 4.2. People already felt that the gated dailies as your faction assaulted the entrance to the Firelands were too grindy and artificially slow. That's non-raiders saying "dailies to unlock gated content kind of sucks". Having people unlock Firelands when enough of your server completes the dailies wouldn't have made the process any less tedious/boring than it was. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 24, 2014, 05:31:23 PM I was "eh" to the AQ thing. I just used it to make a bunch of money.
The Sunwell dailies were kinda fun since everyone was on the island and you could just chain-form groups for MgT; also our server destroyed everyone else on the grind so we had the vaunted armory and its overpowered badge gear several days before anyone else. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on March 24, 2014, 05:48:57 PM I didn't mind the actually collection part of the event, just to clarify. I was originally talking about the gate opening event - but as far as I am concerned part of the reason it was so awesome is because as a server we put so much effort into it. We also had nightly pre-raid collection for those which was fun. Keep in mind that it might have been more fun for me because I had a built in group to do it with that I was close with (we had a very tight knit raiding guild). I was playing WoW like a fiend at this point though, its unlikely I would enjoy such an event in an MMO as much today, I was very personally invested in that game at that point and I didn't mind grinding things for raids.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on March 24, 2014, 06:39:48 PM I thought is was kinda neat the way the daily questing hub on Sunwell island opened up for the whole server piece by piece back in TBC. I don't recall it feeling grindy. It wasn't, because the server worked to open it up as a whole and it didn't involve farming old shit. They then changed that with Trial and Firelands to individual unlocks.. which really sucks and feels grindy as hell now. Particularly once you're on alts and starting at the whole grind again. As for AQ40, no, it was horseshit. We had the #1 US guild on our server and the #5 US guild. The competition, stealing, backbiting and other bullshit surrounding it was enough to make it unenjoyable for the whole server.. Then they did the unlock at 2am because that's when the first guy got all the stuff and since he was racing he had to do it ASAP. So the rest of the server never even got to see the unlock event. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on March 24, 2014, 07:14:39 PM I thought the AQ unlock event was cool, and I was playing a level 45ish character at the time. Those low level bear ass turnins rewarded you with city rep, which meant getting a cross faction mount was MUCH cheaper/faster than turning in only Runecloth; I managed to get my dwarf a mechanostrider very quickly doing the AQ shit, and made a boatload of cash to boot. Seeing the guilds competing to open the gate, the crazy battles during the ceremony, etc. was all amazing. Even though I didn't set foot in AQ until sometime in WOTLK, that whole experience of the server working together is one of my favorite memories of MMOs. Things like that are what I wish we had more of, instead of everything being designed only for 5/10/25 people.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 24, 2014, 07:44:46 PM I enjoyed being a giant war profiteer during the AQ event, but I can't say I "liked" it. I was mostly indifferent towards it, as the thing we were working towards had nothing to do with my non-raiding ass. I liked the Sunwell lead up much more.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 24, 2014, 07:58:22 PM Just to be clear I'm not advocating we got back to the exact AQ style of event.
I think the overall lessons of a larger goal of unlocking with a cool event could be implemented in a better fashion, which then utilizes things we already do regularly in the game. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 24, 2014, 08:01:58 PM Sunwell unlocks, cool. AQ40, retarded.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 25, 2012, 03:54:34 AM It's not hard to imagine how this would have worked in Cata: The Hyjal dailes for 4.2. People already felt that the gated dailies as your faction assaulted the entrance to the Firelands were too grindy and artificially slow. That's non-raiders saying "dailies to unlock gated content kind of sucks". Having people unlock Firelands when enough of your server completes the dailies wouldn't have made the process any less tedious/boring than it was. I just unlocked Firelands the other night, and the dailies inside. As far as I can tell, there's a half-dozen or so dailies and the only thing to spend the tokens on is a bag for 30 tokens that might (5% chance or so) have a pet in it. Is there any more to it? Because I found it extraordinarily underwhelming and left without doing any of them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 25, 2012, 04:19:11 AM My word. I just read up on it. I'm not sure if it's worth the pain in the arse of a solid month of daily grind (so realistically, two months since I have other things to do) with Pandas a couple of months away. Maybe once with my mage "to see it" and then skip it for all alts for ever and ever onwards.
Actually, that's how I feel about playing any alts through Cataclysm zones. And I've only been through Hyjal so far. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on March 25, 2012, 08:22:48 AM I'm sure part of my fond memories from the AQ event have to do with the fact that I just quite enjoy world events in general in MMOs. I liked the invasions in Rift, especially the huge major ones. Maybe I'm weird but it generally makes me enjoy games more even if I'm not online when they happen. Just the fact THAT they happen makes the entire experience more interesting to me. Now, I was pretty involved in the AQ opening event, but just seeing what progress had been made since I last logged in was the kind of thing that made me excited to log in. Its the same thing which made EVE and WW2O my two favorite MMOs I've ever played, and it is something I am hoping Guild Wars 2 manages to inset a bit more into that style MMO.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 25, 2012, 08:56:44 AM My word. I just read up on it. I'm not sure if it's worth the pain in the arse of a solid month of daily grind (so realistically, two months since I have other things to do) with Pandas a couple of months away. Maybe once with my mage "to see it" and then skip it for all alts for ever and ever onwards. I did it for some spare money and few of the items like the melee-hit ring and tank trinket.Actually, that's how I feel about playing any alts through Cataclysm zones. And I've only been through Hyjal so far. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 25, 2012, 09:10:49 AM At the time I was on a herpaderp server that my friends picked at complete random, so our AQ gates didn't open till after BC had just come out. Partly because the horde on our server were idiots and held the unlock hostage.
I didn't contribute to the war effort in any way, but I had the amazing serendipity of being in Silithus when the gates actually opened (and I had no idea they were going to open). So I was basically running around Silithus questing, when I see huge statues coming to life and bugs flying out from every where, and all hell is breaking loose. One of the coolest moments in WoW for me. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 25, 2012, 01:19:36 PM My word. I just read up on it. I'm not sure if it's worth the pain in the arse of a solid month of daily grind (so realistically, two months since I have other things to do) with Pandas a couple of months away. Maybe once with my mage "to see it" and then skip it for all alts for ever and ever onwards. I did it for some spare money and few of the items like the melee-hit ring and tank trinket.Actually, that's how I feel about playing any alts through Cataclysm zones. And I've only been through Hyjal so far. I could see doing it for more than 1 character if Pandas wasn't just around the corner. I've actually been levelling up not only my Mage and Warrior, but my Hunter, Lock and a little of my Rogue as well. While I'm sure I'd like the items, the thought of that kind of time-locked grind puts me right off the idea of doing it more than once. Ever. It's why none of the newer-levelled characters have a Netherdrake. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 25, 2012, 04:31:04 PM I liked the Hyjal dailies more than the TB ones, though that's not saying much. They also take forever, though if you don't have a hippogryph already, this is one of the more doable ones while also being better looking.
One cool thing about the questing is there's some semi-phasing that happens for the Firelands portion of the quests. As you unlock the various factions they show up and gradually nature-ize the starting area where all the NPCs are. You unlock the "fill the moonwell" part, the moonwell gets filled and some trees and shit show up, etc. Yet, this doesn't put you out of phase with the other players there. My one complaint is they could have taken it further, especially when you finish, and just phase it fully at that point since you're pretty much done with it. Another nice touch is the steam vents that let you jump further and faster and are integrated into a bunch of the quests. Finally, during the questing, you run into a bunch of boss mobs (and some regular mobs too) with fight mechanics that, while not mind-blowing, are a little more fun for a solo player than grinding endless regular stuff. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on March 25, 2012, 05:23:12 PM Then they did the unlock at 2am because that's when the first guy got all the stuff and since he was racing he had to do it ASAP. So the rest of the server never even got to see the unlock event. Just do it cyclically. Like darkmoon faire, except instead of a derpy little fair not many care about, a big fucking Horde vs. Alliance siege rotating through one capital city every x weeks, with the normal city workings phased/relocated/immune/green to the opposite faction as appropriate to prevent lowbie griefing. Or, worst-case scenario, the entire city and it's surrounding zone reconstructed in a cross-server instance. Part seasonal event, part MOBA, sprinkle in some random ganking. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 25, 2012, 06:36:47 PM My word. I just read up on it. I'm not sure if it's worth the pain in the arse of a solid month of daily grind (so realistically, two months since I have other things to do) with Pandas a couple of months away. Maybe once with my mage "to see it" and then skip it for all alts for ever and ever onwards. I did it for some spare money and few of the items like the melee-hit ring and tank trinket.Actually, that's how I feel about playing any alts through Cataclysm zones. And I've only been through Hyjal so far. I could see doing it for more than 1 character if Pandas wasn't just around the corner. I've actually been levelling up not only my Mage and Warrior, but my Hunter, Lock and a little of my Rogue as well. While I'm sure I'd like the items, the thought of that kind of time-locked grind puts me right off the idea of doing it more than once. Ever. It's why none of the newer-levelled characters have a Netherdrake. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on March 26, 2012, 01:42:55 AM I've found heirlooms + L25 guild boost + rested means that you can skip 80% of the content and just run dungeons, explore and gather to hit 85. Hyjal I did maybe to the wolf questline, followed by maybe 15% of Deepholm (got the first fragment I think), A tiny bit of Uldum and didn't even get to the Maw in Twilight highlands on my mage.
On my rogue I haven't even bothered with Deepholm as she has inscription and she's 83. I actually dinged 82-83 exploring and herbing while waiting for instances to pop (and yes, I hate those 2 instances with a passion) She's also the last of my 10 'toons to hit 85 and I can quite happily say that I never want to do a Cata quest again. It's shit, it's boring and the linear nature of each zone bites big time. One thing I have noticed is my lack of patience. I don't run my DPS through the 3 new instances as I CBF'd waiting in a queue. I run my 4 tanks and have to put up with retards instead. I hope that the ability for more classes to tank is more than a pipe dream because I want to play a DPS class without the wait - and I'm more likely to switch the game off than play it - and I've only been back playing for 2 weeks after a 3 month break. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on March 26, 2012, 04:46:23 PM One thing I have noticed is my lack of patience. I don't run my DPS through the 3 new instances as I CBF'd waiting in a queue. I run my 4 tanks and have to put up with retards instead. I hope that the ability for more classes to tank is more than a pipe dream because I want to play a DPS class without the wait - and I'm more likely to switch the game off than play it - and I've only been back playing for 2 weeks after a 3 month break. They should do (at least) three things: 1. Give every class where it's justifiable a tanking option and/or healing option. 2. Unfuck CC, like they promised to do at the Wrath launch. Not with glyphs. Not with talents. Just innately make CC capable of lasting through moderate damage. 3. a) Stop pretending the low threat ceiling of the initial pull and (in general) generating threat is a fun metagame for more than 5% of people. or b) Make your melee and pet class DPS innately capable of tanking one or two mobs consistently. So you could do a 4DPS + healer group as long as everyone tanks a target or two. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 26, 2012, 05:02:37 PM I would agree with 1 & 4. 3 really isn't necessary with the threat changes, it just isn't much of a factor, and at this point every 5 man except the Cata 4.0 and 4.1 heroics is already a faceroll.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 26, 2012, 05:03:50 PM Some more info about pet battles. (http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1104138-Pet-battle-companion-list!-complete-with-stats-etc)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 26, 2012, 05:38:23 PM (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lx4o1BQlRsk/TgeZUcr5FaI/AAAAAAAAAGE/sBGr8xNlMYA/s1600/it-has-begun.jpeg)
...It has begun! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 26, 2012, 05:51:03 PM They should do (at least) three things: 1. Give every class where it's justifiable a tanking option and/or healing option. 2. Unfuck CC, like they promised to do at the Wrath launch. Not with glyphs. Not with talents. Just innately make CC capable of lasting through moderate damage. 3. a) Stop pretending the low threat ceiling of the initial pull and (in general) generating threat is a fun metagame for more than 5% of people. or b) Make your melee and pet class DPS innately capable of tanking one or two mobs consistently. So you could do a 4DPS + healer group as long as everyone tanks a target or two. They already did 2 & 3 really. CC doesn't aggro mobs anymore, so you can spend as much time as you want setting up a pull. Damage still breaks most CC, but it hardly matters considering how easy pulls are to control at this point. Nobody even uses CC in the 4.3 dungeons and these are the model Blizzard will be using in MoP. They decided threat wasn't interesting gameplay and buffed tank threat by something like 300% during 4.2. It's really, really tough to pull threat off a tank that isn't afk at this point. Since threat was no longer considered fun gameplay, tanks will be moving more towards active mitigation in Cata so that they don't fall asleep. The tanking/healing specs on all the classes... there are a lot of downsides to doing. Admittedly I loved how this worked in Rift, but tanks and healers were still the least commonly played roles (and tanks still got instant queues). In WoW it would be tougher to implement well because each class would need 1 unique tanking and unique 1 healing tree. Since Rift has broad classes and specific souls, it was sort of like a WoW rogue and WoW hunter being different specs of the same 'class' and sharing a healing and tanking tree. I think you'd run into a lot of issues where people disliked that their preferred dps spec had been replaced by a healing or tanking tree. How many Combat rogues would want to be forced into playing Assassination as their only dps option, for example? If players wanted to play hybrid classes, they probably would have rerolled to one in the past 7 years (and in fact class populations shows that this is largely what happened). How much does Blizzard really gain by turning the remaining classes into complete hybrids at this point? The bundle of exotic mysteries combined with easier dungeons means that there are lots of tanks and healers in the LFD queue at this point, and dps queues are pretty short. It would be a lot of disruptive change with potentially little gain. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on March 26, 2012, 06:17:03 PM They decided threat wasn't interesting gameplay and buffed tank threat by something like 300% during 4.2. It's really, really tough to pull threat off a tank that isn't afk at this point. Since threat was no longer considered fun gameplay, tanks will be moving more towards active mitigation in Cata so that they don't fall asleep. It's an assumption on my part that we haven't seen the last of fuckwits (in this case it actually is Ghostcrawler who is responsible) trying to make tanking fucking miserable, again. I think you'd run into a lot of issues where people disliked that their preferred dps spec had been replaced by a healing or tanking tree. How many Combat rogues would want to be forced into playing Assassination as their only dps option, for example? If players wanted to play hybrid classes, they probably would have rerolled to one in the past 7 years (and in fact class populations shows that this is largely what happened). How much does Blizzard really gain by turning the remaining classes into complete hybrids at this point? Druids now have four specs. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 26, 2012, 07:47:13 PM Adding a 4th spec for every class would be way less controversial, but would also require much more work from Blizzard. Cat/Bear is a bit different because the specs were virtually identical except for a few talents: they'd already done all of the work.
I don't think either change is likely to actually happen. If anything, Warlock tanking probably will be cut before release, or won't be fleshed out in the way that other tanks are. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 26, 2012, 08:31:12 PM "Add more tanks!" isn't going to actually result in more tanks. At best it results in people like me speccing the tank tree ... but I still can only play one tank at a time. :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 26, 2012, 08:36:26 PM The difference is that a dps who is tired of waiting in queue can say 'F this, I'll just tank' but yeah, overall tanks would still be the least-played role by a wide margin.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 26, 2012, 08:46:03 PM They could say that, but by and large they do not. Otherwise I wouldn't have seen so many ret paladins and DPS druids and shit. There were quite a few times we'd lose the tank and the only one in the group who could tank was ... me, the healer. And most of the time the DPSers didn't have a heal spec either.
DPSers want to DPS. Period. Which is totally fine, don't get me wrong. But you'll not be convincing them to do anything besides DPS by throwing more tank specs at them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on March 26, 2012, 09:06:44 PM They could say that, but by and large they do not. Otherwise I wouldn't have seen so many ret paladins and DPS druids and shit. There were quite a few times we'd lose the tank and the only one in the group who could tank was ... me, the healer. And most of the time the DPSers didn't have a heal spec either. DPSers want to DPS. Period. Which is totally fine, don't get me wrong. But you'll not be convincing them to do anything besides DPS by throwing more tank specs at them. Maybe its just a big play by Blizzard so that they can say "See you DPSers, you complained about your queue times, we gave you and out and you didn't take it, so bite it." Maybe they actually think it will work though. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on March 26, 2012, 09:08:08 PM The difference is that a dps who is tired of waiting in queue can say 'F this, I'll just tank' but yeah, overall tanks would still be the least-played role by a wide margin. Do you really want your tank to be a 'fuck this, I'll just tank' DPSer instead of someone who actually, you know, enjoys tanking? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 26, 2012, 09:33:08 PM The difference is that a dps who is tired of waiting in queue can say 'F this, I'll just tank' but yeah, overall tanks would still be the least-played role by a wide margin. Do you really want your tank to be a 'fuck this, I'll just tank' DPSer instead of someone who actually, you know, enjoys tanking? With Wrath/4.3 style dungeons? I really wouldn't mind. In an ideal situation the gearing would work like Feral Cat->Feral Bear. Similar enough that you can tank in your DPS gear without causing major problems. Again Rift is an example of this system in action: there were a couple of times while leveling where I queued as a DPS rogue and switched to a tanking spec when our tank bailed, or queued as a DPS cleric and switched to healing spec when a healer bailed. As long as the content isn't super tough, it doesn't really matter. GC already shot down the idea of dedicated warlock tanking. The MoP glyph wasn't a new direction for the class, it was just some extra flavor/utility. Quote Just to make our intent clear, the Glyph of Demon Hunting isn't intended to turn Demonology warlocks into a tanking spec. You won't be able to queue as a tank for Dungeon Finder for instance and won't have the survivability or tools of say a Protection paladin. Historically, warlocks felt tankier than other casters and could even off-tank some encounters. We have made an effort in Mists to recapture some of that flavor. A warlock with this glyph should feel like they are about as effective tanking as an Arms warrior who pulls out a shield and swaps to Defensive Stance, or a Feral druid who goes into Bear form. You might be able to off-tank adds or pick up an actual boss for a short period of time if the tank goes down. To make warlocks an actual tank would take more significant changes. For example, we want tanks to have to pick up separate tanking gear than their DPS gear (this is even true of druids) and want tanks to have to give up some of their DPS potential in exchange for their survivability. In short, it needs to be a commitment, and that's the sort of thing that needs larger gameplay changes than just a glyph. That shouldn't stop the glyph of Demon Hunting from being fun though. As you can probably tell, we are trying to make even the major glyphs more about character customization and fun. Frankly I'm surprised people were excited about the idea of a new spec where you would spend 100% of your time in demon form. Druids have already shown that spending all of your time shape-shifted gets boring quickly and removes a lot of the fun from getting new gear or using transmog. I spent a bunch of time collecting the PVP recolor of T4 on my druid for transmog only to see ugly ass moonkin form every time I play him instead. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 26, 2012, 10:56:11 PM Druids make up for it with a ridiculous suite of quality of life and utility perks though :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on March 26, 2012, 11:14:59 PM Ghostcrawler likes grind, doesn't want to broaden out to more tank classes. Like a compass capable of finding magnetic wrong or true wrong with a flip of a switch.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on March 27, 2012, 01:55:07 AM The difference is that a dps who is tired of waiting in queue can say 'F this, I'll just tank' but yeah, overall tanks would still be the least-played role by a wide margin. I don't really want those chaps tanking. Fucking Paladin who wasn't using Righteous Fury because he didn't know it existed. Get the fuck outta my queue. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: DraconianOne on March 27, 2012, 02:13:12 AM I'd come back if they let 'locks tank properly. :grin:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 27, 2012, 03:12:15 AM I'd come back if they let 'locks tank properly. :grin: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 27, 2012, 06:01:08 AM Spoke too soon, apparently.
GC to Warlocks: "No, really, fuck you." (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4253968049#12) Quote Just to make our intent clear, the Glyph of Demon Hunting isn't intended to turn Demonology warlocks into a tanking spec. You won't be able to queue as a tank for Dungeon Finder for instance and won't have the survivability or tools of say a Protection paladin. Historically, warlocks felt tankier than other casters and could even off-tank some encounters. We have made an effort in Mists to recapture some of that flavor. A warlock with this glyph should feel like they are about as effective tanking as an Arms warrior who pulls out a shield and swaps to Defensive Stance, or a Feral druid who goes into Bear form. You might be able to off-tank adds or pick up an actual boss for a short period of time if the tank goes down. To make warlocks an actual tank would take more significant changes. For example, we want tanks to have to pick up separate tanking gear than their DPS gear (this is even true of druids) and want tanks to have to give up some of their DPS potential in exchange for their survivability. In short, it needs to be a commitment, and that's the sort of thing that needs larger gameplay changes than just a glyph. That shouldn't stop the glyph of Demon Hunting from being fun though. As you can probably tell, we are trying to make even the major glyphs more about character customization and fun. Quote As some of you have pointed out, the glyph of Demon Hunting in your beta build doesn't deliver on what I described above as the design. The newer version of the glyph, hopefully available in the next beta build, allows a warlock to toggle in and out of the off-tank / survival mode, more like the druid going Bear or the warrior going Defensive. The new shapeshift granted by the glyph is called Threatening Presence (PH) and adds Taunt and Fury Ward to the normal Metamorphosis toolkit. You still get the damage reduction from mastery instead of the damage boost from mastery while in this form. You can also choose to go into normal Metamorphosis even if you have the glyph. Let us know how it feels. We appreciate all the feedback and passion on this topic. We expected this glyph would serve a pretty niche community and were surprised at how many players were excited about it. We are still in beta and are still very much experimenting with what kind of gamplay we can deliver in glyphs. Seriously, fun is fun and all, but why take the time, effort, resources, and money to make Warlocks tank, but not go ATW with it? Either go full monty, or retune Metamorph so it's just a pure DPS boost a la Tree-form. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 27, 2012, 07:03:38 AM Big mistake here I think. Wow needs to stop thinking about this magical 'good for the game' bullshit and just give players more fun things to do. They tried way too hard in cataclysm and look where it got them.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 27, 2012, 07:15:28 AM I don't understand what he means by Druid tanks having to find separate gear just to tank. There is no 'leather-tank'-only gear. They use the same DPS gear that Cats and all three Rogue specs use. Their mitigation comes through talents and abilities that either give them skills to defend themselves or modifies/enhances the stats on that DPS gear in order to win. They could just as easily do the same for Warlocks! If anything, Druids have to have two separate sets for caster DPS and healing, which the game is itemized for. Casters need Hit and healer needs Spirit. Since the two are interchangeable ANYWAYS because of talents and reforging, the only time you ever really see a difference is in the class gear sets, where the bonuses are unique.
It really seems like a weak argument on GC's part. I really hope they pull their head out of their ass on this before it goes live. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 27, 2012, 07:15:56 AM Part of me wants to blame PVP for this.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 27, 2012, 07:19:48 AM Part of me wants to blame PVP for this. In Metamorph, the Warlock becomes an instant "KILL ME THE FRACK NOW!" by enemy warlocks and paladins because of the Demon classification the Metamorph 'lock gets. All of the Pally's skills get to be used now (such as the "Now-Guaranteed 100% crit chance Exorcism and Turn Undead/Demons Fear), and Warlocks can just Banish the shit out of them. It's the same argument one can have about Hunters vs. Bear/Cat/Moonkin Druids (Hunters get increased damaged, fear tactics, etc.) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 27, 2012, 07:36:44 AM I don't understand what he means by Druid tanks having to find separate gear just to tank. There is no 'leather-tank'-only gear. They use the same DPS gear that Cats and all three Rogue specs use. Their mitigation comes through talents and abilities that either give them skills to defend themselves or modifies/enhances the stats on that DPS gear in order to win. They could just as easily do the same for Warlocks! If anything, Druids have to have two separate sets for caster DPS and healing, which the game is itemized for. Casters need Hit and healer needs Spirit. Since the two are interchangeable ANYWAYS because of talents and reforging, the only time you ever really see a difference is in the class gear sets, where the bonuses are unique. It really seems like a weak argument on GC's part. I really hope they pull their head out of their ass on this before it goes live. That isn't entirely true on the part of feral druids. I definitely know feral druids who have different suits for tanking and dpsing, they have slightly different wants stat-wise and gear up accordingly (if nothing else, the gems are different). Like I'm pretty sure cats don't give nearly as big a shit about mastery as bears do (which is where a lot of their mitigation ACTUALLY comes from). EDIT: Also, who the shit is going to reforge their gear every time they switch from cat to bear? No one. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 27, 2012, 07:39:14 AM WoW has plenty of tank classes, especially with monks being added. The warlock thing was just dumb - I'd rather see a warlock healer, I think there's way more room for interesting design around something like that than around what would essentially be a bear tank with wings.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on March 27, 2012, 07:50:59 AM It's the same argument one can have about Hunters vs. Bear/Cat/Moonkin Druids (Hunters get increased damaged, fear tactics, etc.) The only thing Hunters get against beast-type players is Scare Beast (and Beast Lore I guess). Monster Slaying (+3% damage/crit to Beasts/Dragons/Giants) was removed with Wrath and Improved Tracking (+5% to tracked targets) with Cata. Trolls still have Beast Slaying (+5% damage) as a racial though. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 27, 2012, 08:31:28 AM WoW has plenty of tank classes, especially with monks being added. The warlock thing was just dumb - I'd rather see a warlock healer, I think there's way more room for interesting design around something like that than around what would essentially be a bear tank with wings. With MoP there will be 5 possible tank classes and 5 possible healing classes. The majority of classes (7/11) can already do one role or the other. Most people still just play DPS anyway. I don't understand what he means by Druid tanks having to find separate gear just to tank. There is no 'leather-tank'-only gear. They use the same DPS gear that Cats and all three Rogue specs use. They have to reforge/regem to 'optimize' their gear for that role, but realistically they can swap from tanking to dps without much effort. Hell, bear tanks even use the same trinkets as cat druids for tanking. I wonder if he meant that the gear differences will be larger in MoP. Maybe, for example, druids will have 4 possible Tier sets to match their 4 specs. The stats on cat/bear sets will be similar, but you'd miss out on set bonuses if you switched roles but not gear. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on March 27, 2012, 10:29:37 AM Some more info about pet battles. (http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1104138-Pet-battle-companion-list!-complete-with-stats-etc) Mods, please embed this music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jmty_NiaXc). TIA.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on March 27, 2012, 02:26:18 PM I don't understand what he means by Druid tanks having to find separate gear just to tank. There is no 'leather-tank'-only gear. They use the same DPS gear that Cats and all three Rogue specs use. Their mitigation comes through talents and abilities that either give them skills to defend themselves or modifies/enhances the stats on that DPS gear in order to win. They could just as easily do the same for Warlocks! If anything, Druids have to have two separate sets for caster DPS and healing, which the game is itemized for. Casters need Hit and healer needs Spirit. Since the two are interchangeable ANYWAYS because of talents and reforging, the only time you ever really see a difference is in the class gear sets, where the bonuses are unique. It really seems like a weak argument on GC's part. I really hope they pull their head out of their ass on this before it goes live. That isn't entirely true on the part of feral druids. I definitely know feral druids who have different suits for tanking and dpsing, they have slightly different wants stat-wise and gear up accordingly (if nothing else, the gems are different). Like I'm pretty sure cats don't give nearly as big a shit about mastery as bears do (which is where a lot of their mitigation ACTUALLY comes from). EDIT: Also, who the shit is going to reforge their gear every time they switch from cat to bear? No one. Unless you are doing heroics where a stupidly large healthpool is required to survive many boss fights, Agility is considered our number one stat both offensively and defensively, and once you have your 2 piece T13 bonus, Mastery Pulls ahead of Dodge. This means that for gearing the average feral tank can get away with gemming Red = Agility, Yellow = Agi+Mastery, Blue = AGI+Hit, and reforge for mastery instead of dodge. This makes for a setup that is also incredibly effective as cat DPS since you have essentially 0 wasted stats (no loss of dps stats reforging to dodge), and other then not being purely cat optimal (cats stat weights are Mastery=Crit=Haste, while Bears are Mastery>Crit>Haste), still allows you to cat DPS compedatively in any fight where only one tank is required without carrying around an entirely different gear set. The only "non tank" extra gear you need would be different trinkets and a different helm, for a dps meta gem instead of the tank one. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 27, 2012, 02:57:18 PM http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/4736886/Dev_Watercooler_-_Mists_of_Pandaria_Looting_Explained-3_27_2012#blog
Dev Watercooler: Short version: -SWTOR's loot system is going into LFR as far as I can tell. Basically, everyone has their own loot. Sometimes you get shit, sometimes you don't, but some dude winning the lottery doesn't mean you don't now. -Valor is not for buying gear anymore. They're going to try making it so you can upgrade gear with it literally; bumping the item level of a specific item. -Rather than forcing hardcore grinding for raid consumables in order to give you a reason to log in off raid nights, they're adding faction-related items that basically give you personal bonus rolls on boss kills if you feel like it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 27, 2012, 03:45:12 PM The loot system thing is a great thing. Frankly, any other implementation of that system is just begging for trouble.
The charms thing sounds odd, but could be cool. We'd have to see how the players fuck that up. Here's where shit takes a horrific turn: Quote We think killing dragons and ransacking their hoard is more epic than shopping at the magic armor store, so we want to shift back toward boss kills being the primary source of epic PvE gear. In Mists of Pandaria, Valor will be used to power a new feature that allows you to increase the item level of your existing epic items. This means that each week, you can become a little more powerful, hopefully allowing you to kill that boss that has eluded you thus far. There will be a bit of a game in trying to decide when to upgrade your gear versus hoping for a new piece to drop from a raid boss, but our plan is that even heroic gear can be upgraded slightly in this way. We won’t allow you to upgrade Raid Finder gear so much that it becomes better than normal gear. While I agree that killing bosses is fun, and getting drops is fun, this is a fucking terrible idea. They are going back to the RUG, and punishing people that don't raid successfully or luckily by not letting them get stuff that won't drop. Also, that "game" of deciding how to upgrade it not fun. That's a kick in the nuts when you upgrade 3 levels, burn all your points, then get the drop and have wasted them on something you now replaced. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 27, 2012, 04:00:00 PM It only works I think if LFR is as face-rolly as LFR is now. I've only hit one LFR so far but it's easier than the HoT 5-mans, and way easier than cata 5-mans. As DPS you just show up, DPS the right target, move for like 2-3 gimmicks, you win.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 27, 2012, 04:02:38 PM While I agree that killing bosses is fun, and getting drops is fun, this is a fucking terrible idea. They are going back to the RUG, and punishing people that don't raid successfully or luckily by not letting them get stuff that won't drop. Also, that "game" of deciding how to upgrade it not fun. That's a kick in the nuts when you upgrade 3 levels, burn all your points, then get the drop and have wasted them on something you now replaced. Isn't that how it works now? I could spent all my Valor Points on a 397 hat because RNG fucks me over every week, but a day later I might win a 397 hat while raiding that has better stats and a set bonus. All the points I spent would have gone completely to waste (and the gems/enchants). The valor to boost ilvl system sounds... kind of grindy though. Is spending 500 VP for 1 more ilvl on your pants actually fun gameplay? I agree that killing bosses for gear is more fun than buying gear with a points currency, but the new system doesn't sound great either. The alternative perspective is that, since you can get VP by questing and doing lots of other activities, the game now essentially has an AA system (with a low cap). I thought the AA system (Planar Attunement) in Rift would be grindy and awful, but it was actually pretty nice to have a (very very small) benefit for finishing old quest zones and stuff. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 27, 2012, 07:19:16 PM While I agree that killing bosses is fun, and getting drops is fun, this is a fucking terrible idea. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ratman_tf on March 27, 2012, 07:46:31 PM (http://1000awesomethings.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/dog-chasing-tail.jpg)
How does we getz loot? Loldunno! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 27, 2012, 11:19:51 PM That's a very accurate picture of the design process. I'm also looking forward to the removal of "Have Group, Will Travel", because I also think the game should be more worldly which equates to the meaningful experience of travel time on griffons while alt-tabbed or afk.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 28, 2012, 02:05:58 AM I'll just copy-paste my response to this whole charm idea from our guild forums:
FUCK YOU GC DIAF Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on March 28, 2012, 02:47:30 AM So the bottom line I'm seeing with this is:
1) Grinding Lucky Charms will be pretty much a requirement. 2) Gearing up offspecs will be a serious PITA. 3) Dropout rates in LFR will increase massively because nobody will give a fuck about valor. :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on March 28, 2012, 03:25:23 AM So the bottom line I'm seeing with this is: Cant really comment on item 1, but I am not seeing exactly where 2 and 3 come from. 1) Grinding Lucky Charms will be pretty much a requirement. 2) Gearing up offspecs will be a serious PITA. 3) Dropout rates in LFR will increase massively because nobody will give a fuck about valor. :oh_i_see: For 2, gearing up your offspec is already a PITA in LFR / LFD simply because everyone else is hitting need on everything they can anyway (though more in LFR then LFD). It will simply mean that to effectively gear your OS, you queue as your OS or you raid with an actual group, and not LFR. As to 3, I dont really see this changing much, since atm you only get valor for killing the end boss. People who want loot will still queue and kill the bosses they need. People who only want valor will take whateer pops, go through to the end boss call it done. People who dont care about valor will just drop after they get up to whatever boss drops the loot they wanted. Not like you wont have plenty of people cycling through the system to field replacements. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 28, 2012, 03:51:47 AM I'm honestly very unhappy with where they're starting to head. Right now, we raid 7 hours a week. With another 1-1,5 I can do all the rest of the stuff I _need_ to, to have my character at the efficiency level it needs to be when raiding. If I have to do the charms (aka log in daily to do scenarios, and/or dailies) and cap valor outside of raids (since raids won't cap you) I have to increase my online time quite a bit. Maybe even to something like 13-14 hours a week. That's an issue.
I don't get why they're worried I only login to raid? I'm paying, am I not? Why do they want me to login every day? I thought the last of this died when they let me cap valor from dungeons in a single day? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on March 28, 2012, 04:01:49 AM It's much easier to quit if you only log in once a day.
Think of it as a guy only smoking a cigarette once a month. Will he really miss it vs the guy on 3 packs a day ? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on March 28, 2012, 05:39:38 AM The valor idea is pretty terrible. I'm in a casual raid group and most people just don't bother capping valor which means most will always be at a lower ilvl than they could be so we won't beat bosses. At least with valor you were guaranteed something every second week, it keeps people playing. I also look forward to the drama when someone who caps valor every week and has fully upgraded loot isn't allowed to roll on new gear because it would be a bigger improvement for the 'slacker' who hasn't upgraded anything. They already made is so that you can't get tier pieces off of the valor vendor, that should have been all they needed to do, but no, they're going full retard.
I don't know why blizzard always does at least one thing that is jaw droppingly stupid every time. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on March 28, 2012, 06:00:03 AM isn't allowed to roll on new gear Um ? Have you read it all yet ? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 28, 2012, 06:03:18 AM He's talking about non LFR where raiding guilds will presumably still be forced to delegate who gets what loot when the bosses drop it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 28, 2012, 06:26:00 AM It's not Blizzard's job to dictate how your personal guild of friends/like-minded individuals conducts their shit when it comes to loot distro. As far as the new loot distro for LFR goes, it sounds like it's perfect for LFR. It reduces, if not eliminates any potential drama from loot ninjas and such, which helps Bliz's bottom line of reducing CSR tickets, along with keeping random random. If they push this to all raids, regardless of LFR, I would hope it would be an option that's controllable by the raid leader (a la Master Looter, Round Robin, etc.)
Edit: As for the bonus rolls you can get from faction grinding; did you miss the word 'bonus' there? Nobody said you had to do it, but if you did, you may get a reward. It's that whole time + effort = reward thing. As for Valor points, the jury is still out. I understand what he's saying by Valor being a crutch. It's the same argument one can make for current day soccer moms who complain that just because Jimmy lost the game doesn't mean he shouldn't get a trophy. It sounds like they're turning Valor into a sort of "XP for gear". Too early to say how it'll work exactly since nothing is really set in stone yet. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 28, 2012, 06:32:41 AM As for Valor points, the jury is still out. I understand what he's saying by Valor being a crutch. It's the same argument one can make for current day soccer moms who complain that just because Jimmy lost the game doesn't mean he shouldn't get a trophy. No it's not. Jimmy's team won the tournament, but as it turns out they only bought two trophies for the team, so now you have to decide who gets them. Maybe if you win the tournament next week, you'll get one of those two trophies. That's how dumb going back to RNG loot systems are as the main distribution source. Valor was never a crutch. It was a means to reward everyone for winning, regardless of drops. People were happy to see bosses die because they knew that at least they would get their step closer to their set piece even without a drop. The way the Valor system reads to me now is a dumbed down version of ToA's leveling your pants. That was NOT POPULAR. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 28, 2012, 06:40:44 AM It gets even dumber when you realize they won't allow you to level your LFR pants as much as your regular or heroic pants.
They way it reads it'll be something like this: Location---Base level---Max valor level. LFR---1---25 Regular---20---50 Heroic---45---75 So that whichever tier you get once upgraded is just over the level of a non-upgraded piece of the next tier. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on March 28, 2012, 06:42:57 AM He's talking about non LFR where raiding guilds will presumably still be forced to delegate who gets what loot when the bosses drop it. Same as it ever was. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 28, 2012, 06:58:28 AM It gets even dumber when you realize they won't allow you to level your LFR pants as much as your regular or heroic pants. They way it reads it'll be something like this: Location---Base level---Max valor level. LFR---1---25 Regular---20---50 Heroic---45---75 So that whichever tier you get once upgraded is just over the level of a non-upgraded piece of the next tier. Does this not keep in line with the current layout of things? Difficulty Easiest <-LFR------Normal------Heroic->Hardest Risk, effort, and time. You get rewarded, in quantity and quality, for how much you commit those things to the game. That rule has never changed. The amounts and awesomeness of the rewards may have shifted over the years, but the risk, effort, and time have always been constant. I know that I will never in a thousand years ever be able to put my hands on a Legendary item (or at least one that isn't three-four expansion packs old :why_so_serious:), because I don't have the ability to commit the time and effort needed to acquire one. I still get a thrill out of getting what loot I can, and enjoying the content. I do not ever expect to get Heroic-level items without being able to commit to Heroic-level effort, time, and risk. These MoP changes are simply another shift of the quantity and quality of rewards that they've done with every expansion. The risk, effort, and time needed will stay the same. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 28, 2012, 07:06:39 AM Quantity and quality are all that matters, numbnuts. Nobody takes any risk or effort in this game. It's all a basis of time.
This isn't a shift. This is removing an avenue for loot and replacing it with leveling your loot. You probably weren't around for the last time this was tried in DAOC, but it basically killed that game. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on March 28, 2012, 07:11:12 AM Not that I think leveling one's pants is awesome, but a big part of the reason it was so loathed in DAoC was because it was trying to force a bunch of PvPers to do a bunch of shitty PvE they didn't want to do.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 28, 2012, 07:25:25 AM Not that I think leveling one's pants is awesome, but a big part of the reason it was so loathed in DAoC was because it was trying to force a bunch of PvPers to do a bunch of shitty PvE they didn't want to do. This. DAoC was about PvP with a decent side of PvE. ToA was essentially patching in Everquest 1.0 into a game that succeeded by NOT doing everything that EQ did (at the very least not all the bad things). Add on that the Trials themselves were basically Heroic-mode on steroids and that burned out people PDQ. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 28, 2012, 07:34:18 AM The main problem is that it will make running heroic dungeons feel useless, which will decrease participation. The whole purpose of the valor system was to increase dungeon running and increase retention.
They don't need to scrap the system in place, they need to improve the economics of the system. That's harder though, so we get levelling our pants instead. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ivanneth on March 28, 2012, 08:54:29 AM Regarding LFR: About how long does it take for an average group to finish a raid currently?
Aspects of MoP have me seriously considering resubscribing, and as a former raider turned very casual (I refuse to make any time commitments to a game) I like the idea of raids that I can join and leave at will without pissing anyone off. However, if raids are still 4-6 hour deals then I know I'd get frustrated about never seeing certain bosses because at most I can play uninterrupted for ~2 hours. Edit to clarify: The last time I raided was back in Vanilla, so that's where I get the 4-6 hour time frame from. I have no idea how long raids last these days. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 28, 2012, 09:33:09 AM The main problem is that it will make running heroic dungeons feel useless, which will decrease participation. The whole purpose of the valor system was to increase dungeon running and increase retention. They don't need to scrap the system in place, they need to improve the economics of the system. That's harder though, so we get levelling our pants instead. Why would it make running heroic dungeons useless? If anything, heroic dungeons should see more participation because getting to the valor cap every week benefits you even if you're in a heroic raiding guild. Everybody will want to cap valor to upgrade whatever gear they're using. I wouldn't be surprised if you could buy Charms with Valor too. Regarding LFR: About how long does it take for an average group to finish a raid currently? I'd guess they're about an 60-90 minutes long per each wing of 4 bosses, at least for Dragon Soul. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on March 28, 2012, 10:11:05 AM I really don't get the Valor ilvl-boost thing since while it's not that different than the gear-buying mechanism if you run LFR (upgrading for lower level epics to higher level epics) it removes the illusion of progress at the very least.
Great, my helm of slaying now has 40 more strength and stamina and a bit more crit. I don't get a new model, a new color shade, or anything other than stats really for the valor grind. I guess they're expecting people to still transmog everything to old armor sets. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 28, 2012, 10:27:36 AM I don't get a new model, a new color shade, or anything other than stats really for the valor grind. I guess they're expecting people to still transmog everything to old armor sets. I read all that as: "Hey, Bliz has an excuse to either fire or re-assign their artists to more pressing tasks." Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 28, 2012, 10:35:08 AM People wanted an appearance tab forever, now they have one and the line is "blizzard is being lazy"
I mean, they could be lazy too but if 80% of the playerbase won't even use new models there is no reason to design as many set per tier, especially not the class based ones. I for one would much rather quality over quantity. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 28, 2012, 10:42:20 AM They could just as easily make whatever the current tier set of gear is be un-transmoggable, but I doubt it would happen.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 28, 2012, 10:49:49 AM I really don't get the Valor ilvl-boost thing since while it's not that different than the gear-buying mechanism if you run LFR (upgrading for lower level epics to higher level epics) it removes the illusion of progress at the very least. Great, my helm of slaying now has 40 more strength and stamina and a bit more crit. I don't get a new model, a new color shade, or anything other than stats really for the valor grind. I guess they're expecting people to still transmog everything to old armor sets. I disagree. There isn't an illusion of progress: there is very measurable progress. Even though the system sounds grindy, it's got the same benefits as an AA system. You'll always be able to feel like you are slowly progressing your character even if you don't win any loot or you're doing dailies for a faction you don't need rep from. If I run LFR Mantis Palace (or whatever) I might get enough valor points to upgrade my shoulders 1 ilvl even if Mantis Palace came out a year ago and I'm wearing much better gear. We're still missing out on important details. What is the valor cost to upgrade an item? Does the cost increase each time you do it? Does upgrading a blue dungeon piece of gear 1 ilvl cost the same as upgrading a piece of heroic raid loot? Whether this system is a success or not is going to hinge on cost balance. I also think it's ironic that players are complaining about blizzard artists being lazy when this expansion looks like it's going to have way more cosmetic gear and mounts than any previous expansion. Providing fluff items that just look cool or fun is a higher priority than it ever has been before. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 28, 2012, 10:57:19 AM They could just as easily make whatever the current tier set of gear is be un-transmoggable, but I doubt it would happen. Not a facepalm big enough. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 28, 2012, 10:58:02 AM This is nothing at all like leveling your pants in DAOC. That had you doing stuff you wouldn't otherwise do to level items that you couldn't get any other way. This is just doing the same stuff you were doing anyway, to level stuff you would be getting anyway.
If anything I like it better than spending the valor on new gear because you don't have to regem/enchant your shit as often. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 28, 2012, 11:18:40 AM One of the problems with the current valor system is it does make drops from the boss a lot less exciting.
I'm basically valored out on my main, except for one ring. I have the points to get that ring, but that basically means any ring drop from normal DS is just a sidegrade and almost worthless. If a helm or chest token for priests drops, since I already have the valor gear for that slot, I'm looking at rolling need vs other people (who may be looking at a bigger upgrade) in order to just get a set bonus. Even the artwork is the same. Which makes me feel kinda shitty whether or not I roll. At the same time, I can't say upgrading my pants with valor sounds particularly exciting. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 28, 2012, 11:28:38 AM At the same time, I can't say upgrading my pants with valor sounds particularly exciting. That's the bigger problem here. They're replacing one valor implementation that makes the game less interesting with another valor system that makes the game less interesting. Simply increasing the ilvl of gear just feels so artificial and gamey. In TERA's weapon/armor upgrade system, increasing the quality of the gear you are using unlocks extra bonuses on that gear in addition to increasing the stats. Because the game is Korean, upgrading your gear also has a chance to fail and de-level your gear instead. Aside that awful mechanic, I think the upgrading system is actually pretty fun. Instead of just increasing the baseline stats on gear by small amounts, they could make it so that reaching the max ilvl possible on that gear unlocks a little extra perk. Maybe prot warrior shoulders with Mastery and Dodge at ilvl 450 (base) also get a bonus to Parry when they hit the max ilvl of 460, etc. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 28, 2012, 12:39:43 PM If weapons and armor literally got rid of the ilvl and just had exp bars that you "levelled" through valor, it''d do awesome. People love thier ding grats
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ivanneth on March 28, 2012, 12:42:43 PM I'd guess they're about an 60-90 minutes long per each wing of 4 bosses, at least for Dragon Soul. Well that's encouraging. Thanks! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on March 28, 2012, 01:08:08 PM If weapons and armor literally got rid of the ilvl and just had exp bars that you "levelled" through valor, it''d do awesome. People love thier ding grats So something like the lotro Legendary Items system? Could work, 'cept people may be too indoctrinated into the "I switch my weapon every week" thing. Plus enchanters/jewelers would throw fits.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on March 28, 2012, 01:14:42 PM I'll laugh so hard if applying a charm thing wipes out the gems/enchant on the item it's applied to. :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 28, 2012, 01:19:15 PM If weapons and armor literally got rid of the ilvl and just had exp bars that you "levelled" through valor, it''d do awesome. People love thier ding grats ilvl does stand for Item Level, so maybe they will flesh out the UI to make the system less ridiculous. I don't know, they had the opportunity to do this with reforging and they didn't do it. As a result, reforging works fine but it feels really artificial. I'll laugh so hard if applying a charm thing wipes out the gems/enchant on the item it's applied to. :awesome_for_real: Charms just give you a chance at extra loot on a boss, they don't do anything to the items you already have. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on March 28, 2012, 03:09:07 PM Ok, whatever the thing is that bumps up the ilevel of an item is called. I admit I'm not really following all this closely, but it did catch my attention because of the faint whiff of ToA. I say faint because the big problem in DAoC was the pve was terrible, so having to level items in that game was orders of magnitude worse than in WoW.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 28, 2012, 03:37:24 PM I'll try and tl;dr GC's post more accurately.
For LFR in MoP - On boss kill, game randomly picks 2-5 people. - Those 2-5 people get a piece of loot that fits their class and active spec. - The loot they get is No-Trade. - Essentially, it's now Soviet WoW; game is looting you! Bonus Rolls - There's a faction in MoP that, if you grind them regularly, you can buy a Fortune Charm - If you have a Fortune Charm in your inventory when a boss dies, you can spend it on a "bonus roll" for a chance at getting a class/spec equipment piece from the boss' table. - If you fail the roll, you still get a goodie bag of consumable and coin. Valor - Now a type of XP for gear. - Valor gear vendors 'may' be getting the ax. - Valor will primarily be gotten from 5-man dungeons/challenge modes and scenarios. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soulflame on March 28, 2012, 05:57:29 PM That is such a stupid idea, although I'm glad Blizzard is considering it. I had some small measure of desire to play a healer that hits things to heal people, but then Blizzard decided that pants leveling is smart.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ginaz on March 28, 2012, 06:10:59 PM That is such a stupid idea, although I'm glad Blizzard is considering it. I had some small measure of desire to play a healer that hits things to heal people, but then Blizzard decided that pants leveling is smart. Thats why I enjoyed the Warrior Priest in Warhammer. You healed, but you needed to be doing damage to do it. I actually liked most of the classes in WH and how they were designed and played. Too bad the rest of the game wasn't that great. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on March 28, 2012, 06:28:11 PM I've said this before and I'll say it again, I really hate RNG loot. A lot.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 28, 2012, 07:08:58 PM Pants levelling > no pants after 50 baron runs
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on March 28, 2012, 07:10:51 PM Honestly, this is such a bad idea that I can't see them changing ir over the course of Pandaria's lifetime, just as they did already with many of their bass-ackwards Cataclysm changes. You can certainly see that a new team is running the show, though, since this crap was already worked out and refined once in response to the awesomeness of RNG loot.
Buying new pants from doing runs > Pants levelling > no pants after 50 baron runs. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on March 28, 2012, 07:37:17 PM Pants levelling > no pants after 50 baron runs I had my cenarion chest before my wildheart :heartbreak: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on March 28, 2012, 11:10:00 PM For LFR in MoP - On boss kill, game randomly picks 2-5 people. That's not how I read it. From the blog (my emphasis): Quote - The boss dies. - Each player has a chance to win loot, independent of the other players. So theoretically every single player there could get an item from a single boss kill. There may well be, or they may add later, some limit to the number of items that can be got from a single boss, but it's not mentioned in the information we have so far. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on March 29, 2012, 01:12:31 AM Buying new pants from doing runs > Pants levelling > no pants after 50 baron runs. Not really. 1. Buy pants with justice. Do dungeon runs in them to get valor. 2. Level justice or LFR pants up to relative parity with raid gear. 3. ? ? ? 4. Profit. (from not having to sink more money into item enhancement and customization) Seriously, there are other things to get upset about, this merits a shrug. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 29, 2012, 01:47:24 AM Quote Quantity and quality are all that matters, numbnuts. Nobody takes any risk or effort in this game. It's all a basis of time. If this was even remotely true guilds that raid 2x3x our time would be better then us. They're not. Heroic raiding is 50% effort, 30% skill and composure, and 20% in-game time investment. And the new system is retarded, especially the charm bit & the bit where you have to do EVEN MORE to get your valor. I will lose people over this shit. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 29, 2012, 03:33:51 AM The Daily Blink on Warlock Tanks
Spoilered for size. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 29, 2012, 05:27:52 AM Quote Quantity and quality are all that matters, numbnuts. Nobody takes any risk or effort in this game. It's all a basis of time. If this was even remotely true guilds that raid 2x3x our time would be better then us. They're not. Heroic raiding is 50% effort, 30% skill and composure, and 20% in-game time investment. And the new system is retarded, especially the charm bit & the bit where you have to do EVEN MORE to get your valor. I will lose people over this shit. Where do you read that you'll have to do even more for valor? We'll probably get the same valor per run from raids and dungeons, you'll just have the option of doing scenarios and dailies for valor if you want instead. The charms you're being hyperbolic about. You will not need to grind dailies every day to stay competitive. It's a small chance at extra loot, which could be loot you already have. Here's how it will actually work for competitive heroic guilds: Everybody stock-piles 20-30 charms at their leisure while clearing normal modes or while the previous raid tier is on farm. During the first 3-4 weeks of Heroic kills, everyone uses Charms. Given that most classes have ~2 items per spec that they can use off any given boss, using the charms won't be very beneficial once you have even one item from that boss. Not to mention the slot overlap that's still going to happen on loot tables. I doubt the non-LFR Charm gear will be tradeable either. Or alternatively, you could just ignore charms entirely and you'll receive exactly the amount of loot you receive now. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 29, 2012, 06:25:47 AM Quote Quantity and quality are all that matters, numbnuts. Nobody takes any risk or effort in this game. It's all a basis of time. If this was even remotely true guilds that raid 2x3x our time would be better then us. They're not. Heroic raiding is 50% effort, 30% skill and composure, and 20% in-game time investment. And the new system is retarded, especially the charm bit & the bit where you have to do EVEN MORE to get your valor. I will lose people over this shit. Effort = time. In game time = time. Composure = time. The only thing that's not time oriented is execution which is the skill portion of the game. And given that you can remove those who basically suck ass given enough time to set your composure, execution is about 10% of the overall game. So I'll reorganize my thoughts on the matter to 90% time, 10% execution. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 29, 2012, 06:44:18 AM he specifically said you won't be able to cap valor from raids:
Quote Valor will come primarily from dungeons (including challenge modes) and scenarios. You might earn a little from daily quests and raiding as well, but that won't be as efficient. As far as charms - you raid 10m right? How much gear do you still need from drops, after 20+ kills on some of them? We'll be spaming those charms from day 1 of tier, to the last raid before the new tier, and we still won't have all the drops we need. But you can't ignore them, even if it's 0.000000000001% chance of getting what you need, because that's how it works. It doesn't matter if it's a slim chance, you still _have_ to give yourself the chance to get it, or you will not be at your peak efficency compared to the other people in your raid. Having food is not something that is optional. This is just another consumable, the way you get it - through dailies, and the ammounts you'll have to spend - I can easily see it having to log in every single day to get them. I'd rather be vocal about it right now, then have to deal with burn outs mid-pandas. Paleos - effort is not neceserilly time. Effort is paying attention, caring and yes, to some extend researching shit out of game. Instead of spending 20 minutes doing something else, you must spend 20 minutes going through a log. I specifically did not put it with the ingame time, because it's something that can be done from work/while commuting, etc. It's time, but not the same time you meant in your initial post. Composure is not time, it's part experience, yes, bu another part can be rolled into skill. I have raiders that have done heroic content for a year and a half and still get flustered and confused when shit hits the fan. And while personal ability is not something that is prevalent in wow, it is there. It's what separates the very top guilds, from the very bottom ones. And no, it's not all time. Yes, you have to clock in time. But that is obviously not all, again - my guild is direct evidence of this. My whole issue with GC's post stems from me not being comfortable with investing more time then I currently am. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on March 29, 2012, 06:49:03 AM Seriously, you're sounding like the people GC tongue-in-cheeked in his post. If we just give you all the epics after one run today, what the hell's the point in having you come back tomorrow?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 29, 2012, 07:09:55 AM Then obviously I'm having an english r hard moment. I don't care about items at all, items are a tool to beat certain checks within an encounter. If I could play with the same items my toon spawned with and raid with them, I would, that's how much I don't care. I care about how much time I need to invest, to be prepared to do heroic raids. That is all. I'm comfortable with it atm - push at the begining of a tier - do lfr, dungeons to fill holes in gear left from the last tier, play maybe 13-14 hours a week. Month one on - log in 15 minutes before raid, maybe stock up on consumables one time a month, log out 15 minutes after the raid if i get something new so I can enchant it and do my reforge. End up playing maybe 10 hours a week. Month three-four on - log in 15 minutes beofre the raid, clear, log out. Maybe 3 hours a week, wait for the next tier.
If I'm bored I'll log an alt, maybe do LFR, maybe do a PUG. On my own time, IF i want to and have nothing better to do. GC is speaking about changing that little arrangment, and I don't like it fucked with. I'm happy with how things work. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 29, 2012, 07:12:09 AM Paleos - effort is not neceserilly time. Effort is paying attention, caring and yes, to some extend researching shit out of game. Instead of spending 20 minutes doing something else, you must spend 20 minutes going through a log. I specifically did not put it with the ingame time, because it's something that can be done from work/while commuting, etc. It's time, but not the same time you meant in your initial post. Composure is not time, it's part experience, yes, bu another part can be rolled into skill. I have raiders that have done heroic content for a year and a half and still get flustered and confused when shit hits the fan. And while personal ability is not something that is prevalent in wow, it is there. It's what separates the very top guilds, from the very bottom ones. And no, it's not all time. Composure is time. I've lead raids, and trying to balance your raid is all about taking the time to ask people, follow up, create a roster, maintain the roster, check your buffs, check your backups, coddle the people who are pissy, etc. Is there skill in all that? Yeah, leadership skills are tough, and they involve time with people to get things done. It's not necessarily anybody's time but the leader, yet it's still time taken to do things right, and put the right people in the right places. Research outside the game is time. Looking at videos is time. Theorycrafting dps is time. Checking logs is time. Brainstorming strats is time. Effort in general is time. The difference between the raiding guilds and the normal guilds is time by the players and the leadership to craft the optimal setup with the optimal people. The execution is a small portion of good planning. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 29, 2012, 07:27:03 AM You're going away from your initial point which was - "Quantity and quality are all that matters, numbnuts. Nobody takes any risk or effort in this game. It's all a basis of time.", now that we've established that some of that effort tanslates to time, it doesn't make it any less effort. And I'm pretty sure what you mean by time initially was time spent ingame, doing shit that relates to raiding. Which is what I took issue with initially.
To be honest your whole rhetoric can be translated to anything in life, not only raiding in wow, so I don't know what you're trying to say :) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on March 29, 2012, 07:48:25 AM My point is that you have to manage expectations of loot with time, and the quality thereof. Some raiders believe that the loot should go to the most skilled, when in reality it is a definition of time in some form or another, with a small portion of execution.
The point is that the quality and quantity of loot is the result. People in the game don't care about the why behind your decisions, they only care if it affects the quality and quantity of their rewards. If you fuck with the expectations regarding that quality and quantity, you will get angry responses. Right now I believe they are directly shifting away from the quantity of loot for people using valor points. That's not a good thing. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soulflame on March 29, 2012, 07:59:08 AM I played a class in WH that healed a little off of specific styles, but mainly mixed spells powered by energy generated from hitting things. I liked it well enough, but as you said, the rest of the game was meh.
I'm not really a fan of a class that has eyes glued to health bars, with enough attention to environment to avoid dying to pretty flames. I enjoyed WH's attempt to bring in something else for healers to do, such as friendly target + enemy target, and applying the occasional hit provided boosts or energy or whatnot that aided your healing. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on March 29, 2012, 10:10:20 AM I guess I'm going to wait and see what the actual loot & valor changes are before I get worked up.
Right now I'm more angry about how priests are getting neglected than anything else. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 29, 2012, 10:35:56 AM he specifically said you won't be able to cap valor from raids: You can't cap valor from raids now, unless you're running full DS clears and full LFR clears. Dungeons have been the more efficient way to get valor for the entire expansion pack. The valor you got from raiding was smaller given the time you put in, but since you were going to be raiding anyway you still benefited from it.Quote Valor will come primarily from dungeons (including challenge modes) and scenarios. You might earn a little from daily quests and raiding as well, but that won't be as efficient. Similarly, you'll probably be doing dailies regularly at least when the expansion is new for rep/rewards. This means Charms and the valor cap will probably come without going out of your way to get them, atleast for a while. As far as charms - you raid 10m right? How much gear do you still need from drops, after 20+ kills on some of them? We'll be spaming those charms from day 1 of tier, to the last raid before the new tier, and we still won't have all the drops we need. But you can't ignore them, even if it's 0.000000000001% chance of getting what you need, because that's how it works. It doesn't matter if it's a slim chance, you still _have_ to give yourself the chance to get it, or you will not be at your peak efficency compared to the other people in your raid. Having food is not something that is optional. This is just another consumable, the way you get it - through dailies, and the ammounts you'll have to spend - I can easily see it having to log in every single day to get them. It's not like food or flasks because there is no guaranteed benefit. If you could only eat food once every 20 minutes and the buff was random, or could be a buff you already had from another player, food wouldn't be mandatory as it is now. The game wouldn't be balanced around it, and on average food would have a smaller impact on your character. We do run into loot ruts where we go X weeks without ever seeing something like a shield or a trinket. Still, I don't see us using charms after the first couple weeks of heroics, and not at all during normals. Charms will accelerate loot acquisition for your raid, but it has diminishing returns. If I get 1 out of my 2 items on a boss from a charm, that means that the same item is now up for grabs for another player next week if it drops normally. Neither of us will probably continue to use charms on that boss, with that in mind. I could see continuing to use them for a boss that you were getting bad RNG from until the item drops normally or you get it from a charm, but that's going to be an exception, not a rule. That would be me doing ~15 dailies or whatever over the course of the entire week (which also bring you closer to the valor cap). Would you personally use a charm on H Morchok today if the loot from it wasn't tradable? What if the loot table had been done better and their wasn't shared loot with low % drops like the trinkets? I'll guess you wouldn't bother using charms because your character probably has what it needs from H Morchok, aside from maybe some shared loot. You won't be using charms every week on every boss forever. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on March 29, 2012, 02:26:56 PM Did they even indicate if the Charms would work in "normal" raids? The way the new loot system was described, it seemed to indicate that it only applied to LFR / LFD Pugs, which was where the new "Kill -> Roll -> Loot" system was going to be implimented. The old "Kill -> Loot -> Roll" system is still going to remain unchanged for the Normal / Heroic raids and such. Unless the bonus roll from charms is completely independant of the actual loot system, and just sort of goes "you get a private roll on this loot table regardless of raid type".
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 29, 2012, 02:32:52 PM They mentioned that it would work for normal/heroics, but they didn't elaborate on it much. Sounds like it will work the same way as LFR: it doesn't modify your roll or affect anyone else in the raid, it's just an extra chance to get loot from the boss. For example, you might use a Charm on a boss and receive an Agi ring as normal loot from the boss with a regular need/greed roll. Then your charm roll happens, and you receive another piece of loot which happens to be the same Agi ring. The charm doesn't care about whether you already won loot, or what you already own: it's just an extra chance to get a piece of loot from that boss for your spec.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 29, 2012, 11:44:23 PM Would you personally use a charm on H Morchok today if the loot from it wasn't tradable? What if the loot table had been done better and their wasn't shared loot with low % drops like the trinkets? I'll guess you wouldn't bother using charms because your character probably has what it needs from H Morchok, aside from maybe some shared loot. You won't be using charms every week on every boss forever. Every single kill, on every single boss up to spine until I get the aoe trink. It doesn't matter how low the chance is, the chance without using the charm is 0 if it didn't drop. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 30, 2012, 08:34:36 AM I did ask whether you'd use charms if it weren't for the shared loot on Morchok. Dragon Soul is a bit unusual because you have BiS trinkets that are shared loot. Hopefully it's not a mistake they make going forward, but you'd have a point if they did.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 30, 2012, 10:53:13 AM Meh, firelands had shared loot, some was bis. They've done it before they'll do it again.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on March 30, 2012, 11:11:30 AM What firelands shared loot was BiS? I remember the 1H Str weapon, but that was actually a trash drop. Charms wouldn't have helped there.
We get shared loot tables when they cut bosses from raids but decide that loot still needs to drop in the zone. T11 didn't have any, and hopefully if they don't skimp on patch content in MoP, we won't see any significant shared loot in the future. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Wolf on March 30, 2012, 11:31:48 AM 2h axe and 1h sp axe were shared loot. Both 391s were BIS up to ragnaros.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on March 30, 2012, 02:02:18 PM Even if there is shared loot, this is totally a "stop hitting yourself!" situation. If you don't use charms, things are as they were before, and you functioned just fine then.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on April 02, 2012, 05:20:20 AM Wow, the prot warrior changes kinda suck.
No rage from being hit anymore, shield block is off CD but costs 60 rage. So infinite rage is gone now after 6 years and most of the players in talking beta classes right now say it feels weak, weird, wrong, and boring. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on April 02, 2012, 05:22:53 AM Wow, the prot warrior changes kinda suck. No rage from being hit anymore, shield block is off CD but costs 60 rage. So infinite rage is gone now after 6 years and most of the players in talking beta classes right now say it feels weak, weird, wrong, and boring. It's not the first time they toyed with the idea of rage not generating on hits. Would be interesting to see if this is the last though. All of the other tank classes have to watch their resources much closer than the Warrior does. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on April 02, 2012, 05:23:44 AM Shit no.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on April 02, 2012, 06:21:57 AM It's not the first time they toyed with the idea of rage not generating on hits. Would be interesting to see if this is the last though. All of the other tank classes have to watch their resources much closer than the Warrior does. I'd say that other tanks tend to have more interesting/impactful mitigation abilities. Shield Block is decidedly less interesting than pretty much all DK abilities and the Druid's savage defense. Also flat damage decreases for periods of time are more powerful in many instances than "you're pretty likely to block a few times". Namely adds.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 02, 2012, 07:05:13 AM Prot paladins don't have to watch shit.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on April 02, 2012, 07:16:16 AM Druids don't either.
Warriors and Death Knights are the most interactive and, frankly, the most annoying to play. Tanking as a Shammy is super-double-plus-fun gud tho. Ok, not really. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 02, 2012, 07:19:40 AM So what do you get rage from? Hitting things? Procs?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on April 02, 2012, 07:41:44 AM Hitting things, of course. Just like last time they fucked with it then realized that warriors were getting creamed because having to stack that much hit was detrimental.
Even DKs don't require as much fiddling and resource management as Warriors. We at least have the random rune respawn and much better "oh shit, give me resources NOW" buttons. (Rune Tap, and Empower Rune Weapon) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 02, 2012, 08:08:25 AM So we're back to putting offensive stats on warriors again until Blizzard realizes this is a bad idea. The warrior class is starting to resemble a wheel of time cycle.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on April 02, 2012, 08:27:37 AM Yeah, forgot to mention. GC says that you get rage from shield slam, shouts, and autoattacking. So far this seems to be just fine for for aggro purposes since they made threat not matter anymore but it's apparently the consensus on the beta forums is that it is not terribly interesting.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on April 02, 2012, 08:39:12 AM Autoattacks? So if you have more haste, you get more rage?
What the fuck is it with GC and his hardon for haste? I simply don't get it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 02, 2012, 09:50:51 AM I sort of wish we just had crit and defense as the only melee skills. The rest of them just seem to shift entirely too much.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on April 02, 2012, 10:10:06 AM I just wonder if GC realized that tanking was in all honesty a pretty easy, coosh job so long as people accepted your role as the defacto group leader in 5-mans, and as long as everyone else at least tried to do their jobs in raids. I've only ran LFR as DPS so far but outside of Ultraxion you really don't do much when tanking in Dragon Soul. As long as you keep aggro and stay upright you have a lot less to worry about than the DPS/healers.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ashamanchill on April 02, 2012, 10:40:14 AM I've read a lot of druid posts on the forums and they almost to a man say the changes suck. You sit there til you build 60 rage and hit Savage Defence (or Shield Block), every 6 seconds. I have no clue why they are toying with the tanking rotations at all. They felt about right in this xpac. The last time they reworked something to try to make it 'fun', most of the healers in the game quit.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on April 02, 2012, 10:41:43 AM Dunno, tanking seems like more responsibility than healing or DPS in Dragon Soul. Just looking at what our tanks have to do intimidates me a bit. The old guild I was in, the majority of our trouble on bosses like Zon'ozz was due to our MT being prone to careless errors (she was also our GL).
Maybe it just sounds harder because I don't tank, but while both healers and DPS have to deal with mechanics, it seems like on the later two-tank fights (Ultraxion, Warmaster, Spine, Madness), the tanks have to both deal with the mechanics and be in great sync with each other, always aware of which tank is handling which Twilight Hour, Impale, etc and smoothly switching off. And any fuckup is much harder to get back from than a DPS fuckup. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on April 02, 2012, 10:43:14 AM The last time they reworked something to try to make it 'fun', most of the healers in the game quit. If most of them actually did quit then they were being dumb. Healing was terrible in Wrath and much, much better in Cata, even at launch with the intensive mana micromanagement. I didn't do much BC healing and I've heard that's even better, but the changes were a net plus. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on April 02, 2012, 10:44:48 AM Tanking is fine to me right now but overall it's mashy. You just kinda mash your face on the keyboard until you need a CD, then you hit that CD. At least that's as a warrior; you have a priority list but no one is going to notice if you're using devastate too much and not immediately hitting revenge when it lights up or whatever. As long as you're pushing one of the correct buttons that's off CD you're gold really.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 02, 2012, 10:47:13 AM Druids don't either. Warriors and Death Knights are the most interactive and, frankly, the most annoying to play. Yeah, I was pretty sure druids didn't really have to watch shit either, but I never actually got around to leveling my druid all the way to 85 (he's languishing at 83 I think). So I stuck with what I know for sure! :drillf: I should dick around in the MoP beta more, for some reason it's just really not thrilling me. Although the monk, what little I played of it, was pretty fun. Said monk is only like level 7 though before server crashes annoyed me enough to stop, and then I never logged back in. PERHAPS I WILL LOG IN RIGHT NOW fake edit: For paladins, Mr. Balrog, Cataclysm is the best for healing. There was basically no difference between TBC and WotLK healing functionally, it just changed which heal you cast for all eternity, no matter what was happening. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 02, 2012, 11:38:18 AM Tanking is fine to me right now but overall it's mashy. You just kinda mash your face on the keyboard until you need a CD, then you hit that CD. At least that's as a warrior; you have a priority list but no one is going to notice if you're using devastate too much and not immediately hitting revenge when it lights up or whatever. As long as you're pushing one of the correct buttons that's off CD you're gold really. It's the role with the most organizational responsibility, but it's pretty forgiving in actual minute-to-minute gamplay. If you die because you got hit by an attack instead of parrying it, your group isn't going to say "maybe our tank needs to reforge for parry" they are going to say "our healer fell behind and RNG meant the tank got a regular hit." If you don't follow your 'rotation' correctly, it doesn't really matter. Cata started with tanks having to fight a little bit for threat so you'd want to be using abilities every GCD to stay on top of things. Now? A tank could disconnect during the last 20% of a fight and you'll still probably win without the tank losing threat. This actually happened to us right after the threat changes went into 4.2. We killed normal Baleroc with our tank disconnecting around the 40% mark. They didn't lose aggro, and they were able to survive without actually having to use any cooldowns. This changed a bit finally in DS, with tanks having more responsibility and having to use cooldowns at the correct time for a few fights or die. The 4-piece bonus for every tank (raid-wide damage reduction cooldown) means that playing well as a tank can have a bigger impact on your raid than it did in T11/12. The MoP design is that they are trying to give tanks more things to do that are actually meaningful now that threat isn't important. Some of the changes so far don't sound great, but we'll see what shape everything is in as the beta gets further along. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on April 02, 2012, 12:49:05 PM Oh fuck. "Meaningful."
Yeah, that worked out so well last time, didn't it? :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on April 02, 2012, 12:53:26 PM The last time they reworked something to try to make it 'fun', most of the healers in the game quit. If most of them actually did quit then they were being dumb. Healing was terrible in Wrath and much, much better in Cata, even at launch with the intensive mana micromanagement. I didn't do much BC healing and I've heard that's even better, but the changes were a net plus. I actually liked healing with my Druid in Wrath and hated it in Cata. I imagine it depends on the class since I know Sjofn much prefers (understatement) Paladin healing in Cata. Actually, I tried healing on my Paladin in Cata though I only got up to level 70 iirc. It was fun for single healing but I wouldn't want to raid heal with it personally. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 02, 2012, 12:54:57 PM Druid was much less fun in Cata, I liked rolling HoTs everywhere, didn't like the hardcasting style nearly as much.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 02, 2012, 01:23:54 PM The last time they reworked something to try to make it 'fun', most of the healers in the game quit. If most of them actually did quit then they were being dumb. Healing was terrible in Wrath and much, much better in Cata, even at launch with the intensive mana micromanagement. I didn't do much BC healing and I've heard that's even better, but the changes were a net plus. I actually liked healing with my Druid in Wrath and hated it in Cata. I imagine it depends on the class since I know Sjofn much prefers (understatement) Paladin healing in Cata. Actually, I tried healing on my Paladin in Cata though I only got up to level 70 iirc. It was fun for single healing but I wouldn't want to raid heal with it personally. It's pretty much the same for raid healing, people never expect the paladin to do much of it. Comes from having zero AE healing for so long. :P They're actually fine for raid healing (I am told, what with the change to the AE HoT thing), but I haven't done it since that change. I was OK at spot raid healing but I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be THE raid healer. I totally agree that druid healing is lame in Cataclysm, though, the HoT stuff in WotLK was fun. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on April 02, 2012, 02:36:07 PM Druid healing in Cata wasn't "Druid Healing" anymore basically. I don't think it was bad mechanically, but it wasn't what I signed up for either. After spending the first 5 years of the game healing one way, then having it all pushed aside for something I didn't have interest in in the first place, felt like ass.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 02, 2012, 02:38:39 PM Oh fuck. "Meaningful." Yeah, that worked out so well last time, didn't it? :oh_i_see: How else would you describe the tanking changes? What tanks do right now in combat for most groups from 99-0% on a boss, aside from gimmicks like tank swaps, is basically meaningless. You could mash anything (or nothing) and as long as you got threat on the initial pull it wouldn't matter. That's bad gameplay. Good gameplay needs to be a little deeper than 'mash whatever button you feel like, or nothing at all'. I'd say the attempt to making healing more 'meaningful' in Cata worked out. I still really like those changes on my priest, and thought healing in Wrath was awful from the little I played. Even in LFR I'm encouraged to use 4-5 different abilities on my holy priest, and sometimes it makes sense to just stop healing. Are people actually looking to go back to a gameplay model where you spam frostbolt from 99-0% and do nothing else? That's what the old healing model was. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 02, 2012, 02:56:37 PM I wouldn't say that I want tanking to be meaningful. I just want to have an impact on the fight.
Meaningful always means there's a downside. There's always a punishment lurking if you don't do well. The ability to have an impact on a fight by performing better than the average player is entirely different. It's the idea that I can play the game as a good tank and help my friends who may or may not be great at their jobs get through the content. I want impact play at all levels. I think you have that with DPS, and to many degrees with healing. I don't think tanking was there when I left the game a year ago. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on April 02, 2012, 03:09:38 PM Oh for the love of God, let's not do this again Rokal.
You're not the voice. Stop it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 02, 2012, 03:09:58 PM I wouldn't say that I want tanking to be meaningful. I just want to have an impact on the fight. I get that 'meaningful' is the new buzz word to hate in gaming, but how else would you summarize the gameplay you just outlined? You do have an impact on the fight as a tank right now, it's just not... meaningful :facepalm: You're contributing dps. You're reducing some of the damage you take. It just doesn't add up to much. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on April 02, 2012, 03:20:11 PM Are people actually looking to go back to a gameplay model where you spam frostbolt from 99-0% and do nothing else? That's what the old healing model was. Spamming frostbolt and adding in a few procs and situational abilities, yea, most people would probably love that. It's about all the majority can manage while also keeping awareness for fight mechanics. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on April 02, 2012, 03:21:04 PM How else would you describe the tanking changes? What tanks do right now in combat for most groups from 99-0% on a boss, aside from gimmicks like tank swaps, is basically meaningless. You could mash anything (or nothing) and as long as you got threat on the initial pull it wouldn't matter. That's bad gameplay. Good gameplay needs to be a little deeper than 'mash whatever button you feel like, or nothing at all'. I'd say the attempt to making healing more 'meaningful' in Cata worked out. I still really like those changes on my priest, and thought healing in Wrath was awful from the little I played. Even in LFR I'm encouraged to use 4-5 different abilities on my holy priest, and sometimes it makes sense to just stop healing. Are people actually looking to go back to a gameplay model where you spam frostbolt from 99-0% and do nothing else? That's what the old healing model was. Posts like this make me think Greg Street has joined F13 under the handle 'Rokal'. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 02, 2012, 03:23:21 PM I would say that I want to be influential as a tank, not meaningful.
Influencing a fight is an option. You can decide whether or not you want to influence something. When you are meaningful to a fight, you have a serious, important quality or purpose. You can't slack off. It's a job that must be done all the time, or it's failtime. That's why I want jobs to be influential, not meaningful. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on April 02, 2012, 03:29:28 PM I think Paelos is talking about the ability to carry other players. Which I would agree with. Before Cata, a few decent players could pick up the slack for a few under preforming players.
Couldn't really do it Cata release though and it caused a lot of roadblocks. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 02, 2012, 03:30:18 PM I think Paelos is talking about the ability to carry other players. Which I would agree with. Before Cata, a few decent players could pick up the slack for a few under preforming players. Couldn't really do it Cata release though and it caused a lot of roadblocks. Bingo. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 02, 2012, 03:32:48 PM That isn't about whether what you're doing is meaningful or not, that is about where the pivot point is set for content difficulty.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on April 02, 2012, 03:38:12 PM I would say that I want to be influential as a tank, not meaningful. Influencing a fight is an option. You can decide whether or not you want to influence something. When you are meaningful to a fight, you have a serious, important quality or purpose. You can't slack off. It's a job that must be done all the time, or it's failtime. That's why I want jobs to be influential, not meaningful. I still don't understand how you can influence something when the result isn't in question. If the result is in question if enough players forgo influential contributions, then what's the difference between "influential" and "meaningful"? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 02, 2012, 03:43:26 PM Yeah I don't see a distinction either.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 02, 2012, 03:55:48 PM Posts like this make me think Greg Street has joined F13 under the handle 'Rokal'. :awesome_for_real: Sorry, you're like a year late on the conspiracy bandwagon there. Oh for the love of God, let's not do this again Rokal. You're not the voice. Stop it. I would rather contribute to discussions in threads about the games I'm playing than just posting worthless one-liners every few days like you. I would say that I want to be influential as a tank, not meaningful. Influencing a fight is an option. You can decide whether or not you want to influence something. When you are meaningful to a fight, you have a serious, important quality or purpose. You can't slack off. It's a job that must be done all the time, or it's failtime. I'm just not really understanding a great enough distinction. If there was a role that had 'do X or fail completely' at the moment, it's tanks for some DS gimmicks. It's an important, serious, and specific role that will cause your group to fail if you ignore. But it's just that: a gimmick. Core tanking gameplay still has little to no impact on your group. Whether I play my druid tank to the best of my abilities, or just hit Mangle and swipe every 10 seconds, it's not really going to influence the success of the group. I like the concept of tanks being more responsible for their own survivability. Lay on Hands has always seemed like a pretty awesome ability for Paladin tanks. If you're paying attention to your health, you can completely save yourself without assistance from another player. More abilities like it and deathstrike would be welcome. Then I see the beta details where people are talking about waiting around for rage for shield block, and it just seems like another boring tanking model in-progress. Shield block is already in the game. Warrior tanks already use this as often as possible. It has a very small impact on your own survivability, or your group's success. If shield block still barely has an impact on my survivability, what's my motivation to use it correctly instead of just watching Netflix? Where is my motivation to improve as a tank? I'm not really sure how Blizzard should fix it. Part of the reason I'm excited about Guild Wars 2 is because they're mostly doing away with the concept of dedicated tanks and dedicated healers. That's certainly one way to solve the problem. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pennilenko on April 02, 2012, 04:00:30 PM Jeesus, quit slap fighting and get this thread back on track to talking about information about MoP.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on April 02, 2012, 04:20:33 PM Speaking of healing changes, how about those spec changes that lock out healing spells that DPS/tanks used to use every so often :awesome_for_real:
- Resto Druids are now the only type of Druids that can use Regrowth, Nourish, and Lifebloom - Holy Paladins are now the only type of Paladin that can use Holy Light - Holy Priests are now the only type of Priest that can use Heal - Resto Shaman are now the only type of Shaman that can use Healing Wave and G. Healing Wave Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 02, 2012, 04:27:51 PM Wasn't CoH always a holy spec spell?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 02, 2012, 04:28:16 PM Speaking of healing changes, how about those spec changes that lock out healing spells that DPS/tanks used to use every so often :awesome_for_real: I don't really mind the change. It was nice being able to heal in emergencies as a Shadow Priest, for example, but I didn't need 10 different heals to do it. As a shadow priest if I get Prayer of Healing, PW:S, and Flash Heal, that's enough. The hybrid classes have some really insane ability bloat, and I'm happy that they're trying to cut down on that. The absolute worst is druids, who it seems like could fill 2 bars with feral abilities (that wont fit on the 10 slots you got for cat or bear) that you will almost never use as a resto or balance druid. Do I really need more than 10 abilities for bear form as a resto druid? All I really want is taunt, 1-2 damage abilities, and a 1-2 utility spells. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on April 02, 2012, 04:29:49 PM Wasn't CoH always a holy spec spell? Indeed. Fixed :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 02, 2012, 04:37:40 PM It will make zero difference to my protection paladin or bear druid, that's for sure.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on April 02, 2012, 04:46:21 PM I don't even use Heal on my healing Priest now. Greater Healing Wave is a nice spot heal though so that's a blow, but better than losing Chain Heal or Healing Rain I suppose.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on April 02, 2012, 04:46:57 PM It'll make a hell of a difference to my shadow priest and ele shaman. I use those spells instead of bandages or if I got an add while leveling. It was also nice to jump-in if the healer gets overwhelmed in 5-mans because the tank or another DPS got derpy and over-pulled. Fuckers, I'm going to die more now.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 02, 2012, 04:48:19 PM It'll make a hell of a difference to my shadow priest and ele shaman. I use those spells instead of bandages or if I got an add while leveling. It was also nice to jump-in if the healer gets overwhelmed in 5-mans because the tank or another DPS got derpy and over-pulled. Fuckers, I'm going to die more now. As far as I understand, they aren't removing all the healing spells from Ele shaman or Shadow priests. They're just removing most of them. You should still have 2-3 healing spells even as dps. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on April 02, 2012, 07:05:58 PM If most of them actually did quit then they were being dumb. Healing was terrible in Wrath and much, much better in Cata, even at launch with the intensive mana micromanagement. I didn't do much BC healing and I've heard that's even better, but the changes were a net plus. Let us play a rousing game of "spot the paladin." TBC wasn't some golden age of healing. It was pretty much the exact same shit that was in Wrath of the Lich King. Cataclysm was the expansion wherein druids and disc priests were told that they were having fun the wrong way, shaman were told to amuse themselves with a box of scraps, and everyone got nerfed in just about every possible way to be nerfed. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on April 02, 2012, 07:11:24 PM Speaking of healing changes, how about those spec changes that lock out healing spells that DPS/tanks used to use every so often :awesome_for_real: - Resto Druids are now the only type of Druids that can use Regrowth, Nourish, and Lifebloom - Holy Paladins are now the only type of Paladin that can use Holy Light - Holy Priests are now the only type of Priest that can use Heal - Resto Shaman are now the only type of Shaman that can use Healing Wave and G. Healing Wave I'd accept that grudgingly, if that meant my Moonkin's mana was a none issue or gone entirely. Off spec healing was pretty much worthless in Cata regardless. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 02, 2012, 07:16:40 PM Moonkin mana shouldn't really be an issue right now unless you aren't moving between solar/lunar eclipses. The only time I run into mana issues on my moonkin is when I make the mistake of trying to use hurricane.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on April 02, 2012, 07:21:08 PM Which is exactly what I am referring too. When I was playing early expansion, I did anything BUT my single target rotation, I was running on fumes.
I don't like anything they did to my Moonkin in Cata though, somewhere between Wrath and Cata, my Moonkin went from a DD nuker to this stupid dot spreading low pressure gimmick assist. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 02, 2012, 07:54:11 PM Mushrooms and tab DoT replaced hurricane for aoe, which makes you wonder why they bothered keeping hurricane and updating the spell effect. I didn't love how my Moonkin played in Cata either (though I never seriously tried playing one before that). Between the ugly character model, the awkward aoe, and the fact that your dps was worthless if you didn't follow a very strict rotation for eclipses, it just wasn't a fun character to play. Figuring out when to refresh dots, given eclipse, was also pretty unintuitive.
Overall my druid was my least favorite character that I leveled to 85. I played a druid as my main horde side in vanilla, and I was really excited to finally get an alliance race for druids besides lame Night Elves. Feral cat was like rogue dps with all the fun abilities removed. Feral bear was an extremely boring/simple tank spec. Balance I had plenty of issues with, listed above. HoT healing has never really been my thing, so I didn't bother trying resto when I had a level-cap priest that I already enjoyed healing with. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 02, 2012, 08:30:30 PM The problem is they took HoT healing away, essentially. And that was totally the most fun thing about druid healing, I was very sad when they decided to boring it up for them.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on April 02, 2012, 11:24:16 PM Mushrooms and tab DoT replaced hurricane for aoe, which makes you wonder why they bothered keeping hurricane and updating the spell effect. I didn't love how my Moonkin played in Cata either (though I never seriously tried playing one before that). Between the ugly character model, the awkward aoe, and the fact that your dps was worthless if you didn't follow a very strict rotation for eclipses, it just wasn't a fun character to play. Figuring out when to refresh dots, given eclipse, was also pretty unintuitive. The biggest thing they did that impacted moonkin in Cata was the Lunar Shower change. I loved wrath where I could sit in Solar Eclipse and spam the hell out of Sunfire on everything in sight and do super efficient AoE as long as I properly planned for it by being in Solar Eclipse when the AoE started. Then they fucked up Lunar Shower to make Sunfire / Moonfire generate Solar / Lunar power and it kind of went to hell from there. That and Mushrooms are a stupidly clunky mechanic. Nothing like wasting 3 global cooldowns to place mushrooms only to have the tank pull everything out of their blast radius seconds before you set them off. Overall my druid was my least favorite character that I leveled to 85. I played a druid as my main horde side in vanilla, and I was really excited to finally get an alliance race for druids besides lame Night Elves. Feral cat was like rogue dps with all the fun abilities removed. Feral bear was an extremely boring/simple tank spec. Balance I had plenty of issues with, listed above. HoT healing has never really been my thing, so I didn't bother trying resto when I had a level-cap priest that I already enjoyed healing with. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on April 02, 2012, 11:59:40 PM If most of them actually did quit then they were being dumb. Healing was terrible in Wrath and much, much better in Cata, even at launch with the intensive mana micromanagement. I didn't do much BC healing and I've heard that's even better, but the changes were a net plus. Let us play a rousing game of "spot the paladin." TBC wasn't some golden age of healing. It was pretty much the exact same shit that was in Wrath of the Lich King. Cataclysm was the expansion wherein druids and disc priests were told that they were having fun the wrong way, shaman were told to amuse themselves with a box of scraps, and everyone got nerfed in just about every possible way to be nerfed. I'm a disc priest (I was Holy in Wrath). Like I said, I didn't heal in TBC (was playing my rogue) but I do know that disc barely existed as an actual spec in its own right. Wrath healing was awful. "snipe each others heals so this guy doesn't get globaled" + "infinite mana" + "super twitch heals". Ughhhh. I like managing my mana. It's what makes healing actually somewhat interesting and strategic. Looking at everything through the prism of "nerf" vs "buff" isn't helpful. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on April 03, 2012, 02:21:17 AM Disc was the 'pvp' spec in TBC, if I remember right.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on April 03, 2012, 02:53:07 AM Disc was the 'pvp' spec in TBC, if I remember right. Yep.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on April 03, 2012, 03:53:04 PM I wouldn't say that I want tanking to be meaningful. I just want to have an impact on the fight. I get that 'meaningful' is the new buzz word to hate in gaming, but how else would you summarize the gameplay you just outlined? You do have an impact on the fight as a tank right now, it's just not... meaningful :facepalm: You're contributing dps. You're reducing some of the damage you take. It just doesn't add up to much. Tanking is already stressful enough in PUGs filled with fuckwits. The new Prot warrior rage generation mechanics look like balls. If they want to make PUG queues even longer then fucking with warrior tanking to make it any more complex or "meaningful" is the way to do it. There are already enough bad tanks out there without making their job any more complex. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on April 03, 2012, 03:58:20 PM RE: "Meaningful"
Quote Arcane Mage DPS Rotation 1) Flame Orb 2) Arcane Blast until your mana is less than 90% BUT ensure you have cast it 4 times 3) Arcane Missiles Also use these as often as possible! 1) Mirror Image 2) Arcane Power 3) Mana Gem Mage Armor is the self buff used Focus Magic is cast on another high crit DPS Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 03, 2012, 04:55:11 PM Tanking is already stressful enough in PUGs filled with fuckwits. The new Prot warrior rage generation mechanics look like balls. If they want to make PUG queues even longer then fucking with warrior tanking to make it any more complex or "meaningful" is the way to do it. There are already enough bad tanks out there without making their job any more complex. Having room to improve as a tank, and having that improvement impact your groups doesn't necessarily mean tanking will be more stressful. If anything, it gives you the ability to greater influence the success of your group when the rest of your group isn't great. Take Lay on Hands and Deathstrike, again, as examples. These abilities reward you for playing well and paying attention as a tank. They can save you and make your life less stressful if your healer isn't playing great. Another possible way to make tanking more 'meaningful' would be giving them true dps rotations and increasing their total DPS. Then, as a tank, if I play well I can make the run go faster and cover for group members that aren't pulling enough dps. If you don't want to bother because you think tanking is stressful, you can ignore your DPS abilities because Heroic dungeons are unlikely to ever be demanding for any class role in the future. It's an option, just like playing well or barely paying attention is an option for dps classes. The difference is that playing well as a tank currently doesn't really get you or your group anything, so why bother? Completely original observation about arcane being easy Three abilities you rotate between and three cooldowns to use is still a long way from "cast icebolt until the boss is dead". People say arcane is too easy, but if you play arcane well you'll see a noticeable improvement: your dps will go up, you'll be able to kill adds faster or take advantage of burn phases by planning ahead. There is an obvious path to improve, and an obvious increase to how you influence the fights in the groups you're in. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 03, 2012, 05:09:23 PM Having room to improve as a tank... Let me stop you right there. Stop assuming people want to improve, ever. The game is what? Six years old now? People don't want to relearn shit and improve. They want new content. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 03, 2012, 05:21:48 PM I disagree. I think if we went back to having extremely shallow gameplay like icebolt spam, most people would enjoy the game less. There is a sweet spot for most players that exists between 'too simple' and 'too complex'.
You say people don't want to see class changes but every expansion has a class feedback threads *full* of people requesting changes to their classes. "Give paladins more aoe healing", "Make pets more distinct", "Remove min range from hunters", "Give me a reason to use something besides instant/deadly". The hunter class saw huge changes in Cata and most people actually seemed to really like it. Warlocks are seeing huge changes to their class in MoP, and most warlocks seem excited about them too. People don't just want new content, they want the game to feel new and exciting. Making how your class plays more rewarding is one way of doing that. I don't think playing a tank, currently, is very rewarding. Part of the reason for that, imo, is because tanks don't have room to improve. You compare against other tanks, or even yourself at the beginning of the expansion, based solely on stats and nothing else. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 03, 2012, 05:49:10 PM Having my class change a good amount each expansion was part of what kept me playing for so long, I would say.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on April 03, 2012, 05:57:03 PM Class change is great until I don't like the changes. :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Selby on April 03, 2012, 06:21:09 PM Class change is great until I don't like the changes. :why_so_serious: That's why I have 9 different classes all maxed out ;-)Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 03, 2012, 06:39:32 PM Class changes and the desire to improve are not the same thing at all.
People like to have their class upgraded. People hate to have their class nerfed. Neither of those things has anything to do with them wanting to get better at how they play. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 03, 2012, 11:10:30 PM Class changes and the desire to improve are not the same thing at all. People like to have their class upgraded. People hate to have their class nerfed. Neither of those things has anything to do with them wanting to get better at how they play. It's not as simple as that. People don't just want their class to get more powerful, they want their class to change a little bit too. That's why people get excited about new spells in each expansion, rather than power creep from stats. New spells usually do add complexity to your class: it's another ability to consider using, and if it's really useful you need to figure out how to work it into your normal gameplay. It's something different that your class couldn't do before, because after two years of playing your class you're ready for something to change. I don't think the community was knocking down Blizzard's door saying "give us more complex rotations than just casting frostbolt!" but I also didn't hear people complaining when mage spells were fleshed out to encourage you to use more than one spell. By your logic, the game should have never moved beyond vanilla class design since people didn't want change or complexity, they just wanted more power. I'm sure we'd all love to play your version of WoW where tanks just spam sunder armor forever, rogues only cast SS and evis, mages only cast frostbolt, and druids just spam healing touch. If Blizzard never expanded the basic gameplay beyond what people were used to, regardless of the fact that the community wasn't asking for it, that's the game we'd all be playing. Or not, since that sort of gameplay would get stale much much faster than any of the current class designs. I still can't get over the fact that there are people in this thread that had a problem with me saying "Give tanks the ability to have a greater influence on the success of their group if they want to." :uhrr: This feels like the dumbest, least productive discussion so far on the WoW sub-forums after a long series of dumb, unproductive discussions. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on April 03, 2012, 11:30:21 PM Class changes and the desire to improve are not the same thing at all. People like to have their class upgraded. People hate to have their class nerfed. Neither of those things has anything to do with them wanting to get better at how they play. You've not seen DPS competing over the meters then? I even see healers doing it. Usually in extremely good humour - banter not bickering. Trying to be top of the meters is a huge amount of fun for many people. Trying to progress through hard/heroic raid content is a lot of fun for a lot of people, and they do it by getting better at the fights. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on April 04, 2012, 01:18:48 AM I disagree. Yeah, we know. And this is the problem. You're not right. You haven't been right yet. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on April 04, 2012, 05:00:38 AM I'll give a rats ass about "getting better" at playing when it gets me ahead in my career or my personal relationships. Same attitude since having guys watch me play PacMan at the local pizza place and tell my 8 year-old-old self I was doing it all wrong. I play at the level I play, I'll tweak based on things I hear or read but I don't actively seek out the min/max and get pissed when I'm not at my class's peak.
It's a damn game. Nobody cares how good you are at it but yourself. Meter competitions? How many care about you being at the top other than for themselves? And if you care so much that it really bothers you beyond natural competitive behaviour, I'll argue your priorities are fucked or you've got little else to cling to in your life. Yeah, I went there, despite being the guy who started the bad groups thread. It's one thing to bitch when folks frustrate you or set a goal to amuse yourself in your hobby. It's entirely another to say, "you should care about getting better!" Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on April 04, 2012, 05:23:11 AM It's like all those faux hardcore guilds I used to roll in. Sure we were top of the server but we weren't ever getting world firsts, we were behind by months. It's actually that second teir of raiders that tend to be the most oboxious and elitist, always talking about 'bads' and having to carry others. Kind of like someone who tried out for pro baseball and couldnt quite make it so he acts like a total douche in the softball league.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on April 04, 2012, 05:43:25 AM Yeah, I can't stand it when someone is telling me I'm healing wrong when no-one has died or has even come close.
Fuck those assholes. Especially since my dps meter says you lost 2k just typing out shit about my fucking healing you prole. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on April 04, 2012, 06:19:14 AM I'll give a rats ass about "getting better" at playing when it gets me ahead in my career or my personal relationships. Same attitude since having guys watch me play PacMan at the local pizza place and tell my 8 year-old-old self I was doing it all wrong. I play at the level I play, I'll tweak based on things I hear or read but I don't actively seek out the min/max and get pissed when I'm not at my class's peak. It's a damn game. Nobody cares how good you are at it but yourself. Meter competitions? How many care about you being at the top other than for themselves? And if you care so much that it really bothers you beyond natural competitive behaviour, I'll argue your priorities are fucked or you've got little else to cling to in your life. Yeah, I went there, despite being the guy who started the bad groups thread. It's one thing to bitch when folks frustrate you or set a goal to amuse yourself in your hobby. It's entirely another to say, "you should care about getting better!" Well fucking said. I just want to play the game. I don't want to have to worry about "improving" or "getting better". Quite frankly, the people on the forums are essentially the hardcore and the fuckwits spamming trade chat 24/7. I couldnt' give a fuck about what they think. My wife isn't a "gamer" but she plays games. It's a good thing that there are relatively easy classes to play like Arcane or Frost mage so people who don't want WoW to be their life's work are able to enjoy it too. Sometimes this forum reminds me of the wankers I grouped with last week who were going on about how they're waiting for "Blizzard to make this game hard again". I unironically suggested that they go try Vanguard if they wanted a hard game/challenge, and told them that WoW is a softcock carebear game compared to old-school EQ. I don't really want more abilities and spells. I already don't have any fucking space to put them. I want them to pretty much leave things the fuck alone for my classes and just give me new content. I'm overall happy with my Prot warrior and my multi-spec mage. Lakov - you're absolutely right. All day in trade these guilds are recruiting for "exceptional DPS needed for vlah blah ljkhlkjhlo8iyu guild" Or when they nuke before I've pulled then bitch about having had aggro for a couple of seconds. Luckily as a tank I can tell them to fuck off. "Worst" happens and they kick me, I have another instant queue. Anyway - what the fuck is "Give tanks the ability to have a greater influence on the success of their group if they want to." supposed to mean? Hold aggro and don't die. DPS at the same time. Cope with fucktarded DPS players and lead the group around in the dungeon. Hit some cooldowns and take down the boss or trash pack while the others all die around you on occasion. What the fuck more do you want? Given the number of shitty tanks I have to group with as a DPS, I actually want tanking to be relatively easy. And fuck it, for myself too. I have enough stress at work without asking for more in a computer game. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on April 04, 2012, 06:27:17 AM I still can't get over the fact that there are people in this thread that had a problem with me saying "Give tanks the ability to have a greater influence on the success of their group if they want to." :uhrr: This feels like the dumbest, least productive discussion so far on the WoW sub-forums after a long series of dumb, unproductive discussions. I don't mind having more control over the success or failure of my group, really. I have issues with the idea of playing DPS when I have to count on the tank even more than I normally do.To be honest, I'm as good at this game as I'm ever going to be, which is pretty alright but not uber-guild level. This is definitely a fear of change, but I personally don't relish the idea of responsibility shifts since I'm used to my current expectations. Healers came to the horrific realization at the beginning of Cata that avoidable group damage -had- to be avoided almost perfectly at the entry gear levels of raids/heroics; you couldn't power through it with CDs and pull of squeaker kills where you're tossing out whatever you have left after running out of gas. Nope; if the DPS didn't know HOW to handle the crystal shards on Corborus properly, welp, it's unhealable they die and you get kicked because you "suck". Responsibility can really suck if you need to count on other people as a part of it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on April 04, 2012, 06:42:15 AM I still can't get over the fact that there are people in this thread that had a problem with me saying "Give tanks the ability to have a greater influence on the success of their group if they want to." :uhrr: This feels like the dumbest, least productive discussion so far on the WoW sub-forums after a long series of dumb, unproductive discussions. This new species of button-mashing will either make a noticeable difference or it won't. If it does, it won't be optional. It'll be mandatory because encounters will be balanced around it and, even if they aren't, if you don't do it you will get a cascade of FUCKING FAIL TANK FUCKING FUCK YOU SUCK DICK FUCKING NOOB L2P in /g. This for the role that (1) already has the greatest influence on the success or failure of the group and (2) is by far the most under-queued role in /lfd, to the point that Blizzard bribes them with rare vanity drops. If you want to be a better tank, take the time to learn the best way to pull every pack and handle every boss gimmick in the instance, because you get to shepherd the cats. If that's not challenging enough, do the same for heroic raid encounters. If that's still not testing your gamer skills enough, join a serious arena team or move to Seoul and become a Starcraft pro. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on April 04, 2012, 07:00:41 AM The fuck is a tank supposed to do to influence success or failure more?
Manage aggro? Check. Herd cats? Check. Guide mobs out of/into fire? Check. Do they need to start healing, too? DPS more than DPS or else the group fails? Have a "press me NOW or die" button? Reach the hit/uncrittable/stat-of-the-expansion cap harder? How do you change what they do to influence the game without severely changing the dynamics of the game to an extent that you either don't piss the majority off or have to alter the DPS and Healing paradigm as well? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on April 04, 2012, 07:13:42 AM What with Vengeance and all, I'm regularly doing most of the dps.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on April 04, 2012, 09:31:04 AM Same here... and as a blood DK I can solo quite a few heroic bosses if everyone dies to fire early on :awesome_for_real:
I've heard that tank dps is lower in the beta, but haven't really bothered to check into it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 04, 2012, 09:52:11 AM The fuck is a tank supposed to do to influence success or failure more? Did you seriously not even read the last page? Examples of "How tanks could influence groups more" already given are things like giving them more cooldowns with self control (Lay on Hands, Death Strike), or the ability to impact or plan for a bad situation with something besides taunt (group-wide damage reduction similar to Rally Shout or group-wide shield wall). Every attempt at actually discussing this topic has been de-railed by people who continue to miss the point. Yes, we know tanking is the role with the lowest representation. Making tanking more interesting and giving you the ability to improve as a tank doesn't have to mean scaring more people away from tanking. If done well it could result in more people playing tanks. How to do tanking wrong: leave tanking the way it is now, but make it harder for tanks to do the things they're already doing. Leaving shield block the way it is but making it harder to get the rage to use it is doing tanking wrong. The best example of this is leather tanks in other MMOs, where you have to keep up buffs on yourself in order to get the mitigation of a plate tank. You have to work as a tank just to get the mitigation that other tanks get passively, and your group suffers if you fail to keep them up. This isn't what I'm talking about. I'm not saying "give tanking a skill curve so that you can tell the good tanks from the bad tanks!" How to do tanking right: leave the requirements to tank successfully as they are now, but gives tanks more interesting things to do that can influence the success of their group. Taking the T13 4-piece bonus and making it permanent (shield walls for group) is a start. Stampeding roar is another good example. You don't have to use it, ultimately your group is responsible for getting out of the fire. But if you're paying attention as a tank you can use it to increase the chance that your group actually will get out of the fire and succeed. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on April 04, 2012, 10:11:58 AM Yes, I've read it all. Saying "make it more interesting" does not make it more interesting. If that worked I'd be telling myself "make more money".
How to do tanking right: leave the requirements to tank successfully as they are now, but gives tanks more interesting things to do that can influence the success of their group. If faceroll equals success, then what can you possibly do to make it more interesting?I suppose group shield walls and whatnot are something, but if you don't need those to win, then are they really interesting? If you do need them to win, they're you're changing play styles. It means either the tank, the healer, or even the dps needs to be more on the ball. Then you're getting into paradigm changes and why not just play GW2 where roles aren't so fixed instead of trying to change WoW yet again? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 04, 2012, 10:29:52 AM <How to do tanking right and wrong> Do you actually tank anything? Or is this another one of those scenarios where you are again talking completely out of your ass? Because the more I read everything you say, the more I realize that not only do you not have any idea what's actually fun in this game, but you have no idea how to play any actual role that matters. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on April 04, 2012, 10:45:56 AM I'm a disc priest (I was Holy in Wrath). Like I said, I didn't heal in TBC (was playing my rogue) but I do know that disc barely existed as an actual spec in its own right. Wrath healing was awful. "snipe each others heals so this guy doesn't get globaled" + "infinite mana" + "super twitch heals". Ughhhh. I like managing my mana. It's what makes healing actually somewhat interesting and strategic. Looking at everything through the prism of "nerf" vs "buff" isn't helpful. Disc priest that didn't like Disc. Huh, guess that explains our difference of opinion: you're a crazy person. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on April 04, 2012, 10:46:58 AM Sorry, Rokal, I think that it's once again YOU missing the point. I have a Warrior, DK, Druid and Pally and Tanking is what I've done since the game launched.
Want the truth ? Here's why people don't tank : You are expected to lead the group and other people are FUCKING MORONS. It's that simple. And you know who the biggest morons are, I find ? The ones who try to tell me how to 'tank better'. The Irony. She is Thick. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 04, 2012, 11:03:08 AM Do you actually tank anything? Or is this another one of those scenarios where you are again talking completely out of your ass? Because the more I read everything you say, the more I realize that not only do you not have any idea what's actually fun in this game, but you have no idea how to play any actual role that matters. I tank an alt FL raid every week on my prot warrior, run 5-mans, and also tanked a decent amount of raids/dungeons on my bear druid in Cata. Needless to say I've done more tanking in Cata than you, someone with infinite opinions about the state of the game who I'm not sure is actually playing it. Here's why people don't tank : You are expected to lead the group and other people are FUCKING MORONS. Of course this is why people don't tank. Have I ever suggested this wasn't the primary reason? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 04, 2012, 11:13:12 AM I tank an alt FL raid every week on my prot warrior, run 5-mans, and also tanked a decent amount of raids/dungeons on my bear druid in Cata. Needless to say I've done more tanking in Cata than you, someone with infinite opinions about the state of the game who I'm not sure is actually playing it. Armory link or STFU. EDIT: Actually don't even bother: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/cenarius/Roksana/simple (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/cenarius/Roksana/simple) My guess is that is you. The guy who started tanking in Cataclysm. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 04, 2012, 11:31:42 AM Warrior (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/cenarius/Roksana/simple)
Druid (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/cenarius/Aragrim/simple) And for good measure: Paelos (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/proudmoore/Paelos/simple) right? To be clear, here are the reasons people don't tank, in order: 1) Nobody wants to lead groups, especially random groups 2) Tanking is boring. Gameplay is boring, stats are boring, personal progression doesn't exist #2 is the one we've been talking about them trying to fix in MoP Edit: The guy who started tanking in Cataclysm. Actually I started tanking in TBC, but achievements and other ways of tracking a character's history weren't added until the pre-Wrath patch of TBC. I fail to see what this has to do with your point. I do tank in WoW currently. You don't. Super fun cat-fighting aside, my opinions about tanking in WoW are based on regularly playing a tank, not random statements pulled out of my ass. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 04, 2012, 11:46:45 AM Yep, that's me in all my outstanding glory. :awesome_for_real:
You can tell exactly the point where I said fuck this game by simply looking at the gear. I believe the exactly date was one year ago on 3/14/11. Now that we know you actually have a warrior tank (but for some reason completely ignored tanking in Wrath), I have to ask: Why did you skip Wrath tanking? That was THE defining moment where tanks became relevent for most players. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 04, 2012, 11:58:20 AM I skipped Wrath almost entirely, not just tanking. I believe the only character I got to level cap during Wrath was my Priest and I was only subbed for ~2 months. Hence why I still don't have a beta invite for MoP with my Annual Pass.
(It's okay though, my roomate has a beta invite and Monks look really half-finished/buggy right now so no rush) :grin: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on April 04, 2012, 12:02:10 PM Have we come to armory epeen measuring? :ye_gods: (I've totally been tanking since vanilla btw~)
I -sort of- agree with the idea of having cool abilities that can bail out a group -- things like brezzing the healer as a druid or DK, etc. LOTRO has a lot of these skills and its class design is one of the reasons I still (occasionally) play that game. However, I don't think those should (only) be given to tanks. I'm pretty much controlling the entire flow of dungeons *as it is* on my tank, but feel a lot weaker on my dps characters - yeah, I can burn stuff down and cc, but that won't save the group against a boss when the tank/healer stand in fire. I feel almost powerless on my healers, lifegrip aside. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 04, 2012, 12:19:36 PM Healers have a decent selection of these abilities too. Every healer besides resto druids and holy priests gets a group-wide damage mitigation cooldown.
I think group utility/damage cooldown abilities would make tanking more interesting, but it's not enough. The basic gameplay still just isn't very rewarding. There is a reason that they stuck with 'maintain threat' so long as tank gameplay: they couldn't think of anything else that would actually be fun. The "active mitigation" model they are going for in MoP has the potential to be even less fun. 'Active mitigation' is just a step away from what makes Leather tanking classes obnoxious to play in other MMOs. Nobody wants to keep a cycle of buffs/mitigation abilities going constantly to make sure they don't give their healer a heart attack. So how does Blizzard solve the fact that tank gameplay is boring with threat removed from the equation? I don't know. We could have a discussion about it, or you guys could derail the conversation by asking for my Armory links and reminding me that tanking is unpopular. :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 04, 2012, 12:22:14 PM Part of the things you could do when you were a tank in Vanilla or TBC was save groups by playing well and having better gear. An overgeared tank could stay upright, extend fights, save healer mana, and improve your chances of success.
I'll point to one thing they have to remove if you want tanking to "matter" anymore. Enrage timers. The advent of enrage timers makes tanking worthless. The only measurable benefit of a good tank vs. a fantastic tank in a raid format would be the ability to stay alive and cost your healers less mana. However, if every single boss has an enrage timer, staying alive longer or conserving mana is not going to mean a hill of beans. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on April 04, 2012, 01:49:46 PM Disc priest that didn't like Disc. Huh, guess that explains our difference of opinion: you're a crazy person. Disc was so awful in during the shield spam part of Wrath that I unsubscribed for most of it. Holy Paladin was slightly less terrible, but having your tank be at risk of being globalled was not fun. I definitely prefer the mana management game to the spam best button game. I'll point to one thing they have to remove if you want tanking to "matter" anymore. Enrage timers. The advent of enrage timers makes tanking worthless. The only measurable benefit of a good tank vs. a fantastic tank in a raid format would be the ability to stay alive and cost your healers less mana. However, if every single boss has an enrage timer, staying alive longer or conserving mana is not going to mean a hill of beans. You're ignoring tank DPS, which is pretty damn important on tight enrage timers. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 04, 2012, 01:54:29 PM Tank conventional wisdom has always been that our dps doesn't matter, which has always really irritated me.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 04, 2012, 02:18:42 PM Enrage timers are a mechanic to prevent bringing additional healers to trivialize content. I can't think of any 5-man fights in Cata that had enrage timers, since the 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps composition is pretty much set in stone, so you really only see enrage timers in raid content where extra healers could really throw the balance of fights out of whack. If you could restrict groups from having too many healers, then remove enrage timers, that would be one way to make playing your tank well matter. Pretty messy though.
Ultimately it would lead to more stressed out healers, as if the content is balanced as an endurance race, your healer(s) are going to get blamed when they run OOM, not the tank that might not have been using any mitigation abilities. The impression I get is that most players don't really enjoy endurance fights either. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 04, 2012, 02:37:11 PM My point is that Blizzard shifted towards the DPS being important with enrage timers, pretty much to the exclusion of everything else. Probably because more people played DPS. I can't guess at the reasoning, but they probably thought it was a good thing that fights can't be "cheesed" by staying alive.
And yes, my point is about raiding, not the dungeons. That leaves your tank with basically 3 jobs if it's not about them helping to stay alive longer. 1 - Control adds 2 - Pass the boss off when it does some kind of debuff 3 - Move the boss when it does a debuff Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on April 04, 2012, 02:46:05 PM The "soft" enrage mechanics where bosses steadily do more and more damage or their mechanic slowly becomes unmanageable have been the least irritating to me. Usually because it lets your DPS not be spectacular if you can come up with some crazy bullshit near-exploit way to survive the soft enrage a while longer. Most of the fun(niest) kills I ever got in WoW were kills where literally everyone died at the same time as the boss because we stretched it THAT much.
Not counting blowing up the raid after Aran dies if he cast Flame Wreath right before going down. You were required to blow the raid up if that happened and I always did it because as a tank I lived. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 04, 2012, 02:46:59 PM I do like there to be the occasional Heigan where you can punish the people who screwed up by making them sit there through a 30 minute slow boss kill.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on April 04, 2012, 03:01:21 PM I do like there to be the occasional Heigan where you can punish the people who screwed up by making them sit there through a 30 minute slow boss kill. "Punish" in the sense where my old guild's worst players got to go get another beer while we finished the fight. We used to fuck with people who died during long boring fights like Grobbulus and Heigan by battle-rezzing them after they immediately got up to go grab a beer or smoke and seeing how long it took them to realize they had anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute to get back to their PC before they ate another death worth of repair costs (we didn't give any guild-repair money to anyone for a long while since our crafters/AH Barons didn't trust the guild bank system).Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on April 04, 2012, 03:02:55 PM I always loved both those scenarios.
We had a pally tank on.. shit I think our first Malcazar kill.. who was the only one alive for the last 3 mins of the fight. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on April 04, 2012, 04:06:51 PM The fuck is a tank supposed to do to influence success or failure more? Did you seriously not even read the last page? Examples of "How tanks could influence groups more" already given are things like giving them more cooldowns with self control (Lay on Hands, Death Strike), or the ability to impact or plan for a bad situation with something besides taunt (group-wide damage reduction similar to Rally Shout or group-wide shield wall). Every attempt at actually discussing this topic has been de-railed by people who continue to miss the point. Yes, we know tanking is the role with the lowest representation. Making tanking more interesting and giving you the ability to improve as a tank doesn't have to mean scaring more people away from tanking. If done well it could result in more people playing tanks. How to do tanking wrong: leave tanking the way it is now, but make it harder for tanks to do the things they're already doing. Leaving shield block the way it is but making it harder to get the rage to use it is doing tanking wrong. The best example of this is leather tanks in other MMOs, where you have to keep up buffs on yourself in order to get the mitigation of a plate tank. You have to work as a tank just to get the mitigation that other tanks get passively, and your group suffers if you fail to keep them up. This isn't what I'm talking about. I'm not saying "give tanking a skill curve so that you can tell the good tanks from the bad tanks!" How to do tanking right: leave the requirements to tank successfully as they are now, but gives tanks more interesting things to do that can influence the success of their group. Taking the T13 4-piece bonus and making it permanent (shield walls for group) is a start. Stampeding roar is another good example. You don't have to use it, ultimately your group is responsible for getting out of the fire. But if you're paying attention as a tank you can use it to increase the chance that your group actually will get out of the fire and succeed. The correct answer is 3) Leave tanking the fuck alone. I tanked with both a DK and Druid, and a Paladin while leveling. At no point was tanking boring or not 'interesting' enough. My decision to tank or not was almost exclusively dependent on my willingness to lead and heard cats or if I just wanted to take it easy and practice my dps rotations. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ashamanchill on April 04, 2012, 04:18:03 PM Bang-a-rang. Pretty much that. I love where druid tanking tanking is at right now, and to tell the truth I liked it even more when i was just swiping spamming. I used to figure that was what druid tanks were for. That was their flavour. If I wanted another tank I could pick up the more challenging ones. However Rokal, I know you don't like it, so that may not have much mileage with you.
We actually agree on my original statement. The changes, as they stand right now on beta, suck. Almost every druid and warrior poster seem to say this. I don't mean the philosophy behind them (which I do disagree with, but can live with), but the actual implementation of it. I'm just hoping it won't become one of those things that sticks with GC (or whoever is responsible for them), and they refuse to drop. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 04, 2012, 04:27:40 PM I do like there to be the occasional Heigan where you can punish the people who screwed up by making them sit there through a 30 minute slow boss kill. The main reason to raid right there, imo. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on April 04, 2012, 04:33:28 PM I'm of the opposite school in that I really didn't want to DO a long kill just because some people were incompetent. I'd just call a wipe and we'd go again.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 04, 2012, 04:34:41 PM I'm of the opposite school in that I really didn't want to DO a long kill just because some people were incompetent. I'd just call a wipe and we'd go again. My theory on this topic was they'd just fail again a couple times and it would take the same amount of time anyway. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 04, 2012, 04:35:19 PM I'm of the opposite school in that I really didn't want to DO a long kill just because some people were incompetent. I'd just call a wipe and we'd go again. My theory on this topic was they'd just fail again a couple times and it would take the same amount of time anyway. My theory is, you got somewhere better to be today champ? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on April 04, 2012, 04:47:48 PM I do like there to be the occasional Heigan where you can punish the people who screwed up by making them sit there through a 30 minute slow boss kill. Nothing quite like doing a marathon Heigan and then losing out on the loot to someone who died in the first minute. Exhausting fight if your guild is composed of mainly bad players. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on April 04, 2012, 05:27:22 PM I'm of the opposite school in that I really didn't want to DO a long kill just because some people were incompetent. I'd just call a wipe and we'd go again. My theory on this topic was they'd just fail again a couple times and it would take the same amount of time anyway. My experience backs-up your theory. So often an evening of fail after fail after fail on Sindragosa until, when we got the kill, it was because the 3 people with bad connections/ a complete inability to move when marked weren't there. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 04, 2012, 07:14:08 PM I tanked with both a DK and Druid, and a Paladin while leveling. At no point was tanking boring or not 'interesting' enough. My decision to tank or not was almost exclusively dependent on my willingness to lead and heard cats or if I just wanted to take it easy and practice my dps rotations. I really don't think the problems with tanking are very obvious in 5-man content. You've got more distractions, the pace of the content is quicker, and you're the defacto leader. Ice-bolt spam being boring wouldn't be as obvious in 5-mans either for mostly the same reasons. If you step into something like LFR which has 25-man boss health pools, is slower paced, and has most of the mechanics removed, you'll start to see the issues with tank design that aren't there for healers or dps. Threat is now meaningless and almost all of your abilities are about building threat. It's still sort of useful in 5-mans because you can lose threat if dps tries very hard and ignores the target everyone else is on, but it's not useful in slower paced content with less enemies. Tanks have to pump out what seems like 80% less threat now to maintain aggro. You can imagine how healers might also feel broken if groups took 80% less damage than they do now. You could keep casting heals, but it would quickly become obvious that most of your heals weren't really accomplishing anything and your role would become boring without some changes. I'd like to think it's possible to fix tank gameplay without making tanking 5-mans more of a hassle (or even resulting in making tanking 5-mans more fun). Hell if the 4.3 dungeons are any indication, even with an active mitigation model tanks could completely ignore their abilities and still roll through 5-mans in MoP. The reason we're stuck with two potentially boring tank designs (fight for threat vs. fight for the mitigation that used to be passive) is because nobody has come up a better design. It doesn't help that people would rather cat fight and do silly bullshit like Armory pissing contests than imagine how to make the game better than it is. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 04, 2012, 07:30:47 PM The reason we're stuck with two potentially boring tank designs (fight for threat vs. fight for the mitigation that used to be passive) is because nobody has come up a better design. It doesn't help that people would rather cat fight and do silly bullshit like Armory pissing contests than imagine how to make the game better than it is. We're stuck with boring ideas because the trinity is pretty boring. What you need is more crossover abilities like tanks that can support their own healing through the threat they deal, and healers that can spread more healing by damage they do on mobs. The problem I can see with that is it screws with pvp. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on April 04, 2012, 08:23:31 PM The reason we're stuck with two potentially boring tank designs (fight for threat vs. fight for the mitigation that used to be passive) is because nobody has come up a better design. It doesn't help that people would rather cat fight and do silly bullshit like Armory pissing contests than imagine how to make the game better than it is. We're stuck with boring ideas because the trinity is pretty boring. What you need is more crossover abilities like tanks that can support their own healing through the threat they deal, and healers that can spread more healing by damage they do on mobs. The problem I can see with that is it screws with pvp. The real problem is that combat is still a real time interpretation of D&D turn based combat. Until we get RPGs which get beyond that and have some real iteration on the ideas which might come out of that direction, we are going to be stuck with boring combat one way or another. It has less to do with the trinity and more to do with the fact that no matter what you do with the numbers of it, this kind of combat just isn't especially exciting and engaging for its own sake no matter how you cut it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Typhon on April 05, 2012, 05:30:26 AM You basically just said, "trinity isn't the problem because trinity is the problem".
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on April 05, 2012, 05:35:36 AM You basically just said, "trinity isn't the problem because trinity is the problem". Not really, you could do the trinity in ways that have much more engaging actual gameplay that makes people feel more engaged and interested in what they are doing. The reason we don't is because this type of combat is stuck in a turn based paradigm. Although the fact that you apparently associate the two so closely also shows another part of the problem. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on April 05, 2012, 06:30:05 AM People think they want skill-based reflex-gameplay until they get it. Then they say "Oh, fuck this shit" because you can't ever get better and wind up permanent fodder.
Trinity-MMO gameplay (In fact.. just use DIKU, it's the convention.) reflects what the audience wants from that market; Time invested = ability. Just because YOU don't find it exciting or engaging doesn't mean that it isn't. I find it plenty of both when done right, as do others. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 05, 2012, 06:31:53 AM I still think tanking problems generally go away when you remove hard enrage timers.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on April 05, 2012, 06:43:52 AM People think they want skill-based reflex-gameplay until they get it. Then they say "Oh, fuck this shit" because you can't ever get better and wind up permanent fodder. Trinity-MMO gameplay (In fact.. just use DIKU, it's the convention.) reflects what the audience wants from that market; Time invested = ability. Just because YOU don't find it exciting or engaging doesn't mean that it isn't. I find it plenty of both when done right, as do others. Well, fair enough, its fine that some people like it. My point is, and I should have been a bit less gung ho, that for the people who don't like it no amount of changing abilities, numbers, and even roles is probably going to fix their issues because I think they are more fundamental. As for the first part of what you say, I totally agree. Most people, despite what they say, don't actually want their individual skill to matter and obviously the more you make combat about stuff the player is doing (instead of what the character is doing) the more you are going down that path. I would clarify, I wasn't using Trinity to be synonymous with DIKU, in fact part of my point is that they don't need to be. I would imagine a PvE encounter in TF2, for example, which relies on medics as healers, heavies as tanks, soldiers/demos as DPS. In fact, you see exactly this when people are trying to take out sentries in that game. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soulflame on April 05, 2012, 07:49:46 AM Hard enrage timers are an execution and DPS problem. I think.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 05, 2012, 08:06:26 AM Hard enrage timers are an execution and DPS problem. I think. Of course they are, but here's the problem with enrage timers: Damage has to be X during Y time, or the fight fails. Nothing about excution by the tanks or healers can save that unless DPS are dying. It creates a situation where your best players in the tank or healer role absolutely cannot win the day, even if they could extend the fight by another minute through their gear or skill. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Typhon on April 05, 2012, 08:54:56 AM All computer-based game play is turn-based. "Twitch" games just have turns that are in the milllisecond range, and is frequently faster than a human can push a button. "Turn-based" games have turns in the half-second to seconds range, which is typically enough time for a larger percentage of the population to decide upon a reasonable action/reaction. Upon this core you can layer a number of other systems, for example resource based actions (need rage, mana, energy, fluffy bunnies to perform action X). This is orthogonal to trinity or levels. I think you can have interesting gameplay in a game where the turn length is short and still attract the "but I can't react that fast crowd" if you layer a decent resource system on top and make combat take a larger number of successful hit to reach completion (e.g. smaller energy bars and larger health pools).
Trinity is an easy/obvious solution for how to foster group-based gameplay. I get that, I just don't like playing a healer and I hate waiting for someone who's willing to take one for the team to come along (and cry about how they aren't appreciated). I'd like for there to be a game that tries to foster group-based gameplay using different roles. Something new would be nice. Level / gear arms race: Saying that time spent replaces player skill only applies to players fighting players/mobs of a certain level (i.e. less or much less then themselves). I guess there are some folks that choose these games because it allows them to poop-sock their way to victory for that period of time where the poop-socker has a level or gear advantage. But I think most folks like these games because they convey a sense of character advancement. Regardless, the end of the race ends with everyone similarly geared, and if you are a player that isn't able to choose a good skill to use at the right time you are going to lose (where 'lose' can mean, 'die', 'use your cheaty get-away ability' or 'run to the nearest guard'). Making a game that rewards a player for choosing an action that is a counter-thrust to an opponent's action is what I think Malakili is calling interesting, and I agree, those games are interesting. A game that rewards stringing several actions together in a sequence is also fun (combo!), especially if there are different combos with the same starting point. Something else that is interesting to me are abilities that "charge up", the player must decide which ability to use, and how long to charge it. Why am I posting this in a WoW thread? I don't know, I got lost. Sorry! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on April 05, 2012, 09:32:08 AM All computer-based game play is turn-based. "Twitch" games just have turns that are in the milllisecond range, and is frequently faster than a human can push a button. "Turn-based" games have turns in the half-second to seconds range, which is typically enough time for a larger percentage of the population to decide upon a reasonable action/reaction. Upon this core you can layer a number of other systems, for example resource based actions (need rage, mana, energy, fluffy bunnies to perform action X). This is orthogonal to trinity or levels. I think you can have interesting gameplay in a game where the turn length is short and still attract the "but I can't react that fast crowd" if you layer a decent resource system on top and make combat take a larger number of successful hit to reach completion (e.g. smaller energy bars and larger health pools). Unless we are defining the word "turn" in totally different ways, I don't think this can be right. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on April 05, 2012, 02:11:08 PM Hard enrage timers are an execution and DPS problem. I think. Of course they are, but here's the problem with enrage timers: Damage has to be X during Y time, or the fight fails. Nothing about excution by the tanks or healers can save that unless DPS are dying. It creates a situation where your best players in the tank or healer role absolutely cannot win the day, even if they could extend the fight by another minute through their gear or skill. That's just not true. The better your healers are (and by extension the better your group as a whole is at avoiding/mitigating damage) the more damage dealers you can bring. It's not a smooth transition between N healers and N-1 healers, but it exists and is an issue on all cutting-edge fights. The ability for a tank to single-tank something because of cooldown management or gear is also an input in the above. And you're (again) completely ignoring the damage that healers and tanks can do when they don't need to focus 100% of their time and gearing on staying upright. (AKA: Fuck yeah, Searing Totem DPS.) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on April 05, 2012, 02:37:01 PM Hard enrage timers are an execution and DPS problem. I think. Of course they are, but here's the problem with enrage timers: Damage has to be X during Y time, or the fight fails. Nothing about excution by the tanks or healers can save that unless DPS are dying. It creates a situation where your best players in the tank or healer role absolutely cannot win the day, even if they could extend the fight by another minute through their gear or skill. That's just not true. The better your healers are (and by extension the better your group as a whole is at avoiding/mitigating damage) the more damage dealers you can bring. It's not a smooth transition between N healers and N-1 healers, but it exists and is an issue on all cutting-edge fights. The ability for a tank to single-tank something because of cooldown management or gear is also an input in the above. And you're (again) completely ignoring the damage that healers and tanks can do when they don't need to focus 100% of their time and gearing on staying upright. (AKA: Fuck yeah, Searing Totem DPS.) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 05, 2012, 02:43:24 PM Yeah when it becomes about telling a person to sit or whatever that doesn't sit well with me design-wise. Granted dual spec helps with that but it assumes you have people who don't want to keep their primary role.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 05, 2012, 02:46:00 PM And you're (again) completely ignoring the damage that healers and tanks can do when they don't need to focus 100% of their time and gearing on staying upright. (AKA: Fuck yeah, Searing Totem DPS.) Here's a newsflash, I didn't pick a tank to worry about my damage output. There are entire classes, jobs, and the majority of raids who should be handling that aspect. Also the goal of a tank is to be so good we're swapping out other roles? That's ridiculous, and it doesn't address the fact that you'd still be defining fights by dps. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on April 05, 2012, 02:50:46 PM The answer to "How can healers (or tanks) improve the dps output of a raid" should never be "Become so good that you can exchange a healer for another DPS". The situation should always be looked at from the perspective that a full raid (lets take 10 man) always has 20% tanks, 30% healers and 50% dps (or similar static figure) that never changes. That's a fine stance to take but this game has never worked that way. On top of that, I think it locks you into always needing to design fights around using that second proper tank when I doubt it's necessary from a "fun fight" perspective most of the time. There's also the issue of scaling between the two raid sizes. That's ridiculous, and it doesn't address the fact that you'd still be defining fights by dps. Of course I'm defining fights by damage, that's how you win almost all of them. Make the boss's health go to 0, not last X minutes. Hard or scaling or healer-longevity-based enrages, trying to get by with the least amount of healers and tanks is how fights are approached. Edit: I'll add that killing off threat as a relevant mechanic unmoored tanks from the traditional balancing act of the raid. Tanks had to balance defensive stuff to allow the healers to do their jobs and threat generation to allow the damage dealers to do theirs. Damage dealers had to do their own job as much as possible without interfering with the healers' job by requiring too much attention and putting others at risk and the tanks' by pulling off of them. And the healers of course had to keep everyone upright and triage effectively. Without threat, tanks have to balance defense and their own damage instead of simply facilitating other players'. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on April 05, 2012, 03:07:46 PM Another quarter of a million beta invites just went out.
Also, if anyone is having patcher/launcher problems: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1108038-Solution-if-your-launcher-is-stuck-at-0-or-10 Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 05, 2012, 03:44:10 PM Of course I'm defining fights by damage, that's how you win almost all of them. Make the boss's health go to 0, not last X minutes. Hard or scaling or healer-longevity-based enrages, trying to get by with the least amount of healers and tanks is how fights are approached. That's how fights are approached NOW. I don't want 18 hour fights like Final Fantasy. I also don't want 8 minute DPS races. It's a crutch to design your fights around tightly wound DPS timers because you don't understand how to affect fights through mana generation on healers. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on April 05, 2012, 03:46:56 PM Of course I'm defining fights by damage, that's how you win almost all of them. Make the boss's health go to 0, not last X minutes. Hard or scaling or healer-longevity-based enrages, trying to get by with the least amount of healers and tanks is how fights are approached. That's how fights are approached NOW. I don't want 18 hour fights like Final Fantasy. I also don't want 8 minute DPS races. It's a crutch to design your fights around tightly wound DPS timers because you don't understand how to affect fights through mana generation on healers. Its just insanely hard to balance mana regen across an entire expansion. If it is too low, fights are impossible at the beginning, but then once you gear up, it quickly gets to the point where it is nearly infinite. This has been a problem with WoW since day 1. I'm not aware of a game that does it better, but my raiding experience is admittedly limited in other games. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 05, 2012, 03:49:35 PM The obvious idea is that regen rate/size of pool for your healing resource is unaffected by gear.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on April 05, 2012, 04:07:14 PM Madness!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on April 05, 2012, 04:35:32 PM Finite mana can suck my balls.
The best enrage timers are soft ones, where the fight just keeps ramping up till it spirals out of control (BEHOLD THE LEGIONS AT MY COMMAND guy in Kara for example. Most fights in Kara really). Hard Enrage timers suck balls 9 times out of 10, the exception being the token Patchwerk fight, where the enrage timer IS the fight. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 05, 2012, 04:37:03 PM Let me preface this by saying I'm fine with enrage timers like Patchwerk where it is the fight and it's an occasional use of the mechanic.
I'm not in favor of them on every fight. Although soft enrages are much more tolerable because that does actually give your tanks and healers credit for being better than most. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on April 05, 2012, 04:49:57 PM The obvious idea is that regen rate/size of pool for your healing resource is unaffected by gear. Considering that this is one of the main ways in which healers have "progress" taking it away would likely just piss healers even more and make less even less people want to do it. :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on April 05, 2012, 04:51:30 PM The obvious idea is that regen rate/size of pool for your healing resource is unaffected by gear. That removes a lot of the feeling of progression, it also kills one of the two defining features of mana vs focus/energy. Size of pool will be unaffected by gear in MoP though. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on April 05, 2012, 05:05:50 PM The obvious idea is that regen rate/size of pool for your healing resource is unaffected by gear. Considering that this is one of the main ways in which healers have "progress" taking it away would likely just piss healers even more and make less even less people want to do it. :oh_i_see: I don't get that. Do Rogues feel no sense of progression because gear doesn't increase the size of their energy pool? Gear will still increase the size of their heals (aka damage for damage dealers) and the speed they can cast (though I could see that as a double-edged sword with finite mana pools). Apparently I must play the game 'wrong' because when I was putting together my heal set in Wrath, I never thought "wow, look how much more mana that gives me!". I just liked seeing bigger heals. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on April 05, 2012, 05:09:57 PM I too would like to see fewer hard enrages on fights. Especially a fight like Ultraxion. There's no need for a hard enrage at all, because his Instability is already a huge soft enrage. You wouldn't get past 6:30 or 7:00 anyway. So the 6 minute timer isn't adding anything in terms of preventing infinite extension of the fight; it's only adding the arbitrary "fuck you" limit if you happen to be a few seconds behind.
I'm glad that Spine doesn't have an enrage, and it's one of the reasons I really like that fight (while also hating it as a disc priest, the debuff is particularly terrible for us). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on April 05, 2012, 05:11:34 PM The obvious idea is that regen rate/size of pool for your healing resource is unaffected by gear. Considering that this is one of the main ways in which healers have "progress" taking it away would likely just piss healers even more and make less even less people want to do it. :oh_i_see: I don't get that. Do Rogues feel no sense of progression because gear doesn't increase the size of their energy pool? *healer mana. Blizzard has basically made DPS classes mana pools into a more active energy like system. As a shadow priest, I have 4 different active methods of regaining large chunks of mana, but my costs are also relatively large compared to my pool, so my mana model is very different from a healer. This is because the traditional mana model makes very little sense for DPS. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on April 05, 2012, 05:25:20 PM The size of pool thing in MoP is more about balancing static regen versus percentage-based regen which has gone out of whack the past few expansions. Something like Glyph of Water Mastery starts out good but ends up as relatively useless. The reverse is true for mechanics like Divine Plea or Rapture.
As a healer though, I like the differing constraints that regen rates pose throughout an expansion. Regen is sort of the only mechanic that I feel I interact with directly as the size of my heals don't really increase relative to health gain or increased damage taken. Much in the same way that I might switch from Arcane Shot to Aimed Shot hardcast as Marksmanship once I reach a certain gear level. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on April 05, 2012, 05:28:12 PM The obvious idea is that regen rate/size of pool for your healing resource is unaffected by gear. Considering that this is one of the main ways in which healers have "progress" taking it away would likely just piss healers even more and make less even less people want to do it. :oh_i_see: I don't get that. Do Rogues feel no sense of progression because gear doesn't increase the size of their energy pool? If Rogues had 'infinite regen' their energy would instantly be full again after they made an attack. :oh_i_see: I don't see a problem with Energy = smallest pool with the fastest regen, Focus = middle sized pool (which it isn't atm, iirc) with moderate regen, Mana = by far the largest pool but with the slowest regen. You still retain the unique resource management of each pool, which is the main distinction anyway. Besides which, the point was being made about the 'feeling of progression', not about how 'distinct' they feel. And didn't you already say Blizzard is making the mana pool independent of gear in MoP anyway? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on April 05, 2012, 05:47:42 PM Besides which, the point was being made about the 'feeling of progression', not about how 'distinct' they feel. And didn't you already say Blizzard is making the mana pool independent of gear in MoP anyway? The difference is that a shiny new sword means a lot more to a rogue than a shiny new staff means to a priest. Progressing as a healer has been about balancing output and longevity. Take out the longevity part and now I just get to see bigger green numbers than before..woo hoo. There is a reason I didn't choose to play DPS in raids... And they already took out downranking, so you can't even use +healing as a substitute for mana regen anymore. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 05, 2012, 05:49:50 PM I think a good rule of thumb for Blizzard is probably to ignore input from someone who thought that downranking was a great bit of design. :-P
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on April 05, 2012, 05:57:02 PM I think a good rule of thumb for Blizzard is probably to ignore input from someone who thought that downranking was a great bit of design. :-P I honestly never saw the problem with it. Their stated reason was that is gave healers an infinite mana pool, which is basically exactly what we are discussing. I'm not saying mana should be infinite, but what I'm saying is that the interesting part of playing a healer was managing mana while keeping people alive. It was a constant battle to eek the most healing out of the least bit of mana possible. Mana regen was always the most interesting stat for this reason, it made it all the more important to try and sneak in those extra few ticks of regen outside the 5 second rule for example. Given the fact that "whack a mole" isn't a very intresting thing to do, these kinds of little edge cases are what made the entire thing interesting. Taking away the item progression of mana regen would basically nuke that entire part of the game for healers. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on April 05, 2012, 06:01:21 PM Downranking was a decent-enough analogue for having various different healing spells, especially in the era of tiny health pools relative to heal size. It was arcane and unintuitive, but it served a good gameplay purpose.
There was no need for it in Wrath because that was the "push best buttan" expansion for healers and we have pretty big toolkits now. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on April 05, 2012, 06:07:54 PM The difference is that a shiny new sword means a lot more to a rogue than a shiny new staff means to a priest. That's a problem with how staffs are implemented in WoW, not with your mana pool growing or not. Never understood why they never at least experimented with a system where a mana user's main hand item had a set damage/heal amount, with the spells cast modifying that. Same as how a Rogue's attack skills generally modify the base damage on the weapon. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on April 05, 2012, 06:09:42 PM Downranking was a decent-enough analogue for having various different healing spells, especially in the era of tiny health pools relative to heal size. It was arcane and unintuitive, but it served a good gameplay purpose. There was no need for it in Wrath because that was the "push best buttan" expansion for healers and we have pretty big toolkits now. I haven't raided in Cataclysm at all, most I did was heroics as a healer in this expansion and don't currently have an active subscription, so I admittedly can't talk about the current state of the end game, but what I was talking about had more to do with a general principle anyway. In general more decisions = more interesting. Taking decisions away (by having less gearing options, less ability options, less ways to play in general) is (almost) always going to make games worse in my opinion. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on April 05, 2012, 08:15:18 PM The difference is that a shiny new sword means a lot more to a rogue than a shiny new staff means to a priest. That's a problem with how staffs are implemented in WoW, not with your mana pool growing or not. Never understood why they never at least experimented with a system where a mana user's main hand item had a set damage/heal amount, with the spells cast modifying that. Same as how a Rogue's attack skills generally modify the base damage on the weapon. Staff is sorta equivalent to a melee weapon because of the massive amount of spell power that any caster weapon has, but it's just a piece of wood that sits on your back. Although, this isn't even a WoW thing, more of a D&D + its RPG descendants thing. Wizards have never been as excited by their gear as Warriors and Rogues are. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on April 06, 2012, 02:53:53 AM MMO-Champ's got some more data-mined info for the upcoming patch. If true, then GC was serious about Metamorph 'locks not supposed to be main tanking, as they're taking it up the ass again. Once again, why spend the time trying to balance something that's not going to be really effective doing anyways? If you're going to make them a tank, MAKE THEM A TANK. Hell, they went so far as to retain the 6% crit-proof buff in Metamorph.
Fun for me is tanking. If I can't tank it, it's not worth playing. If they're gonna waste this much time farting around with 'locks, let's just go full circle-jerk and give Shamans a few more things they can claim are 'tank-specific' skills/talents and drive this shit into the wall. :uhrr: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 06, 2012, 08:50:02 AM Looks like they just bumped up warrior prot damage a bunch in the recent beta change.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on April 06, 2012, 09:19:09 AM People think they want skill-based reflex-gameplay until they get it. Then they say "Oh, fuck this shit" because you can't ever get better and wind up permanent fodder. Trinity-MMO gameplay (In fact.. just use DIKU, it's the convention.) reflects what the audience wants from that market; Time invested = ability. Just because YOU don't find it exciting or engaging doesn't mean that it isn't. I find it plenty of both when done right, as do others. Exactly, 100%, voted 5, would read again and again, etc. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pantastic on April 09, 2012, 10:15:58 AM The real problem is that combat is still a real time interpretation of D&D turn based combat. Until we get RPGs which get beyond that and have some real iteration on the ideas which might come out of that direction, we are going to be stuck with boring combat one way or another. It has less to do with the trinity and more to do with the fact that no matter what you do with the numbers of it, this kind of combat just isn't especially exciting and engaging for its own sake no matter how you cut it. While MMORPGs come from pen and paper RPGs, D&D combat was never holy trinity based. It's never had mechanics for threat, aggro, an taunting at all. There's traditionally been very limited 'make him fight me' controls, starting with 'if you move away from someone they get a free swing' in 1e and 2e, then more detailed attacks of opportunity in 3e, then in 4e adding some 'if you don't swing at me, I hit you harder' abilities. You also don't really have any separation between Damage Dealers and tanks, with fighters and barbarians maxing melee and health, then at high levels mages just sort of take over as demigods. In traditional D&D rogues weren't even a DD class, they did scouting, lockpicking, and an occasional backstab, not significant damage in a prolonged fight. A game using holy trinity like WOW has tanks with five to dozens of times the effective health of anyone (that's raw HP multiplied by chance for stuff to get through mitigation and avoidance) and healers who heal the tank for multiple times their HP pool over the course of each fight. D&D classes are all pretty durable; you don't see the huge HP pool differences, and non-fighters tended to have plenty of protection options, especially clerics. You also don't to zip through multiple HP pools each fight, there's really only so many heal spells a cleric can throw, and they often have other tasks than just spamming. There's also a lot of incapacitation and instant death effects in older versions. I think trying to relate MMO combat back to D&D combat is a mistake, D&D combat always involved more tactics (put several tough guys between the enemy and your clothies, not just have the tank use magic high-threat hits) and roleplaying (have the thief try to distract one guy, try to convince the prisoners to help you raid the boss) while MMO combat is pretty static (you know about any 'attack from the rear' in advance and don't really do much maneuvering) and programmed. I don't think there's any chance of WOW changing the basic game anywhere near that much, I'm just pointing out that the the 'grinding a huge hit point pool down by spamming damage abilities while your healer(s) spam healing abilities on the tank(s)' didn't come from traditional D&D. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on April 09, 2012, 12:09:19 PM Rogues already have infinite regen. Mana* isn't modeled the same way, it's meant to be managed carefully and when you run dry, you're dry for a while. That would be the remaining distinction between mana and energy if both regen rates and pool sizes were fixed independently of gear, and it's also what would make that change kinda suck. So being forced to manage your mana carefully is the best thing to happen to healing, except when Blizzard intends to force you to manage it that way for the entire expansion? So, umm, you don't actually like the mana management metagame after all? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 09, 2012, 12:52:16 PM No, he's saying if it turns out to be like energy (which has a fixed amount and regen rate already), that will suck. Managing energy is different than managing mana.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 09, 2012, 03:20:00 PM I was hoping MoP would release sooner than later (did you hear that Dragon Soul kind of sucks ass?), but after playing the beta a bit this weekend it seems like it still needs a fair bit of work. Lots of bugs and 'in progress' skills/talents for multiple classes. All three monk roles feel poorly balanced and lack focus.
Mistweaver (healer): DPS->healing is completely broken right now because the majority of that healing seems to come passively from statues you place. The way it's supposed to work is that the statue heals the lowest-hp person nearby for 50% of the damage you deal. The way it actually works is that only 50% of one ability (jab) is distributed as healing. It's a bug, they'll fix it, but the statues are a dumb mechanic. You get two charges to place a statue, and they have something like a 5 minute cooldown to refresh a charge. They are conceptually bad for the same reason that shaman totems were, only they are even worse because they have a 5 minute cooldown. All three trees use this dumb mechanic. Mana is also really fucked up for monks right now, and I felt like I was struggling to keep a group alive in 4.3 dungeons on the beta server and that was without spending any time dpsing. Because the class was role was designed to also be dpsing much of the time, the heals are mostly smart heals. This means that if you aren't able to dps because healing is hard to keep up (currently the case for almost all situations), your heals just aren't very exciting to use. If they aren't able to fix dps healing to the point where healing monks will actually be dpsing on anything besides easy trash, Mistweavers will just be left with boring smart heals for gameplay. There are some cool concepts in there, but they're missing a few abilities and others (statues, renewing mists, uplift) just feel like they need to be scrapped. Windwalker (dps): Probably has the most bugged/incomplete abilities at the moment. The basic combat rotation feels pretty good, which you'll see on the starter island, but they feel like a mess at 85 when they have many more abilities and trying to work them into your rotation just doesn't feel quite as good. Overall, they'll probably be pretty fun to play by the time MoP launches, but they don't really feel especially unique. What I saw was basically a mix of rogue and warrior abilities, with gameplay that fell somewhere in the middle. Brewmaster (tank): I didn't play a brewmaster since we still only have dual spec, but I can report my experience healing a brew-master tank. On the very first pull in End Time (undead near sylvanis) our Monk tank in full 378 gear went from 100% to dead in about 2.5 seconds. After we wiped and ran in again, I opened with spinning crane kick (aoe damage/heal), pulled aggro, and died in ~2.5 seconds). Their mitigation/threat seems completely broken right now. I don't know if the monk tank was doing something wrong, but another group commented that he ran into the same problem on his monk tank as well. Our monk tank left and we got a prot pally tank, and the difference was like night and day. Part of the problem with both the roles I played was most likely my fault. Playing on the PTR/beta is frustrating because you don't realize just how shitty the default UI is until you're forced to use it. Determining who has aggro on a pack of mobs, tracking buffs/debuffs, and cooldown displays/timers are all obnoxious with the default UI. Even something like displaying healthbars with the default UI sucks. Your options are either 1) Display health value or 2) Display health %. The settings share for all displays: party, self, target, focus etc. Displaying health values at this point in the game's lifespan covers your entire health bar with text because HP values have become so inflated. It's hard to glance at and get an idea of your party status. Percentages is slightly better, but less ideal for enemy unit frames, and it makes it hard to determine what heal is necessary for the PUG tank in your group at 40% vs the PUG mage in your group at 40%. Every beta/PTR experience I've ever had has colored my opinion of that content negatively because of persistent problems with the default UI. I don't use a crazy UI on live (I still use CT Unit Frames, and the default raid frames, for example) but the small improvements the addons I use do make count for a lot. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 09, 2012, 03:29:26 PM On a positive note, the pandaren animations are great. I made a panda rogue/warrior and still see myself losing $50 to race changes once MoP launches.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on April 09, 2012, 03:52:01 PM While MMORPGs come from pen and paper RPGs, D&D combat was never holy trinity based. It's never had mechanics for threat, aggro, an taunting at all. There's traditionally been very limited 'make him fight me' controls, starting with 'if you move away from someone they get a free swing' in 1e and 2e, then more detailed attacks of opportunity in 3e, then in 4e adding some 'if you don't swing at me, I hit you harder' abilities. You also don't really have any separation between Damage Dealers and tanks, with fighters and barbarians maxing melee and health, then at high levels mages just sort of take over as demigods. In traditional D&D rogues weren't even a DD class, they did scouting, lockpicking, and an occasional backstab, not significant damage in a prolonged fight. I'm not relating it in the sense of the trinity, I'm relating in the sense that it has origins in a turn based format, and the was translated to CRPGs early on with time based real time "turns" still has far reaching influence in how combat works in what we now sometimes call "hotkey based" RPGs. That is the relationship I'm talking about. I agree with pretty much everything you said. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on April 09, 2012, 06:24:20 PM No, he's saying if it turns out to be like energy (which has a fixed amount and regen rate already), that will suck. Managing energy is different than managing mana. Right, so if you assume that Blizzard is doing something they haven't said they're doing, it might be something you don't like. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 09, 2012, 06:48:24 PM Uhh, right, that wasn't what he was trying to imply either? It was in response to people saying FINITE MANA IS BULLSHIT and stuff.
It's just shooting the shit, dude. EDIT: I guess you got completely thrown by my poor choice of tense? Is that it? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on April 09, 2012, 09:40:30 PM Finite Mana can still suck my balls. I stand by that statement.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on April 10, 2012, 09:17:17 AM I'm thrown by the presumption that it's remotely possible that casters will end up with blue energy. It would be like assuming that everything they've said on the subject of hunters since the Wrath of the Lich King beta is meant to deceive and they're secretly adding a dual-wield melee spec to them.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 10, 2012, 12:00:55 PM It's just shootin' the shit, dude.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on April 10, 2012, 12:09:12 PM I take my internet asstalking seriously.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on April 11, 2012, 01:28:08 PM The MoP phishing email I got yesterday was really good. Professional quality. I almost clicked that link.
Glad to know that the spammers haven't forgotten about me. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on April 11, 2012, 01:32:34 PM As I understand it, Blizzard doesn't actually send links anymore, they just say go to Bnet and check.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on April 11, 2012, 01:58:13 PM Rezz scrolls still send the a big button link that says "Play Free Now."
Got a spoof of one of those the other day that was just a copy of the actual email with the link changed. (Which I knew because the wife had sent me one a week prior.) Probably why it came through the spam filter in the first place. Only the actual beta invites send the "log in to your account" text-only mail. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on April 18, 2012, 08:53:17 AM Alright, so it looks like they really have no idea what they're doing with Demo Warlocks. They have backed off from trying to make them melee-friendly, rather they just want them to keep doing what regular Demo 'locks do right now; they'll just look cooler when they do it :uhrr:
I don't think it's too early to ask this; in light of SWTOR, GW2, and the current information we have about the aforementioned titles and MoP, who all's still planning on playing this when it releases? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on April 18, 2012, 09:06:31 AM My guild will definitely be playing MOP... perhaps not at release (depends on GW2 and MOP release dates), but we'll be getting it and playing it for ~3mo or so at least.
SWTOR fizzled out really quick for us (even though most of the guild are SW fans), and - while we're all looking forward to it - GW2 is a no-sub game, so there's really no issue with playing another game for a bit. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on April 18, 2012, 09:24:57 AM I don't think it's too early to ask this; in light of SWTOR, GW2, and the current information we have about the aforementioned titles and MoP, who all's still planning on playing this when it releases? Don't forget that D3 is supposed to launch in a month. I'm in on that one (annual pass) and I plan on checking out GW2 as well. We'll see what order everything releases in, but the annual pass means that I'm already good to go for MoP. Assuming that it launches by the end of the year. I'm hoping that my guild will remain more or less intact (and maybe even get some people back) once MoP gets here. Guild activity is the main sticking point, once I've finished the leveling/rep grinds on my main. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on April 18, 2012, 09:36:01 AM Still have active WoW and SWTOR subs, still looking to keep them for the foreseeable future.
I know enough about GW2 to pass on pre-ordering it (still might pick up if I get into a shooter/MOBA lull down the line) and there's nothing else even remotely intriguing coming down the pipe. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pennilenko on April 18, 2012, 09:38:07 AM Me
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on April 18, 2012, 01:58:33 PM I'll be playing MoP, if anything I will break from WoW to play D3/GW2 while I wait for it to launch
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 18, 2012, 02:31:52 PM I am beginning to think I will not be playing MoP. I'm in the beta, and I've played for about two hours total. I'm just not interested in it any more. It was a good ride, though, and the monk class seems like it'll be fun once they finish figuring it out.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Kail on April 18, 2012, 02:59:34 PM I don't think it's too early to ask this; in light of SWTOR, GW2, and the current information we have about the aforementioned titles and MoP, who all's still planning on playing this when it releases? Probably not I. I don't have anything against WoW (I actually really enjoyed Cataclysm), it just seems like I've done all of it and I have no reason to go back. I might resub sometime later if something pulls me back in, but right now WoW is sitting in that mental bin with games like Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2, where I think they're good games, but I just feel like I've wrung all the fun out of them that I can. Unless there's some kind of major shift in the gameplay or social pull or something (like getting a stable F13 guild running) I have nothing to really bring me back. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 18, 2012, 03:50:03 PM My excitement about the expansion was much higher before I played the beta as well. I'm willing to chalk that up to it being in an unpolished state. Pandaren are less exciting when they are missing half their hair styles, are missing animations, and have buggy intro quests to play through. Monks are less exciting when you are playing them in an un-refined in-progress state, wrestling with UI bugs and the default UI in general.
If I take a step back in the beta and look at the new zones, the art looks fantastic and I get a little excited again. That's really the only thing that's going to be the same between beta and release anyway. I'm still planning on picking it up, and I hope it will be exciting to play at that point, but the beta really took the wind out of my sails. Betas usually do, but I told myself it would be worth it to see whether I wanted to switch to a monk. It wasn't. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 18, 2012, 04:20:21 PM It's not really the beta-ness for me. I've been in betas for their expansions before (OK, more accurately, INGMAR has been in them and I was the one actually doing the majority of the beta-ing) and cheerfully tested my little heart out on those. I did the DK starting zone more times than I care to count, for example, at varying levels of bugginess, and it didn't dampen my enthusiasm any. MoP just fills me with meh, though, and I think it's just that WoW and I are finally breaking up. It's a good break up, mind you, amiable and we'd still be friends because really we just drifted apart, but a break up nonetheless.
I actually like what they did with talents, I like a lot of the art, the monk class has a lot of potential, I'm just ... done. The story shit is still totally shitty though. :heart: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 18, 2012, 04:26:44 PM I'm sure I'll play it a little bit to say hello to people and that sort of thing (we still have some stragglers that I want to convince to try out SWTOR...) but I can't imagine I'll go back to it For Real ever again at this point. I feel far more done with it than I have about most MMOs I've finished with - I still go back to LOTRO and DDO from time to time, and I went back to City of Heroes and GW1 over and over and over again. I just don't have that feeling here at all.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on April 18, 2012, 04:50:40 PM I'm usually plugged into the net like Neo when beta information is around. This time around, I've barely kept track of any of it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on April 19, 2012, 12:45:22 AM It's a good break up, mind you, amiable and we'd still be friends because really we just drifted apart, but a break up nonetheless. You just know there's gonna be a nostalgia fling though. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 19, 2012, 01:58:52 AM Absolutely. I'll know better, but not be able to help myself, because man, we had some fun times together, you know?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on April 19, 2012, 04:08:04 AM Analogy bordering on creepy now!
Moving swiftly back on topic, yeah I'll be giving MoP a go when it's out. I've also found my urge to play WoW sneaks up and then fades away again very, very quickly if I indulge it. I've just unsubbed again after havng resubbed for only 2 months. But, I have several good friends who will be playing it and playing anything with them is more fun than playing Teh Bestest Game Evar without them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on April 19, 2012, 10:28:42 AM I don't think it's too early to ask this; in light of SWTOR, GW2, and the current information we have about the aforementioned titles and MoP, who all's still planning on playing this when it releases? Eh, I think I'm done with WoW. I know if I resub, I'll just get a panda to Outlands and quit again. There's too much that I'm interested in playing that will compete with a game that I no longer find compelling. I'm also way, way behind the curve. I never even touched the new 80-85 content. I just got a goblin to Outlands and.. quit. But, never say never. Sometimes you just get the bug to play, but if I do come back, I doubt it will be for very long. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on April 19, 2012, 11:15:19 AM Funnily I'm the opposite. I thought I was done and didn't have a second thought about returning. The wife sent me a rezz scroll so she could get the mount and I'm addicted all over. The raid finder & dungeon finder gives me exactly what I cared about: seeing bosses, doing fights without any of the inter-guild politics. Sure, sometimes I get shit groups and sometimes I rage but it's so much more accessible now.
So long as I don't care about being a 2nd class citizen with loot it's even more casual than it was when I was raiding. Two to three hours on the weekend and I've got all the valor and have run my raids. Done! Not to mention I'm not stuck with any one character anymore. In a guild you were the slot you'd applied with. Tank, Healer, DPS. Now that I can play whatever I feel like I've got 4 raid-capable characters now and I'm working on the 5th. In and out in a day or less. Sure, the gearing's slower (esp. with assholes looting pieces to trade later) but they're trying to address that in MoP. Addiction, man.. addiction. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ginaz on April 19, 2012, 01:12:38 PM Just checked my account last night and saw the beta option available. I'll try it when I get home tonight. Like others here, I'm less excited about this expansion than the others. Mostly because I think having playable pandas is pants on head retarded and the obvious pandering to their Asian market with the setting.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on April 19, 2012, 01:58:52 PM No more than sexy elves are pants on the head retarded pandering to teenage males while stone castles, wizards and magic swords aren't pandering to the western demographic.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on April 19, 2012, 02:11:26 PM Does that mean Tauren were intentionally designed to pander to the Weed Smoking Hippie crowd?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 19, 2012, 02:41:56 PM Those castles are clearly trying to corner Europe!
edit: Seriously, if the "Asian theme" in MoP is anything like the other vaguely cultural themes the other races have, it's as likely to annoy the Asian players as to pander to them, because it will be a huge mishmosh of the different Asian cultures, giving off a delightful "whatever, they're all the same, rite?" vibe. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 19, 2012, 02:43:38 PM Also god forbid someone ever make something for non-white people?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on April 19, 2012, 02:52:36 PM Mexicans never get an expansion. We're always left out.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 19, 2012, 03:04:16 PM If I ever make a MMO, Rasix, it'll be nothing BUT Mexican-theme shit.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on April 19, 2012, 03:09:42 PM Mexicans never get an expansion. We're always left out. I would be interested to see this theme. Would it involve sombreros? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 19, 2012, 03:11:57 PM Man, do you even need to ask?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on April 19, 2012, 03:12:07 PM Mexicans never get an expansion. We're always left out. I would be interested to see this theme. Would it involve sombreros? It better. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ginaz on April 19, 2012, 05:34:53 PM Logged in. Played about 5 mins before getting to a quest where you have to go burn some some of edict. Get to the place where the burning is supposed to be done. Encounter wall to wall man Pandas making it impossible to click on whats needed. Repeat attempts to click for the next 10 mins. Fuck that shit. Log out. :argh:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on April 19, 2012, 06:33:10 PM edit: Seriously, if the "Asian theme" in MoP is anything like the other vaguely cultural themes the other races have, it's as likely to annoy the Asian players as to pander to them, because it will be a huge mishmosh of the different Asian cultures, giving off a delightful "whatever, they're all the same, rite?" vibe. Unless they have different content for the Chinese-speaking countries/territories that seems unlikely. It wouldn't make good business sense to piss off half of your global player base.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 19, 2012, 06:56:27 PM It would involve a) giving a fuck and b) actually knowing anything about said cultures. Now grant you, they have a much, much, much higher incentive to give a fuck in this case, as opposed to, you know, the tauren. But they don't have a great track record here.
And even if they do it right (which I honestly hope they do), that's only pandering to the Chinese. :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 19, 2012, 08:14:18 PM Logged in. Played about 5 mins before getting to a quest where you have to go burn some some of edict. Get to the place where the burning is supposed to be done. Encounter wall to wall man Pandas making it impossible to click on whats needed. Repeat attempts to click for the next 10 mins. Fuck that shit. Log out. :argh: If you stand at the door and then try clicking you'll have a much easier time than if you join the huge clump of players. That said, this is what I'm talking about when I say the beta isn't all it's cracked up to be. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on April 19, 2012, 08:35:22 PM Logged in. Played about 5 mins before getting to a quest where you have to go burn some some of edict. Get to the place where the burning is supposed to be done. Encounter wall to wall man Pandas making it impossible to click on whats needed. Repeat attempts to click for the next 10 mins. Fuck that shit. Log out. :argh: Oh you shoulda been in there a week or two ago, when the god damn scroll thing was only respawning when the server got reset. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ratman_tf on April 19, 2012, 11:21:50 PM Logged in. Played about 5 mins before getting to a quest where you have to go burn some some of edict. Get to the place where the burning is supposed to be done. Encounter wall to wall man Pandas making it impossible to click on whats needed. Repeat attempts to click for the next 10 mins. Fuck that shit. Log out. :argh: Oh you shoulda been in there a week or two ago, when the god damn scroll thing was only respawning when the server got reset. Good to hear that Blizzard is still on the cutting edge of making retarted quests. :uhrr: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on April 20, 2012, 12:25:28 AM that's only pandering to the Chinese. :oh_i_see: Bad Sjofn! :facepalm: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 20, 2012, 12:31:43 AM What? What did I do? :grin:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Modern Angel on April 20, 2012, 01:46:58 PM Also god forbid someone ever make something for non-white people? GW2 Nightfall. I remember logging in and all the white kids freaking out in chat. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 20, 2012, 02:50:18 PM I remember logging into Nightfall as my brand new black chick and seeing NOTHING BUT WHITE PEOPLE AS FAR AS THE EYE COULD SEE.
Branch out, nerds! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on April 20, 2012, 02:57:36 PM Arizona law SB1090 does not allow us to portray people of "dark pigmentation" online.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 20, 2012, 03:01:39 PM I hope at some point GW2 does ~Fantasy India~, that seems like it would be cool.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Modern Angel on April 20, 2012, 03:21:47 PM I remember logging into Nightfall as my brand new black chick and seeing NOTHING BUT WHITE PEOPLE AS FAR AS THE EYE COULD SEE. Branch out, nerds! That, too. African faces, pale white skin. Names like Galahad Mortimer. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Xuri on April 20, 2012, 03:57:47 PM Won a beta-invite key in a contest at work (heh) so I logged in to test the thing out.
The entire walled-in starting area was literally filled with Pandas. Pandas piled on top of the first quest-giver. Pandas piled on top of weaponracks you have to interact with - and half of those bugged out because someone were either stuck in looting mode or intentionally kept the looting window open to keep other players from being able to use them. 10 pandas to each training dummy you have to attack and destroy - and only the first attacker gets credit for the kill. Pandas piling on top of the burning fire thing, with people spamming chat with a command to use the interactable object when it spawned. Three minutes of spamming that command, and I finally managed to burn the damn thing. :P Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on April 20, 2012, 04:25:58 PM Also god forbid someone ever make something for non-white people? GW2 Nightfall. I remember logging in and all the white kids freaking out in chat. Well right, that's my point. Someone does something non-Western-default and all of a sudden we're "pandering to the Asians" or "WTF I HAS A FRO". Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on April 20, 2012, 07:29:05 PM Moving swiftly back on topic, yeah I'll be giving MoP a go when it's out. I've also found my urge to play WoW sneaks up and then fades away again very, very quickly if I indulge it. I've just unsubbed again after havng resubbed for only 2 months. But, I have several good friends who will be playing it and playing anything with them is more fun than playing Teh Bestest Game Evar without them. This is what always used to happen to me. I always lasted for about 1.5 gamecards before my interest tanked. So about 3 months give or take 2 weeks. I'm addicted all over. The raid finder & dungeon finder gives me exactly what I cared about: seeing bosses, doing fights without any of the inter-guild politics. Sure, sometimes I get shit groups and sometimes I rage but it's so much more accessible now. So long as I don't care about being a 2nd class citizen with loot it's even more casual than it was when I was raiding. Two to three hours on the weekend and I've got all the valor and have run my raids. Done! Not to mention I'm not stuck with any one character anymore. In a guild you were the slot you'd applied with. Tank, Healer, DPS. Now that I can play whatever I feel like I've got 4 raid-capable characters now and I'm working on the 5th. In and out in a day or less. Sure, the gearing's slower (esp. with assholes looting pieces to trade later) but they're trying to address that in MoP. Addiction, man.. addiction. Now this is much more accurate. Since I haven't cared about Raiding since EQ before WoW released, I've always been a second-class citizen. I liked running dungeons, but hated putting groups together. My guild is large and useless, with lots of cliques who do their own thing, and I have no connection to any of the people in it. (Stay for the perks!) My RL friends who we used to play with either mostly play LOTRO after one of them had a huge meltdown ragequit over AV imbalance that made Paelos "I quit" thread last year seem incredibly moderate, and the other is just alt-addicted and plays on about 6 servers which he has filled with characters. Now I can run baby-raids and see the content (OK, I'd like to at least see the other raids too) and I can do any dungeon with confidence and competence. I'm supremely worried that they will fuck that up though, with "level your pants" being put in over actual gear upgrades from JP. Hopefully there'll be a huge backlash and they will put proper gear back on the vendors after a couple of months. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on April 21, 2012, 05:42:18 AM JP is still supposed to be vendor gear, it's VP that's changing.
Or so I think. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on April 21, 2012, 08:16:38 AM As far as I'm aware they've announced no changes to JP.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on April 21, 2012, 09:27:45 AM Logged in. Played about 5 mins before getting to a quest where you have to go burn some some of edict. Get to the place where the burning is supposed to be done. Encounter wall to wall man Pandas making it impossible to click on whats needed. Repeat attempts to click for the next 10 mins. Fuck that shit. Log out. :argh: Oh you shoulda been in there a week or two ago, when the god damn scroll thing was only respawning when the server got reset. Good to hear that Blizzard is still on the cutting edge of making retarted quests. :uhrr: You'll be happy, and no doubt shocked, to learn that they ended up changing this conscious design decision. Because it certainly wasn't a beta bug. No siree. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on April 21, 2012, 08:48:48 PM I got my JP and VP mixed up. The point remains.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on April 23, 2012, 06:12:12 PM As an FYI, the Annual Pass sign-up thing expires 4/30/12. If you do not sign up for it by then, you miss out on free Diablo III, MoP beta, and the mount.
Also a FYI, and I suppose this was in the FAQ but I either missed it or misunderstood it, the Annual Pass thing is not a 'pay a year subscription all up front' thing. It just locks you into a year of whatever payment plan you're on, just like a cell phone contract. So I'm still paying $15 a month. I did not know about this until I just tried to sign-up myself. Don't know why I waited so long...oh right, SWTOR was supposed to be the second coming of Christ. Riiiight. :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on April 23, 2012, 08:13:16 PM Why wouldn't you switch to a 6 month plan?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 23, 2012, 08:54:25 PM Any bets on what the Annual pass perks will be after 4/30?
Guessing the offer will be less generous than D3 for free, given that subscriptions have stabilized and they have an end-game focused expansion around the corner. Assuming they get MoP out before the end of the summer, that removes free MoP as a realistic annual pass perk (as most people will be renewing in October or November if they signed up early). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on April 23, 2012, 09:25:00 PM I expect it to go away altogether. The Annual Pass was a panic button. They did it to try and shore up their sub numbers, in the wake of the Cata launch.
The only reason it worked (if it worked) was because they threw in a "free" copy of D3. I obviously can't speak for anyone else, but I sure as hell didn't buy it for the mount. Getting into the MoP beta was neat, but not something I'd pay money for. (cue jokes about how all MMO launches are paid betas) Blizzard can't go to that well again, anytime soon. How long did D3 take to develop? Depends on how you count. If you count the length of the Rumors thread, it's been 4 years at least. If you count since the launch of D2, it's been more like 12 years. Next time WoW loses a million subs, Blizz will have to come up with some other incentive to stanch the wound. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on April 24, 2012, 12:25:18 AM Heart of the Swarm.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on April 24, 2012, 01:54:45 AM Simpler than that. Why not just make Mists free for next annual pass? $40 vs $60, but hey, you snooze you lose. Also they could throw something else in.
Edit: saw Rokal's post. Well, it could just be for people who didn't do the original annual pass. Otherwise, I don't know. Compared to D3, Heart of the Swarm is a a much less sexy choice for a lot of WoW's sub base. I plan on buying HotS but there's no way I'd commit to a year sub for it after already committing to one year. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on April 24, 2012, 06:46:17 PM So while I sit here waiting for my MoP invite, a new patch came out.
Quote New Glyphs Dark Binding: You can now cast Binding Heal, Flash Heal, and Renew without cancelling Shadowform. Glyph of Distracting Shot: Your Distracting Shot now distracts the target to attack your pet instead of you. Glyph of Outbreak: Your Outbreak spell no longer has a cooldown, but now costs 40 Runic Power. Glyph of the Blazing Trail: Your Charge leaves a trail of fire in its wake. If you're going to Charge, why not do it with some style? Glyph of Transcendence: Increases the range of your Transcendence: Transfer spell by 10 yards. Glyph of Arcane Language: Your Arcane Brilliance spell allows you to comprehend your allies' racial languages. Glyph of Deadly Momentum: When you land a killing blow on an opponent that yields experience or honor, your Slice and Dice and Recuperate abilities are refreshed to their original duration. Chaotic Energy: You drain energy directly from the twisting nether. Your mana regenerates 650% faster and your spell haste also increases your mana regeneration. Replaces Life Tap. Glyph of Dark Soul: While off cooldown, your Dark Soul ability passively grants you 10% of the active effect, but reduces the power of Dark Soul by 10%. Glyph of Hand of Gul'dan: Your Hand of Gul'dan can now be targetted at a location. Glyph of Imp Swarm: Teaches you the ability Imp Swarm. Requires Demonology. Glyph of Verdant Spheres: Your Soul Shards are transformed into Verdant Spheres. Nice to see they're finally having fun with the Glyph system instead of it just being a "your main stuff hits harder" crap. :drill: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 24, 2012, 08:33:25 PM Glyph of Arcane Language: Your Arcane Brilliance spell allows you to comprehend your allies' racial languages. I know a bunch of RPers that just had an orgasm. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on April 24, 2012, 11:43:53 PM I expect it to go away altogether. The Annual Pass was a panic button. They did it to try and shore up their sub numbers, in the wake of the Cata launch. The only reason it worked (if it worked) was because they threw in a "free" copy of D3. I obviously can't speak for anyone else, but I sure as hell didn't buy it for the mount. Getting into the MoP beta was neat, but not something I'd pay money for. (cue jokes about how all MMO launches are paid betas) Blizzard can't go to that well again, anytime soon. How long did D3 take to develop? Depends on how you count. If you count the length of the Rumors thread, it's been 4 years at least. If you count since the launch of D2, it's been more like 12 years. Next time WoW loses a million subs, Blizz will have to come up with some other incentive to stanch the wound. Hutch is right. It was a panic button. I was coming back anyway (after a year off) but I would likely have played for 2 gamecards - ie 4 months, then taken 6-12 months off again, likely resub over the Christmas break.. Since I was going to buy D3 anyway, (and I'm a tool for cool looking mounts) it was a "whatthefuck - why not?" for me. Without the D3 and mount, I'd be wasting my time on BF3 and XBox instead by now. The Beta hasn't been worth the 15 minutes I've spent in it. Starting a Panda there were 4,324,234,564,466,576,456 other newb pandas in the same tiny area, all trying to click on the same starter NPC, so I said "fuck it" and logged off. Trying my other toons, there was no obvious way for me to get my 85s to the new areas, no heroes calls, or NPCs pointing me to the expansion so I just said "fuck it" and logged off. It's actually made me less interested in the expansion. Heart of the Swarm wouldn't be a big enough draw - Mists? I think that would work. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on April 25, 2012, 01:35:35 AM That Glyph list looks like an early April Fool.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on April 25, 2012, 02:51:18 AM Glyph of Arcane Language: Your Arcane Brilliance spell allows you to comprehend your allies' racial languages. I know a bunch of RPers that just had an orgasm. I doubt most of the current WoW population even knows that every race has its own language, let alone how to change the option in the settings. But it's the thought that counts, I guess. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Selby on April 25, 2012, 05:33:10 AM I doubt most of the current WoW population even knows that every race has its own language, let alone how to change the option in the settings. My friends and I used to get threatened with expulsion for speaking exclusively in troll during raids. That was good times.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on April 25, 2012, 11:22:38 AM Pokemon is now live on the beta servers. (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2750-Pet-Battle-System-now-on-Beta-Realms-(Early-Version))
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on April 25, 2012, 12:57:02 PM Glyph of Arcane Language: Your Arcane Brilliance spell allows you to comprehend your allies' racial languages. I know a bunch of RPers that just had an orgasm. I doubt most of the current WoW population even knows that every race has its own language, let alone how to change the option in the settings. But it's the thought that counts, I guess. Hence why I specified "RPers." THEY use the language functionality all the freaking time. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on April 25, 2012, 12:59:52 PM Pokemon is now live on the beta servers. (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2750-Pet-Battle-System-now-on-Beta-Realms-(Early-Version)) It looks really fun. I'm excited to see how this turns out once they've got the UI finished. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on April 25, 2012, 04:48:16 PM Pokemon is now live on the beta servers. (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2750-Pet-Battle-System-now-on-Beta-Realms-(Early-Version)) Tranquil Mechanical Yeti is OP - nerf plzTitle: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on April 26, 2012, 03:58:45 AM Well just as quickly as it went up, the Pet Battles have been disabled. They say they weren't actually ready for them to be playable yet.
Also, I still await my Annual Pass invite, though they also say they resolved all of the 'bounced' invites from the backlogged batch, so maybe any hour now they'll move onto current business :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on April 26, 2012, 04:21:33 AM They need to do another patch here pretty soon anyway. I tried to play this morning, and got a memory-reference ctd error, that would consistently go off after I'd been playing for a couple minutes or so. (I wasn't actually timing it.)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on April 27, 2012, 05:40:16 AM Account-wide achievements are now live in beta. I'm really hoping this applies to all achieves; I worked my ass off for my Red and Purple Proto-Drakes. Would be nice to have them apply to any new characters :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on April 27, 2012, 06:58:18 AM OOh, that's one I hadn't heard about, nice.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on April 27, 2012, 07:15:15 AM Are all achievements account-wide, or just certain ones?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on April 27, 2012, 12:02:41 PM I think all the generic ones are (Ie, all the clear a specific dungeon, explore the world, craft X items, collect X items / pets / etc, get exalted with X faction) type things should be account wide.
No one knows yet if some of the very speific ones will be though, like the ones that reward Mounts for clearing all achieves in a Raid, or the one for maxing out progress in the Argent tournament will be or not. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on April 29, 2012, 05:29:10 PM They've said they want mount rewards from achieves to be account wide.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on April 29, 2012, 05:52:54 PM They've said they want mount rewards from achieves to be account wide. Aye, I read that. My faith is renewed :awesome_for_real: Sounds like anything that's meta-related (achievements that count toward one large achievement) will be account-wide (the Glory of, PvP, Seasonal, etc. stuffs). Which I'm cool with. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on April 29, 2012, 08:11:12 PM Oh thank god, I can stop with this damn children's week bullshit then. I've done it 4 times already.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on April 30, 2012, 07:11:45 PM I'm doing enough Children's week stuff to make sure I pick up all the pets I've missed out on during my many times away at this time of year. It'll be interesting to see if I can get the PVP component done, though.
Pandas is looking to be a real mixed bag. A lot of the general changes I like, such as the meta stuff below, though not the removal of "Have Group, Will Travel", while the class-specific changes to my prot warrior make me feel like I'll be retiring from tanking dungeons for a good period of time and probably just questing to 90 or whatever. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 01, 2012, 03:56:20 AM Bah, tanking these new dungeons is the best time to be a tank, because then you don't have dumb-fuck DPS and healers complaining that you don't have 200k HP and/or putting out 20k DPS :grin:
Unlike right now in Cata, where I basically wish I could stab those people across the net. I mean, how am I supposed to get that 200k HP and 20k DPS if jerks abandon the group within moments of just joining it? :uhrr: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 01, 2012, 04:09:15 AM Easiest way to deal with them is say "Then kick me. I'll requeue and be in another group in a few seconds and you'll still be waiting. Or, you can take a little more time to kill things and actually interrupt and we'll be done in the same amount of time."
I started up on the instances last night on my paladin. Only 141k hps but nobody said one word to me, even when I pulled trash that's normally skipped. (Obsidian shrine, Jaina's trash packs.) Why? Because I'm the goddamn tank. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 01, 2012, 04:11:45 AM Easiest way to deal with them is say "Then kick me. I'll requeue and be in another group in a few seconds and you'll still be waiting. Or, you can take a little more time to kill things and actually interrupt and we'll be done in the same amount of time." I started up on the instances last night on my paladin. Only 141k hps but nobody said one word to me, even when I pulled trash that's normally skipped. (Obsidian shrine, Jaina's trash packs.) Why? Because I'm the goddamn tank. Agreed. As a fresh 85 Pally, I also found that running through the Hyjal/Fireland stuff and Thrall's extreme dating quest line helped get me some stuff to help fluff my numbers a bit :grin: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on May 01, 2012, 04:24:39 AM Meh, it's not the other players I'm worried about. As I geared up, I was pretty much on Merusk's wavelength in the dungeons. I'm just disgusted from a distance as I see them fuck up my warrior. Reliance on a few less hotkeys could be nice, though - I'm already pressing about a dozen different abilities on every trash pack, and it looks like they're making it worse.
I've been running my wife's 85 hunter through the baby heroics, and I have to say that the quality of tanks and heals in my battlegroup seems to have dropped through the floor since I ran our mages through them just a short couple of months ago. It's like they're all the alts of geared fuckwit dps players who have no idea how to heal or maintain aggro, are undergeared, yet think that they can faceroll through heroics without wasting time on pleasantries like CC or so forth. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pennilenko on May 01, 2012, 05:33:31 AM It's like they're all the alts of geared fuckwit dps players who have no idea how to heal or maintain aggro, are undergeared, yet think that they can faceroll through heroics without wasting time on pleasantries like CC or so forth. You just described everybody who plays that is not me..... Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 01, 2012, 05:50:24 AM That's because the ARE the alts of fuckwit DPS at this point. Mains aren't running HOT or any other heroics unless their guild buddy wants to do it in a guild group because there's no need for VPs or gear. How many returning players like myself are there really going to be this late into the expansion?
Expect it to get even worse if you're playing after D3 releases. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 01, 2012, 05:54:01 AM Expect it to get even worse if you're playing after D3 releases. Oh I imagine most of us won't even be here when D3 releases anyways :why_so_serious: Though I may login just to do my Inscription research and whatnot until MoP. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on May 02, 2012, 12:41:39 AM That's because the ARE the alts of fuckwit DPS at this point. Mains aren't running HOT or any other heroics unless their guild buddy wants to do it in a guild group because there's no need for VPs or gear. How many returning players like myself are there really going to be this late into the expansion? Expect it to get even worse if you're playing after D3 releases. Actually, in the HOTs, a good 50% or so of the players are quite decent. I did 2 HoTs before work today and both groups were completely fine. It's the starter heroics that are fucked. It's actually quite common to find returning players in them as well, and more often then not they're the least fuckwitted ones in the group, or even decent humans. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on May 02, 2012, 12:56:39 AM Yep, I've not had any problems in heroics (even ZA/ZG) due to asshattery or extreme incompetence, really. But then, I play a blood DK and pretty much solo some bosses. I stopped running LFD on my dps and healer character (just do LFR), though.
I've also not seen many people at all being jerks to others in LFD party chat since very early Cata (and trollroics). In fact, I've had some interesting/amusing conversations in HOT dungeons, and sometimes the group (of 4 random cross-server strangers) stayed together for 3-4 further dungeons to let the good times roll or something. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on May 02, 2012, 09:35:23 AM Wait. They're really putting in fucking Pandas? Jesus fucking christ. :oh_i_see:
(http://beyondthemarquee.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/homer_jump_the_shark1.gif) The asian thing is cool, but Pandas? I may have to resub just to live this train wreck for a little while. Sorry if I'm reintroducing rants from the past. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rasix on May 02, 2012, 09:37:58 AM Topic is only 9 months old. I can see how you'd overlook it and feel the need for that post.
They're adding monks too. Yah, I know, let that sink in for a bit. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 02, 2012, 09:42:53 AM I heard there might even be a brewmaster class! wtf, yo! :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on May 02, 2012, 09:45:04 AM I've been on a sabbatical from WoW (and other gaming). I am completely stunned that this was the chosen path of action. WoW used to be such a great game.
Oh, and the monks make sense. Sounds like a great class to me. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on May 02, 2012, 09:47:54 AM Well, buckle up. I can't wait to see how you react to the Pokemons :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on May 02, 2012, 09:55:46 AM The people at Blizzard have lost their fucking minds.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on May 02, 2012, 10:04:28 AM The people at Blizzard have lost their fucking minds. This will do nothing but make them more money hats, stupid or not. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on May 02, 2012, 10:41:07 AM You think so? I'm not so sure.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on May 02, 2012, 12:25:08 PM :facepalm:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on May 02, 2012, 12:32:54 PM Did someone accidentally engage the wayback machine?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on May 02, 2012, 12:49:03 PM That was me. Sorry. My incredulity over the incoming Panda expansion got the best of me.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on May 02, 2012, 12:51:16 PM I'm not sure what's so incredible about it. WoW has always done silly better than serious anyway.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on May 02, 2012, 12:53:06 PM Yes, but it's always been silly overlaying a bed of seriousness, not in-your-face blathering my little pony story lines.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on May 02, 2012, 12:55:08 PM I'm sure there will be a bed of "seriousness" under this too. You're making assumptions about the storylines that seem sort of unfounded to me.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on May 02, 2012, 12:56:36 PM It's fucking Pandas. :oh_i_see:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 02, 2012, 12:57:05 PM Yes, there is a bed of their hilariously terrible brand of "serious" under the silly in this expansion too. Go figure.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on May 02, 2012, 01:00:54 PM Yes, but it's always been silly overlaying a bed of seriousness, not in-your-face blathering my little pony story lines. They've ever been serious?Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on May 02, 2012, 01:02:55 PM I'm expecting Kung Fu Panda without Jack Black.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on May 02, 2012, 02:04:02 PM Hey, did I stumble into WoW General from six months ago or something?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on May 02, 2012, 02:09:14 PM I think ghost is trolling because the forum was dead.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on May 02, 2012, 02:30:22 PM Anyone hear of that new show 'Terra Nova' coming out? I bet that's gonna be DOPE yo.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 02, 2012, 02:36:45 PM Pandas are awesome and I continue to be as baffled by "but it's PANDAS" as the refrain as I was 6 months ago.
In other news I'm really hoping it doesn't come out until September so I can play a bunch of Diablo this summer rather than getting in to another xpac. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 02, 2012, 02:50:19 PM Quote from: ghost QQQQQQ I DON'T WANT PANDA PEOPLE, I'D RATHER HAVE GOAT-EPOPLE, AND WOLF-PEOPLE AND COW PEOPLE! QQQQQQQ! WHY CAN'T BLIZZARD BE SERIOUS?! QQQQQQQ I WANT MY SEROUS AWARD WINNING LORE WITH COW PEOPLE QQQQ! In other words, shut the frack up. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on May 02, 2012, 03:13:48 PM I'm expecting Kung Fu Panda without Jack Black. They're jumping the shark for sure. Talking Pandas are way dumber than talking cows or wolves. I'm just killing time until ME3 and SWTOR come out anyway, then I'm done with WoW.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on May 02, 2012, 04:34:19 PM That is quite possibly the funniest* post you've made here. Congratulations! :awesome_for_real:
*Intentionally funny, I mean. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Redgiant on May 02, 2012, 04:41:32 PM Well, it was used as the April Fool's joke, which by definition is farfetched silly shit that normally (whatever is normal at the time) makes everyone think "Whew, it's only a joke".
And now ... it's real. For me, WoW has always risen or fallen by its Barrens chat index. I can't imagine this doing anything to raise that score. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 02, 2012, 04:44:05 PM *sigh* Go read the start of the thread, it's not even worth rebutting.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on May 02, 2012, 04:54:50 PM Pandas are awesome and I continue to be as baffled by "but it's PANDAS" as the refrain as I was 6 months ago. In other news I'm really hoping it doesn't come out until September so I can play a bunch of Diablo this summer rather than getting in to another xpac. Do you have a sweet Panda sticker on your car? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on May 02, 2012, 04:55:45 PM Do you have a sweet Panda sticker on your car? Do you have a sweet Orc sticker on your time machine? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on May 02, 2012, 05:01:56 PM Orcs are cool. I'd love to have an Orc sticker. And a time machine.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 02, 2012, 05:16:10 PM Oh noh, my manliness is being dissed. Whatever will I do?! None of the girls will go to the prom with me and nobody will think I'm cool!
Can we drop the high school-grade bullshit now? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 02, 2012, 05:44:28 PM I'd say the last couple pages would be den worthy, but that's just me :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on May 02, 2012, 07:52:28 PM Oh noh, my manliness is being dissed. Whatever will I do?! None of the girls will go to the prom with me and nobody will think I'm cool! Can we drop the high school-grade bullshit now? Chill out, man. I'm just kidding around with you. :awesome_for_real: I'd say the last couple pages would be den worthy, but that's just me :why_so_serious: Yes, god forbid anyone would: A. think something Blizzard is doing is fucking nuts and voice said opinion, B. go against popular opinion, and C. have fun with a conversation. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on May 02, 2012, 07:54:51 PM Yes, there is a bed of their hilariously terrible brand of "serious" under the silly in this expansion too. Go figure. Yes, this expansion gives us Pandas, Pokemon and War Crimes. :thumbs_up: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on May 02, 2012, 07:59:45 PM Yep, I've not had any problems in heroics (even ZA/ZG) due to asshattery or extreme incompetence, really. But then, I play a blood DK and pretty much solo some bosses. I stopped running LFD on my dps and healer character (just do LFR), though. I've also not seen many people at all being jerks to others in LFD party chat since very early Cata (and trollroics). In fact, I've had some interesting/amusing conversations in HOT dungeons, and sometimes the group (of 4 random cross-server strangers) stayed together for 3-4 further dungeons to let the good times roll or something. There's still a fair whack of douches in the HoT heroics, but not so many as to make the experience horribad. As a tank I tell them to STFU or FO, and as a DPS I just mutely blow things up. The ZA/ZG heroics were class-H Horrible, mostly because they're long, tedious and no-one seem to know what to do in them or where to go (including myself, to be quite honest). They're a big part of why I avoided doing non-HoT heroics on my warrior once I hit HoT level, even though I wanted the STA/tanking trinket from Stonecore. That and DPS DKs etc saying that they wanted the trinket as well. :uhrr: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ashamanchill on May 02, 2012, 09:08:13 PM Coming home to this thread after work today is almost as good as coming home to the tipping thread in politics yesterday. Almost.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ratman_tf on May 02, 2012, 10:15:34 PM Yes, but it's always been silly overlaying a bed of seriousness, not in-your-face blathering my little pony story lines. They've ever been serious?It was funny when Bilzzard actually had a sense of humor. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 03, 2012, 05:14:45 AM The WoW login music, MoP edition (Heart of Pandaria), is out. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7bLwzMmGC6w)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on May 03, 2012, 05:18:04 AM Yes, but it's always been silly overlaying a bed of seriousness, not in-your-face blathering my little pony story lines. They've ever been serious?It was funny when Bilzzard actually had a sense of humor. I find their subtle humor to be much better. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on May 03, 2012, 06:20:16 AM The WoW login music, MoP edition (Heart of Pandaria), is out. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7bLwzMmGC6w) Is the login screen out yet? Is it infested with yet another goddamned login dragonEdit: dat variation on the original music at 3:27. Too much nostalgia. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 03, 2012, 01:55:27 PM Yes, but it's always been silly overlaying a bed of seriousness, not in-your-face blathering my little pony story lines. They've ever been serious?It was funny when Bilzzard actually had a sense of humor. I find their subtle humor to be much better. Are we ... are we talking about the same Blizzard? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: tmp on May 03, 2012, 03:19:32 PM Are we ... are we talking about the same Blizzard? It appears to be about Blizzard from alternate universe where MLP story lines are "in-your-face blathering".Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 04, 2012, 01:58:41 AM No email was sent to me, but upon logging into my Bnet account this morning, the MoP beta was there. I signed up after the mid-April date, so if you're like me in being a last-minute annual pass sign-up, check your shit :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 04, 2012, 04:57:07 AM Account-wide mounts are live in beta.
Pics of a Hunter able to use his alt DK and Warlock class mountsz (http://imgur.com/a/ISwmC) :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 04, 2012, 05:12:55 AM Sweeeeet.
Now the next question is, is it total account or per-sever only. I may have to transfer characters around again. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on May 04, 2012, 08:08:00 AM Account-wide mounts are live in beta. That's actually pretty cool. Though I can't feel special for getting a green proto-drake on my second egg...Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on May 04, 2012, 11:26:09 AM Account-wide mounts are live in beta. That's actually pretty cool. Though I can't feel special for getting a green proto-drake on my second egg...With love.....fuck you. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on May 04, 2012, 11:48:01 AM No offense taken. I got a second one on another character before Nevermore got any. And I was at least half a year behind. I got lots of 'love' from that, too. ;D
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on May 04, 2012, 12:12:44 PM No offense taken. I got a second one on another character before Nevermore got any. And I was at least half a year behind. I got lots of 'love' from that, too. ;D :tantrum: :angryfist: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 04, 2012, 12:14:33 PM 1st egg 1st character. Then the 3rd egg and then the 7th. Still never got the pet, though, and finally just bought the damn thing.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on May 04, 2012, 12:26:15 PM That's from one of the daily quests in sholazar, right? Eff dailies. (still needs to be said :awesome_for_real:)
Related: I'm at ~30 LFD bear runs so far... have yet to win the roll. /sadface Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on May 04, 2012, 12:28:38 PM Not precisely - you do dailies to raise the faction to a certain point, after that you just buy an egg from the vendor every X days.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on May 04, 2012, 12:31:29 PM Tomayto tomahto. (actually... how many times do you need to do the dailies to max out your rep? Not that I'd ever do that, of course :why_so_serious:)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on May 04, 2012, 12:33:23 PM I think you need to get to Revered, and the lead-in quests will leave you at Honored? So not a whole lot of times.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 04, 2012, 12:34:02 PM I think you need to get to Revered, and the lead-in quests will leave you at Honored? So not a whole lot of times. This. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 04, 2012, 12:56:27 PM I think it was about 3 days of running them. I do them for cash and since they upped the limit to 25 vs 10 I don't feel so "OMGMUSTDOTHEMALL" about dailies. 25 is a fucking lot of quests to do everyday. Run a few a day for a week and you'll be there.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 04, 2012, 01:21:39 PM I mostly do dailies as a "I feel like playing my character, but I do not feel like doing a dungeon" thing, rather than a ... daily thing. Dailies aren't so bad for that.
And yeah, I don't think it took many days to hit revered, but then again, I was doing that faction on my cheating human hax DK, so my memory may be warped. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on May 04, 2012, 04:27:49 PM Hm, I didn't realise they were doing mounts per account as well as pets. That makes some things a bit easier, though I won't be buying any more vendor-mammoths in that case....
edit - I guess this means I'll have to run a Draenei Pally up to level 40 as well as any other race/class who get unique mounts. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on May 04, 2012, 05:19:54 PM Hm, I didn't realise they were doing mounts per account as well as pets. That makes some things a bit easier, though I won't be buying any more vendor-mammoths in that case.... edit - I guess this means I'll have to run a Draenei Pally up to level 40 as well as any other race/class who get unique mounts. They're giving class specific mounts to everyone? Really? Somehow I doubt that... EDIT: Read last page. OMG, fuck. Now I need a goddamned Draenai Paladin. WTF Blizzard. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 04, 2012, 05:25:42 PM Came home after letting the beta client download while at work. Initial impressions after a couple hours in on a fresh Blood Elf Monk
- I feel more like a ninja assassin than I did playing a Rogue. - Roll = :heart: - Dinged 10 and went Brewmaster. The - Monk animations are decent. They change depending on the weapon you have equipped, though most of the stuff is just jabs and punches thus far. - Holding a staff gives me 40% Haste?! :why_so_serious: Regarding the mounts/pet stuffs, I can confirm it all now. Copied over my main Wrath/Cata DK who had all my achieves, mounts, pets, reputations, etc.. Logged back into my BE Monk, and lo, there beheld my Purple Proto Drake, DK Bone Chicken, Fishing Turtle, and everything else :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on May 04, 2012, 06:32:47 PM I have serious doubts that the mounts thing will go live without the class restrictions reinstated.
Pandas are still fucking stupid, since they're the second derpiest animal ever (behind the manatee). But I can cope as long as they don't give them annoying as fuck idle animation noises. They should stop adding daily quest rep grinds. It's fucking stupid to make people retread the same five quests over and over again. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 05, 2012, 10:57:40 AM Seriously, I'm gonna start calling the Brewmaster's Stagger his Swagger instead. It just sounds cooler. :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 06, 2012, 05:07:03 PM Blood Elf Monk progress continues; tanked the revamped Ragefire Chasm this morning. The abilities I have at my disposal thus far are interesting twists on current stuffs:
Jab: Rogue Sinister Strike. Generates Tiger Palm: Warrior Heroic Strike. Uses 1 Chi. Twist: If the target has more than 50% health, does 50% more damage. Roll: Mage Blink. Doesn't use energy or chi, but has a 20 second cooldown, and has two internal charges. This'll be great for those encounters where you need to get out of the fire. Blackout Kick: (Peter Griffin: "Roadhouse." :drill: Another direct damage attack that uses 2 Chi. If the target is below 50% health, puts a 6 second DoT on the target. Dizzying Haze: A target-able AoE that tosses a keg of beer. What's interesting is that even after you cast it, the targeting reticle doesn't go away; you can toss as many kegs at a target-able area as long as you have the energy. Does a high yield threat and puts the DZ debuff on everything. That effect causes the targets to have a 3% chance to hit themselves with their own attack due to drunken stupor. I have yet to see the debuff actually work on a boss. HUGE SURPRISE :why_so_serious: Keg Smash: Warrior's Cleave/DK Heart Strike, and also has the Warrior's Demoralizing Shout baked in as well. Additionally puts Dizzying Haze on the primary target. Clash: If they merged the Warrior/Druid Charge and DK Death Grip together, this would be the result. You charge at a target, and it forces the target to charge at you. When you meet in the middle, the target and everything in melee range gets stunned. Provoke: Basic tank taunt, but the target gets a 50% speed boost so they get to you quicker. Breath of Fire: Warlock Shadowflame, though the DoT part only kicks in if the target is suffering from Dizzying Haze. Resuscitate: Standard healer non-combat rez. Monk twist: It casts 50% faster if casted at melee range. :awesome_for_real: Didn't have much trouble being able to keep aggro and have fun in the process. The revamped Ragefire is neat; they replaced all of the troggs with the Firelands hellhounds, and Magmaw made his way into the big chasm area for a boss fight. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lt.Dan on May 06, 2012, 07:48:30 PM So what you're saying is that every monk ability is like another ability, only better... :uhrr:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 06, 2012, 07:55:28 PM Essentially, yes. Behold the new hero class :why_so_serious:
Also, :roflcopter: @riding around on my Ice Mammoth with my lvl 20 Monk :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 08, 2012, 05:49:51 AM Ok, so the transport orb from Silvermoon to the Undercity is broken on beta, and I didn't feel like trying to plow my Monk through the Plaguelands last night, so I copied over my Paladin from live to see what's what on his changes.
- Auras are gone. Ret, Devo, Conc, Resist, Mount Speed, all gone. So there's that :oh_i_see: - Blessing of Might now buffs Mastery by a metric ton. Hello free Block % :grin: - Blessing of Kings no longer buffs Stamina, so Might is my goto Blessing now for tanking. Besides all that, everything plays pretty much as I've been playing on live. I can't speak for other classes, but for Paladin, you can't really go wrong with any of the choices. Some choices favor one spec in-particular verses others, esp. if the talent only effects a spell that's unique to, say, Holy Paladins, but I like the choices overall. For glyphs, the minor ones are just for lulz, while the majors either change the mechanic of a spell (i.e. Consecrate glyph allows me to target AoE Con. instead of it being a PBAoE :awesome_for_real:) or it does an equivalent exchange with a spell (i.e. Inquisition glyph reduces the damage bonus by 10%, but it now lasts 100% longer) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 08, 2012, 06:58:15 AM Yeah, I did the same thing with my Pally over the weekend but haven't tried actually playing yet. The no Aura thing really threw me for a loop at first, but since there's no reason to swap auras now it makes more sense.
I loved the cosmetic changes of minor glyphs. I took the double-wing, seal of blood and judgement minors just to play around with. I'm still missing some major glyphs, though, so I couldn't try all the big ones. On the talents, some seem like a "less bad" rather than a "more useful" glyph as a prot pally. For example, the healing line. Selfless Healer was the only one that made sense to me as Prot. I can set that as a focus and just smack it every 3rd judgement. The others require more spellpower or focus on things other than my main job. Repentance vs Fist of Justice was a hard choice. The judgement slow seems nnice but the others would be far more useful, particularly fist which helps on the whole "Fucking spellcaster!" problem I've always had as a pally tank. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 08, 2012, 07:23:45 AM If you jump into a MoP dungeon, there's a rather large Tauren NPC that'll sell you all of your class Glyphs.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 08, 2012, 10:29:50 AM My plan is to roll a Space Goat Monk on launch (and why the hell not? :drill:). To that end, I rolled a Pandaren just to see the starter zone and run the quests. Do not click spoiler if you don't want to spoil your Pandaren starting experience.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on May 08, 2012, 11:55:04 AM Fuck them for making me roll new classes up to have to get these class mounts for my main :heartbreak:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 08, 2012, 12:24:04 PM GC and the official (at least, as of 5/8/12) word on Account achievements.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/5367158/Bringing_Achievements_to_the_Account_Level-5_8_2012 Quote tl;dr: - While you only earn achievement points once, you will still see the achievement pop-up notification if you earn it again on a second character. - Most achievement criteria are not account-wide. That is, if you explore Thousand Needles, you'll need to explore it all on one character to get the associated exploration achievement. - Meta achievements like What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been are account-wide, meaning you can finish Flame Warden on one character and Noble Gardener on another. - Faction-specific pets, mounts, and titles will not work across faction -- that is, no Alliance mounts for Horde characters. - The goal is to share rewards across the entire account that are granted from achievements. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 08, 2012, 01:50:14 PM Quote - Meta achievements like What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been are account-wide, meaning you can finish Flame Warden on one character and Noble Gardener on another. That is a really good decision, if you ask me. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on May 08, 2012, 02:02:26 PM Yeah, seems the way it will work is that:
- Meta Achievements (IE, An Achievement that requires a group of other achievements) can be completed piecemeal by any character on your account. For example, if Achievement X requires sub achievement A B and C, then one character can do A and B, and another one can do C, and your entire account gets credit. By the wording, this seems to sound something like not only could a you complete different holiday achieves on different toons (Halloween on one, Christmas on another, etc) to get the Long Strange Trip, but you might be able to do individual parts of a specific holiday achieve on different toons also (like have one toon use their brewfest tokens to get the "full brewfest suit and /dance while drunk" achieve, while another toon uses the tokens for the Brew of the Month Club membership achieve). Hard to say how it works with double layered nested achievements. Only thing that does not share are Individual Achievement Criteria (Ie, if you want the one for killing all rare world mobs in Northrend, you will have to hunt them down on one character), or if you have to kill all bosses in a raid for an achieve, they will all have to be done on one character. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on May 08, 2012, 02:04:00 PM What about things like minipets/mounts, do they get added into one account-wide pool?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on May 08, 2012, 02:06:33 PM Seems like it. Once you unlock an achieve with a reward (Mount, pet, title, etc) the entire account gets it (barring faction restrictions). They were talking about level restricting some of them (so a level 2 character would have to level to 80 before they could wear any level 80 specific raid titles and whatnot), but no word on level restricting mounts in the writeup.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on May 08, 2012, 02:08:58 PM That would seem much better than the alternative of all the crap spread out over one account. So much of the achievement system is really only viable on a solo toon.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on May 08, 2012, 02:12:59 PM Seems like it. Once you unlock an achieve with a reward (Mount, pet, title, etc) the entire account gets it (barring faction restrictions). They were talking about level restricting some of them (so a level 2 character would have to level to 80 before they could wear any level 80 specific raid titles and whatnot), but no word on level restricting mounts in the writeup. Yeah, that's good stuff... I was more interested about getting mounts and pets to count for the 'x mounts' and 'x pets' achievements, though. If you have 9 pets on char A and 7 pets on char B [4 of which char A also has], do you get the 10 pets achievement for your account?Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on May 08, 2012, 02:17:55 PM Yeah, that's good stuff... I was more interested about getting mounts and pets to count for the 'x mounts' and 'x pets' achievements, though. If you have 9 pets on char A and 7 pets on char B [4 of which char A also has], do you get the 10 pets achievement for your account? You should, since each character will own any pets that the other also owns. The intention they always announced was for pets at the least to be account-wide, for the pet battle feature. Mounts were less certain but recently were added in a beta patch. Currently in beta the mounts from other characters are in your spell book, just like ones that character obtained on their own. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 08, 2012, 02:21:27 PM What about things like minipets/mounts, do they get added into one account-wide pool? They already are in the beta, as linked previously where the hunter was riding DK and Warlock mounts. When I go to my companion & mount button (It's no longer in the spell book, it's down near the character stats button) I see all the pets & mounts all my beta characters have. When it's not bugged-out and deleting them all so I have no rides or companions, that is. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on May 08, 2012, 02:30:01 PM Seems like it. Once you unlock an achieve with a reward (Mount, pet, title, etc) the entire account gets it (barring faction restrictions). They were talking about level restricting some of them (so a level 2 character would have to level to 80 before they could wear any level 80 specific raid titles and whatnot), but no word on level restricting mounts in the writeup. Yeah, that's good stuff... I was more interested about getting mounts and pets to count for the 'x mounts' and 'x pets' achievements, though. If you have 9 pets on char A and 7 pets on char B [4 of which char A also has], do you get the 10 pets achievement for your account?They mentioned however that some achieves (like get X number of Honorable Kills / complete X number of daily quests) would actually use your account sum total in working those out (so you can PvP on ALL toons now, and the kills count globally). I imagine the same will work for any Collect X mounts / hats / whatever achieves. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 08, 2012, 03:02:50 PM The reason the "collect x pets" thing is gone is because you can now have multiple copies of any given pet in your collection, and level/skill them up individually.
So, yeah, I plan on having an entire team of Mini Diablos :drill: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 08, 2012, 04:03:48 PM Wait, what?
You mean multiple pets on your team, not in your collection, right? All my Diablo Stones, etc say "Already Known" with no option to re-learn them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 08, 2012, 04:10:38 PM Wait, what? You mean multiple pets on your team, not in your collection, right? All my Diablo Stones, etc say "Already Known" with no option to re-learn them. /shrug. Maybe it's a bug then. From what I've seen thus far, the mounts and pets from my characters that I copied over and created have shared the same mount/pet collection. This resulted in multiple copied of my Collector Edition pets showing up in the list. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 08, 2012, 04:16:01 PM Yeah, that's a bug. There's all kinds of bugginess with the system right now, as mentioned previously. Hell, even when they aren't wiped some of my characters have companions they shouldn't and are missing ones they should. (My Ghostly Skull, for example, is missing on all characters. But I picked-up a CCG pet I shouldn't have.)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on May 08, 2012, 04:18:54 PM My plan is to roll a Space Goat Monk on launch (and why the hell not? :drill:). To that end, I rolled a Pandaren just to see the starter zone and run the quests. Do not click spoiler if you don't want to spoil your Pandaren starting experience. You missed the part where you go to join the Alliance and King Slab RockfistTitle: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on May 08, 2012, 04:24:12 PM You missed the part where you go to join the Alliance and King Slab Rockfist As if leaving the new content and going back to Stormwind/old-world content wasn't enough of a come down, this scene sucked. The king starts rambling on about how you can't be friends with horde Pandas and that you'll be expected to kill them. Your Panda faction leader just says "oh okay" like it was nothing. Maybe the transition will work once they have the video in, but it's pretty awful right now. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 08, 2012, 04:29:22 PM Ah well, I can still get a team of CE pets together :drill:
You missed the part where you go to join the Alliance and King Slab Rockfist They really did do a nice polish job on the Pandaren models. Reminds me of Pixar/DreamWorks style. I mean, look at this video Oxhorn put together. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=luTb_ZnMRHE) Besides another nice piece by Ox, it shows some nice examples of the Pandaren in action...the social emotes, combat, etc. Would :heart: for them to go back and retouch the other races in such a way, but I doubt it'll happen for a while. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 08, 2012, 04:35:08 PM Combing through today's beta notes. For the Hunter's out there, it took 6+ years and four expansions, but they finally fucking did it. (http://mop.wowhead.com/spell=125050)
:heart: :drill: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on May 08, 2012, 04:43:13 PM Combing through today's beta notes. For the Hunter's out there, it took 6+ years and four expansions, but they finally fucking did it. (http://mop.wowhead.com/spell=125050) :yahoo::heart: :drill: I hope that performs an AoE loot :yahoo: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 08, 2012, 08:20:37 PM Pandaren /dances are out. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zpCKrvZ_NW0)
Males get LMFAO's "Party Rock" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ6zr6kCPj8&ob=av2n) :drill: Females get Caramell's "Caramelldansen" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A67ZkAd1wmI) :drillf: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on May 08, 2012, 08:42:56 PM Never would have known about the female one. Is that obscure? It seems obscure.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on May 08, 2012, 09:41:19 PM Never would have known about the female one. Is that obscure? It seems obscure. Semi popular meme circa 2006 or soTitle: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on May 09, 2012, 01:02:51 AM Combing through today's beta notes. For the Hunter's out there, it took 6+ years and four expansions, but they finally fucking did it. (http://mop.wowhead.com/spell=125050) :heart: :drill: LOL - got Torchlight much? Now all they need is to be able to send the pet back to the city to sell trash loot/play the AH for you and Hunters will be godlike (and Warlocks and DKs will want it for their pets) :D Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on May 09, 2012, 02:57:49 AM Combing through today's beta notes. For the Hunter's out there, it took 6+ years and four expansions, but they finally fucking did it. (http://mop.wowhead.com/spell=125050) :heart: :drill: Call me back when we have a pet bar that's bigger than a fleas kneecap. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on May 09, 2012, 04:01:02 AM Never would have known about the female one. Is that obscure? It seems obscure. It's anime nerd shit. Any game/movie/etc popular enough to get major weeaboo notice tends to get a carmelldansen edit.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 09, 2012, 04:44:41 PM I don't care if it's some weeaboo meme shit, the female pandaren dance is totally cute.
I find how expressive their faces are (like the goblins) fascinating. I would seriously kill to get that sort of detail on the rest of the races. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on May 09, 2012, 05:29:06 PM They did revamp the skeletons for all the Monk stuff so there's hope.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 09, 2012, 05:45:40 PM Well, more like just added Monk-unique animations for the current models, but yeah. The Blood Elf Monk animations are alright, but they seem a bit unnatural.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on May 10, 2012, 12:44:43 PM Well that, plus they've already said they're working on a model revamp.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on May 10, 2012, 02:12:35 PM Some pretty interesting technology at work here:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/5393667/Cross-Realm_Zones_Coming_to_Beta-5_10_2012 Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 10, 2012, 02:16:35 PM Some pretty interesting technology at work here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/5393667/Cross-Realm_Zones_Coming_to_Beta-5_10_2012 Damn, was in the middle of posting that and got distracted while cooking :why_so_serious: Anywho, it sounds like an improvement to the cross-zoning tech DAoC had, which is a good thing. Although since you can essentially solo everything in the world all the way up to Wrath (they kept the group quests for those zones that have them), it seems more of a novelty thing at this point. Post edit: I'm not thrilled with the shared resource node thing; this will impact the market in weird ways. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 10, 2012, 02:28:55 PM So, the 'nifty features' added in to WoW over the years always make me curious about their applications to Titan - assuming that project doesn't die.
What I gather from this is that they're testing their ability to link resources for one zone across multiple servers. The final impact of that? Removal of server cluster walls. In essence, I'd say what we're seeing is that for Titan they're trying not to have realms but one world like EVE that load-balances itself. About damn time. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on May 10, 2012, 02:42:49 PM Interesting thing mentioned with the last Q&A:
Quote Q. What about zones that are already overpopulated, like new race starting zones? With this technology, we can also flag zones to allow for more than one copy of that zone per realm. Players on that realm will be split among those copies in order to alleviate problems due to overpopulation. Players won’t normally see or interact with those on a different instance of their zone, although joining a party will relocate all party members to a single instance of that zone. Hopefully it's a little more transparent than phasing is now, but I'm constantly impressed with what Blizzard can do to a game that's going on eight years running. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on May 10, 2012, 02:45:05 PM What I gather from this is that they're testing their ability to link resources for one zone across multiple servers. The final impact of that? Removal of server cluster walls. Something like you have a home server, but you can play with friends whenever. Why hadn't anyone thought of this?Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on May 10, 2012, 03:20:01 PM Something like you have a home server, but you can play with friends whenever. Why hadn't anyone thought of this? I think the idea is not to even have a home server: just instances of zones that everyone shares, which happen to be the same if you are grouped with friends. I think this is how DCUO currently works, and it's definitely where I hope things are heading. The work they did on battletags hints that it might be the plan for Titan. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on May 10, 2012, 03:29:47 PM You still have a home server in the sense of an Auction House and guilds doing current raid content.
Everything else in the game is basically shared at this point. Which is a good thing, anything that breaks down barriers to playing together is positive. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on May 10, 2012, 04:07:08 PM Interesting thing mentioned with the last Q&A: Quote Q. What about zones that are already overpopulated, like new race starting zones? With this technology, we can also flag zones to allow for more than one copy of that zone per realm. Players on that realm will be split among those copies in order to alleviate problems due to overpopulation. Players won’t normally see or interact with those on a different instance of their zone, although joining a party will relocate all party members to a single instance of that zone. Hopefully it's a little more transparent than phasing is now, but I'm constantly impressed with what Blizzard can do to a game that's going on eight years running. This particular part CoX has had since the beginning, although CoX has divided zones rather than the mostly seamless zones that WoW has. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 10, 2012, 04:19:12 PM Although since you can essentially solo everything in the world all the way up to Wrath (they kept the group quests for those zones that have them), it seems more of a novelty thing at this point. Post edit: I'm not thrilled with the shared resource node thing; this will impact the market in weird ways. Well, seems I'm not the only one that struck this same nerve. Quote Q: I really don't see any reason to group with others when everything is so easy to do at the lower levels. All these other people will be doing is killing my mobs and taking my resources. The game is specifically designed with variable respawns, and huge influxes of players on launches. Having very few people in a zone is actually not what the game is supposed to be. Well, fuck you then Blizz. Bring back those awesome 3-5 man outdoor group quests if your intent is for us to run into each other then. Also, I still say the resource sharing thing is going to skew server economies, and not in good ways. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on May 10, 2012, 04:48:13 PM The current implementation sounds like a bit of a clunky workaround of WoW's basic game design.
Are they really going to accomplish this without loading screens between adjacent zones? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 10, 2012, 05:44:37 PM The current implementation sounds like a bit of a clunky workaround of WoW's basic game design. Are they really going to accomplish this without loading screens between adjacent zones? I guess I should have pasted the other addendum FAQ: Quote Q: Will be have to zone to every zone from now on then? No, it's as seamless as it is today. So, yeah, we'll be seeing a lot of disappearing/reappearing people. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Selby on May 10, 2012, 07:48:05 PM Also, I still say the resource sharing thing is going to skew server economies, and not in good ways. Yeah, farming nodes on one server and visit your friends in another zone to share the loot...Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on May 10, 2012, 08:53:42 PM Honestly, I really don't think level-up materials being shared across servers is going to matter at all.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on May 10, 2012, 11:53:13 PM Something like you have a home server, but you can play with friends whenever. Why hadn't anyone thought of this? I remember a certain HRose Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on May 11, 2012, 12:00:39 AM Screw cross-stealing of nodes - rare-spawn hunter pets could be a nightmare
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on May 11, 2012, 12:43:24 AM Honestly, I really don't think level-up materials being shared across servers is going to matter at all. It won't. You'll have more people in the zone, but as I recall the spawn rates on mineral nodes are already variable. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on May 11, 2012, 08:47:28 AM I remember a certain HRose I'm also poking at GW2 doing something similar (and other games starting to do various cross-realm things), and how I floated the idea of a home instance, but having the freedom to move about so you are never restricted from playing with anyone else. This is a good step in that direction.(Now I do like the idea of a single server, but that only works in a vast wide-open game. Preferably one without levels, or a shallow curve. In a level-based game with a large population, some sort of instancing is going to be required. CoX would have been a perfect example had there been only one server.) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on May 12, 2012, 06:03:47 AM It's also a great way to give the benefits of server merges without the "OMG the sky is falling!" of actual server merges.
Also: (http://i.imgur.com/gK8IZ.jpg) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on May 13, 2012, 05:31:36 PM Woah. Do want.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 13, 2012, 05:41:43 PM Aye, tis the NPC Black Market, where NPC vendors will randomly auction off rare items and effects, some of which was taken out of the game long ago.
Now if we could just get commission/buy orders done... Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 13, 2012, 07:22:26 PM I unshelfed my once-main DK over the weekend and started researching the MoP changes. Overall, GC's comments on them have been accurate; there really isn't any 'HUGE' changes like some other classes are getting, which is fine by me. If anything, I'm looking forward to having more tanking/mitigation options available to me via the talent tiers.
- Rolling Blood; replaces the usage of Pestilence on my bar. Now I can spread diseases 'and' do aggroing damage! - AMZ; always my favorite when Unholy tanks walked the grounds of Azeroth. This and AMS will do wonders for those magic fights. - Death's Advance; another Unholy talent that'll help me tons. Also means I don't have to invest in movement-boosting enchants. - Conversion; At least, unless they make Death Siphon more attractable, if at all. Until then, hello feral regen for DKs :awesome_for_real: - Runic Corruption; as I do Unholy DPS for my off-spec, I'm familiar with both R. Empower and R. Corrupt. I much prefer the latter in my gameplay, and I'm sure this will occur here too with others. - Gorefiend's Grasp; the final tier is all new abilities. For tanking, I see GG as the best choice for me. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on May 14, 2012, 02:43:06 AM Screw cross-stealing of nodes - rare-spawn hunter pets could be a nightmare And on a totally unrelated note, I just tamed Terrorpene, Ankha, and Ban'thalos all within 5 minutes of eachother about 10 minutes ago :PSadly, I fucked up an attempt to tame Skitterflame, and some DK killed Karkin while I was working out a strategy to tame it an hour or so later. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 14, 2012, 03:34:17 AM This all sounds interesting and I'd love to play the beta sometime but it keeps wiping all of my mounts so I can't actually get anywhere. :awesome_for_real:
Seems like they should fix that little bug first. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on May 14, 2012, 05:11:22 PM Well, fuck you then Blizz. Bring back those awesome 3-5 man outdoor group quests if your intent is for us to run into each other then. Also, I still say the resource sharing thing is going to skew server economies, and not in good ways. This seems consistent with their stated desire to get "more people out and about in the world" and the removal of the "Have Group, Will Travel" guild perk. Of course, the overdone phasing in Cata served only to make the world seem even emptier than it actually is... Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on May 19, 2012, 03:41:54 AM http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2779-Mists-of-Pandaria-Beta-Build-15699
Quote Glyph of Rune Strike was renamed Glyph of Army of the Dead. The ghouls summoned by your Army of the Dead no longer taunt their target. I AM THE GOD OF DEATH!Glyph of Scourge Strike was renamed Glyph of Foul Menagerie. Causes your Army of the Dead spell to summon an assortment of undead minions. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 19, 2012, 06:40:29 AM http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2779-Mists-of-Pandaria-Beta-Build-15699 Quote Glyph of Rune Strike was renamed Glyph of Army of the Dead. The ghouls summoned by your Army of the Dead no longer taunt their target. I AM THE GOD OF DEATH!Glyph of Scourge Strike was renamed Glyph of Foul Menagerie. Causes your Army of the Dead spell to summon an assortment of undead minions. :drill: I really like those changes. The AotD glyph makes it a reliable cooldown for every 5-man, not just the ones where the mechanics would let you get away with it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on May 19, 2012, 04:37:18 PM Thank god for the AotD glyph. I hate tanking a 5man boss only to have some retard pop AotD straight off the bat, leading to rage starvation as a warrior or a significant drop in my DPS as vengeance isn't activating. TBH, I wish AotD had never been built into the DK's arsenal.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on May 24, 2012, 07:31:45 AM New login screen is up. (http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2012/may/moplogin.jpg) It's okay, I would have preferred more green.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 24, 2012, 07:39:53 AM As long as I don't have to stare at Deathwing's ugly mug anymore, I'm happy. It's clean, it's a throwback to the Dark Portal, I approve. :)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on May 24, 2012, 11:32:37 AM http://www.disargeria.net/2012/05/23/zen-flight/
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 25, 2012, 12:04:10 PM Daily quest cap of 25 is being axed with MoP.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on May 25, 2012, 04:13:55 PM So it's all you can eat now?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on May 25, 2012, 04:18:59 PM There's supposed to be hundreds of different daily quests for MoP now, so you can just cherry pick which ever ones you enjoy.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on May 25, 2012, 07:52:45 PM It's a nice change just from a perspective of it not hurting you in your regular progress if you want to go back and raise some low level faction that works via dailies, too.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 25, 2012, 07:57:52 PM MoP is shaping up to be the expansion that changes things so drastically that I will not be able to pick up WoW again. That's not necessarily bad, but christ my level 85 characters are nigh incomprehensible to me now. I could always roll with the changes previously, but MoP goes much further than that.
It's sort of funny, because I actually approve of the bulk of the changes (I like the new talent system, for example), but I am apparently too old and set in my ways to relearn, say, the warrior utterly. I have some sort of mental block that goes NO I REFUSE TO RELEARN SOMETHING I ALREADY KNEW HOW TO DO WELL and I go play something else. :P Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on May 25, 2012, 08:29:17 PM Clearly you'll just have to reroll all your classes as Pandas.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 25, 2012, 08:39:21 PM Pandas can't be paladins. :heartbreak:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on May 25, 2012, 09:08:26 PM You had to break that habit sooner or later!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 26, 2012, 12:22:37 AM NEVER
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on May 26, 2012, 01:12:19 AM ...and I go play something else. :P Where you'll have to...learn to play a class from scratch anyway? :oh_i_see:Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 26, 2012, 01:24:15 AM Yep! It doesn't bug me to learn a new class in a new game. But a class I've been playing for years, but I took a break from for a while? Before with WoW, it was more like riding a bike (and to be fair, it looks like holy paladins are still going to be like riding a bike ... but fuck soloing as one of those, and no mistake, I would be mostly soloing). Now it's like some sort of alien moon bike that I can sort of, if I squint, see that it is, indeed, a bike, but I'm sort of not sure how to ride it. I'd rather just walk at that point.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on May 26, 2012, 03:37:00 AM I have to say, I love my warrior right now, but I agree with you. The MoP changes make me feel like dropping that character when it comes out. Which is fucked, since I like my fucking warrior (the way it is), so they'll just be removing one more tank from the LFD queue.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on May 26, 2012, 09:04:00 AM We'll have an army of adorable monk tanks to replace you HAHAHAAHAHAH!
I still hate pandas. Priests didn't seem to change too much so I can adapt. I don't like most of the changes though, haven't decided if it's just a hatred of change or if it's genuine, I'll figure that out at launch I guess. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 26, 2012, 02:07:44 PM That IS the alternative for me, just playing a monk. Since it's a new class, I have no pre-existing mental blocks about NO THIS IS HOW WE HAVE ALWAYS DONE IT WHY IS IT DIFFERENT for that class.
Thinking about it, for some classes it really already happened. I barely touched my druid in Cataclysm because the healing changes for THAT class made me sad. Although that was more of a protest that they were made more like other healers than anything, I guess. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on May 26, 2012, 02:39:12 PM I generally find what they've done with Hunter and Shaman to be improvements. I do lose out on some interesting gameplay on my Hunter with the simplified buff landscape, but I get it back with being able to choose any spec for any pet family which is fun as non-Turtle/Beetle Tenacity pets are pretty worthless as a PvE Hunter right now.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on May 26, 2012, 02:59:55 PM That IS the alternative for me, just playing a monk. Since it's a new class, I have no pre-existing mental blocks about NO THIS IS HOW WE HAVE ALWAYS DONE IT WHY IS IT DIFFERENT for that class. Thinking about it, for some classes it really already happened. I barely touched my druid in Cataclysm because the healing changes for THAT class made me sad. Although that was more of a protest that they were made more like other healers than anything, I guess. Yea, I don't have a god damn clue what they did to my moonkin. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on May 27, 2012, 09:12:45 AM It's sort of funny, because I actually approve of the bulk of the changes (I like the new talent system, for example), but I am apparently too old and set in my ways to relearn, say, the warrior utterly. I have some sort of mental block that goes NO I REFUSE TO RELEARN SOMETHING I ALREADY KNEW HOW TO DO WELL and I go play something else. :P But... you like Paladins. Haven't you done that every expansion anyways?Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 27, 2012, 04:32:08 PM Nope. Yes, they changed paladins (well, not holy paladins, which was one of my giant complaints about the class by WotLK and why we BROKE UP) pretty much every expansion, but never so drastically I had literally no idea what was going on it with any more. The biggest change prior to all this was holy power, and while it did make ret paladins sort of "wait, what?" and way too RNG-y for my tastes, I was never really a ret paladin past vanilla, so it wasn't a big deal.
I stopped playing my hunter in Cataclysm because I didn't want to relearn that class, though. Even though I thought the changes to it were really good for it. Honestly, half of it is I have a gazillion passives that Do Shit that I'm never going to remember, because I didn't specifically choose them, and because I didn't level up and gain it, it's not going to go into my head as something I will have to give a shit about. I also hate rebuilding my bars, and now that some things only exist in Spec A or Spec B that everyone already had (which again, is okay in the big picture), I get to drive myself mad trying to figure out "Okay, is this thing I used to use gone from this spec? Or maybe this class? Shit, where is it? Am I just not seeing it?" And fuck that! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 27, 2012, 06:02:11 PM I stopped playing my hunter in WOTLK because I couldn't get used to the new systems then so I get what you're saying. However, now I've gone back to it and found it's fantastic and fun again. Funny how that works.
I played with a Prot pally on the beta server and it doesn't seem that much different from now. Is ret really that different? (Never enjoyed ret) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 27, 2012, 07:55:41 PM I have no idea what Ret is like now and I have no intention of finding out, 'cause Ret has never been my thing. :P
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on May 28, 2012, 12:36:27 AM Ret sucks. I liked it in WotLK but now my pally is back to prot/prot specs.
Hunters are fun again - if Cataclysm did one thing right, it was the hunter class. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 29, 2012, 12:32:20 PM Blizzard: "Oh, the Dungeon Journal wasn't enough? You want us to tell you how to play your class as well as telling you the abilities and phases of the fights? Ugh, fine... (http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/29/mists-of-pandaria-beta-core-abilities-tab-teaches-proper-play/)"
It's actually a nice thing, I guess. Both for the newbs so maybe they'll start pushing the right buttons in the right order instead of /facerolling (since they're effectively killed that method of playing), and also the vets so we have some kind of idea of how GC thinks we 'should' be playing instead of how we want, so when our DPS numbers don't match his, he can chortle and say we're not doing it right :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on May 29, 2012, 12:34:55 PM Are you seriously complaining about this? This is a great thing for new players.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 29, 2012, 12:40:38 PM Are you seriously complaining about this? This is a great thing for new players. It's actually a nice thing, I guess. Both for the newbs so maybe they'll start pushing the right buttons in the right order instead of /facerolling.... :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 29, 2012, 01:05:02 PM Sure as fuck sorted me out on all the hunter changes. I had no idea how to play BM with things moving and going g'bye and new introductions and now I do.
It's not high-level stuff but it does fix the whole "LEARN YOUR CLASS, FUCKER" problem that people always bitch about. Expecting people to go to 3rd party sites to learn to play your game is rather fuckstupid. Particularlty when there are SO MANY abilities to be used. It's one thing to throw 35 abilities at people and say "pick 8" and let them fail on their own inability to create a synergy. Quite another to pull your typical MMO of "here's 35 abilities, figure out which 7 actually are what we design and balance your class around!" Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on May 29, 2012, 01:41:23 PM Hand-holding in this game is a great idea. In fact, it's a necessary idea if they want to remain relevant after changes.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on May 29, 2012, 02:20:47 PM (http://www.blogcdn.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/2012/05/coreabilitiestab580.jpg)
It feels a bit too paint-by-numbers at the moment. They're telling players what rotation to follow by not why that is a good rotation. I would like to see a little more information given on why those abilities are recommended. It's good that it tells players who might not be familiar with Assassination to keep Rupture on the target, but why? A player isn't going to know that they're doing it for energy regen. They're not going to have consciously picked the talent that makes Rupture/Gouge return energy given the new talent system: they'll just have it. It's the difference between the boss journal telling you a specific strategy for a boss or telling you what the boss does. Educating players is an admirable goal but just telling players a rotation isn't enough. Frankly, it's not much fun either. Knowing what my abilities do or what boss abilities do is more interesting than blindly following directions. Given the screenshot above (that hopefully does not break) here's what I'd rather see: Mutilate: A high-damage move that is great at generating combo points. Use this as your primary combo-point generator to feed finisher moves. Rupture: A low-damage finisher that does damage over time, but regenerates energy. Use this on your target to regenerate energy faster and allow you to use more abilities. Slice and dice: A buff that increases your attack speed. Try to keep this buff active on yourself as much as possible to attack faster. Envenom: A high-damage finisher move. Use this for damage when you do not need to refresh slice and dice or rupture. Dispatch: A high-damage move that is great at generating combo points, but can only be used when your target is at low health (35% or less). Use this ability to generate combo points when your enemy is low on health. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on May 29, 2012, 02:29:43 PM Eh, it is beta. They are all probably in a state of placeholder text for the most part.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 29, 2012, 02:31:25 PM You're talking different levels of play. Those who care to know will go look and educate themselves, that's not who they're trying to reach. It's more than enough to know the what but not the why for the players it's targeted at.
It's like complaining that LFR isn't challenging enough for you. I've been on enough failed LFRs (because fuck staying up past midnight for raiding anymore) - even now when a lot of folks outgear it - to confirm it's plenty challenging for the general gaming public. They lost a shitload of players by saying "suck it up, learn to play" they're not going to make that error again and will be reaching-down to hand hold a lot more. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on May 29, 2012, 02:52:20 PM You're talking different levels of play. Those who care to know will go look and educate themselves, that's not who they're trying to reach. It's more than enough to know the what but not the why for the players it's targeted at. It's like complaining that LFR isn't challenging enough for you. I've been on enough failed LFRs (because fuck staying up past midnight for raiding anymore) - even now when a lot of folks outgear it - to confirm it's plenty challenging for the general gaming public. They lost a shitload of players by saying "suck it up, learn to play" they're not going to make that error again and will be reaching-down to hand hold a lot more. I'm assuming you're responding to my post, but my complaint isn't that they are hand-holding players too much with this new system. It's that they aren't doing it enough. Knowing that you're supposed to use rupture and slice in dice instead of just spamming envenom isn't going to make you a much better player if you have no idea why you are using those abilities. Eh, it is beta. They are all probably in a state of placeholder text for the most part. It's possible. There is also a "what has changed" tab that was implemented earlier and was written a bit better though. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 29, 2012, 04:11:46 PM "What has changed" is laughably shitty, at least for the paladins.
"There are no more auras, and a lot of passive talents you just get now. THE END." Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soulflame on May 29, 2012, 06:08:13 PM No more auras? WTF
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on May 29, 2012, 07:46:25 PM I'm assuming you're responding to my post, but my complaint isn't that they are hand-holding players too much with this new system. It's that they aren't doing it enough. Knowing that you're supposed to use rupture and slice in dice instead of just spamming envenom isn't going to make you a much better player if you have no idea why you are using those abilities. Those players don't want to know why. Too much information turns them off.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 29, 2012, 08:08:27 PM No more auras? WTF Yeah I was kinda wtf about that too. Now they're passives? Or something? Depending on your spec? I know I noticed crusader aura being a passive (but it didn't seem to indicate it would go on my entire group but ... that might just be a shitty tool tip, WHO KNOWS). The "what's changed" didn't really feel the need to explain and I was busy rooting around trying to find all my goddamn spells to put on my bars again and didn't investigate much further. Seals are now on the aura bar and are just on instead of casted or whatever. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on May 29, 2012, 10:11:41 PM Some Aura's are just passive, others are little group cooldowns or something.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on May 29, 2012, 10:15:10 PM Those players don't want to know why. Too much information turns them off. Yes, knowing what your 5 most important abilities do is too much. Offering 1% of the information that the successful game previously required players to read over the past 7 years, boiled down to the bare minimum, is still too much. :oh_i_see: Default UI should probably not include abilities names or icons. Instead, you can have your red ability, your blue ability, and your yellow ability. Just press red>blue>yellow, I'm sure most people don't want to know anything more than that! You wouldn't want to give them too much information on an optional screen that takes less than a minute to read. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on May 29, 2012, 10:47:51 PM They could tap the previously untapped Guitar Hero demographic! :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on May 29, 2012, 11:20:05 PM Those players don't want to know why. Too much information turns them off. Yes, knowing what your 5 most important abilities do is too much. Offering 1% of the information that the successful game previously required players to read over the past 7 years, boiled down to the bare minimum, is still too much. :oh_i_see: Default UI should probably not include abilities names or icons. Instead, you can have your red ability, your blue ability, and your yellow ability. Just press red>blue>yellow, I'm sure most people don't want to know anything more than that! You wouldn't want to give them too much information on an optional screen that takes less than a minute to read. You can go all sarcasto-snob about the 'dumb' people all you want, but she's right. Part of my job involves occasionally writing instructions for people on how to use new IT systems at our company and I have seen this in action. If you give the general user base anything more than "do this, then this, then this" they will get it wrong, break something, or just give up on it before getting to the end - and these are not dumb users, these are engineers, people with advanced college degrees, etc. I don't see any reason at all this doesn't apply to new gamers. Once they can push the buttons in the right order and get monsters to die, they can build on that later. There's basically zero reason to go in depth, really there are a lot of reasons to NOT go in depth. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on May 29, 2012, 11:24:09 PM They could tap the previously untapped Guitar Hero demographic! :why_so_serious: (http://elliottback.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/wow-bard.jpg)Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on May 29, 2012, 11:38:44 PM Once they can push the buttons in the right order and get monsters to die, they can build on that later. They already do this. Again, this screen isn't going to be the first thing that pops up when a new player logs in. You'll slowly get new abilities and learn how to use them. At least for the rogue one, it's not even a rotation you'd want to follow until you were at end-game. Things die too quickly to use anything besides envenom and mutilate. Why would you want to use Dispatch, a move that requires you be behind your target, does less damage than mutilate, and can only be used at 35% or less while leveling? If blizzard is smart this tab won't even appear until you're level 80/85 and your rotation actually starts to matter in group play. By end-game people probably have a pretty good idea what buttons to press to make things die, but they might not understand why they should start using abilities like Rupture. Telling them to use it without the most basic information about why they should use it isn't helping them. I can see the situation now where someone uses Rupture per the instructions on the 'core abilities' page, thinks to themselves "but this does less damage than envenom, and doesn't do it instantly..." and never uses it again until another player or outside resource explains the reason why they should use rupture. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on May 29, 2012, 11:43:51 PM They could tap the previously untapped Guitar Hero demographic! :why_so_serious: (http://elliottback.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/wow-bard.jpg)Finally, that twitch combat we've all been waiting for! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on May 30, 2012, 12:08:06 AM Clearly WOW needs to implement QTE-based combat. :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on May 30, 2012, 12:34:10 AM It feels a bit too paint-by-numbers at the moment. They're telling players what rotation to follow by not why that is a good rotation. I would like to see a little more information given on why those abilities are recommended. It's good that it tells players who might not be familiar with Assassination to keep Rupture on the target, but why? A player isn't going to know that they're doing it for energy regen. They're not going to have consciously picked the talent that makes Rupture/Gouge return energy given the new talent system: they'll just have it. It's the difference between the boss journal telling you a specific strategy for a boss or telling you what the boss does. Educating players is an admirable goal but just telling players a rotation isn't enough. Frankly, it's not much fun either. Knowing what my abilities do or what boss abilities do is more interesting than blindly following directions. Given the screenshot above (that hopefully does not break) here's what I'd rather see: All that information is in the tooltips, right now. Surprise! You're wrong! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 30, 2012, 03:02:07 AM If someone cares why the game is telling them to use rupture, they can look at their shit to figure out why, ask a guildie, whatever. If someone does not care why, only that it "works," putting too much crap in the "how u play" tab will just make them go "ugh, too much wank" and ignore it.
I sort of ran into this when I was (begrudgingly) leading raids. I knew which people wanted/needed to know why and which didn't, and how to explain the fights to both kinds of people (because we had a long, long streak of having One New Person every week :heart:). It is generally safer to err on the side of derp, because too much at once just starts to sound like "blah blah blah" and the person tunes out. Same can be said for "you use this because blah blah blah." Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 30, 2012, 05:03:05 AM This strikes me as shades of the same argument hardcore inux users have with, oh, everyone else on the planet.
Peoples lives are complicated enough they don't really give two rat fucks about the WHY of a computer game. There's more important shit to deal with. Particularly for the significant portion of their user base that's moved beyond high school AND college now and are discovering, "Oh shit, I can't spend 4 hours a day researching all this crap. And even if I could.. why does it matter? Will it help me professionally? Socially? Is it really just a waste of time that I now don't really have.. oh, it is." Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on May 30, 2012, 06:32:55 AM The "give a shit" factor in learning the ins and outs of games also decreases exponentially with age for most people.
It's probably because you gain this magical thing called "perspective" as you get older. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 30, 2012, 07:12:25 AM Impossible, I thought it was Kids Today who couldn't be bothered to learn anything and wanted everything dumbed down and shit. :oh_i_see:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on May 30, 2012, 10:27:39 AM Nope kids today just assume they know it all and are the best players ever without reading the manual. :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on May 30, 2012, 10:38:10 AM All that information is in the tooltips, right now. Surprise! You're wrong! Current tooltips tell you what an ability does, but not why to use it. Here's the rupture tooltip in MoP: Quote Finishing move that causes damage over time, increased by your attack power. Lasts longer per combo point: 1 point : X over 8 sec 2 points: X1 over 12 sec 3 points: X2 over 16 sec 4 points: X3 over 20 sec 5 points: X4 over 24 sec Why would you use this again, as a fresh level 90 playing their first rogue? It still does less damage than envenom and isn't instant. You'd have to check your passives sheet (which was a confusing mess the last time I checked the beta server), or an outside source to learn why. Same deal with Dispatch unless it's recently changed to be different from backstab. You wouldn't know that it refunded energy, you'd just know that it did less damage than mutilate and built fewer combo points. Providing an extra line of text that gives context to why to use these abilities is not "too much", especially when you consider that these rotations are targeted at end game. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on May 30, 2012, 10:41:13 AM Providing an extra line of text that gives context to why to use these abilities is not "too much", especially when you consider that these rotations are targeted at end game. All I can say is you've apparently never written user documentation and seen what people do with it. I learned the hard way that it is really, really easy to hit 'too much'. I mean in some cases complete sentences will cause people to give up and stop reading. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 30, 2012, 11:36:08 AM Head enchants are gone, Inscripters can now get rich off shoulder enchants. (http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/225223-magical-disuption-has-fractured-this-arcanum/)
I hear where he's coming from. To me, I didn't really care; I've grinded out those factions anyways for the once-relevant gear/swag that they offered. I don't expect them to go back and put new stuff in the place of the Wrath/Cata vendors, but here's hoping the MoP factions will have some decent offerings in the enchants' place. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on May 30, 2012, 01:38:49 PM I mean in some cases complete sentences will cause people to give up and stop reading. We're lucky if they read past the first sentence. I've taken to making numbered lists with short phrases.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 30, 2012, 01:50:09 PM I recall hearing, years ago, that seven to eight words a line was the maximum for an average reader of lists/ instructions.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on May 30, 2012, 02:30:02 PM It's hellish trying to diagnose problems when the reply to detailed questions is "IT NOT WORKY". Too much effort to read. That I need that info to get things working for them again is irrelevant.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on May 30, 2012, 03:45:22 PM I recall hearing, years ago, that seven to Sorry, I got bored about here. :grin:Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Kail on May 30, 2012, 04:25:52 PM I dunno, as a noobish and horrible player, I wouldn't mind some more of Rokal's type of description. At least as an option, like "keep rupture up at all times [click here to find out why]" or something. Generally, hard and fast rules don't work in MMOs. Maybe this is just my extreme noobitude showing up, but it's rare that I have a 5 point rupture up at all times, because there's always some attack I gotta dodge or fire I gotta not stand in or he's not attackable in this phase or he's dead before I can get in my full combo or something. I get that it's important, but for times when it's not just 111211121112 all fight long, I gotta know why I'm doing this stuff so I can know what to change.
I know that this info is probably available online, but there's a huge amount of disinformation out there, between people not really knowing what they're talking about, or guides which were written for the class as it was a few years ago, or people who are advancing some kind of personal theory as a widely established fact, and that kind of thing, it's a lot of crap to wade through to find reliable info. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 30, 2012, 04:57:15 PM Yeah I never kept a 5 point rupture up that I recall unless I just happened to hit 5 points when I needed to refresh it or whatever. But this is deeper wankery that the person who is reading the "how u play" stuff provided by Blizzard just isn't going to give much of a shit about (or if they do, they will find out why on their own). Remember, it's not supposed to be the definitive "THIS IS HOW YOU PLAY" thing, it's just there to make sure a person knows the absolute bare minimum they should know to not 100% blow ass at their class.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 31, 2012, 04:10:58 PM New beta patch out. Regarding account-wide mounts, it looks like they've decided to limit some of them to character-only.
tl;dr - Class-mounts, Arena-mounts, extra-special-event mounts, and mammoths are now character only. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on May 31, 2012, 04:34:09 PM Huh, I would've just stuck with class-specific mounts being non-shared and nothing else.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 31, 2012, 04:38:01 PM I agree with the mammoth restriction. God knows every jerk out there (even me :why_so_serious:) would be riding around on them exclusively at the low-level just for the lulz
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on May 31, 2012, 06:02:48 PM Bleh. I was really hoping to be able to use the profession-based mounts on other characters (since I don't have tailoring or engineering on my main); as it stands this will help my alts but only get me 1-2 new mounts on my main. Way to ruin a feature I was really excited about before it even goes live.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on May 31, 2012, 06:15:13 PM Doesn't look like the original flying carpet(s) are on there? Nor is the engineering flying machine.
EDIT: Those are just the old legacy flying carpets it looks like, that were all converted to the Frosty Flying Carpet in a patch a ways back. Which I don't remember but that is what the internet tells me. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on May 31, 2012, 06:18:23 PM Doesn't look like the original flying carpet(s) are on there? Nor is the engineering flying machine. ...yet :grin: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on May 31, 2012, 06:25:33 PM Bleh. I was really hoping to be able to use the profession-based mounts on other characters (since I don't have tailoring or engineering on my main); as it stands this will help my alts but only get me 1-2 new mounts on my main. Way to ruin a feature I was really excited about before it even goes live. Profession mounts are flagged as "must have <profession> <rating>" so all you would have gotten is mount-count... which is now account wide anyway. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on May 31, 2012, 06:37:56 PM Ingmar gets my hopes up then Merusk crushes them. Alas, F13.
There's no reward for getting 125 mounts is there? Nor any higher achievements? I stopped really grinding them at 100 since that was the last unlock. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 01, 2012, 02:28:35 AM Ingmar gets my hopes up then Merusk crushes them. Alas, F13. There's no reward for getting 125 mounts is there? Nor any higher achievements? I stopped really grinding them at 100 since that was the last unlock. No, and they don't appear to have added one with MoP (...yet :grin:). I'm at 88 right now, and in my search to get the rest, I don't expect to reach 100 before the expansion gets here. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on June 02, 2012, 02:42:05 AM I think I read somewhere that the various "# of mounts" achievements are going away with MoP.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 02, 2012, 02:58:53 AM I think I read somewhere that the various "# of mounts" achievements are going away with MoP. I still have it on my copied characters in beta. It's the vanity pet ones that are going away. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on June 02, 2012, 03:08:03 AM Ah, that was probably it then. :-)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on June 02, 2012, 12:31:07 PM Why would they remove those? I thought "Gotta catch 'em all" was the whole point of
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on June 02, 2012, 03:34:00 PM Why would they remove those? I thought "Gotta catch 'em all" was the whole point of They removed the basic "Get 10, 50, 100 mini pets" etc achives, and replaced them with like 40 different assorted achieves all based around the Pet Battle system. Things like "Get X number of Pets to level 10" and such.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on June 02, 2012, 03:39:31 PM I understand the addition of the new ones, I just don't see why they had to take the old ones out. Did they at least make them feats of strength for those that already earned them? Did they take out the rewards associated with earning them?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on June 02, 2012, 04:17:30 PM Yeah, I was kind of wondering about that myself, I mean, what happens to the pets you have earned through the collection achieves?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 02, 2012, 05:19:36 PM I understand the addition of the new ones, I just don't see why they had to take the old ones out. Did they at least make them feats of strength for those that already earned them? Did they take out the rewards associated with earning them? Yes to the first and no to the second. Presumably, they tied the pets from the previous "collect X pets" to the new pet combat "train X pets". The pet combat thing is gonna be huge, a bigger undertaking than Archy and Inscription ever were. It's going to be the new "oh, you're 90 and your bored? Go pet hunting and have internet cock fights with them." Having a wide collection of them now will certainly put you ahead of the game. Can't wait to unleash my vanilla collector's edition team :drill: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on June 03, 2012, 02:44:20 AM Onyxian Whelping used Deep Breath!
It's Super-Frequent! :grin: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on June 03, 2012, 02:59:37 AM Well that pisses me off. Sandstone Drake no longer account-wide? Same with the engineering mounts? I wonder if that's to "protect" the professions? Can't see the logic of nixing the Argent mounts, either. I guess they want us to grind more.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on June 03, 2012, 03:46:27 AM Those Argent mounts on the list are the special Paladin-only Argent mounts, not the regular ones.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on June 03, 2012, 04:27:26 AM I guess they want us to grind more. I've got something north of 50K gold on my main server just by selling stuff on a AH/bank alt with Auctionator runnning, and that's with applying no effort and effectively taking a six month plus break from the game. Gold is not hard to come by.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Margalis on June 03, 2012, 04:33:19 AM Quote The "give a shit" factor in learning the ins and outs of games also decreases exponentially with age for most people. It's probably because you gain this magical thing called "perspective" as you get older. Quote This strikes me as shades of the same argument hardcore inux users have with, oh, everyone else on the planet. Peoples lives are complicated enough they don't really give two rat fucks about the WHY of a computer game. There's more important shit to deal with. Quote If someone cares why the game is telling them to use rupture, they can look at their shit to figure out why, ask a guildie, whatever. If someone does not care why, only that it "works," putting too much crap in the "how u play" tab will just make them go "ugh, too much wank" and ignore it. Quote You can go all sarcasto-snob about the 'dumb' people all you want, but she's right. Part of my job involves occasionally writing instructions for people on how to use new IT systems at our company and I have seen this in action. If you give the general user base anything more than "do this, then this, then this" they will get it wrong, break something, or just give up on it before getting to the end - and these are not dumb users, these are engineers, people with advanced college degrees, etc. Man...do you guys even like games? What the fuck? User manuals? Linux users? Technical documentation? Yes, if you bought a new coffee maker and you want to make a cup of coffee it's cool if there is a big button that says "MAKE COFFEE", because your goal is just to make a cup of coffee. Learning and mastery are not core components of using a coffee maker - that isn't why coffee makers exist. Learning and mastery are core components of games. If you get older and you gain "perspective" and that means you don't give a shit about game systems, learning or mastery, and just want to press what buttons someone tells you to press so stuff on your screen can blow up real good that doesn't sound like perspective to me, especially when tied to a game that you are going to spend hundreds of hours playing. That sounds like the opposite of perspective - as you get older you really want to invest a ton of time into something completely mindless? It honestly sounds like you just want to watch a movie. "Just tell me what to press to be good" seems like not even gaming any more, it's just pressing buttons to get some audio-visual response. There is absolutely nothing condescending about expecting people playing a game to explore, learn and enjoy the game systems. That is what games are about. Full stop. To me it's fine, good even, to help people understand game systems and strategy. Maybe what the different abilities do is documented but someone never thought about how they interact, and if they want to get better or understand more you can shine some light on more advanced stuff. But that's very different from "do A then do B." Who does that cater to? The person who wants to be good but without investing any thought or energy? If it's possible for someone to be good by doing that doesn't that imply that the game is trivial? It's like...be good at Tic-Tac-Toe by putting your X in the center - yeah that works, which is why Tic-Tac-Toe is a game for kids only. Edit: Quote If someone cares why the game is telling them to use rupture, they can look at their shit to figure out why, ask a guildie, whatever. If someone does not care why, only that it "works," putting too much crap in the "how u play" tab will just make them go "ugh, too much wank" and ignore it. This one in particular is profoundly saddening. That someone can play a "game" where the game just tells them exactly what to do and they do that and it works says to me that that person has very little interest in playing a game and the game has very little interest in providing one. At that point it's just an "interactive experience" / chat room with graphics. Which I suppose is fine if that's what people want, but personally I am not really on board the whole "press buttons and win game roller coaster ride" approach to "gaming." Edit2: To be clear, the idea of the game providing a basic set of instruction on how not to be terrible is not a bad idea, especially in a multiplayer game where terrible players can make for a terrible shared experience. What bothers me is more the attitude that people playing a game can't and shouldn't be bothered to learn gameplay systems. At some point "suck it up - learn to play" is a fine attitude when talking about a game. Maybe not the most popular, and maybe not a good attitude to introduce in a game that caters to the lowest common denominator, but in general asking players to come up with strategies for playing a game is appropriate. If someone said "just tell me how to be good at Ticket to Ride, I don't really want to be arsed to figure out strats" you would probably tell them to just go play with an EZ Bake Oven instead. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on June 03, 2012, 06:30:50 AM Yes, I like games. In fact, I am even one of those people who will pay attention to why she should, say, keep rupture up as much as possible. But I am also aware that dropping a whole bunch of crap onto someone at once will immediately make them tune out or feel overwhelmed.
It's more like someone asking "Tell me how to play Ticket to Ride" and having someone else vomit forth the different schools of thought of how to win (assuming there even are such things) before the person even understands what the hell the game is. If, once they get the basics of the game, they are interested in improving, they will do so however they feel fit. They'll read the manual deeper, they'll ask their friends, they'll look up strategies on the numerous "Ticket to Ride" forums on the internet. If they aren't but are still cool being the fourth player or whatever in your game, they're going to be pretty content knowing just the basics. And yeah, believe it or not, some people do not play games only to win, they play them because they think the act of playing is fun and/or just like having an excuse to socialize with people. EDIT: Felt like expanding that second paragraph. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on June 03, 2012, 08:37:13 AM There is absolutely nothing condescending about expecting people playing a game to explore, learn and enjoy the game systems. That is what games are about. Full stop. No, this is what games are about to you. A very specific personality and intellectual type. If it were universal then Angry Birds, Tetris, Farmville and hundreds of other games would never have become popular. More popular, in fact, than those with deeper systems you have to explore. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on June 03, 2012, 02:51:04 PM Those Argent mounts on the list are the special Paladin-only Argent mounts, not the regular ones. No, I checked. Argent Warhorse is the one my mage has. Argent Charger is the Pally-only one. I guess they want us to grind more. I've got something north of 50K gold on my main server just by selling stuff on a AH/bank alt with Auctionator runnning, and that's with applying no effort and effectively taking a six month plus break from the game. Gold is not hard to come by.:facepalm: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on June 03, 2012, 03:57:48 PM Monks are in much better shape than when I last played them in April. Lightwell mechanics have been removed from statues, animations and icons have been implemented, mechanics seem better thought out.
They still aren't allowing you to enable addons on the beta server though. :x Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 03, 2012, 04:00:13 PM Monks are in much better shape than when I last played them in April. Lightwell mechanics have been removed from statues, animations and icons have been implemented, mechanics seem better thought out. They still aren't allowing you to enable addons on the beta server though. :x There's a hijack around this. Obviously against Bliz's ToS, but it works. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Margalis on June 03, 2012, 05:58:21 PM No, this is what games are about to you. A very specific personality and intellectual type. If it were universal then Angry Birds, Tetris, Farmville and hundreds of other games would never have become popular. More popular, in fact, than those with deeper systems you have to explore. Angry Birds and Tetris both have strong mastery elements to them. Tetris is one of the purest examples of a game centered around mastery. Yes, Farmville can be approached more as a toy than a game, but if you want to say that WoW should take it's design philosophy from Farmville well let's just agree to disagree on that. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on June 03, 2012, 07:40:24 PM We're not talking about mastery elements. We're talking "wat buttons do push to not maek 4k DPS?" and "I can put poisons on my thrown weapon now?"
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on June 03, 2012, 07:43:13 PM Telling someone which buttons to push and when doesn't mean they'll actually be good at it.
If that were the case no one would stand in the fucking fire ever again! :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on June 04, 2012, 02:16:23 AM That someone can play a "game" where the game just tells them exactly what to do and they do that and it works says to me that that person has very little interest in playing a game and the game has very little interest in providing one. This screams out "Guitar Hero" to me As I understand it (don't play it myself), it's pretty popular :D Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 04, 2012, 02:46:54 AM This screams out "Guitar Hero" to me As I understand it (don't play it myself), it was pretty popular :D Fixed. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on June 04, 2012, 03:44:14 AM Now it's Rock Band, baby, Rock Band.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pantastic on June 04, 2012, 09:59:36 AM This one in particular is profoundly saddening. That someone can play a "game" where the game just tells them exactly what to do and they do that and it works says to me that that person has very little interest in playing a game and the game has very little interest in providing one. At that point it's just an "interactive experience" / chat room with graphics. Which I suppose is fine if that's what people want, but personally I am not really on board the whole "press buttons and win game roller coaster ride" approach to "gaming." What's so magical about 'look at a sticky in the forums or on an external website to find your rotation' that makes it not "profoundly saddening"? I just don't see how 'look at an in-game help screen to find your rotation' is somehow terrible and saddening, but looking at a FAQ somewhere is just peachy keen. And how does not looking at an external website move the game from actually gaming to gaming in scare quotes? If you're objecting to people looking up their rotation instead of learning and mastering the system, that ship sailed back as soon as Blizzard made the ideal rotation more complicated than 'spam 2' (which, IIRC didn't really happen until BC for some classes). The mechanics of a game like WOW are way too complicated and hidden for anyone to figure them out by just playing the game; a few theorycrafters experiment to find the underlying math, plug stuff into spreadsheets, and test to be sure it actually works, but the vast majority of players either do things wrong or follow what theorycrafters post on a website. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on June 04, 2012, 06:11:33 PM This one in particular is profoundly saddening. That someone can play a "game" where the game just tells them exactly what to do and they do that and it works says to me that that person has very little interest in playing a game and the game has very little interest in providing one. At that point it's just an "interactive experience" / chat room with graphics. Which I suppose is fine if that's what people want, but personally I am not really on board the whole "press buttons and win game roller coaster ride" approach to "gaming." What's so magical about 'look at a sticky in the forums or on an external website to find your rotation' that makes it not "profoundly saddening"? I just don't see how 'look at an in-game help screen to find your rotation' is somehow terrible and saddening, but looking at a FAQ somewhere is just peachy keen. And how does not looking at an external website move the game from actually gaming to gaming in scare quotes? If you're objecting to people looking up their rotation instead of learning and mastering the system, that ship sailed back as soon as Blizzard made the ideal rotation more complicated than 'spam 2' (which, IIRC didn't really happen until BC for some classes). The mechanics of a game like WOW are way too complicated and hidden for anyone to figure them out by just playing the game; a few theorycrafters experiment to find the underlying math, plug stuff into spreadsheets, and test to be sure it actually works, but the vast majority of players either do things wrong or follow what theorycrafters post on a website. Its the difference between an Enhance shaman in Wrath asking "Should i be using a 2hander" or asking "Should I be using a Spell DPS mainhand if the Ilevel + Spellpower synergy with my talents makes it superior to an agility Mainhand". The former indicates a basic lack of understanding about Enhance as a spec, the latter is a theorycrafting question designed to possibly increase your dps by a small amount. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on June 04, 2012, 07:57:24 PM No, you're wrong. Particularly given the gulf between quest/levelling-play and max level dungeons and the sweeping changes that Blizz likes to apply each expansion. I currently have NFI how to play my Pally (at all) or the non-feral specs of my Druid. Neither is max level, but the number of changes both toons have seen since they were created in Vanilla just turns me off needing to relearn them, so they stay forever-alts.
The couple times I took my level 70-something (Ret) Pally into dungeons, I had people bitching about my poor DPS, when in quest play stuff dies just fine. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on June 04, 2012, 11:16:28 PM What Az said. You can literally click random buttons and quest to max level; with LFD you can even do it in dungeons without ever actually thinking about your class abilities. What a lot of serious gamers forget is that there are a lot of people for whom WoW was their first MMO or even first serious foray into gaming. A lot of girlfriends, siblings, etc. joined WoW to play with someone else, and some of them end up at max level with little to no idea how to play their class. We had a bunch of people like that in my guild that we had to teach the basics of the game before we could try to get them into endgame, and more useful in-game tutorials will be a huge help for people like that.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on June 05, 2012, 12:00:28 AM Or, you could just making leveling up more difficult and have it take care of itself :grin:. Which is an extension of the Cata model with basic raid mechanics.
Seriously though, WoW is pretty straightforward if you aren't a pure. If you are, it's not always obvious what you should drop or replace all the time. That said, it's not difficult to figure things out to a relatively successful level if you try. The deep theorycraft-based optimizations just aren't fantastically large anymore, in large part because Cata got rid of a lot of dumb or out-of-control systems like pet stat flooring and Armor Penetration from gear, respectively. The reality is that a lot of players (even the majority of my raidmates) aren't playing to get better for its own sake, but instead for social reasons or because they like shiny things. Just as importantly is that WoW isn't a game that you need to actually be terribly good at to "win". Challenge Modes are going to be the first full system that we're not going to be able to wait out, hopefully. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on June 05, 2012, 04:05:28 AM You sound like a physicist complaining that people don't understand derivatives. They don't, it doesn't matter to them in any way shape or form the way it does to you.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 05, 2012, 05:13:25 AM Oh how I wish this was a real tool :awesome_for_real:
(http://www.thedailyblink.com/comics/2012-06-04-313.jpg) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on June 05, 2012, 08:03:36 AM Floor death stats would make me so happy as a leader.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on June 05, 2012, 08:29:01 AM The Premier Raid Mount thing is dumb since literally everyone does that now.
Other than that yeah. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 05, 2012, 09:25:15 AM In other news today, Bliz's outlined MoP PvP changes.
http://us.battle.net//wow/en/blog/6176110 As a PvE guy who cares not for the angst-fest of PvP, I'm happy they aren't introducing a new Wintergrasp/Tol Barad for MoP. I don't know who's idea it was to tie PvE content to the success or failure of PvP, let alone do it for two expansions in a row, but thankfully it seems they were finally sacked. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on June 05, 2012, 09:55:32 AM I'd rather have a WG/TB than have to deal with fucking world bosses again. Unless there's some way to trigger a spawn for your guild, these are going to be limited to the top few guilds on the server, which sucks because VOA/BH were generally regarded as easy sources of tier gear.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on June 05, 2012, 10:48:52 AM Given that people will get individual loot, world bosses will probably be a bit less exclusive than they were. You probably won't mind inviting random out-of-guild warlock if they aren't going to potentially take loot away from your guild.
That said, I'd like to see a 'shared credit' system for world bosses like what Rift has. If anyone contributes to the world boss fight, they should get a loot roll. It would turn world bosses into a big celebration for the server when they spawned, rather than an angry/competitive event where only 40 people get a shot at loot and people outside of that group are encouraged to grief them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on June 05, 2012, 10:52:30 AM Do you think they'll even allow 40? I assumed they'd grey out if you used more than 25. But yea it would be nice if they worked like Rift.
To be clear though, I'm not worried that I could/could not get an invite to help UberGuildX kill WorldBossY; I'm worried that as a guild leader, my guild will never get a shot at them because we were never in the top 3 of our server. If they spawn pretty frequently but have a lockout system like LFR (can kill multiple times but only 1 shot at loot per week) it might not be so bad. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on June 05, 2012, 11:01:55 AM I have serious doubts they'll do anything as either alternative you're proposing, Rendakor. More likely it will be "I have aggro tables for 26 people... here's the instant-wipe mechanic!" and "Well this boss drops loot at the LFR level so nobody /serious/ is going to kill him."
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on June 05, 2012, 11:58:02 AM I think it will be the latter, personally. The best loot will always been the carefully controlled environments of dungeons.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pantastic on June 05, 2012, 12:05:24 PM Huh? WoW seems pretty stratiforward to me. I mean, other the maybe Fire mages, or some of the warlock specs, figuring out something pretty close to the "optimal" rotation through basic play of any class is easily doable. Turning to theorycrafting websites is usually a matter of improving your dps by a small margin to prove you are "leet" and know everything about your class. Turning to E-J is usually for people who want to improve their dps by 2-4% to squeeze the most they can get out of their class. If going to E-J or something similar results in a 20% DPS boost, that is an indication that you are missing something fundamental about your spec's rotation. People like to say that as a brag, but it's simply not true. There's no way that you're figuring out things like or which dots/buffs you should let drop off and which you should focus on never dropping, what you should use as a rage/runic dump, or which abilities increase your damage and which you should actually avoid (like ferocious bite for ferals or rupture for rogues) just from playing normally. And please don't try to say that you just have to read tooltips, what abilites are even useful to use has changed many times without any corresponding change in tooltips. I just don't buy that you're coming up with anything close to actual rotations and priority lists on your own from simply playing the game, unless the class/spec happens to have a really basic rotation. And I would say that virtually everyone who hasn't read about their spec's rotation (or done theorycrafting) is missing something fundamental about their spec's rotation. I'm not talking about delving deep into EJ threads (which are often misinformation these days anyway), just reading a basic FAQ like the stickies in WOW class forums or first post in an EJ thread. It gets really silly if by 'basic play' you mean solo leveling content, since most classes can't actually use their full-boss-damage-rotation while leveling at all, as mobs die way too quickly to even get a full set of dots, buffs, and procs started. Opening moves (charge, feral/rogue stealth, charged pyro, and so on) have a huge effect on each fight but are insignifcant (and often don't work) on bosses. Some classes, like feral druids, can't even use their basic spammable attack (shred) while soloing! Even 5-man dungeons don't typically have fights long enough to make full-boss-rotations usable, except maybe for a single boss if you have a low-geared group. There's just no way you're using that to sort out a real rotation from an occasional fight that lasts long enough to even fire it off. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: FieryBalrog on June 05, 2012, 01:31:42 PM There are some specs right now where you can definitely figure out the rotation by just playing it, e.g. combat rogue (spam SS->Revealing Strike-> Evisc, use cooldowns duh) but most aren't like that.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on June 05, 2012, 01:54:22 PM That Silvershard Mine battleground sounds like pushing the leetle kart in TF2.
Somehow, I'm fine with that. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pantastic on June 05, 2012, 02:09:11 PM There are some specs right now where you can definitely figure out the rotation by just playing it, e.g. combat rogue (spam SS->Revealing Strike-> Evisc, use cooldowns duh) but most aren't like that. That's at odds with what the sticky on the WOW forums and 3 different sites I googled up about rogue rotations. Why do think they're wrong about using Slice N Dice and rupture? SnD has been really strong for combat rogues since vanilla, so I really suspect that not using it is a large DPS loss. Also, how did you figure out which poisons to use through normal play (I consider long-running buffs part of your rotation even if you usually set them before combat)? I'm not really sure how you'd decide on them without either crunching numbers or reading it somewhere. I'm not just trying to nitpick your rotation, I'm trying to highlight how hard it is to figure this stuff out by 'just playing normally'. How do you figure out rupture or not, or SnD or not, or which poisons from just playing? That's what I'm getting at, if you read it from a website then I don't see why it's a big deal to put the website info in game. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on June 05, 2012, 02:53:56 PM Yeah, you're missing two higher DPS finishers from the combat rotation. Infrequently it's also necessary for the rogue to Expose Armour, though usually not, because warriors ruin shit with their awesomeness nowadays and everyone plays them.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on June 05, 2012, 04:03:47 PM Male Panderen emotes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6Kd_ybcTlo
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on June 05, 2012, 04:28:30 PM Being able to downvote some BGs in your queue makes me go <3. I'd never WSG again if I could.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ashamanchill on June 05, 2012, 08:40:22 PM I'm with the rabbit.
And mastering the ins and outs of your spec's rotation isn't another 2 or 4 per cent increase, it can honestly double it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on June 05, 2012, 11:04:23 PM And mastering the ins and outs of your spec's rotation isn't another 2 or 4 per cent increase, it can honestly double it. Except that that isn't really mastering the ins and outs of your specs rotation. Thats going from having no fucking idea what you are doing, to actually understanding the basics of your spec. I mean, like i said earlier. There is not a spec out there, bar maybe Fire Mages, Sub Rogues and a few of the warlock specs, that are really that complicated to figure out through basic play. The Basic rotations for pretty much all dps specs are pretty easy to figure out (I can't vouch for healing specs, as I have never played any of my toons as a healer) . The need for theorycrafting / Ej steps in when you are then trying to figure out things like haste breakpoints, do's / don'ts of dot clipping, or when you should hardcast something for a minor dps increase and things like that. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pantastic on June 05, 2012, 11:19:56 PM I mean, like i said earlier. There is not a spec out there, bar maybe Fire Mages, Sub Rogues and a few of the warlock specs, that are really that complicated to figure out through basic play. The Basic rotations for pretty much all dps specs are pretty easy to figure out (I can't vouch for healing specs, as I have never played any of my toons as a healer) . OK, show us your system mastery. Someone posted a combat rogue rotation that is at odds with the standard rotation, what steps should he take during basic play to figure out whether or not to include SnD, Rupture, and expose armor in his rotation? This will also explain to us what you mean by basic play, whether it's just solo leveling, or dungeons, or raiding, and whether you're using add-ons (which the majority of players don't) or just built-in gameplay. And let us know how much time this will take, since glancing at a web page with a 'here's your basic rotation, and also your recommended stat priorities and a list of starter gear to get' takes like 5-15 minutes total. The problem is that you can't actually figure out 'the basics of your spec' without either going into heavy math and theorycrafting, looking at a page put together using info from someone who did, or getting really lucky. If you really think you can, lay out how our combat rogue player can sort his rotation. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on June 05, 2012, 11:59:41 PM Posted combat rotation also ignores Killing Spree and Adrenaline Rush, both of which new players would probably use at incorrect times unless they were familiar with the passive skill list now that talent trees are gone.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on June 06, 2012, 02:51:34 AM I mean, like i said earlier. There is not a spec out there, bar maybe Fire Mages, Sub Rogues and a few of the warlock specs, that are really that complicated to figure out through basic play. The Basic rotations for pretty much all dps specs are pretty easy to figure out (I can't vouch for healing specs, as I have never played any of my toons as a healer) . The need for theorycrafting / Ej steps in when you are then trying to figure out things like haste breakpoints, do's / don'ts of dot clipping, or when you should hardcast something for a minor dps increase and things like that. We've been through this. What, exactly do you consider "basic play"? Because I can be out in the quest world and mash just about any random series of keys from 1-10 with my face and the mobs will die, the quests will progress, and I will level up to max. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on June 06, 2012, 03:20:24 PM The Basic rotations for pretty much all dps specs are pretty easy to figure out (I can't vouch for healing specs, as I have never played any of my toons as a healer). The other day I spotted a Fury warrior specced 3/3 Incite and 2/2 Blood and Thunder. He'd stance dance to toss up Rend and spread it with Thunderclap. He had that shit pretty well figured out, it was too bad he was doing 4k DPS. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 07, 2012, 04:32:54 AM Bliz has begun transitioning the PTR (not beta, but the Live client's testing ground) to 5.0. The pre-expansion pack patch should be up for testing soon, I'd say within the next week or so.
Give it another month or so for testing, and I think we'll be in 5.0 mechanics land by the end of the summer, which would put the actual expansion launch in late September/early October. This estimate is also based on the fact that the Halloween event has been updated on beta with level 90 loots. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on June 07, 2012, 06:38:18 AM September is a good release point. More people game in the Fall/Winter than anytime I've seen when it came to my time in WoW.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on June 08, 2012, 01:25:47 PM Female Pandaren emotes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BSn-EWWPyc
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Dark_MadMax on June 12, 2012, 05:30:12 AM In other news today, Bliz's outlined MoP PvP changes. Will there be bigger changes between PvP and PvE realms in the future? Tom Chilton - It’s always a possibility. We want to see how things go with these changes first. We don’t want to promise any big plans at this point in time, but we are always thinking of ways we can add to the experience where we can. WoW been dead to me for long time . I doubt anything will change it . But the changes they making are in right direction. - separate rulesets for pve and pvp servers is the way to go. Problem is all those changes are merely reverting some of the damage done . But not entirely and not addressing core issues: - rewards should be gone entirely from instanced BGs - flying mounts removed completely - there needs to be incentives for world pvp and objectives to spark battles around (something which wow never had ,aside of gimmicks in tbc, which were obsolete by instanced bgs with better rewards) I doubt that they are going to make necessary changes after so many years of marching into totally carebear themepark direction. WoW pvp was at its best at release pre -bg. Every single patch was making it worse and worse- after 9 years I think they dont even know what world pvp is. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on June 12, 2012, 09:08:47 AM Killing BGs isn't going to make the game more popular. That's a dumb assessment of the issues with PvP. World PvP will never work as a concept.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 12, 2012, 09:18:31 AM WoW been dead to me for long time . I doubt anything will change it . But the changes they making are in right direction. - separate rulesets for pve and pvp servers is the way to go. Problem is all those changes are merely reverting some of the damage done . But not entirely and not addressing core issues: - rewards should be gone entirely from instanced BGs - flying mounts removed completely - there needs to be incentives for world pvp and objectives to spark battles around (something which wow never had ,aside of gimmicks in tbc, which were obsolete by instanced bgs with better rewards) I doubt that they are going to make necessary changes after so many years of marching into totally carebear themepark direction. WoW pvp was at its best at release pre -bg. Every single patch was making it worse and worse- after 9 years I think they dont even know what world pvp is. Shadowbane closed up a while ago. Sounds like you missed the good times. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Dark_MadMax on June 12, 2012, 09:27:29 AM Shadowbane closed up a while ago. Sounds like you missed the good times. Lol I didnt miss SB. Was a big steaming pile of sb.exe Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 12, 2012, 09:33:50 AM Shadowbane closed up a while ago. Sounds like you missed the good times. Lol I didnt miss SB. Was a big steaming pile of sb.exe I don't understand your gripe then. It sounds like you want a return of the Tarran Mill/Southshore days of zerg fests and bone piles everywhere. They stated they want to try and bring that back to the PvP servers by putting the quests hubs in strategic places. Ultimately it's up to the actual players playing if they want to take a hit on someone else and start something. You don't need incentive for that, you need crazy-nut players. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on June 12, 2012, 09:42:19 AM I played on a pvp server in vanilla pre-BGs. All I can say is... rose-colored glasses.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Dark_MadMax on June 12, 2012, 10:31:04 AM I don't understand your gripe then. It sounds like you want a return of the Tarran Mill/Southshore days of zerg fests and bone piles everywhere. They stated they want to try and bring that back to the PvP servers by putting the quests hubs in strategic places. Ultimately it's up to the actual players playing if they want to take a hit on someone else and start something. You don't need incentive for that, you need crazy-nut players. Am I nostalgic about Tarren Mill and Iron Forge raids? - somewhat yes. I think this was the best pvp wow ever had. But like I stated it wont come back magically - there are many other things blizzard screwed up some of them I already listed .And "best wow pvp" is not exactly "best possible mmo pvp" - today you need more than pvp enabled flag for it to be interesting. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 13, 2012, 07:25:38 AM In other news, it appears that the first Legendary out of MoP will be a morph-able weapon that any class can use. So, that's new.
Other stuff from the patch includes some DK changes I was looking forward to for DPS stuffs. For Frost, Frost Pres. now only generates a fraction of the RP it used to (20% instead of 100%). In exchange, they baked in some CC reduction, and if you go Frost spec, you get Imp. Frost Pres, which reduces Frost Strike cost by almost half RP cost. As for differentiating between DW and 2H, the 2H talent bonus no longer generates bonus RP, but now makes Obliterate hit harder with a 50% boost. Obliterate itself was changed to deal 50% less boosted weapon damage (200% from 250%), but the base damage was boosted by 50% itself. For Unholy, Unholy Pres. no longer reduces the GCD by .5 seconds, so no more Unholy Pres. Frost-spec DK will be running around. In exchange, Unholy-spec DKs get Imp. Unholy Pres, which gives a 10% boost to attack and rune regen speed. Both Frost and Unholy spec DKs will get a new group-passive buff, which is the old Imp. Icy Talons renamed to Unholy Aura. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on June 13, 2012, 08:02:08 AM That GCD change is going to take some getting used to. It's already murder on me switching from my Unh DK to another character, that .5 sec feels so much longer.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 13, 2012, 08:15:02 AM It will slow things down a bit by default, sure, but with all the stacked Haste, the difference DPS-wise should be minimal. As far as stats go, nothing will change; Frost and Unholy will still stack Haste, Hit-Cap, and Crit before anything else. I wish they would make the Frost and Unholy Masteries actually worth stacking for. Maybe that's the next step.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on June 13, 2012, 01:00:06 PM I'm not concerned about DPS, I figured that would be fine. I'm referring to muscle memory of how fast to push buttons.
I've accepted UH Mastery won't ever be worthwhile. They're determined to make them all damage-type increases for all the DPS except rogues it seems. A mastery that increases DC procs or Reduces HB CD might be nice, but DKs are such a finely tuned balancing act we always seem to teeter between OP and bottom of the deck. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on June 13, 2012, 01:11:13 PM DK's been an exercise at
(of course if they keep blood DKs as overpowered as they've been since mid-wrath, that's fine too :awesome_for_real:) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on June 14, 2012, 07:32:31 PM Quote from: Blizzard Are Challenge mode dungeons going to offer more than just speed runs and a flat ilvl? I love the idea but I hopes it's more than just racing against a clock in an easy dungeon in the gear it's meant to be ran in. At the Bronze level, you'll do good to just complete the dungeon in a reasonable amount of time, but you'll probably need to take it slow and stop and plan. It isn't just a test of who has the fastest movement speed. At the Gold level, you'll need to up your game even more and play smart as well as quick, taking risks where appropriate. The Bronze level is more like Heroic Arcatraz, Shadow Labyrinth or Shattered Halls when they were new. Gold level is more like a Zul Aman bear run when you didn't overgear the content. That's the intent anyway. Nobody outside these walls has seen them yet so you'll have to let us know how they feel. Are they actually tuned harder or is it the ilevel lock on them that is suppose to make them hard? They are tuned harder. There are even some additional pulls and mechanics when necessary. :Love_Letters: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on June 14, 2012, 08:01:17 PM Yup, sounds great.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on June 14, 2012, 08:03:29 PM Challenge modes don't offer gear rewards right? Just achievements and flavor shit?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 14, 2012, 08:17:57 PM Challenge modes don't offer gear rewards right? Just achievements and flavor shit? I don't believe so, but since they're moving to using Valor as a form of 'gear XP', I'd imagine they'd reward a nice chunk of that as well. Besides, if they did offer gear you'd just have a bunch of scrubs trying to do shit they can't handle. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on June 14, 2012, 08:21:31 PM Challenge modes don't offer gear rewards right? Just achievements and flavor shit? Yes. Cosmetic armor, mounts, titles, that sort of thing. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on June 14, 2012, 08:45:05 PM More power to them then. I like the idea.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on June 14, 2012, 09:04:12 PM Not really my cup of tea, but at least it doesn't offer anything mechanically important.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on June 15, 2012, 02:32:37 AM I'm looking forward to them, purely so I can see most of the "elite player" poopsockers spending time bashing their heads against the wall before crawling back to Blizzard and begging for nerfs.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on June 15, 2012, 05:47:50 AM The big ticket stuff they've advertised for challenge modes are mounts and a full set of transmog gear for each class. The gear will have no stats but it'll basically look like its own tier set.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 15, 2012, 05:55:58 AM That GCD change is going to take some getting used to. It's already murder on me switching from my Unh DK to another character, that .5 sec feels so much longer. Oh, update on this. Turns out they baked the .5 sec GCD into all DK abilities. MMO-Champ and WowHead just didn't highlight the difference. Por ejemplo: Blood Strike Live (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=55050): Blood Strike MoP (http://mop.wowhead.com/spell=55050) Icy Touch Live (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=45477): Icy Touch MoP (http://mop.wowhead.com/spell=45477) Note the GCD cooldown stat :drill: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on June 15, 2012, 08:47:51 AM I'm looking forward to them, purely so I can see most of the "elite player" poopsockers spending time bashing their heads against the wall before crawling back to Blizzard and begging for nerfs. It sounds unlikely that they'll be harder than Cata heroics. The difference is that they are timed. I didn't really see a ton of complaining about how hard the timer on the bear run was to do but then I wasn't really looking either. People complain more when they are unable to finish a dungeon, not when they are unable to finish it in X time. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on June 15, 2012, 01:46:53 PM These gold runs are going to be very popular with the hardcore. Of all the guilds I did original za runs with, there was never any complaining that things were "too hard" though a couple guilds broke up over who got to get invited to the runs and who didnt. They really are elitest paradises.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 20, 2012, 06:16:17 AM Blizzard Talks About Class Balance and Theorycrafting in MoP (http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/227466-beta-class-balance-analysis/)
Quote We want to provide everyone with a quick update regarding the status of beta class design and balance, as well as start collecting more detailed analytics from you. Since you’ve probably seen us say many times in the past that we’re not yet in a place to start dissecting the numbers, it’s worth calling out that we now want you to bring it on! For the purposes of keeping this thread as valuable to the developers as possible -- they will be actively reading and likely replying to posts here -- these are some things to know before posting: First and foremost, as a ground rule let’s keep this one thread free of pleas about ability feedback, DPS being too low or other subjective declarations. This thread should be about information sharing. If you aren’t a theorycrafter, this thread may not be for you. We feel the numbers are in a pretty good place right now. If you’re a theorycrafter who has been waiting for things to stabilize before submitting your class balance analysis, this is your cue to have at it. Make no mistake, we’re confident in our ability to balance the game. On the other hand, we greatly value player feedback. And reconciling our numbers with yours is part of that. Don’t consider this thread to be evidence that we feel class design for Mists of Pandaria is pretty much done. It also shouldn’t be a sign that X issue you may have been posting about for the last month is going to be ignored, or that we just don’t agree with you. The primary goal is to maintain a relatively stable class system for a healthy period of time in the beta, so the number crunchers among you can really start to get into the nitty-gritty details without worrying that everything will change in the next beta build. If there are any mechanics that are proving particularly hard to understand, feel free to ask in this thread. We understand there is a narrow line between squelching and fostering the theorycrafting community, and we’re not trying to solve everything for you. On the other hand, we don’t want you to burn too much of your time trying to figure out how potentially confusing mechanics work under the hood (e.g. monk weapon normalization). That said, we won’t just dump the coefficient for every spell -- you should be able to figure that out. However, if you just can’t figure out how a spell is designed, don’t hesitate to ask. We appreciate honest questions. From there, we get GC doing several replies about issues from every which way for all classes. Too many to report...just hit the link. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 21, 2012, 04:29:45 AM Progress is being made. New beta patch is up, and they've announced that raid testing will be starting soon.
And here's a Daily Blink for the lulz. (http://i.imgur.com/YVMXAl.jpg) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on June 21, 2012, 10:26:00 AM Fortunately dailies will still be most of the things on that check list.
Unrelated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVoIf0f6B0M&feature=player_embedded That it all. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 21, 2012, 10:38:20 AM Fortunately dailies will still be most of the things on that check list. Unrelated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVoIf0f6B0M&feature=player_embedded That it all. Fucking day 1 purchase right there :drill: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on June 21, 2012, 10:44:42 AM Does everybody see that animation or just your character?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on June 21, 2012, 10:46:03 AM I like it!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on June 21, 2012, 11:12:15 AM Haha awesome.
Bet they nerf it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on June 21, 2012, 05:36:17 PM How every game of monopoly ends.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on June 21, 2012, 06:49:30 PM (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on June 25, 2012, 02:33:41 PM http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/227951-way-to-make-account-wide-mounts-worthless/
Someone rages that all the awesome "Expensive" mounts are not Account wide, Blue responds with "They Are Now". Guess I should go buy that Ice Mammoth for my collection. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on June 25, 2012, 03:25:16 PM Goddamnit.. just when I'd talked myself out of buying any of those.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on June 28, 2012, 06:22:23 PM The new Jewelcrafting mounts
(http://i.imgur.com/VtqMYl.jpg) :drill: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on June 29, 2012, 12:03:40 AM The black one looks pretty awesome. Not terribly overawed by the others.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on June 29, 2012, 01:50:42 AM LoL - the only profession I don't have (why I don't know, I have 10 85s). Time to level up JCing.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on June 29, 2012, 04:32:38 AM Yeah, guess I'll dust-off the Warrior and get it up to 85 now.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on July 03, 2012, 11:22:06 AM Getting closer to release. 5.0.1 is about to hit the PTR 'soon'. (http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/228749-access-to-501-ptr-and-mists-of-pandaria-bet/)
Quote We will soon begin public testing of patch 5.0.1 of World of Warcraft, a patch that will precede the Mists of Pandaria release, and includes many features and functions that are new to the game. We encourage all players who wish to test patch 5.0.1 with us to take careful note of the following: It will not be possible to access the 5.0.1 PTR realms with a game account that accesses the Mists of Pandaria Beta. If a game account has been flagged with a Mists of Pandaria Beta license, it can only be used to enter Beta realms. This limitation is on each World of Warcraft license, and is not Battle.net account-based. While testing 5.0.1, players will not be able to access zones or content that is a part of the Mists of Pandaria expansion. Thank you for your continued support of our testing and tuning process. We look forward to seeing you in-game. So for you non-beta and/or rich multi-boxers, you can play around with the new stuff pretty soon. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on July 03, 2012, 12:55:29 PM Another item in the "Just in time for MoP" folder:
Get Vanilla through Cata for $30 (http://us.blizzard.com/store/browse.xml?f=p:110000044,p:1100000265,p:1100001289) That's the Battle Chest (Vanilla + BC) for $10, LK for $10, and Cata for $10. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 05, 2012, 05:36:20 AM I should really play the MoP beta a bit more.. but I just can't ever bring myself to waste lots of time spoiling content and wasting time that could be spent getting more money and mats for the next alt.
Still, from the little time I've spent I'll say the class changes were by and large positive. I'm even OK with Paladins losing their auras, because I realized I never swapped out of the one I picked other than to ride faster. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on July 07, 2012, 01:51:49 PM I don't know who Draztal is, but I like him already: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/228883-we-consume-content-too-fast/
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 07, 2012, 02:33:36 PM Give that dude a raise and kalgans job, stat.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on July 07, 2012, 02:39:32 PM Yeah, that's some high class response, right there.
The way he deals with the 'But They're Getting Epics They Don't Deserve' prick is classy. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on July 07, 2012, 03:35:14 PM Quote This is a videogame, not a job. Should be on the login screen every single time. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on July 07, 2012, 04:27:32 PM Quote I mean, anyone can play basketball, yet I know that the only thing in common I have with Michael Jordan when it comes to basketball skills is that he's also a human being. ... Yeah, who is this guy and who do I make the Cheque out to ? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 07, 2012, 04:59:42 PM He'll be fired within a month after finally flipping out. :grin:
Still, good luck trying to explain how invalid and pointless those arguments are to people who have nothing else in life and are clinging desperately to game achieves as validation of a life otherwise wasted. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on July 07, 2012, 11:05:45 PM I dunno if it's a good sign or not but you don't see much of that kind of posting anymore on the official US forums.
I am however frustrated I can't post on the EU forums and earn my permaban from posting on Blizz's boards by telling those people to kill themselves. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on July 07, 2012, 11:31:36 PM I make the case that permabanning all of the posters in that topic would dramatically increase the quality of the game.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 08, 2012, 12:00:31 AM I dunno if it's a good sign or not but you don't see much of that kind of posting anymore on the official US forums. Funny you should say that. When reading the CM responses it felt like a series of CM posts we'd already seen on the NA forums. I hesitate to give Draztal much credit because it seems, as usual for the CMs (but especially the non-NA CMs), like he/she was just regurgitating corporate-approved responses. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on July 08, 2012, 08:34:41 AM Well, that's all CMs really to be honest. Anyone who really broke that mold tended to go crazy and quit.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hawkbit on July 08, 2012, 06:01:49 PM As someone who spent entirely too much time in customer service/community management, one must either learn to hate everything or simply not give a shit. To care about the job and be positive will lead to certain destruction.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: tmp on July 10, 2012, 04:41:25 PM Another item in the "Just in time for MoP" folder: Was that some limited time offer? Because when i click on this link now, it says "$20 for battle chest", "$20 for LK" and "$40 for Cataclysm" for a nice $80 total, minus $0.03Get Vanilla through Cata for $30 (http://us.blizzard.com/store/browse.xml?f=p:110000044,p:1100000265,p:1100001289) That's the Battle Chest (Vanilla + BC) for $10, LK for $10, and Cata for $10. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on July 10, 2012, 04:49:25 PM Yes, it expired yesterday.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 12, 2012, 05:20:51 AM Dratzal continuing to be awesome.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4879017939?page=59#1168 Quote Quote Posted by Avalanch Sometimes players shouldn't be able to get the BiS gear and they shouldn't complain about it, since only a few people with decent/high skill should be able to. Why? I mean, why with objective reasons. Not because some people need to be able to brag about the awesome gear they have that noone else can but dream of acquiring. Quote Quote like the example someone gave and you decided to ignore 'We don't ask rooney, messi,... to play worse, so mike from next door can come play in the WC football'. I ignored it because it's twisting my example just to try to make it sound unfair. Read my wording on that post. Would you enjoy being told that you can't play football because you can't perform at the level those football players do? Probably not. The comparison to your example in WoW terms would be asking Paragon to play worse so that Mike can join their guild, which is not what I suggested. Not. even. close. The whiners in that thread would have loved EQ. The arguments about 'wasted development resouces' on old content are rehases of arguments 5-7 years old now. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 12, 2012, 06:45:42 AM It's not really shocking that they feel that way. Cataclysm was probably the bees knees to those people before they started to nerf it back to the stone age and put in LFR.
Then again, the whiners are the "wanna-be" raiders. The guy who bring up Messi, Rooney, etc is hilarious because he could never compete at the level he's purporting. He didn't clear any of the heroic content in any of the original raids released with Cataclysm. In fact, the only heroic content he's done if the watered-down version of Dragon Soult in mid-May, 6 months after it's release. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 12, 2012, 09:25:18 AM It's not really shocking that they feel that way. Cataclysm was probably the bees knees to those people before they started to nerf it back to the stone age and put in LFR. I don't think it's quite that easy. There are complaints about "bad players seeing all raid content" and then there are complaints about "content being disposable". The later is, iirc, the origin of the conversation with Dratzal on the EU forums, the former is what it turned into. I agree that disposable content isn't best for the game. My guild is now inactive, but one of the last fun things we did was some Cata launch 5-man heroics to get achievements and guild rep for someone that wanted heirloom gear for MoP. The challenge had mostly been removed from the 5-mans since we were doing it on overgeared characters, but it was still really refreshing to do something besides DS or the 3 4.3 dungeons. I think it sucks that, as soon as a new content patch arrives, everything before it becomes completely useless. Running the same narrow slice of content for 5-6 months isn't something to cheer about. I know my guild probably would have gotten tired of DS a little less quickly if we had a real reason to run other raids and got to experience some variety. I think it's pretty clear that we can't go back to the linear gear progression from TBC because the barrier to catch up was simply too high and led to a lot of 'stepping-stone' guilds. I do think there is a happy medium to be reached somewhere. Bringing back weekly quests for older raids that all players would have a reason to run, similar to what Rift does, would be a good place to start. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 12, 2012, 10:32:46 AM It's not really shocking that they feel that way. Cataclysm was probably the bees knees to those people before they started to nerf it back to the stone age and put in LFR. Then again, the whiners are the "wanna-be" raiders. The guy who bring up Messi, Rooney, etc is hilarious because he could never compete at the level he's purporting. He didn't clear any of the heroic content in any of the original raids released with Cataclysm. In fact, the only heroic content he's done if the watered-down version of Dragon Soult in mid-May, 6 months after it's release. Shit.. you should post to the forum and point that out. I hadn't even thought to check the armory of these whining faux-hardcore 'raiders.' Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on July 12, 2012, 07:59:20 PM It's not really shocking that they feel that way. Cataclysm was probably the bees knees to those people before they started to nerf it back to the stone age and put in LFR. Then again, the whiners are the "wanna-be" raiders. The guy who bring up Messi, Rooney, etc is hilarious because he could never compete at the level he's purporting. He didn't clear any of the heroic content in any of the original raids released with Cataclysm. In fact, the only heroic content he's done if the watered-down version of Dragon Soult in mid-May, 6 months after it's release. Shit.. you should post to the forum and point that out. I hadn't even thought to check the armory of these whining faux-hardcore 'raiders.' Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pennilenko on July 12, 2012, 10:55:28 PM Besides you never know if that's an alt or something he just happens to have selected on his armory drop down, any one of those people could have other characters that consumed every ounce of hard content there was. Naming and shaming with could end up making you look like a giant ass if he pulls out a hard core alt.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on July 13, 2012, 03:56:23 AM That is generally treated as a form of "naming and shameing" on the official boards, which is usually frowned upon (regardless of how much the wanna be hardcore asshat deserves it) Which, of course, only matters if you care about what the official board denizens think about you. :oh_i_see:Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on July 13, 2012, 04:04:55 AM Besides you never know if that's an alt or something he just happens to have selected on his armory drop down, any one of those people could have other characters that consumed every ounce of hard content there was. Naming and shaming with could end up making you look like a giant ass if he pulls out a hard core alt. All fine and dandy until MoP and account-wide achievements go live. THEN THERE WILL BE NO PLACE TO HIDE YOUR SHAME! :drill: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 13, 2012, 04:08:42 AM Won't even take MoP, it'll take the 5.0 patch which is much closer.
Oh no.. whining dorks on Blizzard forums will think I'm a dick when I point out the chief whining dick is angry because his terrible performance in a video game was exposed to all. Man, I bet that will reflect badly on my next performance and salary review. :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 13, 2012, 07:07:13 AM Besides you never know if that's an alt or something he just happens to have selected on his armory drop down, any one of those people could have other characters that consumed every ounce of hard content there was. Naming and shaming with could end up making you look like a giant ass if he pulls out a hard core alt. I drew 5 posters at random from the thread. 1- OP - He's done all the heroic content. BUT WAIT! He didn't kill heroic Nefarian until 4/29/12. Hmmm. I'm pretty sure those kills happened for the REAL raiding guilds a year prior. In fact, he went back and killed Nefarian after he'd killed heroic Deathwing. 2- Random Poster on Page 3 (Saphiramoon) - "Ppl made pugs since the dawn of time on wow, be them 5 mans mostly in older expansions and starting with more and more raids. It is a system that works and it doesn't force blizzard to nerf content to be accessible via any combination of bad players." She must not be referring to the nerfs that helped her kill Heroic Nefarian on 4/26/12. Or the nerfs that helped her kill Heroic Al'Akir on 4/19/12. Or the nerfs that helped her kill heroic Deathwing on 4/1/12. 3- Random on page 10 (Darkangle) - "You effectively took all the challenge out of the game, leaving a game without reason to log. You're welcome to look at my user account history to see my activity since this game went live...No challenges left" Oh really? According to your records, you've never even killed Heroic Ragnaros? Maybe you were just taking your time? Oh and heroic Nefarian is missing. Hmmm. Perhaps they aren't nerfed enough yet? 4- Random on page 19 (Zhizz) - "Therefore you should at least acknowledge that players that actually killed the bosses when they were actually hard with something special. If you do the the same kind of nerfs/buffs in the future as with the Power of the Aspects - you should at least reward people for actualy completing the instance without the buff." Intersting. Because you're posting on your LFR alt. At least I hope that's your alt. Oh and your guild has never completed a damn thing in heroic. Congrats on your normal kills without buffs. 5- Random on page 34 (Arad) - This dude has has a heroic kill within the top world 200 of Ragnaros, top 500 of Madness. I'd probably qualify him as one of the actual hardcore posters. Imagine my surprise (or lack thereof) when he chastises the other whiners. Quote First off, to all those of you thinking you speak for the top raiding guilds when you cry to have TBC or Vanilla return, I need you to realize something. You don't. I've been in a few, I know people from quite a few more, and very few of the top20 or better raiding guild players ever want to return to Vanilla/TBC. So why is that? Well, let's break it down. Content is better now. Vanilla had a lot of really bad raiding content. There's hardly any bosses which ever come up when discussing good content design. It's just a handful of annoying bosses which are remembered. TBC you never hear any mention of any fight outside of the last 2 of SWP. Oh and maybe Vashj, but she wasn't exactly hard because of good design. Fun fact, most weak Cataclysm HC raid bosses could be placed in SWP and people have praised them to the high heavens. Same goes for WotLK. I think Ulduar is one of the most beloved instances among HC raiders atm. It not only contained some of the best designed bosses (Firefighter is one that I know many healers greatly enjoyed, myself included), but it had a good overall design and it showed us a promising feature. Quite a few also name ICC as their favourite, and this is heavily driven by LK HC being a very good encounter. Cataclysm certainly has had it's ups and downs, but it's also produced a lot of very good fights. Not every fight is naturally tuned to "our" level, but the concepts of many of them were interesting to see, and a lot of top raiders appreciate that effort, even if they realize not all bosses can be aimed at them alone. In general, I think Firelands was the standout tier of content for this expansion, and I expect most would agree on this. The difficulty progression could have been better, but Ragnaros 25 HC is one of the best encounters ever designed, and certainly regarded as the hardest ever designed, by some margin. DS was a bit of a weak note to end everything on, mainly since the two-part Deathwing fight wasn't particularly great, just a class stack fight with some RNG(not much, but still) followed by a pushover boss. Overall though, there's more good raiding content for top tier guilds in Cata and WotLK than there was in TBC or Vanilla. Balancing is better now. I'm not sure I even needed to say this, but there is it. In general, the game is better balanced, for all that we strive to take advantage of every slight discrepancy. Most mechanics are better. Most people don't want content balanced around having resistance gear, or world buffs. On the whole, it has gotten better every expansion, and it'll hopefully keep on getting better with MoP. Every horror story you ever hear from raiders is about the "good old days". Content length is fine, and most of us don't give a damn about nerfs. The obvious bit is that we see the content before it gets nerfed, so why would we ever care? If it's nerfed later on so we have an easier time farming, all the better, especially on the fights where hardcore class stacking was originally required, just frees people up to play their mains. Nerfs also make it easier for us to level up new alts and gear them, which most top level raiders are glad to see. Switching mains happens a lot more these days, and from our perspective, the ease of doing so is a very good thing. Nobody wants to slug it through t11, then t12 in order to get to t13 raids. The most controversial point is probably content length. The thing is, while casuals might want to run about for 6 months raiding 5 days a week, most hardcore raiders would probably quit at that point. T11 was almost too long, and if anything there is a fear that t14 will be a repeat of T11. About 6 weeks of HC raiding followed by 6 months of slack is probably about the right balance for most of the HC raiders. It's one of the big selling points of HC raiding. You have time to have a life, most of the time. Just take a few weeks off to pursue a hobby, and then go back to being a mostly normal person. The actual concerns? The actual concerns of HC raiders are more about bugs and exploits ruining the race, inconsistencies in enforcement policies (most of us want that crackdown, so nobody is forced to make a choice between exploiting and falling behind), greater balance (there's never enough balance), more interesting raid designs (never enough of this either) and a better difficulty curve (usually the curve is too easy at the start, and really hard at the end, while we'd like to see more of a steady ramp-up for each tier). I'm hardly a spokesperson, but I know a lot of the top raiders will be able to agree with most of what I've said here. So the next time you wish to speak for the hardcore, think twice. Our view of the world is quite different than that of casuals and semi-serious raiders. Brilliant. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 13, 2012, 09:40:02 AM 1- OP - He's done all the heroic content. BUT WAIT! He didn't kill heroic Nefarian until 4/29/12. Hmmm. I'm pretty sure those kills happened for the REAL raiding guilds a year prior. In fact, he went back and killed Nefarian after he'd killed heroic Deathwing. 2- Random Poster on Page 3 (Saphiramoon) - "Ppl made pugs since the dawn of time on wow, be them 5 mans mostly in older expansions and starting with more and more raids. It is a system that works and it doesn't force blizzard to nerf content to be accessible via any combination of bad players." She must not be referring to the nerfs that helped her kill Heroic Nefarian on 4/26/12. Or the nerfs that helped her kill Heroic Al'Akir on 4/19/12. Or the nerfs that helped her kill heroic Deathwing on 4/1/12. Heroic T11 was never nerfed. The results of your armory audit aren't even as bad as I expected them to be. I'd ask whether you had better things to do with your time then review random armory profiles to look for posting contradictions but given your history here I already know the answer. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on July 13, 2012, 10:12:36 AM 1- OP - He's done all the heroic content. BUT WAIT! He didn't kill heroic Nefarian until 4/29/12. Hmmm. I'm pretty sure those kills happened for the REAL raiding guilds a year prior. In fact, he went back and killed Nefarian after he'd killed heroic Deathwing. 2- Random Poster on Page 3 (Saphiramoon) - "Ppl made pugs since the dawn of time on wow, be them 5 mans mostly in older expansions and starting with more and more raids. It is a system that works and it doesn't force blizzard to nerf content to be accessible via any combination of bad players." She must not be referring to the nerfs that helped her kill Heroic Nefarian on 4/26/12. Or the nerfs that helped her kill Heroic Al'Akir on 4/19/12. Or the nerfs that helped her kill heroic Deathwing on 4/1/12. Heroic T11 was never nerfed. The results of your armory audit aren't even as bad as I expected them to be. I'd ask whether you had better things to do with your time then review random armory profiles to look for posting contradictions but given your history here I already know the answer. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on July 13, 2012, 11:05:53 AM 1- OP - He's done all the heroic content. BUT WAIT! He didn't kill heroic Nefarian until 4/29/12. Hmmm. I'm pretty sure those kills happened for the REAL raiding guilds a year prior. In fact, he went back and killed Nefarian after he'd killed heroic Deathwing. 2- Random Poster on Page 3 (Saphiramoon) - "Ppl made pugs since the dawn of time on wow, be them 5 mans mostly in older expansions and starting with more and more raids. It is a system that works and it doesn't force blizzard to nerf content to be accessible via any combination of bad players." She must not be referring to the nerfs that helped her kill Heroic Nefarian on 4/26/12. Or the nerfs that helped her kill Heroic Al'Akir on 4/19/12. Or the nerfs that helped her kill heroic Deathwing on 4/1/12. Heroic T11 was never nerfed. The results of your armory audit aren't even as bad as I expected them to be. I'd ask whether you had better things to do with your time then review random armory profiles to look for posting contradictions but given your history here I already know the answer. It wasn't nerfed directly but it sure as hell was made easier with the availability of later tiers of gear. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 13, 2012, 11:43:58 AM Feel free to ignore the main point of the post, Rokal. You're good at that.
You know, the part where the actual heroic raider points out the people complaining are fucking morons. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 13, 2012, 02:03:54 PM Feel free to ignore the main point of the post, Rokal. You're good at that. You know, the part where the actual heroic raider points out the people complaining are fucking morons. The point of your post was to show what frothing hypocritical nerds 99% of the posters in the thread were. I'm guessing the number is more like 70%, but you picked bad posts as examples and I still have to question your sanity when you waste time reading the official forums and stalking armory profiles. As for the poster that actually had HC experience, like every other individual he doesn't speak for all players that participate in the content. Just as my opinions and desires for content do not reflect his or yours. While I disagree with his assessment that TBC had only a few hard fights, and think he missed the point about why people continue to reminisce about it, I fully believe that most highly competitive guilds do not care about nerfs. Like he said, they complete the content before it gets nerfed and then the nerfs just make content easier for them to farm. They still get exactly the experience they want out of new raid content because they clear it so quickly. It's the guilds that aren't moving so fast that might get a different experience than they want. Speaking personally, my guild barely killed normal Ragnaros before they zone-wide nerfs hit. We would have been unhappy if we had gotten so close to a kill on our casual schedule only to have victory handed to us by a nerf. Even though we beat the fight before the nerf, the normal mode that had seemed well-balanced for us become an uninspiring cake-walk. We never got to that stage were we were just perfecting our kills and farming bosses because the nerfs caused enough angst and boredom in the guild to push us into hardmode fights. As we've covered a few times in WoW threads: fights just aren't quite as appealing the second time around (or 3rd, with the introduction of LFR). I don't want to get tied down arguing about whether 'content should never be nerfed' because it's not something I strongly believe in. I think the DS nerfs were a bit too fast and I'd like to see Feats of Strength to encourage people to eventually try the fights without the % debuff, but that's about it. I care more about the disposable content model where we run only a narrow slice of content for months everything else is immediately worthless. While the CMs addressed some posts about that earlier, basically saying "it is what it is", the discussion has moved away from it at this point. That's really the only discussion I'm interested in having though. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on July 13, 2012, 02:19:48 PM I enjoyed Paelos' post, especially the true hardcore raider reaction. So there. It had that good 'ol f13 snark.
I just hope he never finds my armory profile, my shame would be too much to bear! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 13, 2012, 02:27:37 PM Hard fights in TBC by my recollection:
Kael, The shadow/ demon hunter in steamwhatever, Vashj, Akama, Gorefiend. That's, in fact, a handfull. Though I recall a few in Sunwell were supposedly ball-breakers I can't recall them. The twin chicks and the dark floaty crystal dude IIRC. Still, that's a list of very few and only about 2 per raid instance. The rest took time to learn but weren't truly hard. (lol, at all the other bosses in Kael's instance.) Hell, even my semi-casual group of mostly-ok players was able to get through the majority of TBC content (never got past Gorefiend) and we only raided 3 nights a week (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) from 8pm until midnight because 90% of us were old farts who had jobs. We were so non-hardcore that if we wiped 5 or 6 times in a row we'd call it for that night because we knew things weren't clicking. Not like a real raid guild where you keep going no matter how many wipes because - practice dammit! If a guild like that can get past content it's not 'zomg so hard.' It just had shitloads of cock-blocks and unlocks and 'you must kill this first.' Which - as the real raider points out - just means you're fucked if someone wants to switch to an alternate character. I recall vividly how much bitching the HCs did about having to back-raid new members or new alts. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 13, 2012, 02:50:40 PM but you picked bad posts as examples and I still have to question your sanity when you waste time reading the official forums and stalking armory profiles. I picked posts at complete random. There's no such thing as "bad" or "good" it simply is. Could I have gone through there and cherrypicked posts for my POV? Yeah, but what's the point? Besides, I do it because I find it amusing, and it's the summertime. Do you know what CPA's do in the summer? Jack and shit. Hell I'm on 4 day weeks right now. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ashamanchill on July 13, 2012, 03:28:32 PM Ah, it's good to see the ol' Paelos Rokal dichotomy is back, not that weird bizzaro world of the Diablo thread, where their roles were reversed.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 13, 2012, 03:41:37 PM Hard fights in TBC by my recollection: Kael, The shadow/ demon hunter in steamwhatever, Vashj, Akama, Gorefiend. That's, in fact, a handfull. Though I recall a few in Sunwell were supposedly ball-breakers I can't recall them. The twin chicks and the dark floaty crystal dude IIRC. Still, that's a list of very few and only about 2 per raid instance. The rest took time to learn but weren't truly hard. (lol, at all the other bosses in Kael's instance.) Can also add pre-nerf Gruul, pre-nerf Nightbane, pre-nerf Malchezaar, Illidan, Relinquary, Archimonde, Azgalor, and frankly all of SWP except Kalecgos. The list is pretty big tbh. Though I maintain that TBC nostalgia doesn't have much to do with difficulty. I sure as hell don't wax nostalgic about wiping on Archimonde for weeks because people couldn't click the fucking slow-fall tear. Besides, I do it because I find it amusing, and it's the summertime. Drinking at the beach is probably more fun than playing or talking about Diablo 3/WoW. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on July 13, 2012, 04:11:59 PM Hey Rokal, what server do you play on out of interest?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 13, 2012, 04:26:36 PM Drinking at the beach is probably more fun than playing or talking about Diablo 3/WoW. Yeah but I like keeping my job. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 13, 2012, 05:00:40 PM Hey Rokal, what server do you play on out of interest? Cenarius. Ask Paelos for armory links :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 13, 2012, 05:24:52 PM Pre-nerf Gruul wasn't all that hard. I did it. Nor was Malechazaar. That was all random bullshit not difficulty. Infernals drop in the wrong spot, you were fucked. Did that one too.
Reliquary I did but don't remember it being all that hard.. it was just keeping everyone focused. Archimonde I didn't do until WOTLK myself but the difficulty there was really the fire and - again - making sure people stayed focused. I'd say fights in TBC were LONG and that endurance of focus made them difficult but mechanically they were cake compared to things like Sindragosa. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on July 14, 2012, 12:04:17 AM Archimonde was "hard" because of the massive Penalty for letting ANYONE die during the fight. All it took was one person to fuck something up (like not clickin their Tears) and boom, Soul Charge, the chances of your raid wiping increased exponentally.
Pre-Nerf Malachazar was not really "Hard" as someone else pointed out, it was the RNG of doom factor that made that fight a bitch. One run could see 90% of the infernals drop nowhere near your raid, the next attempt could have every single one landing in the worst possible spot. Not to mention the number of ways for some classes to kill themselves on that Boss with the "oops, you now have 1 HP" mechanic. You also forgot the joys of Aran the Raid Crusher, back before they "fixed" Shad of Aran, when half of his really nasty shit did not share cooldowns. Was nothing like having a nearly flawless attempt going on only to have the boss chain cast Flame Wreath and Blizzard back to back, practically guaranteeing that anyone stuck in a flamewreath was going to die. Or even better, chain casting Flame Wreath and the Arcane Explosion thing that pulled you to the centre of the room, which essentially instantly wiped your raid and was completely not your fault. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on July 14, 2012, 02:52:25 AM Hey Rokal, what server do you play on out of interest? Cenarius. Ask Paelos for armory links :awesome_for_real: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/cenarius/Rokal/simple E: Also - (http://i.imgur.com/MRjeX.gif) are in the new beta build, apparently. Don't worry about the download size - once you fire up the patcher, status goes amber (playable) almost right away. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 14, 2012, 09:25:14 AM This you? Yep that's my hardcore priest alt. Rogue (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/cenarius/Chopstick/simple) Warrior (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/cenarius/Roksana/simple) Druid (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/cenarius/Aragrim/simple) Hunter (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/cenarius/Taroth/simple) Monk (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Uv5XqnLlSDw/Tk0PshUxCZI/AAAAAAAAAHA/e3PrBOLY_fE/s1600/panda.jpg) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on July 15, 2012, 03:34:18 AM Monk (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Uv5XqnLlSDw/Tk0PshUxCZI/AAAAAAAAAHA/e3PrBOLY_fE/s1600/panda.jpg) :awesome_for_real:Pokemon is fun, btw. Now that they've fixed the stat bug and the pets fainting as soon as the battle starts bug. E: Most pokemon are common, uncommon ones are slightly tougher than normal, rare ones are actually quite difficult (L2 Lost of Lordaeron rare tore through my L2 uncommon Lost of Lordaeron and L2 cockroach before I barely managed to stuff it in a Once captured, you can either keep them (and rename them, fight with them, etc) or box them up which turns them into a item...which can then be sold. Also: Try and get the beginning trainer quests from a city which isn't Org/SW. You'll have less competition that way. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 15, 2012, 05:57:58 AM The one disappointing thing with Pet battles is everything you start against is a critter or beast, so you really want to be using mechanicals as your first. Which is somewhat of a pain as I'd rather start off with my team of magicals.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on July 15, 2012, 10:05:32 AM Buy http://mop.wowhead.com/item=54436#comments , name it after the mech of your choice, profit.
Also go to the surface level of the Undercity for lots of 'mons to kill/capture (Lost of Lordaeron, rats and the occasional mini-harvester). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 16, 2012, 01:03:34 PM My biggest criticism so far is that pet quality is kind of bullshit. There are tiered pets, (Poor, common, uncommon, rare) and a rare is always better than the unique pets, even those granted by achieves. So a team of Diablos, (who are all 'common' strength with no way to alter it) will get pounded by a rare group even if that rare is weak to Diablo's attack types.
I've seen some ideas for 'rebirthing' low-level pets to the next quality level once they're at max cap. I'd agree to that. Sure, it's a grind bit it means you're not fucked out of using a pet you like because he's not the right quality. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on July 20, 2012, 03:28:49 PM IT HAS BEGUN!!! (http://us.battle.net//wow/en/blog/6761563)
:drill: :drill: :drill: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 20, 2012, 03:48:03 PM So... release date along with the announced cinematic at Gamescon in August. Late September?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 20, 2012, 04:38:21 PM Same day as GW2? :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 20, 2012, 04:44:07 PM Man I'm never going to get all these achieves done before the patch.
Also; pet battles? Totally addictive. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on July 21, 2012, 09:38:52 AM My biggest criticism so far is that pet quality is kind of bullshit. There are tiered pets, (Poor, common, uncommon, rare) and a rare is always better than the unique pets, even those granted by achieves. So a team of Diablos, (who are all 'common' strength with no way to alter it) will get pounded by a rare group even if that rare is weak to Diablo's attack types. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6080522555I've seen some ideas for 'rebirthing' low-level pets to the next quality level once they're at max cap. I'd agree to that. Sure, it's a grind bit it means you're not fucked out of using a pet you like because he's not the right quality. Quote We made the call to convert a number of non-capture pets into rare quality pets. We made this decision for a couple reasons. First off, we know that many folks are going to want to use some of their current pets in pet battles. We don't want players to feel like these pets are weaker than the others. At the same time, we don't want to make every single non-capture pet into a rare. We decided which pets to change based on how difficult they are to obtain. This approach makes sense since it means that more time was put into getting these particular pets than other ones. This fits in with how you obtain a rare through the pet battle system; more time to seek out pets and fight them, hoping for a rare. We know that we are not going to be able to please everyone, but this list is just a start and I'm sure we will make many updates between now and launch. Look it over and feel free to leave us your feedback. Thanks! Brilliant Kaliri Celestial Dragon Feral Vermling Jade Tentacle Kirin Tor Familiar Little Fawn Nuts Stinker Clockwork Gnome Crawling Claw Fossilized Hatchling Pterrodax Hatchling Voodoo Figurine Murkimus Core Hound Pup Cenarion Hatchling Gryphon Hatchling Guardian Cub Lil' K.T. Lil' Ragnaros Lil' XT Moonkin Hatchling Pandaren Monk Soul of the Aspects Wind Rider Cub Deathy Grunty Murkablo Murky Fetish Shaman Frosty Lil' Deathwing Lucky Quilen Cub Lurky Mini Thor Netherwhelp Panda Cub Mini Diablo Zergling Darkmoon Balloon Darkmoon Cub Darkmoon Monkey Darkmoon Tonk Darkmoon Turtle Darkmoon Zeppelin Azure Whelpling Crimson Whelpling Dark Whelpling Emerald Whelpling Firefly Fox Kit Gundrak Hatchling Hyacinth Macaw Razzashi Hatchling Sprite Darter Hatchling Phoenix Hatchling Chuck Giant Sewer Rat Magical Crawdad Muckbreath Snarly Strand Crawler Toothy Dark Phoenix Hatchling Elementium Geode Crimson Lasher Hyjal Bear Cub Searing Scorhling Panther Cub Pebble Disguisting Oozeling Mr. Grubbs Tiny Shale Spider Bananas Dragon Kite Ethereal Soul-Trader Eye of the Legion Gregarious Grell Hippogryph Hatchling Landro's Lichling Landro's Lil' XT Nightsaber Cub Purple puffer Rocket Chicken Sand Scarab Spectral Tiger Cub Tuskarr Kite Lumpy Baby Blizzard Bear Onyxian Whelpling Lucky Mini Tyrael Lashtail Hatchling Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soulflame on July 21, 2012, 04:09:13 PM No Mojo? This is an outrage!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on July 21, 2012, 07:43:59 PM Giant sewer rat is up there so im happy.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 21, 2012, 07:44:54 PM Yeah mini Diablo!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 21, 2012, 08:50:05 PM Yeah looks like all the CE pets are Rares. Makes sense.
Mojo probably isn't on the list because they're still irritated about how they mis-patched him to be really easily obtained in the Pre-WOTLK patch. ed: Oh, wanted to add that despite my bitching pet battles are incredibly fun. Started playing 'just a few overworld matches' the other day and suddenly two hours were gone. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on July 25, 2012, 10:46:24 AM Sept. 25th. BE THERE, BITCHES! :drill:
http://us.battle.net/en/int - Standard Digital and Digital Deluxe downloads will be available. - Digital Deluxe will have WoW mount and pet, Diablo 3 Pandaria banner, and StarCraft 2 portraits. - Collector's Edition will be in-stores will all the usual knick-knacks. So, given Bliz's standard release schedule of patches and stuff, and the history of pre-launch stuffs going live two weeks prior to launch, the 5.0 patch with the destruction of Theramore will happen on.... ....Sept. 11th :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 25, 2012, 11:01:36 AM Hilarious. They are going to try to get it in under the Q3 close.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on July 25, 2012, 12:23:22 PM So, given Bliz's standard release schedule of patches and stuff, and the history of pre-launch stuffs going live two weeks prior to launch, the 5.0 patch with the destruction of Theramore will happen on.... Damn that's a Tuesday this year and everything.....Sept. 11th :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on July 25, 2012, 02:08:23 PM Crude, that's right after Borderlands 2. Might need to take some vacation time... :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on July 25, 2012, 02:42:09 PM The same day as "The Avengers" comes out on Blu-Ray? I think not.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on July 25, 2012, 03:29:32 PM I'm actually excited about this, and I don't know why.. :uhrr:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on July 25, 2012, 03:37:07 PM Cause pandas are awesome? :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 25, 2012, 03:38:00 PM If they change their policy and allow me to buy the game with Blizzcash I'll get it.
Otherwise, I'll wait until they reverse that policy or the game gets good press. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on July 25, 2012, 03:55:39 PM The same day as "The Avengers" comes out on Blu-Ray? I think not. Thanks Sheldon. :grin:Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on July 26, 2012, 03:12:46 PM Cause pandas are awesome? :awesome_for_real: Nah, it's not that. I think it's the little things like LFR from the start (I came back late into Cata and so never got to see any raids besides DS), solo-rolled-raid loot instead of relying on others not to be sociopaths, Pet battles look interesting, AE looting.. that kind of thing. Quite apprehensive about what they're going to do to my warrior, though. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 26, 2012, 03:19:58 PM If i play again I doubt I would even bother with my warrior anymore. I would just roll up a panda monk for the full experience.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 26, 2012, 03:52:12 PM Yeah, this one has enough QOL changes from the start that makes it interesting again. They really seem to have learned they fucked up in a major way with the last XP. Too bad the leveling is still so short, but there's plenty to do at the end this time.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on July 26, 2012, 04:35:47 PM If i play again I doubt I would even bother with my warrior anymore. I would just roll up a panda monk for the full experience. You still have to go through Outland/Northrend/Cata again that way. Biggest barrier to re-entry as a new class for me. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on July 26, 2012, 04:48:25 PM If i play again I doubt I would even bother with my warrior anymore. I would just roll up a panda monk for the full experience. You still have to go through Outland/Northrend/Cata again that way. Biggest barrier to re-entry as a new class for me. I recently dusted off my level 60 vanilla Priest, decked him out in heirloom helm, cape, shoulders, chest, and two-hander. I breezed to 80 doing nothing but dungeon runs/LFD in about 2 weeks. Huge chunks of XP were had just doing the dungeon quests. Once I hit 80, I quest grinded through Hyjal and Deepholm while LFDing as much as I could. All in all, I hit 85 in about 20ish calendar days. Your millage may vary depending on your style, but really, if you've got access to heirlooms, you're kicking yourself for not using them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on July 26, 2012, 04:52:06 PM Even with full heirlooms (and unless they changed it remember a bunch of them shut off once you hit 80) it's too much for me. I've done it all too many times. Even I have my limits on repeating leveling content (and I'm happily leveling my 4th and 5th SWTOR characters.) :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on July 26, 2012, 04:53:09 PM I can't even get an alt I have at 83 up to 85, I just can't do the cata content over again (it would be the fourth time). No way I could bring a level one all the way up to 90.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on July 26, 2012, 05:00:32 PM More than likely they'll curve the XP/time needed to get from 80-85 the same way they did with Wrath and BC when those became obsolete.
But I see where you all are coming from. Believe me, I kinda didn't 'want' to level the Priest up, but I'm glad I did now. Between him and my DK, I've got all four roles covered for my guild group. That's enough for me, for now. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on July 26, 2012, 05:02:00 PM I have no idea what they did to my Balance Druid, that's easily the biggest barrier for me.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 26, 2012, 05:02:14 PM My Druid has all the heirlooms and is in a guild that doesn't have the XP bonus. I cleared-out of BC in approx 8 dungeon runs. With the XP bonus I imagine it would have been 6 or 7.
WOTLK has been slower, but not terrible. She's 74 after about 7 runs, most of those not having the quests because it's always sticking me in with Invar the Plunderer as healer. Bleh. You have to be willing to be a tank or healer to level this way, though. It takes too much time dinking around doing nothing as DPS. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on July 26, 2012, 05:04:27 PM I can't even get an alt I have at 83 up to 85, I just can't do the cata content over again (it would be the fourth time). No way I could bring a level one all the way up to 90. I was in the same boat when I petered out. I have a warrior (and I like playing her!) who is level 83 and a druid around the same and I just couldn't. I couldn't do it again. I leveled two paladins, a rogue, and a mage to 85, and I just could not do it again. Something about the high level Cataclysm leveling content kills my will to live. I don't super like doing Outlands either, but it goes pretty fast, and I still like WotLK. But Cataclysm eats my soul now. And yet, if I do play again, I am almost certainly going to make a new character and level that. Because everything is changing so much, I'll need to start as a newbie to relearn it all. :uhrr: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on July 26, 2012, 05:08:32 PM You just want to be a panda girl with cute hair, don't lie!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on July 26, 2012, 05:10:19 PM I do like the panda girls. :heart:
But they can't be paladins. :heartbreak: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on July 26, 2012, 05:15:13 PM I do like the panda girls. :heart: But they can't be paladins. :heartbreak: Monk = the new Paladin. Heals, Tank, Melee DPS...they got it all, and of course, since it's a new class, they got all the cool stuff :P Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 26, 2012, 05:15:48 PM I have no idea what they did to my Balance Druid, that's easily the biggest barrier for me. I know exactly what they did to my Feral Druid and it's why I'll never go back. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on July 26, 2012, 05:20:42 PM I have no idea what they did to my Balance Druid, that's easily the biggest barrier for me. I know exactly what they did to my Feral Druid and it's why I'll never go back. Oh c'mon...you know that shit was only a matter of time. The class will be better for it in the long run...now they don't have to balance for two specs in one anymore. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 26, 2012, 05:32:09 PM Something about the high level Cataclysm leveling content kills my will to live. I don't super like doing Outlands either, but it goes pretty fast, and I still like WotLK. But Cataclysm eats my soul now. Single leveling path, infrequent changes in scenery, long linear quest chains with bad stories. Hopefully with adjusted xp you'll be 85 and ready to leave the Cata zones by the time you finish Deepholm. Not that Deepholm is immune to the problems above, but at least you won't have to do 1-2 zones after it. Also hopeful that the MoP zones won't suffer the same problems since they've talked up non-linear questing and leveling paths so much. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 26, 2012, 05:32:27 PM I have no idea what they did to my Balance Druid, that's easily the biggest barrier for me. I know exactly what they did to my Feral Druid and it's why I'll never go back. Oh c'mon...you know that shit was only a matter of time. The class will be better for it in the long run...now they don't have to balance for two specs in one anymore. Eight years later it's suddenly time to make a change that fundamental? Nope, sorry. Given how terrible Cataclysm was and now with the mangling of Feral, as far as I'm concerned the game ended at Wrath with the death of the Lich King. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on July 26, 2012, 05:40:58 PM How is that an argument?
It was that way for a long time therefore it should be that way forever now? :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 26, 2012, 05:58:10 PM How is that an argument? It was that way for a long time therefore it should be that way forever now? :why_so_serious: Yup, pretty much. This isn't some minor change to a spec, it's a fundamental change to the way a Druid is played. Of course, you don't care since all you play is Moonkin. I started playing WoW on Day 1 as Feral back when it was considered terrible and I stayed Feral throughout my entire time playing the game. I loved the flexibility. Now it's gone so I have no interest in playing the character anymore, and thus have no more interest in the game. Feel free to argue the opinion more, Fordel, since you seem to love to make a point to argue against everything I post just for the sake of being argumentative. But you won't change my mind. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on July 26, 2012, 06:22:17 PM Something about the high level Cataclysm leveling content kills my will to live. I don't super like doing Outlands either, but it goes pretty fast, and I still like WotLK. But Cataclysm eats my soul now. Single leveling path, infrequent changes in scenery, long linear quest chains with bad stories. Hopefully with adjusted xp you'll be 85 and ready to leave the Cata zones by the time you finish Deepholm. Not that Deepholm is immune to the problems above, but at least you won't have to do 1-2 zones after it. Also hopeful that the MoP zones won't suffer the same problems since they've talked up non-linear questing and leveling paths so much. Unfortunately Deepholm is one of the zones I hate most. :why_so_serious: But yeah, the one leveling path and spending what feels like forever in any given zone are big factors in the "ugh, Cataclysm" feeling. And monks aren't paladins! They're monks. It's the paladin part that's important. Because I have issues. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on July 26, 2012, 06:48:05 PM How is that an argument? It's not what she wants. No reason she should play something she doesn't like.If anyone should be clamoring for this expansion it should be me. It doesn't interest me in the slightest. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on July 26, 2012, 06:59:36 PM There's a difference between, "I don't like something so I won't play it" and "They shouldn't change something because I don't like it".
Whatever floats your goat though. /shrug Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 26, 2012, 07:00:27 PM This isn't some minor change to a spec, it's a fundamental change to the way a Druid is played. Of course, you don't care since all you play is Moonkin. I started playing WoW on Day 1 as Feral back when it was considered terrible and I stayed Feral throughout my entire time playing the game. I loved the flexibility. I guess you must have loved the flexibility it offered in vanilla when feral druids could either be terrible dps or terrible tanks. The changes to feral druids (and frankly every hybrid class) in TBC were much larger than the changes we're seeing now. Apparently massive changes to the class back then were perfectly okay, but changing it a little more for the most recent expansion is too drastic. There's still a good deal of overlap, you'll still be able to switch to better dps or emergency tanking when needed especially when you consider the added hybrid utility available from symbiosis or talents like heart of the wild. It's still the same class just balanced to be more in line with every other hybrid class in the game. You'll be less effective at non-primary roles if you try to fill them for a longer amount of time, but why shouldn't you be? It was silly that druids could completely fill the role of a tank on bosses like Madness and then turn into a great dps class for the rest of the fight when every other tank was stuck doing low tank dps. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 26, 2012, 07:34:18 PM There's a difference between, "I don't like something so I won't play it" and "They shouldn't change something because I don't like it". Whatever floats your goat though. /shrug In other words, you're splitting hairs to be argumentative. This isn't some minor change to a spec, it's a fundamental change to the way a Druid is played. Of course, you don't care since all you play is Moonkin. I started playing WoW on Day 1 as Feral back when it was considered terrible and I stayed Feral throughout my entire time playing the game. I loved the flexibility. I guess you must have loved the flexibility it offered in vanilla when feral druids could either be terrible dps or terrible tanks. The changes to feral druids (and frankly every hybrid class) in TBC were much larger than the changes we're seeing now. Apparently massive changes to the class back then were perfectly okay, but changing it a little more for the most recent expansion is too drastic. I was there for vanilla when Feral sucked. All hybrids deliberately sucked as a design choice, one they wisely walked away from in TBC. The changes made to Feral in TBC weren't fundamental changes to how the spec was played. Feral has had good days and bad days but it's always played the same on a fundamental level. That's gone now. Quote Don't care. They lost me when they split the spec. My threshold for class changes was near broken when they removed Frost DK tanking, and I have zero interest in the shambles of what used to be a fun spec in Feral. You can call Feral 'unfair' until you're blue in the face and I'll just point out if it was so 'unfair' then why was the population of the class never out of line with classes or specs? So I'm voting with my dollars and not giving Blizzard anymore of my money. You don't have to agree with my reasons but you certainly can't talk me out of them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 26, 2012, 08:44:36 PM You can call Feral 'unfair' until you're blue in the face and I'll just point out if it was so 'unfair' then why was the population of the class never out of line with classes or specs? Well... it was. According to achievement data MMO champion pulled druids were the second most popular class at 85 (beaten by mages), the second most popular class overall for raiding (beaten by paladins), and were the most common class for most of the harder heroic kills in the expansion. That said, those numbers say more about resto and balance druids than feral druids. Overall numbers wouldn't reflect whether druid tanks were OP because tanks only make up 1-2 slots out of any 10 or 25 man raid team. Still, this is a big population shift from what had been tied with warlocks as the least popular class in the game (vanilla). I don't think overall population numbers are going to reflect a moderate imbalance on specific raid fights anyway because I suspect most people don't care enough. They'd rather play the class that is most fun for them instead of the class that is better for specific raid fights. Even if the imbalance is really only exploited by high-end guilds that care enough to stack their raid comp, it's was still a noticeable imbalance to everyone else and I'm not surprised or angry that they're taking steps to fix it. I think you're over-estimating how much this effects you too. The class hasn't fundamentally changed, really. You can be proficient in your non-primary role (bear tanking or cat dps) for 45 seconds. You can be semi-proficient in it after that permanently because you still have plenty of bear/cat spells even when that isn't your spec and you're still using largely the same gear. If you want to be completely proficient in the other role long-term, you can take that as a second spec and switch out of combat just like every other class (minus the ability to perform other roles competently short-term, which is still druid-exclusive). You're saying the class is broken for you if you cannot permanently change roles in-combat for as long as you want and without any meaningful penalties to your performance when compared to other tanks or dps classes that can't. Your post isn't different from any other complaint where someone decided to quit a game when their character received a completely warranted nerf. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on July 26, 2012, 08:50:05 PM Speaking as a raid leader and someone who was allegedy "competing" with ferals for raid spots (warrior tank) I loved having a feral/resto dual spec druid as an option. Having someone with the ability to do all 3 roles post dual-spec made it so much better for a guild with a limited roster to pick from, especially for 10 man content. A class that flexible made it easier for everyone else in the guild to get to play the role they wanted to play. So contrary to it being "unfair", it was actually a help to everyone IMO.
I understand why they made the change from a balance headache standpoint, and I probably would have made the same choice in their place ultimately, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth complaining about, because it is. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on July 26, 2012, 08:53:40 PM I don't remember us really ever having any druids who COULD do the three roles well, though? I was feral/resto but fucking blew at cat deepz (because I suck at deepz), and our resto/feral druids usually either didn't understand tanking or didn't do very well at DPS. Honestly I think Nevermore was the only feral DPS druid we had that didn't blow it out the ass in WotLK. :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on July 26, 2012, 08:55:37 PM Dood was who I was thinking of specifically - yeah nobody was super awesome at all 3 I suppose, but good enough for the sort of stuff we would do certainly.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on July 26, 2012, 09:05:15 PM Oh riiiight, Dood did do all three. I seem to recall his DPS being a little crappy at first but yeah, I think by the end of WotLK I finally at least trusted him to do anything we asked him to. :P
Of course, I have trust issues when it comes to raiding anyway. Not healing during that cycle turned me into a huge bitch. Huger bitch. Same thing. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 26, 2012, 09:55:09 PM Well... it was. According to achievement data MMO champion pulled druids were the second most popular class at 85 (beaten by mages), the second most popular class overall for raiding (beaten by paladins), and were the most common class for most of the harder heroic kills in the expansion. That said, those numbers say more about resto and balance druids than feral druids. Overall numbers wouldn't reflect whether druid tanks were OP because tanks only make up 1-2 slots out of any 10 or 25 man raid team. Still, this is a big population shift from what had been tied with warlocks as the least popular class in the game (vanilla). Did you actually read what you wrote? You're saying splitting Feral was justified because they could play too many roles, yet you yourself admit that despite this 'unfair' advantage Druids were still not the most popular class nor the most popular raid class. Indeed, they used to be one of the least popular classes, thus let's wreck the whole spec. Nothing you said supports your assertion that the spec needed to be split because it made Druids too flexible and thus had some kind of 'unfair' advantage. Whether or not Druid tanks were 'overpowered' or not is irrelevant. If they were, then those tank specific problems could be addressed. This something that's been done many times before in the past. The only reason Blizzard is wrecking Feral now is the reason Ingmar gave: they consider it a headache to balance. I for one don't think "because it's hard" is a good enough reason, though. Not when for eight years they were somehow able to manage. Quote You're saying the class is broken for you if you cannot permanently change roles in-combat for as long as you want and without any meaningful penalties to your performance when compared to other tanks or dps classes that can't. Your post isn't different from any other complaint where someone decided to quit a game when their character received a completely warranted nerf. Yes, I'm saying the spec is now broken because I can't change roles as needed for as long as I needed like I could before. You're justification of the split isn't any different from any other complaint from a 'pure' class that is only able to spec into a DPS role. You've done nothing to prove your case other than to cry "they needed to be nerfed because it's not fair" without providing any support that the game was being harmed in any way prior to this change. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on July 27, 2012, 12:26:09 AM Me and my guildies are really looking forward to MOP -and- GW2... now there's TSW too (though most of us will stop playing that after a month or two), and I bet some peeps will want to take a look at the Rift expansion coming this fall as well. Gah, too many games, not enough time!
For me, MOP has a lot of things to like, at least on paper - raid finder for everything, scenarios (ala LOTRO skirmishes / RIFT instant adventures) for quick pickup play, moving towards a RIFT-style pvp gearing system (which is the best I've seen in any diku so far... not that it's saying much, lol diku pvp), challenge modes (I like tough small-group content... had a ball doing 45min Strat and Valthalak back in the day, even if not all of my guildies agree with me :drill:) and heck, even pet battles may be fun. I've not read anything horrifying about my two 'main' classes (dk, shaman) yet... well, tank DKs being balanced around a 1sec GCD may break things for me and my 800 ping ways. We'll see. One thing that's been giving me pause - cross-server zones. We rolled on a small pvp server back in '04 (mostly out of habit, we used to be an UO anti guild after all :why_so_serious:), but the appeal of a pvp server has declined steadily for me over the years, and none of us has enough playtime to keep up with the catasses / organize counter-gank groups anymore. Not sure I'm looking forward to the idea of getting ganked and corpsecamped by groups of epiced out 90s from l33t_pvp_server_02 while I'm trying to level my alt. And transferring all of our characters to some pve or rp server? Yeahhhh... with this many alts, forget about it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on July 27, 2012, 02:58:45 AM Well... it was. According to achievement data MMO champion pulled druids were the second most popular class at 85 (beaten by mages), the second most popular class overall for raiding (beaten by paladins), and were the most common class for most of the harder heroic kills in the expansion. That said, those numbers say more about resto and balance druids than feral druids. Overall numbers wouldn't reflect whether druid tanks were OP because tanks only make up 1-2 slots out of any 10 or 25 man raid team. Still, this is a big population shift from what had been tied with warlocks as the least popular class in the game (vanilla). Did you actually read what you wrote? You're saying splitting Feral was justified because they could play too many roles, yet you yourself admit that despite this 'unfair' advantage Druids were still not the most popular class nor the most popular raid class. Indeed, they used to be one of the least popular classes, thus let's wreck the whole spec. Nothing you said supports your assertion that the spec needed to be split because it made Druids too flexible and thus had some kind of 'unfair' advantage. Whether or not Druid tanks were 'overpowered' or not is irrelevant. If they were, then those tank specific problems could be addressed. This something that's been done many times before in the past. The only reason Blizzard is wrecking Feral now is the reason Ingmar gave: they consider it a headache to balance. I for one don't think "because it's hard" is a good enough reason, though. Not when for eight years they were somehow able to manage. Quote You're saying the class is broken for you if you cannot permanently change roles in-combat for as long as you want and without any meaningful penalties to your performance when compared to other tanks or dps classes that can't. Your post isn't different from any other complaint where someone decided to quit a game when their character received a completely warranted nerf. Yes, I'm saying the spec is now broken because I can't change roles as needed for as long as I needed like I could before. You're justification of the split isn't any different from any other complaint from a 'pure' class that is only able to spec into a DPS role. You've done nothing to prove your case other than to cry "they needed to be nerfed because it's not fair" without providing any support that the game was being harmed in any way prior to this change. As someone who saw my Enhance Shaman nerfed into the ground time and again even back to Vanilla, I can feel your pain. But we got fucked over for years and got told we couldn't have certain skillsets because they were druid-specific. Our "tanking" talents and skills were never viasble. Every time we got close to competitive and fun we got nerfed back. Then they gave our raid-worthy skillsets to Mages and DKs et al DPS shaman never had the tools a druid had and could never switch specs and be as viable. Nor could pallys for that matter. So of the the hybrid classes, druids finally get reigned in with the rest of us. Welcome to World of Mortals Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 27, 2012, 04:34:20 AM Yeah, there can only be one god class and that's Monks this time 'round.
As a DK player I eagerly await the wailing and gnashing of teeth that will be forthcoming as monks are tuned down. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on July 27, 2012, 04:37:59 AM From what I've been reading in beta, right now Monks seem to be a bit under-tuned in some areas, but I guess time will tell.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on July 27, 2012, 05:18:08 AM Firstly, there is a significant gap between "I don't like something." and "This something should/should not be done." Namely that the latter actually has a burden of proof.
To the specific issue about Feral Tanks: leaving them the way they are negatively impacts many more players than doing something about them. Feral tanks' ability to do appreciable levels of damage when not tanking puts constraints on game design at every level. At the encounter level fights need to have a static number of tanks or Ferals are immediately at an advantage. At the gear level, offensive and defensive stats and effects need to be split up cleanly so as Ferals aren't able to double-dip. And Ferals themselves are disadvantaged because everything about their spec has to be seen through the lens of "This class is one slip away from being majorly stacked." so they actually wind up not that great. The status quo just isn't in a good place for the vast majority of players. One solution could have been to make all tanks like that, but that would have been a) much more difficult to pull off given the changes to the entire game and b) just as unfair to the tanks that wanted to just be tanks. Paelos a while ago bristled that my assertion that "Tank damage mattered in and of itself now." was something that no tanks actually signed up for. My first main was a Feral Druid, and I loved the versatility that it offered, but I felt now and still do to a lesser extent that I gave up entirely too much for it. I'm sure there's some means of squaring this circle, but Blizzard's been trying to for at least four years at it and hasn't cracked it. It's time to throw elegance out the window and just fix the problem. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on July 27, 2012, 07:08:30 AM Did a flock of Druids root through everyone's drawers and bunch up all their panties?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soulflame on July 27, 2012, 07:54:58 AM A druid once stole a resource node from me.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on July 27, 2012, 07:56:38 AM Damn those druids and their instant flight form tricks!
Also, one turned itself into a newt. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 27, 2012, 11:20:57 AM Firstly, there is a significant gap between "I don't like something." and "This something should/should not be done." Namely that the latter actually has a burden of proof. I'd say there's a significant overlap between "I don't like something." and "This something should/should not be done." My original post on the matter fell squarely into the former. We can argue the latter all you want but to be clear: whether or not the split was 'justified' (which I don't think it was) is irrelevant since the split itself is why the game is dead to me now, not the reason for it. As to the rest, there were an awful lot of vague assertions about how pre-Mists Feral had a negative impact on other players with no actual examples of how. Wrath is the expansion I raided the most, so give me an example of a fight in Wrath where the flexibility of Feral was shoving other classes to the curb. Keep in mind that with dual specs, the other tanks could switch to a dps spec before any fight where only 1 tank is needed anyway (sorry tank/heal dual specced Paladin), so Feral flexibility would only be an 'issue' where there would be some advantage in switching in the middle of an encounter. Honestly, dual specs is where your whole argument falls apart. In my experience, being able to switch on the fly only made a difference in two situations: When you went along as dps and one of the tanks died, you could switch to bear and finish tanking the encounter. That's assuming you couldn't get a battle rez off for whatever reason. The other time it was really useful was as Ingmar said: you could essentially bring 3 specs to a raid instead of just two. This would only ever matter in a casual guild like ours, to be honest, since it allowed us more flexibility in assembling our groups. Even then the only real advantage a Druid would have over a Paladin would be the cost of a respec. As for the stat 'double dipping', splitting Feral does nothing to change gearing as dps vs gearing as a tank. You already had to have a separate tank set and dps set as a pre-Mists Feral to be optimal anyway. Is agility no longer the stat for Bears? Because as long as it is, nothing there has changed. So I'm still struggling to find where the negative impact is on other players. That's something people here keep saying but just haven't demonstrated. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on July 27, 2012, 11:54:57 AM Even then the only real advantage a Druid would have over a Paladin would be the cost of a respec. Uh, and having an entire raid wait around while you ran your ass back to do the respec. And rooted around in your vault for your third (or fourth) set of gear you don't carry around with you because you don't normally have that spec prepared. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 27, 2012, 12:01:44 PM Even then the only real advantage a Druid would have over a Paladin would be the cost of a respec. Uh, and having an entire raid wait around while you ran your ass back to do the respec. And rooted around in your vault for your third (or fourth) set of gear you don't carry around with you because you don't normally have that spec prepared. If I have to carry around 3 sets of gear, so can you! :tantrum: For the respec: Hearth, respec, get Warlock summoned back. :grin: But I think you know I was talking about putting the raid together, not performing all three roles during the raid. What with the whole 'assembling the group' part. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on July 27, 2012, 12:27:23 PM Never seemed like a thing for assembling the raid, but for during the raid, when we'd do, say, Blood Princes "wrong" and have three tanks for it. The third tank was a druid 99% of the time when I was there. My DK always covered the warlock tank spot. :why_so_serious:
EDIT: Also hearth -> respec -> port back takes a while. It's loading screens, your class trainer is not AT the portal, etc. And when you're pretty strict about when you end for the evening (and we generally were), that matters. :P Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 27, 2012, 12:32:55 PM As for the stat 'double dipping', splitting Feral does nothing to change gearing as dps vs gearing as a tank. You already had to have a separate tank set and dps set as a pre-Mists Feral to be optimal anyway. Is agility no longer the stat for Bears? Because as long as it is, nothing there has changed. So I'm still struggling to find where the negative impact is on other players. That's something people here keep saying but just haven't demonstrated. PVP. The lack of need to switch stats between Tank and DPS is what caused the most ruckus in PVP. An already-hard-to-kill Feral became impossible as a bear. Never look at this as anything but a PVE nerf because of PVP, because that's where it sprang from. (Much like altering healing from simply rolling lifeblooms and instant casts) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on July 27, 2012, 12:59:48 PM Quote Druid bitching :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 27, 2012, 01:18:16 PM Never seemed like a thing for assembling the raid, but for during the raid, when we'd do, say, Blood Princes "wrong" and have three tanks for it. The third tank was a druid 99% of the time when I was there. My DK always covered the warlock tank spot. :why_so_serious: But when did you take a Druid for all three roles at once? I don't remember any Icecrowns where we'd go: Ok, tank on this one, heal on that one and then DPS on that other one, all during the same raid. Maybe if someone had to leave and be replaced you could shuffle people around, but then you're waiting for that new person anyway. As for the stat 'double dipping', splitting Feral does nothing to change gearing as dps vs gearing as a tank. You already had to have a separate tank set and dps set as a pre-Mists Feral to be optimal anyway. Is agility no longer the stat for Bears? Because as long as it is, nothing there has changed. So I'm still struggling to find where the negative impact is on other players. That's something people here keep saying but just haven't demonstrated. PVP. The lack of need to switch stats between Tank and DPS is what caused the most ruckus in PVP. An already-hard-to-kill Feral became impossible as a bear. Never look at this as anything but a PVE nerf because of PVP, because that's where it sprang from. (Much like altering healing from simply rolling lifeblooms and instant casts) Except Druids did still need to switch stats. Your DPS set is going to emphasize different secondary stats than your Tank set. Both still use Agility. So what? The other tanks all use Strength regardless of whether they're Tanks or DPS too. Now it makes slightly more sense if they did it for PvP, but then Rokal said a Feral can still do the same thing for a limited time anyway so what changed? You were never staying in Bear for extended periods of time in PvP anyway. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 27, 2012, 01:21:33 PM When have PVP nerfs ever made complete and total sense and not been about edge cases and Arena-nonsense? Just about never.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on July 27, 2012, 01:22:16 PM Often when fighting ferals in Arena they would pop back and forth as needed a lot more, that's probably where it ultimately comes from.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 27, 2012, 01:57:57 PM Oddly enough I've never had as much fun tanking as I did in TBC. Wrath was too much of an AE fest, and early Cata before I left marginalized the tanking role so much they were almost pointless beyond just not getting jibbed.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 27, 2012, 02:04:38 PM Except Druids did still need to switch stats. Your DPS set is going to emphasize different secondary stats than your Tank set. Both still use Agility. So what? The other tanks all use Strength regardless of whether they're Tanks or DPS too. There is more stat overlap than you are implying compared to other tanks. Agi and mastery are pretty obvious, but both specs also benefit heavily from crit, hit, and expertise. Haste is really the only stat that is terrible for one spec but good for the other. Now it makes slightly more sense if they did it for PvP, but then Rokal said a Feral can still do the same thing for a limited time anyway so what changed? You were never staying in Bear for extended periods of time in PvP anyway. Doesn't arena block CDs that are over a certain amount of minutes long? I really haven't done any in a while, but it's possible that heart of the wild won't be useable in arena because it has a 6 min CD. Even if it is usable, it'll only be for 45 seconds of the fight and then you're back to lower-proficiency. The biggest benefit to pvp will probably be the loss of bear's shieldwall for cats.Like I said though, this does not fundamentally change the class. You are right that druids will still be able to perform lots of the tricks that make them OP now. They'd still be the best tanks for Madness for example because they could still tank impales (as feral dps) and then dps for the rest of the fight. They'll just be worse at maintaining multiple roles for an entire fight. Oddly enough I've never had as much fun tanking as I did in TBC. Wrath was too much of an AE fest, and early Cata before I left marginalized the tanking role so much they were almost pointless beyond just not getting jibbed. I don't even know what game you were playing. 5-mans in particular still had plenty of fights where your tank would make or break you. Every role had to step their game up really.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ashamanchill on July 27, 2012, 02:04:53 PM As a Tank Druid main I am fucking thrilled to bits that they are finally splitting up the two specs. Maybe now I can finally get real tanking leather and no longer have every rogue and cat in the raid to roll against. You know, exactly like the other tanks. I know that isn't the route that Blizzard is going to go, but quite frankly that's what they will have to do if they want to avoid bears doing insane dps. Of course they will be, WHEN THEY ARE WEARING DPS GEAR!
Also, lets be real, bear-catting was really only a problem amongst the highest tiers of players. That shit simply did not have an impact in LFR and the normal DS I raided in. Off topic, I am super psyched for MoP. Based on Ironwood's advice, I rolled an enhancement shaman, and it is fucking fun. I'm thinking he's gonna be my new main. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on July 27, 2012, 02:07:52 PM Arena's cooldown line used to be 10 minutes, you could use anything shorter than that. Dunno if it has changed.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 27, 2012, 02:13:55 PM I don't even know what game you were playing. 5-mans in particular still had plenty of fights where your tank would make or break you. Every role had to step their game up really. Ok, what examples are you thinking of? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on July 27, 2012, 02:16:17 PM First one that leaps to mind is the BREAK YOURSELF UPON MY BODY dude. There's a lot of positioning of bosses in general in Cata.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 27, 2012, 02:17:44 PM As a Tank Druid main I am fucking thrilled to bits that they are finally splitting up the two specs. Maybe now I can finally get real tanking leather and no longer have every rogue and cat in the raid to roll against. You know, exactly like the other tanks. I know that isn't the route that Blizzard is going to go, but quite frankly that's what they will have to do if they want to avoid bears doing insane dps. Of course they will be, WHEN THEY ARE WEARING DPS GEAR! I think Monks get to roll against you for tanking leather. So now there's 2 leather tanks and 3 plate tanks. (DPS now has three leather wearers.. welcome to clothy-hell DPS druids.) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 27, 2012, 02:21:17 PM First one that leaps to mind is the BREAK YOURSELF UPON MY BODY dude. There's a lot of positioning of bosses in general in Cata. Yeah that's in Stonecore. Along with Deadmines as places almost nobody ever wanted to run at release. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ashamanchill on July 27, 2012, 02:21:22 PM I think Monks get to roll against you for tanking leather. So now there's 2 leather tanks and 3 plate tanks. (DPS now has three leather wearers.. welcome to clothy-hell DPS druids.) You would be right, except Blizz has stated they are not making tanking leather, everyone rolls against the big pile of agi leather. :heartbreak:Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on July 27, 2012, 02:28:40 PM First one that leaps to mind is the BREAK YOURSELF UPON MY BODY dude. There's a lot of positioning of bosses in general in Cata. Yeah that's in Stonecore. Along with Deadmines as places almost nobody ever wanted to run at release. - ZA: dragonhawk (hope you like adds), lynx (don't let him heal in his totems) - ZG: snake (positioning, especially with breath weapon), panther (tank responsibility to pace adds), jin'do (spirits, oh god) - BRC: dragon dude (don't let stacks fall off, but don't get too many stacks); in a pug you'll probably have to be interrupting the first boss too + dancing in/out of a beam - TOT: first boss (with no CC, you need fast pickups on 3 adds or the healer bites it) - GB: forgemaster dude (hope the tank knows what 'kite' means) - SC: ozruk - SFK has quite a few tank-heavy fights like the ghost captain dude (face him away while dodging desecrations AND picking up adds), and the end boss (again with positioning and adds) On the bright side, my not-that-well-geared tank (justice + LFR stuff, some valor stuff) can basically solo most heroic bosses at this point. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 27, 2012, 02:31:28 PM Ok, what examples are you thinking of? I know you did the Tol'vir dungeon at least. Husam (first boss): Tank needed to pay close attention to the mines on the ground and needed to carefully move the boss out of them when they started counting down. Tanks were the most important role on this fight. Lockmaw (second boss): Tank needed to constantly attempt to get aggro on small adds. Also largely responsible for damaging the adds given tank aoe dmg in cata and vengeance. Pretty easy fight for tanks, but not one you slept through. Barim (third boss): Tank needed to use cooldowns for spike damage, pull boss out of ground aoe, and kite purple phoenix for phase 2 while taking care not to let any shadow clones of your party reach it. Honestly everyone was pretty important in this fight which is why lots of groups wiped on it. Having a bad tank, healer, or dps was enough to sink you. Siamat (fourth boss): Tank needed to gather adds to kill while avoiding thunder clouds. Also needed to make sure to run away from melee adds before they died. There was a good potential to wipe if the adds weren't handled correctly or the tank fell off during the phase 2 transition, but ultimately healers were the determining factor for success. There are plenty of fights throughout the rest of the dungeons (some of which zetor covered) that really relied on the tank too. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 27, 2012, 02:38:08 PM There is more stat overlap than you are implying compared to other tanks. Agi and mastery are pretty obvious, but both specs also benefit heavily from crit, hit, and expertise. Haste is really the only stat that is terrible for one spec but good for the other. Irrelevant since you still had to have two different sets of gear. If they really needed to differentiate DPS stats from Tank stats more, all they had to do was give Bears parry (what, bears can't swipe weapons aside with their big-ass paws? In a game with fire-fucking-breathing dragons?) and decouple crit from the goofy shield thing. There, greater diversity in stats. And apparently that issue isn't even being addressed with the split anyway, from what other people have said. Quote Doesn't arena block CDs that are over a certain amount of minutes long? I really haven't done any in a while, but it's possible that heart of the wild won't be useable in arena because it has a 6 min CD. Even if it is usable, it'll only be for 45 seconds of the fight and then you're back to lower-proficiency. The biggest benefit to pvp will probably be the loss of bear's shieldwall for cats. Like I said though, this does not fundamentally change the class. You are right that druids will still be able to perform lots of the tricks that make them OP now. They'd still be the best tanks for Madness for example because they could still tank impales (as feral dps) and then dps for the rest of the fight. They'll just be worse at maintaining multiple roles for an entire fight. Like Ingmar said, for as long as I played at least the cutoff was 10 minutes on abilities. And if the best people can come up with for such a fundamental change that effects the entire game is because Feral was strong in arenas (when historically they weren't), then that just reinforces my Fuck Blizzard stance even more. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on July 27, 2012, 02:42:46 PM Yeah the gear had to be gemmed differently, so it isn't really a case where you can say the gear overlap mattered, other than on some pieces of jewelry.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on July 27, 2012, 02:58:29 PM The gemming is much less of an issue than the gear itself. Especially now as Heroic-10 gearing is like pulling blood from a stone.
Once you have the item, just carry sets of gems/enchant scrolls in your bag. Hell, even I carried stacks of glyphs on my Priest throughout Wrath to switch between fights on top of dual-specs (and/or swapping spec sets depending on the night's plan). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on July 27, 2012, 03:00:17 PM Honestly, that's a level of micromanagement I hope I'll never have to do (and since I'm not in a raiding guild, I won't). Not to mention an annoying gold sink. [e: referring to the 'regem/enchant/glyph in the middle of the run' thing here]
Even for my ele/resto shaman I'm content getting one set of gear and just using gems/enchants that are good for both specs (tier sets are an exception) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 27, 2012, 03:11:19 PM The gemming is much less of an issue than the gear itself. Especially now as Heroic-10 gearing is like pulling blood from a stone. Once you have the item, just carry sets of gems/enchant scrolls in your bag. Hell, even I carried stacks of glyphs on my Priest throughout Wrath to switch between fights on top of dual-specs (and/or swapping spec sets depending on the night's plan). But if anything gearing will be even worse in Mists, so how is that even relevant to splitting up Feral? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on July 27, 2012, 03:17:10 PM Because Ferals (and their raids) don't get a two-for-one for each tier token.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 27, 2012, 03:34:35 PM Because Ferals (and their raids) don't get a two-for-one for each tier token. I'm not really sure what you mean by that, but whatever gearing issue existed or didn't exist in pre-Mists will still exist in Mists. Splitting Feral didn't change the fact that DPS and Tanks will still need the same gear, from what everyone else has said. Is your argument that you can gear up a DPS and Tank at the same time with the same gear? Hasn't changed. Question: how are they differentiating DPS agility gear and Tank agility gear on Monks? Sounds like they'll have the same 'problem' as Druids. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 27, 2012, 03:49:05 PM I know you did the Tol'vir dungeon at least. I forgot about the first boss. That's true you did have to move around a lot. The rest of them I think you're reaching a bit. Hell, the last boss is basically a DPS race and a healer test. We also ran a shitton of Halls and GB. Just seemed to come up the most on the random. We joked OMG Halls again. I think we got it 5 times in a row one week. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on July 27, 2012, 03:58:44 PM Let me explain my point less glibly. Realistically, every (heroic) 10-man group needs to gear three tanks. Not just because of attendance or technical issues, but also because sometimes the group needs to do a fight "the wrong way" or because one of the primary tanks' spec is awful for a specific encounter. And sometimes you might actually need three tanks like with Halfus.
The gear synergy between Feral Tanks and Feral DPS is much higher than it is with any of the other tanks. It's also higher than any of the healers, especially Paladins which are completely boned as none of their specs even share main-hand weapons. Just as important as the synergy between items in general is that occasionally (read: T13) tank tier set bonuses are some of the most important pieces of gear the raid will get the entire expansion. By having a Feral DPS be that swing tank, the raid gets a geared DPS all through their progression, then just needs to spend a trivial amount of gold to get a fully gear tank for that one fight. It's not something that's going to effect a large number of players. But it's a case that exists now and won't with Mists as they're splitting up the tier sets along with the specs. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 27, 2012, 04:08:47 PM It's not something that's going to effect a large number of players. But it's a case that exists now and won't with Mists as they're splitting up the tier sets along with the specs. That's all well and good (except for the part about healing Druid gear synergy), but splitting Feral up has absolutely nothing to do with gear. Nothing. They could just as easily split up Tanking and DPS agility tiered gear while leaving Feral itself alone. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on July 27, 2012, 05:04:49 PM First one that leaps to mind is the BREAK YOURSELF UPON MY BODY dude. There's a lot of positioning of bosses in general in Cata. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tMXQvp3cBYTitle: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on July 27, 2012, 10:45:52 PM ...so Feral flexibility would only be an 'issue' where there would be some advantage in switching in the middle of an encounter. In Dragon Soul, for example? Morchok (sunder swaps), Yor'sahj (slime stage), Hagara (outer rim stages), Ultraxion (fading light swaps), Blackhorn (sunder swaps), Spine (tendon), and Madness (impale swap, blistering tentacles). 7/8. I dunno about the last guy, maybe it's 8/8. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on July 28, 2012, 12:40:05 AM ...so Feral flexibility would only be an 'issue' where there would be some advantage in switching in the middle of an encounter. In Dragon Soul, for example? Morchok (sunder swaps), Yor'sahj (slime stage), Hagara (outer rim stages), Ultraxion (fading light swaps), Blackhorn (sunder swaps), Spine (tendon), and Madness (impale swap, blistering tentacles). 7/8. I dunno about the last guy, maybe it's 8/8. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on July 28, 2012, 06:06:56 AM Well damn. One of your tanks was effective and it help let you clear the dungeon more easily. Better nerf it quick!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on July 28, 2012, 06:51:21 AM Well damn. One of your tanks was effective and it help let you clear the dungeon more easily. Better nerf it quick! When Tank A is putting out 4x the overall Damage of Tank B simply because 90% of the stats he wants as a Tank are fully applicable as DPS stats on demand because all he has to do is shift to cat form whereby he can do dps compedative to actual DPS classes in DPS specs, something is a little off.I play a druid as my main, and even I have no problem admitting that Feral Double Dipping needs some kind of fix. I mean, if a Prot Warrior or Paladin could do compedative dps with regular DPS classes without changing gear, simply by switching Stances or Auras, the rage would be defening. Why should druids be any different? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ashamanchill on July 28, 2012, 07:30:27 AM It's funny cause you don't even have to switch to cat. Bears damage is through the roof, and this problem will continue because of vengeance, and the fact that they are wearing dps gear. I fully expect it to show up on Brewmasters as well.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on July 28, 2012, 09:32:36 AM We already saw this exact same problem with druids at the beginning of Burning Crusade (I know, I was playing one!), you think they would have learned.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on July 28, 2012, 10:30:56 PM Well damn. One of your tanks was effective and it help let you clear the dungeon more easily. Better nerf it quick! When Tank A is putting out 4x the overall Damage of Tank B simply because 90% of the stats he wants as a Tank are fully applicable as DPS stats on demand because all he has to do is shift to cat form whereby he can do dps compedative to actual DPS classes in DPS specs, something is a little off.I play a druid as my main, and even I have no problem admitting that Feral Double Dipping needs some kind of fix. I mean, if a Prot Warrior or Paladin could do compedative dps with regular DPS classes without changing gear, simply by switching Stances or Auras, the rage would be defening. Why should druids be any different? I played a prot warrior and had absolutely zero problem with druids working this way (outside of arena where it was admittedly really goddamn annoying.) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 29, 2012, 06:28:59 AM The other problem is once a tank has such superior dps, even in tank form, you begin to wonder why you're bringing the other tank-types. The meta game then says "well use druids as all tanks and your DPS will up by 2-3%" and that would be the end of it.
At which point Blizzard needs do one of the following: 1) Create mechanics that favor one class over another - breaking the 'bring who you want' mantra 2) Up tank DPS - which fucks arena up AND if your tanks are doing the dps of DPS.. why bring squishy melee dps 3) Nerf Druids - which only pisses off one segment. Guess which they did. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 29, 2012, 09:35:14 AM I'm against them upping Tank DPS anyway, as I've said before. That's not our job. We have enough to worry about with positioning, leading, mitigation cooldowns, and taunt swaps to worry in addition about someone checking our meters. We bring 60-70% of group and raids as DPS. They need to hold up their end of the job, just as the healers need to heal, and the tanks tank.
I don't like crossing over those jobs. If we're doing the trinity, let's do it. I have no problem with SWAPPING roles, which is why we have dual specs. However, I don't want them bleeding into other things. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 29, 2012, 10:20:35 AM The other problem is once a tank has such superior dps, even in tank form, you begin to wonder why you're bringing the other tank-types. The meta game then says "well use druids as all tanks and your DPS will up by 2-3%" and that would be the end of it. And yet that wasn't happening. For all the anecdotal examples of Super BearCats, Druids weren't being taken to the exclusion of the other tanks. Hell, for as long as I played Cata it was the Blood DKs who where doing the huge dps as tanks, and I don't recall them suddenly dominating all the raid tank spots either. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 29, 2012, 11:13:02 AM And yet that wasn't happening. For all the anecdotal examples of Super BearCats, Druids weren't being taken to the exclusion of the other tanks. Hell, for as long as I played Cata it was the Blood DKs who where doing the huge dps as tanks, and I don't recall them suddenly dominating all the raid tank spots either. In high-end raiding where larger rosters were available they were. Out of the three statistics I talked about earlier, you missed the detail where druids had a higher representation in heroic content than their population at 85 and in normal raids would suggest. The strength of Shaman healers at the end of TBC did not mean that every raid took mostly shaman. You bring what you've got. You would only start to see shaman stacking as you looked at larger raid guilds progressing through Sunwell that had a deep enough roster. Just because the average raid used a larger variety of healers doesn't mean that there wasn't a large imbalance or that the nerfs shamans got going into Wrath weren't needed. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on July 29, 2012, 11:38:58 AM My favorite metric anytime class balance comes around is Spec Score. From the site: "In a nutshell, each spec is scored on a curve for each fight. For each individual boss, the spec with the top DPS on a fight gets a score of 100 and then all other specs are scored according to that top spec. The average across all fights for a given spec is the Spec Score for the current tier."
In normal-mode raids, Blood DKs and Bears are pretty competitive this tier: http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Spec_Score/10N/all/14/180/default/#1s0000/ (http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Spec_Score/10N/all/14/180/default/#1s0000/) In heroic content though, it's a laugher in favor of Bears. They are almost always the top DPS on each fight and across the tier the other three tanks are well behind: Spec Score 10H - All Parses (http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Spec_Score/10H/all/14/180/default/#1s0000) / Spec Score 25H - All Parses (http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Spec_Score/25H/all/14/180/default/#1s0000) Also, according to this post detailing the means World of Logs (and therefore RaidBots) uses to split up Cat/Bear parses (http://forums.worldoflogs.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2251&start=20#p12912) these are just the Ferals that spent upwards of ~70% attack time as Bears. It's pretty common for Feral Tanks to get kicked over to the Cat rankings on the latter fights in the tier from my reading. Also something that won't show up in the overall data is getting a much stronger DPS on Spine's tendons, which is probably the hardest DPS check of the tier. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on July 29, 2012, 01:24:23 PM Well, for my anecdotal example, my druid tank felt crazy OP in wotlk (swipe/maul macro for everything, except caster pulls. Eff joo halls of reflection!). Then they added some annoying shit in cata to 'keep the rotation from being swipe+maul spam' (see also: pulverize and - to a lesser extent - thrash) which suddenly made holding aoe aggro a pain. Then I found zin'rokh (druid's an archeologist) and decided to level my DK to 85. After tanking a few instances on mr. I-have-10-oh-shit-buttons-and-solo-instance-bosses, I don't feel like going back to my druid anymore. 'Course they may well have fucked blood DKs in MOP, so I'll wait and see.
e: I also went cat occasionally in 5mans for short periods (like for that one vampire boss), but I didn't feel that DPS was -that- much higher in cat. Then again, my tolerance for "refresh this self-buff every ~10 seconds or your dps will be gimped" mechanics is... not very high. Sort of an aside (asked it a few pages ago when DURID IS FITE started), how do the "cross-server zones" work exactly? I play on a low-pop pvp server, and me/my guildies are not looking forward to getting constantly camped by bored 85s from high-pop pvp servers in our cluster while levelling alts (or just level 100% through instances, eh) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on July 29, 2012, 01:30:57 PM The core problem here is you're asking the masses to give two shits about what goes on in heroic raids/guilds. We don't.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 29, 2012, 01:42:31 PM The core problem here is you're asking the masses to give two shits about what goes on in heroic raids/guilds. We don't. Except Blizzard does and has to. What the heroic raids & raid guilds do eventually trickles-down to the masses. What they DON'T care about is 5-mans and heroic 5-man balance. They know it'll be trivialized. Hardcores are a problem but they find the flaws and keep the hype going, despite the wannabes bitching about things being 'too easy.' You need your HCs and you need your casuals.. it's that middle strata - like middle-management - we could all do without. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 29, 2012, 01:47:47 PM The core problem here is you're asking the masses to give two shits about what goes on in heroic raids/guilds. We don't. Except Blizzard does and has to. They did in this Cataclysm xpac. They really really cared. It went poorly. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on July 29, 2012, 01:59:49 PM No, they catered to them and designed exclusively around them. There's a difference between using them to show where imbalances are in your systems and trying hard to keep them happy/ challenged.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 29, 2012, 02:06:35 PM Out of the three statistics I talked about earlier, you missed the detail where druids had a higher representation in heroic content than their population at 85 and in normal raids would suggest. Was that the statistic that showed that Druids still weren't the most played class in raids despite being able to fill all 3 roles, and even being able to fill both ranged and melee dps, and with Feral being so 'overpowered'? That stat? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on July 29, 2012, 03:12:54 PM The core problem here is you're asking the masses to give two shits about what goes on in heroic raids/guilds. We don't. The imbalance is evident at all levels of raiding even if non-heroic guilds don't take advantage of it. My guild didn't kill a single end-of-tier boss on heroic in Cata. We'd still have brought a druid tank for 80% of raid fights in the expansion if we had one consistently available. It's supposed to be "bring the player, not the class" at this point so any large imbalance that favors one class over others is counter to Blizzard's design goal. Especially when that imbalance is not for a small handful of fights, it was consistent across every tier of content in this expansion and would most likely have been for MoP too. Was that the statistic that showed that Druids still weren't the most played class in raids despite being able to fill all 3 roles, and even being able to fill both ranged and melee dps, and with Feral being so 'overpowered'? That stat? It was the one where druids were the most played class for the last boss of each tier on heroic difficulty, despite being #2 (losing out to another class that could also fill all 3 roles) overall. Bleeding-edge guilds bring more druids because they can afford to bring the class instead of the player. You're either willfully ignoring the imbalance of druid tanks in Cata given Caladein's links (which he noted under-report the extent of the problem based on how the data is collected) or you don't care whether your class is balanced. That's fine if your stance is the later, but you can't expect Blizzard to be as apathetic about a large imbalance among classes in their game. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 29, 2012, 04:18:49 PM I can understand why druids don't want to change. Nobody likes to go from OP to back into gen pop. I didn't like it when they let others than warriors tank, but I realized after it happened that it was probably for the best. There simply wasn't enough of a demand to constrain it by one class.
Before druids could effectively do all three jobs with two specs. They can still do all 3 jobs, just with 3 specs. That's how it's supposed to be. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ashamanchill on July 29, 2012, 07:43:38 PM I can understand why druids don't want to change. Nobody likes to go from OP to back into gen pop. Fuck that. I'd much prefer the two be split up. Hopefully then all the dps wannabes will run back to cat and they can balance bears around tanking. From what I've seen of MoP beta so far, nope that's not the case. Bears are even MORE op in terms of damage. Maybe, what with the recent changes to threat making it irrelevant, it's time to do away with vengeance? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on July 29, 2012, 07:46:34 PM Tanks doing lots of damage while actually tanking is perfectly fine.
Are they doing that damage all the time, or just while tanking? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on July 29, 2012, 08:29:18 PM Tanks doing lots of damage while actually tanking is perfectly fine. Well, thats the thing with bearcats vs other tanks.Are they doing that damage all the time, or just while tanking? ALL tanks put out some pretty good dps when they have something beating on them to feed them vengence (and for wars / druids, Rage). However, in phazes where you dont have stuff beating on you, a druid still has the option of shifting to cat and using his DPS cooldowns to pump out highly compedative dps. For druid tanks, unless you are doing hardmode content, it is completely viable to largely ignore our only pure Tank stat (ldodge), and reforge just for the mitigation (Mastery). Since druids get dodge+crit+ap from Agility, you simply stack agility and reforge mastery. And since Agi, and mastery both directly translate to DPS gains in cat, it's win win. Conversely, it's not like a plate tank with no one beating on him can simply throw on a 2 hander and do similar levels of dps, because Block / Parry (which plate tanks NEED to devote a lot of stat allocation to) have absolutely 0 conversion rate to DPS increases. As to doing compedative damage all the time, I could use myself as an example. My druid is geared for Bear / Boomkin play. Average Ilevel for both sets is just around the 400 mark (ie, pretty much full normal DS stuff). I will fully admit to being effectively medeocre at cat dps, since i usually end up main tanking for most of the raids i do with pug friends, so i dont have much chance to actually cat it up as an offtank. That being said, about a month back, I did a DS pug where I was bored, and decided to cat it up in my bear gear, without changing any glyphs. We only did about 5 bosses, and generally, I was pulling about on par dps with the last actual DPS in the raid (a slightly undergeared rogue i think). That being said, as a cat in my bear gear (which includes a tank meta in the hat), I was still easily pulling double the dps of either of the other tanks. And as i said, I am fairly medeocre at cat. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on July 29, 2012, 08:33:05 PM It was the one where druids were the most played class for the last boss of each tier on heroic difficulty, despite being #2 (losing out to another class that could also fill all 3 roles) overall. Actually, I had discounted that because in the very next sentence "those numbers say more about resto and balance druids than feral druids." If even you didn't think it was important, why should I? Before druids could effectively do all three jobs with two specs. Here's the thing, in Wrath the way they had the tree set up you could spec full Tank and be passable dps, you could spec full DPS and be a passable tank, or there were some ways you could spec as a hybrid and fall someplace in between the two. I can tell you first-hand that you couldn't be completely effective at both roles at the same time until you started to overgear the instance, at which point who cares? In Cata they shrunk the trees, and after the redesign it was easier to be more effective at both roles at the same time. By all accounts this only mattered to the top 1% of the hardcore raiders, and we see how well catering to the hardcore raiders worked for Cata so I don't think it's smart to make sweeping, widespread changes based on them. No, I think the real reason they split Feral isn't because it was 'overpowered' nor because of PvP. I think it was because they ditched the old talent trees entirely. While they could have made it work somewhat with the new talent tiers, they moved too many abilities off of talents and made them part of choosing your sub-spec. So instead of 10 classes they decided to go with 34 classes and I think I'm already on record for not liking that decision as well, independent of the impact on Druids. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on July 29, 2012, 08:42:21 PM Well I think the real point is that with the dual spec system in place, having one class that can perform two jobs of the trinity in one spec had to be remedied. I don't really see a way to make it "work" within a shortened talent tree system. Hell, it never should have existed in the first place.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on July 30, 2012, 02:07:25 AM Tanks doing lots of damage while actually tanking is perfectly fine. Are they doing that damage all the time, or just while tanking? While tanking, because of Vengeance, which was designed to counter-balance the extreme DPS that dedicated DPS classes could achieve, and I'm totally fine with it. Even it was also applying solo (which theoretically could happen if they wrangled together enough mobs in open PvE because of how vengeance works), who cares? It's solo. God forbid they try to make tanking more fun in an effort to try and get more people to do it so that queue times might drop for non-hybrid DPS. As far as Druid tanks go, it because they only get DPS-oriented gear drops, save for the token ring/trinket item that just has Dodge and/or Mastery on it. This could easily be addressed by debuffing Haste/Crit gains from gear while in Bear-form by a percentage, but I'd steer clear of the forums the day that they announce that :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on July 30, 2012, 02:49:42 AM FarmVille is now live in beta. (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2865-The-Tillers-Overview-Beta-Class-Balance-Blue-Posts-Raid-Testing-The-Daily-Blink)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on August 05, 2012, 04:50:45 PM http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6246996371?page=1
Quote So MoP's release date is set for September 25th. In the past, the X.0 content patches have came out around two weeks prior to the expansion's release. So this means that we are looking at 5.0 releasing on September 11th. That means you're gonna bomb a city and blow up a tower on the anniversary of one of the most tragic events in American history? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 05, 2012, 05:29:01 PM http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6246996371?page=1 Quote So MoP's release date is set for September 25th. In the past, the X.0 content patches have came out around two weeks prior to the expansion's release. So this means that we are looking at 5.0 releasing on September 11th. That means you're gonna bomb a city and blow up a tower on the anniversary of one of the most tragic events in American history? Please, if people are gonna bitch about this, I can't wait for the drama in about 25-50 years when I start seeing used car dealers having "9/11 Patriots Day" sales. Sadly, I and most of you will see that in our natural lifetimes. Also, I think I pointed out this irony a couple pages ago :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 05, 2012, 05:58:05 PM They deleted the topic.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 08, 2012, 04:58:16 AM Tanks doing lots of damage while actually tanking is perfectly fine. Are they doing that damage all the time, or just while tanking? While tanking, because of Vengeance, which was designed to counter-balance the extreme DPS that dedicated DPS classes could achieve, and I'm totally fine with it. Even it was also applying solo (which theoretically could happen if they wrangled together enough mobs in open PvE because of how vengeance works), who cares? It's solo. God forbid they try to make tanking more fun in an effort to try and get more people to do it so that queue times might drop for non-hybrid DPS. Update on this, per GC: Quote tl;dr: Quote We are changing Vengeance to increase AP equal to 5% of the damage you take for 20 sec. This buff will "roll" so that as it gets refreshed the unused part is added to the new buff, similar to how Ignite or Stagger work. The net result will be that Vengeance stacks by the amount of DPS being thrown at you over 20 sec. There is no cap. In other words, you won't be seeing tanks topping damage meters anymore in 5-mans, but you will start to see them on-par with regular DPS and not appearing to be scrapping at the bottom of the barrel in raids. Also, both the abilities that bosses use on players and the active mitigation skills that tanks use to stop/mitigate those abilities can be balanced in a more fair and consistent way. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: caladein on August 08, 2012, 04:30:56 PM The main thing that comes to mind is that rolling buffs (read: Ignite) haven't ever really worked correctly and against lots of mobs or very high attack speed bosses, this would push it right to where it doesn't work. Not sure if they're doing/have done anything that would make it behave better.
Another thing that comes to mind is that straight -damage CDs will now reduce tank damage, but I don't think that will prove to be a serious consideration. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on August 10, 2012, 08:21:03 AM A few things from this last page:
Bear tanks aren't the be-all, end all of tanks. DKs are. If you think bear tanks are better than DK tanks for tanking, you're doing it wrong. DKs trivialize a number of magic-damage-based mechanics with AMS. Their mitigation outpaces druids by a longshot. The imbalance with bears lies in their ridiculous amount of utility they have -- tranquility, innervate, raid frenzied regen, cat form for dps when not actively tanking (think yor'sahj and madness) and whatnot. Also, that's what makes them so fun. Girlfriend plays a bear tank and it's nice to feel like you can contribute in a way that's not rawreatdamage or pewpew. I like that tanks are being designed so that sword and board tanks aren't only a couple notches up from an atonement priest. I think it'd be exciting to contribute in different parts of the trinity in bossfights. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 10, 2012, 08:27:44 AM That was the argument.. their versatility was out of place as a tank. It wasn't that they were the be-all-end-all of tanking.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on August 10, 2012, 08:31:52 AM Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on August 10, 2012, 08:40:27 AM If there's a chasm here, I'm missing it. Both of these are useful on multiple fights. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on August 10, 2012, 08:42:52 AM That was the argument.. their versatility was out of place as a tank. It wasn't that they were the be-all-end-all of tanking. Fair enough...some folks were citing druids as one of the most represented classes in 85 heroics, and I naturally assumed folks were playing beartank or restoration. My apologies. But, I'm saying tanks should get more utility across the board, not less. It's fun to be able to contribute in other ways. This is the same reason I'm disappointed divine hymn is disappearing from shadow. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 10, 2012, 09:32:46 AM That was folks trying to illustrate the nerf was warranted using hard data. It's ultimately a design decision, which means no data needs to back it. Blizzard said "Hm.. too much utility, we don't want tanks able to DPS this hard in tank spec. Split the trees." End of Story. You can disagree - as Nevermore does - but that won't change their minds unless someone figures out a way for ALL tanks to be on the same footing there.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on August 10, 2012, 09:39:27 AM Design discussions strike me analogus to political debates -- folks rarely say good point, let me incorporate that into my position.
DPS increases for sword and board tanks is a big step in the right direction for adding more utility to tanks, so I personally applaud devs for moving this way. It's been especially frustrating in Cataclysm to watch warriors and paladins do half (if not a third) of the dps of DK and druid tanks. And, hurr durr, what I was I thinking for not thoroughly reading more pages before jumping back into f13. :D Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on August 10, 2012, 10:11:56 AM If there's a chasm here, I'm missing it. Both of these are useful on multiple fights. Innervate had long since changed to only provide such a tiny amount of mana when a Feral used it as to be nigh useless. It was really, really small. Tranquility was slightly more useful, but only if you got the talent that improved your healing based on your agility. Even then heals as a Feral were really, really small. Also, it would be a very rare circumstance when a Bear would be able to shift and use a channeled heal. Both spells were better at various points in Wrath, but by the time Cata rolled around neither one was worth much for a Feral. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on August 10, 2012, 10:26:05 AM Innervate had long since changed to only provide such a tiny amount of mana when a Feral used it as to be nigh useless. It was really, really small. Tranquility was slightly more useful, but only if you got the talent that improved your healing based on your agility. Even then heals as a Feral were really, really small. Also, it would be a very rare circumstance when a Bear would be able to shift and use a channeled heal. Both spells were better at various points in Wrath, but by the time Cata rolled around neither one was worth much for a Feral. Without pulling logs, innervate (although yes, not as useful as balance/resto) is still useful. Some>none. And, you're flat wrong about Tranquility. It's exceptionally useful on Madness and Warmaster Blackhorn. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on August 10, 2012, 10:51:35 AM Some is worse than none when it means shifting forms to throw it while you're tanking, especially when that some amounts to maybe 1 or 2 more spells innervate would let the target cast.
As for Tranquility, I can only go by my own experience. I don't recall it ever being a good idea to shift out of Bear to channel a HoT for 8 seconds that only healed 5 people for a very small fraction of their health. I'm not subbed now so I can't test it directly and tell you exactly how much it would heal for, but in an expansion where even non-tanks are at or over 100k health (iirc) a spell that heals for 5k health (base according to WoWhead, and Feral isn't going to modify that up all that much) over 8 seconds isn't exactly something to get all that excited over. I'm really glad you dug up this topic again, though. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on August 10, 2012, 10:53:41 AM I'm always amazed how often these threads go into druid mechanics.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on August 10, 2012, 10:57:40 AM I'm always amazed how often these threads go into druid mechanics. Soon everything will devolve into Monk mechanics too.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on August 10, 2012, 10:59:17 AM @Nevermore: True, if you don't take the nuturifng instinct talent, but I'd argue that's what it's there for.
Moving on from druid mechanics, is anyone actually planning to give MoP a whirl? My 10m raid group is especially excited about challenge modes -- Vanilla speed runs, anyone? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on August 10, 2012, 11:03:10 AM I'm saving up my pennies in my D3 RMAH account to buy it along with some sub time. So yeah.
But I won't be cracking out the credit card for it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on August 10, 2012, 11:12:32 AM Has it been confirmed you will/are able to buy MoP with blizzbucks? Some people were claiming you can only buy pets and stuff but that was before it actually went on sale so I just want to make sure they were wrong.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on August 10, 2012, 11:16:55 AM From what I understand you can buy the digital upgrade to your account directly from Blizzard, but not the hard copy from the Blizzstore.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 10, 2012, 11:38:08 AM Moving on from druid mechanics, is anyone actually planning to give MoP a whirl? My 10m raid group is especially excited about challenge modes -- Vanilla speed runs, anyone? I'm still looking forward to it. I haven't spent a whole lot of time on beta, but the time I did spend playing Pokemon and messing around with Pandas/class changes was encouraging. I was initially very excited about monks but I didn't love what I played on beta (recently, not just my earlier impressions). Windwalker (DPS) plays decent, but doesn't feel much different from playing a combat rogue. Mistweaver (healing) still feels cumbersome to play. Trying to keep Renewing Mist on everyone so that Uplift (your only aoe heal without a long cooldown aside from the channeled spinning crane kick) actually does something is obnoxious. I also have to wonder how much of my opinion is based on jumping into the class with an 85 template, rather than slowly leveling up and getting used to each ability individually. I've got a cheap copy of Vanilla/Wrath lying around from the last Blizzard sale store, but I'm not sure whether I'm going to use them to power-level a monk with RAF and catch up with guildies. Current plan is probably to play my priest in Mists instead. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on August 10, 2012, 11:39:51 AM Did you play Discipline, Shadow, or Holy during Cata?
Still holding out hope that spirit shell will be a fun new mechanic here. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 10, 2012, 11:46:03 AM I played a rogue for Cata, but my priest was Holy whenever I dusted him off. The Disc changes sound pretty fun to me (haven't tried them myself) so I'll probably give that a shot for MoP.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on August 10, 2012, 12:00:40 PM Yeah, I'm hoping atonement remains a viable spec -- it's really fun during downtime to feel like you're contributing rather than spamming a cheap heal all the time.
Anyone get to beta PvP at all? I've been reading it's a lot less bursty (yay), but I'd be interested to hear ya'lls first-hand accounts. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on August 10, 2012, 12:52:56 PM @Nevermore: True, if you don't take the nuturifng instinct talent, but I'd argue that's what it's there for. I'm going to resub after 7.5 years to play PANDAS! :awesome_for_real:Moving on from druid mechanics, is anyone actually planning to give MoP a whirl? My 10m raid group is especially excited about challenge modes -- Vanilla speed runs, anyone? Also: this isn't Twitter, don't use that @ crap. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on August 10, 2012, 12:56:34 PM I'll be coming back for MoP, probably sticking with the DK as my main. I haven't futzed around much with the beta just because I'd rather wait for it all to be in a polished state. How much I actually play depends on how many of my old guildies come back; we pretty much all quit in January.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Arinon on August 10, 2012, 01:09:56 PM Is anyone actually planning to give MoP a whirl? My 10m raid group is especially excited about challenge modes -- Vanilla speed runs, anyone? May give it a go depending on how long GW2 holds my interest. Haven't looked at anything WoW related in over a year so not up on all the new hotness. Challenge modes look pretty cool but if the carrots for those are cosmetic/titles then I don't see that mode having any legs...unless they make it super hard without requiring specific class make-ups. Which won't happen.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 10, 2012, 01:22:51 PM I'm totally in for it. After TOR puttered out on me I got a scroll of rezz and found I liked the changes they'd made so much I went ahead and did the year pass to get D3.
* Raid finder may be mocked but fuck the haters I'm doing what I want which is seeing bosses. I'm happy it's in the game and it means I get to stay with the guild I like, despite their raid times being 10pm -1:30am my time when I have to be up at 5am. * The new 5-man content is all pretty good, too. Mechanics to learn but the dungeons aren't the hellish slog fests they once were. A great balance of thinking and facerolling where you *might* need CC before you're geared but it's not required after getting the gear from the dungeons. As it should be. My only real concern with MOP is the monk class is going to be an unbalanced mess, probably on the OP side, for a while. I played it a bit in the beta and was impressed, but I felt the same way about the DK at first. So rather than have the same heartbreak again, I'll stick with the DK and Hunter mains. Challenge Modes can still be hard without requiring class make-ups. The issue will be that the metagamers will decide "This is the best for this challenge mode" and unless you have good friends or guildmates to say "fuck that thought process" that's the way things shall be. Just as it was in BC when Locks and Hunters got sidelined for Mages and Rogues and warriors took a back-seat to Paladins despite all of those classes being totally capable of helping a group finish a heroic. GW2 holds nothing for me so it's no challenge to this. GW1 bored me to death so much I still haven't gotten to level 12 on the first character I made when it was released. Much like the elder scrolls series I've just decided it's not for me. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Feverdream on August 10, 2012, 06:42:42 PM I can hardly wait for GW2, but am also in a really friendly and fun WoW raiding guild that is filled with PvE addicts who will never, ever join me in Guild Wars. So I'm going to raid once or twice a week with them and get my PvP fix with GW.
I checked out the Mists beta enough to be convinced that I feel it's a good expansion - nothing earth-shattering, but some nice twists on new content, and the Pandas look better in the game than they do in the screenshots. At least, the male Pandas in particular have a ton of personality. The females all have the same freaking lobotomized-looking face (wtf, Blizzard). That issue aside, I think there will be plenty of entertainment in Mists for a little while. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on August 11, 2012, 06:55:38 AM Merusk: I think you're totally right when you say fuck the haters about LFR. My guild is 5/8 through hardmodes right now and we still have fun running LFR. And, when I was completely new, I thought it really did feel as epic as the tooltip described.
I also think focusing more effort on 5-mans is a bigger bang for Blizzard's buck. Many more people see that content, imo. Also, breaking the 10-mans into smaller raids is a good move too. I know folks nostalgiabomb for long raids like Naxx, Kara, and ICC. Also, I post from my phone nine times out of ten, so clever quote posting is a real PITA. Apologies if I'm inconveniencing those who're trying to follow the thread. :uhrr: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on August 11, 2012, 07:52:26 PM I also think focusing more effort on 5-mans is a bigger bang for Blizzard's buck. Many more people see that content, imo. Also, breaking the 10-mans into smaller raids is a good move too. LFR came late in Cata and was only done for Dragon Soul, as it shouldn't have been. With the launch raids presumably being LFR enabled, it's conceivable that people might go from quest item gearing to endgame content without seeing more than a a handful of five mans. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on August 12, 2012, 09:25:55 AM LFR came late in Cata and was only done for Dragon Soul, as it shouldn't have been. With the launch raids presumably being LFR enabled, it's conceivable that people might go from quest item gearing to endgame content without seeing more than a a handful of five mans. This assumes the only reason folks play PvE is to get purple pixels as fast as possible. I think challenge modes and scenarios will provide other diversions Cataclysm didn't. I know when my DBM record timers pop up I'm trying to race them, even though only I see those. This post made me think of ghosting from MarioKart...that'd be really awesome if you could see yourself progressing through the dungeon as you ran. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 12, 2012, 09:03:14 PM Scenarios is the one thing I want to find out more about, if those are cool it could potentially lure me back. I've never understood why nobody has yet stolen LOTRO's Skirmish system; its really the only way I've ever seen anyone make daily quests actually fun.
From what I hear they're not soloable, though, so that feels like a missed opportunity. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on August 12, 2012, 09:20:37 PM I've heard they're 3man mini-instances that you can LFD for, and your rewards depend on completion time... they said any spec can do well, so you could have 3 dps, 2 dps 1 healer/tank, 3 heale-- haha no.
Anyway, since scenarios are LFDable and they take any combination of players, they're almost as good as a solo activity anyway. The concept reminds me more of Rift's Instant Adventures than lotro skirmishes, btw. e: and yes, the only sort of daily quest I'll accept in a mmo is one that requires me to play with other people, preferably in a painless pseudo-solo way ala LFD - so pretty much just dungeon runs / pvp battlegrounds / IAs/invasions (Rift). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lastwolf on August 16, 2012, 05:22:08 AM I also think focusing more effort on 5-mans is a bigger bang for Blizzard's buck. Many more people see that content, imo. Also, breaking the 10-mans into smaller raids is a good move too. LFR came late in Cata and was only done for Dragon Soul, as it shouldn't have been. With the launch raids presumably being LFR enabled, it's conceivable that people might go from quest item gearing to endgame content without seeing more than a a handful of five mans. LFR ilevel requirement is higher than that of Heroic Dunegons (there are no level 90 normals), considering quest blues and greens won't be enough to make the jump and they've made the crafted PVP gear a lower ilevel rather than higher (as it is now), seems like you'd be hard pressed to skip Dungeons even buying up the random BoE epics. Also considering they are staggering the release of all the raid content, you'll have a lot of free time. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on August 16, 2012, 06:29:23 AM Trailer is out. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYXoyxLv64) I liked it right up until the panda showed up and turned everything comedic.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: tmp on August 16, 2012, 08:49:52 AM My immersion of playing an upright, armed, warmongering cow has been similarly ruined forever by this new comedy element.
FOREVER Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: apocrypha on August 16, 2012, 09:02:55 AM You can totally tell that panda is just a dude in a panda suit.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 16, 2012, 09:23:22 AM Yes, god forbid we have a little comedy with our games :oh_i_see:
I liked it. Much better than the Cata intro, and about on par with Vanilla and BC. Wrath will always be my personal fav :heart: I did enjoy this scene, and I have once again forgotten the picture size BB code. Mea culpa. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on August 16, 2012, 09:45:06 AM That scene was :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on August 16, 2012, 09:49:21 AM Pretty good trailer, got me excited for the expansion even though it gives the entirely wrong impression that the Horde and Alliance will be working together against pandas.
Did anyone else think of Ninja Scroll when the panda's hat got damaged? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 16, 2012, 10:54:13 AM Damn, son, they're are trying to bust down GW2 hard.
http://us.battle.net//wow/en/blog/6994738 All races, regardless of whether you've bought any expansions past, present, or future, will be unlocked and available for playing. Pandaren will be the exception, becoming available on MoP launch next month, but if you don't buy MoP, you an still roll a Panda Rogue, Warrior, whatever. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 16, 2012, 11:46:44 AM I liked it. Much better than the Cata intro, and about on par with Vanilla and BC. Wrath will always be my personal fav :heart: Bah, Wrath was the single worst one. It's where you can really tell they forgot that the story should be around the PCs, not the NPCs. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on August 16, 2012, 11:51:09 AM Yes, god forbid we have a little comedy with our games :oh_i_see: Use width=X inside your img tag.I liked it. Much better than the Cata intro, and about on par with Vanilla and BC. Wrath will always be my personal fav :heart: I did enjoy this scene, and I have once again forgotten the picture size BB code. Mea culpa. Code: [img width=400] (http://i.imgur.com/UAkIP.jpg) I also got a chuckle out of this scene :grin: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Maledict on August 16, 2012, 11:55:53 AM I thought it was very pretty, but didn't get me excited at all. I like the big bads to conquer.
They really are gunning for GW2 with the race thing though. Understandable why they are doing it, but also depressing as its bound to be effective. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ragnoros on August 16, 2012, 12:42:10 PM They really are gunning for GW2 with the race thing though. Understandable why they are doing it, but also depressing as its bound to be effective. Don't see why wow is going to all the trouble trying to compete with GW2. Firstly there is the sub vs no sub thing, play both if you want. But frankly if wow is fun I will play wow, if not I won't. Blizzard has stumbled, if not totally fallen down, on their last three releases. They are currently their own worst enemy by a mile. Bottom line: Build it (fun) and they will come. FWIW: I have already purchased GW2. Yogscast and my sister talked me into it. It looked, wait for it... FUN! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 16, 2012, 01:19:10 PM I liked it. Much better than the Cata intro, and about on par with Vanilla and BC. Wrath will always be my personal fav :heart: Bah, Wrath was the single worst one. It's where you can really tell they forgot that the story should be around the PCs, not the NPCs. He's talking about the intro cinematic, not the storyline. The BC intro focused on the PCs very much through the homage to the Vanilla cinematic and its tour of the races, ending in Sillydan shouting"YOU ARE NOT PREPARRRED" It told nothing of the greater story arc other than letting you know you were going through the Dark Portal. I still in the the WOTLK intro was the best. It set the theme for the whole expansion and let you know what was going on. The speech from Terenas offset by Arthas raising the army of the dead and the dracolich. Not a single scene related to the PCs but you knew the story from it. Great intro. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 16, 2012, 01:20:58 PM I'm talking about the cinematic too. You know how many times 'player' characters appear in the Wrath cinematic? Zero. Very, very big contrast to the first 2.
It marks the point where they started going whole-hog on the story being about their NPCs more than about the PCs IMO, culminating in Tirion essentially winning the fight for you at the end of Icecrown Citadel. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 16, 2012, 01:21:47 PM Yeah.. I just said that.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 16, 2012, 01:22:31 PM That scene is a little nod to the original War3 trailer, where the Orc and the Footman stop fighting each other to fight the big infernal thing.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 16, 2012, 01:23:01 PM Well now I'm just confused on what you were correcting me about then.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 16, 2012, 01:46:02 PM Nothing since you clarified you were in fact talking about the cinematic and not the storyline.
I do disagree that's where things went off the rails. The PCs journey was right there throughout Wrath. You're the heroes, being groomed by Arthas the not-so-great puppetmaster to be his next minions. The whole Xpac was a journey to me in a way Cata, BC and Vanilla weren't. * BC was a hodge-podge of too many story lines, all related to NPCs and never really pulling you in to the greater storyline until the very last zone with Akama and Maiev. No real build-up of anything but the burning legion and then *fizzle* You're never even really given a good reason to go in to Karazan.. hell that link to the x-pac was so bad there isn't even a feeder quest to the keying quests. Just "Hey, you're 70, go see this guy." * Vanilla - same problem. No over-arching storyline and no real reason given to do the raids (Well, other than BWL was was tied nicely in to UBRS). It was vanilla, though, and I don't think they saw any story beyond "go kill shit" as necessary. * Cata - We've dissected this enough. The PCs simply never saw Deathwing enough and his story WAS entirely NPC-centric. I had more vested in wanting to kill Ragnaros and the crazy-ogre dude than Deathwing and even those weren't all that much beyond the NPCs telling me to do so because "hey look, shitty things. " Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 16, 2012, 02:07:45 PM Admittedly the lack of coherent story in the first two is probably what made it easier to imagine that things were about you.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on August 16, 2012, 02:36:26 PM I agree with Merusk. I was completely disconnected from the Deathwing storyline. In WOTLK, I ran afoul of Arthas a couple of times.
As for the cinematic, I enjoyed it and will buy MoP but I won't last a month. Cata broke me. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: LK on August 16, 2012, 02:57:21 PM Honestly thought it was the best cinematic of them all as every action contributed to developing the characters. There was an actual story playing out before me. Amongst the other top-of-the-industry qualities surrounding this cinematic, like the effects.
Good choice limiting environments and characters to focus on the details and let them breathe more. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 16, 2012, 03:09:12 PM I still in the the WOTLK intro was the best. It set the theme for the whole expansion and let you know what was going on. The speech from Terenas offset by Arthas raising the army of the dead and the dracolich. Not a single scene related to the PCs but you knew the story from it. Great intro. This. Admittedly, I arrived on the PC gaming scene around the time Starcraft 1 was released, and of what little time I invested in playing Warcraft 1 and 2 was a bit...limited. However, Warcraft 3? That was the shit was there. I loved the story and the over-arcing trials and tribulations of Arthas Menethil throughout War 3 and TFT. Wrath was not only there first expansion where they really sat down and tried to hammer out a story woven through the dungeons, raids, and Northern itself, but it was pretty damned easy considering the depth they've already gone in digging out Arthas' tale. For the cinematic, they hit all the high notes for me in doing what Merusk described; a fully corrupted Arthas/Ner'zhul Lich King finally executing his plans of world domination after years of planning and waiting. Going back to content, this is how I see things: Vanilla: Was vanilla. No huge amounts of overarching stuffs, but just setting up the world for us to play around in and get Bliz's feet wet in the MMO scene. It allowed them to start-up several story/lore threads in the world, and allow PCs to see and experience the places they've only been seeing from a bird's-eye view for the first three strategy games. It had it's ups, it had it's down, but it got the job done in the end. BC: To me, this was more a fan-service expansion for the long-time lore-lovers of visiting Draenor and the home of the orcs, while also trying to wrap-up the Illidan story thread from War3. I still enjoyed the game, but they were still catering pretty hard to the hard-core raider bits. I was sad to say that I never got to experience the end-game content again, like vanilla, but it is what it is. Still, daily quests and some casual love started to peek through near the end. Wrath: IMO, best expansion so far, mostly for reasons already said. Casual love started to shine through more, and retention for the non-hardcore grew. While I didn't care much for the whole "old gods" thing of Ulduar or the Argent Tournament, the last patch brought a nice bit of closure for the Arthas arc. With 10-man raids in full effect, it was nice to finally be able to wade into the raiding fray and not just feel like some random dude punching buttons wantonly as in vanilla's 40-man days. Cata: Was vanilla 2.0. All of the story-making art, technology, and gameplay that they developed over the years that went into BC and Wrath was fused into rewriting and updating the original world. Could they have done something else instead of doing this? Sure, maybe, but I think for the long term, and in attracting new players when future expansions come out, it wasn't a bad idea either. Perhaps they did go a bit overboard on reusing/reskinning old content and calling it new, right up to the end in using a couple of hardly-used Wrath outdoor/raid zones as the main platform for most of the final raid. Story-wise, although Deathwing wasn't seen or heard much in War 3 or WoW directly, it was a valid story arc that I thought was played out well enough. As has been said before, it would have been better if DW had made more appearances throughout Cata instead of just "Heh, I blew up the world, fags. Enjoy!" and then being the final boss. MoP: Well shit, son, this is all OG content here. All we know so far is that the Theramore story-arc with Jaina's gonna get either wrapped up or continued, the Zandalar trolls will have some more progress made for their tale, and with DW, Arthas, Illidan, and Kael'thas all dead or "setbacked", we're going back to Horde vs. Alliance, but also exploring a brand new place that has little to no ties to the current Warcraft franchise/history. I for one am excited to see what's in store. After MoP? Who knows...at this point, we've already explored everything on, in, under, and around Azeroth. We've been beyond it in Draenor. All that leaves is either some more land-masses that will "suddenly reveal" themselves a la Pandaria, or we start planet/dimension hopping. I'll actually put some money on a Draenor 2.0, with this time having Sargeras coming to terrorize the area and use it as a platform to invade Azeroth again. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 16, 2012, 04:09:54 PM Ah, but vanilla had one of the few story things I enjoyed unironically in it. I loved the Onyxia thing for some reason, even though it was a long, irritating questline. :P
I really liked WotLK, although I thought Arthas was a little TOO in our faces, and I didn't really like Tirion powering up and essentially beating the Lich King for us, but that may be part of a hindsight thing, as that was the first time I experienced an NPC eblowing his way into the spotlight at the cost of the PCs. I'm not sure if Maeve butting into the Illidan fight felt similarly, as I've only fought Illidan at level 85 and the fight happens so fast I barely even noticed what was going on before it was over. :why_so_serious: I can't even remember what happens at the end of the Sunwell raid, as that one I've only done once and again, it was over so fast I had no idea what parts were "us" and what parts were NPCs doing shit. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on August 16, 2012, 06:13:44 PM I liked the flow and story behind ZG original. It was a pretty cool zone for the time.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 16, 2012, 10:24:30 PM We were too small to do ZG!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on August 16, 2012, 11:05:22 PM I wonder about MOP's lolmetzen quotient. Has green jebus finally transcended into a deity to be worshipped by the panda people? Clearly, more research is needed.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on August 17, 2012, 12:38:00 AM Ah, but vanilla had one of the few story things I enjoyed unironically in it. I loved the Onyxia thing for some reason, even though it was a long, irritating questline. :P This line totally sucked as Horde. As someone who was Horde I'm so glad I had my Alliance pally so I could actually see what we were missing out on. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 17, 2012, 01:25:47 AM Yeah, I heard it was assy for the Horde, which is a shame. They've always had trouble with that sort of shit, though, they often don't seem capable of doing a storyline that is roughly the same satisfaction-wise to both sides (unless it is 100% shitty and both sides are filled with contempt).
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on August 17, 2012, 03:37:40 AM Yeah, I heard it was assy for the Horde, which is a shame. They've always had trouble with that sort of shit, though, they often don't seem capable of doing a storyline that is roughly the same satisfaction-wise to both sides (unless it is 100% shitty and both sides are filled with contempt). Eh, it wasnt so much that the Ony Attunement story sucked for Horde, it was just that the questline itself was REALLY poorly designed, and involved so much "there and back again" repeat travel between a few npcs who were on opposite corners of the earth that it was just tedious to do the questline.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on August 17, 2012, 05:44:55 AM Random MoP related question for anyone in the Beta: Exactly how are Pre-Choice Pandaran characters treated with regards to mail privledges from the rest of you Account? I ask because it seems to me that if you are allowed to mail them anything (gold, items, etc), then that would be a REALLY easy way to do fairly large cross faction trades of liquid wealth.
- Make a Pandaran alt - Mail it a bunch of money / trade goods / valueable auctionables from your Horde toons. - Chose to side with the alliance at end of starting area. Bam, really easy Horde -> Alliance item moving. Repeat Alliance -> Horde if you want to go that way. Ayone in Beta able to test to see if you can mail things other then BoA gear to your fresh minted pandas? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 17, 2012, 05:51:57 AM Hm.. I hadn't even thought of that, but other criminal masterminds have.
Google gave me an answer here: http://stormspire.net/speculation/5580-mists-beta-cross-faction-mailing.html Result? Pandas are a 3rd faction until they make their choice at level 10. No mails, whispers, /who, /ginvite or anything except the already-allowed cross-faction mailing of heirlooms can happen until that time. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 17, 2012, 09:45:58 AM They don't even have any mailboxes on the Panda starting isle.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on August 18, 2012, 07:29:08 PM That scene is a little nod to
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 18, 2012, 07:37:48 PM Man, I knew I regognized that human.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 18, 2012, 08:45:25 PM I tried out Brewmaster spec and tanked one of the new dungeons in the beta. Pretty fun, it's the first Monk spec I really like. I was worried that it would be the annoying leather tank that had to keep up buffs just to mitigate as much damage as plate tanks. Shuffle comes a little close to feeling this way, which you get for (20 seconds?) by using blackout kick. It gives you +20% parry and +20% damage mitigation from Stagger. Fortunately, at least in the dungeon I ran, it didn't feel like I was instantly screwed if the buff ever fell off and it should be easy to keep up with any sort of addon like power auras.
I ended up really liking the stagger mechanic. Your stagger debuff changes colors depending on what % of your health you are taking as stagger damage, and you can clear all stagger damage by spending 1 chi on Purifying Brew (no cooldown). It ends up being this neat mini-game where you are canceling out damage when it gets too high, and they have a lot of neat interactions with other abilities to increase stagger temporarily or stagger damage done to your group. I also liked dizzying haze (keg toss). It's a targeted aoe with no cooldown that barely cost any energy, which does a high amount of threat and applies your damage debuff (think thunderclap). It made starting fights and managing loose adds in the dungeon very easy. You can use kegsmash throughout most of the fight, which applies the damage debuff but grants chi and doesn't need to be targeted. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on August 19, 2012, 09:09:15 AM My immersion of playing an upright, armed, warmongering cow has been similarly ruined forever by this new comedy element. FOREVER Clearly, minotaurs and pandbearamen have exactly the same aesthetic/cultural connotations. Just like dragons and unicorns. Or orcs and smurfs. Anybody who doesn't have the exact same aesthetic reaction to both members of any of these three pairs of mythical critters is obviously retarded. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: tmp on August 19, 2012, 10:22:32 AM Clearly, minotaurs and pandbearamen have exactly the same aesthetic/cultural connotations. Just like dragons and unicorns. Or orcs and smurfs. Anybody who doesn't have the exact same aesthetic reaction to both members of any of these three pairs of mythical critters is obviously retarded. Because truly, mixing creatures from these different 'cultural connotation' groups haven't happened before, and is an alien concept to the western minds when they witness it in the new WoW expansion.(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Ur4SPGr9vuk/TFlrOlw2H9I/AAAAAAAAADc/zYzm9giul6Y/s1600/disney-adventures-of-the-gummi-bears-volume-one-20060820080019216-000.jpg) (would inlude picture of dragons and unicorns in one cartoon too, but some people apparently have allergic reaction to MLP so there's that) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 19, 2012, 01:23:52 PM You're killing my grimdark male fantasies that I need to prove to myself that I'm not even remotely gay!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on August 19, 2012, 02:27:53 PM Because truly, mixing creatures from these different 'cultural connotation' groups haven't happened before, and is an alien concept to the western minds when they witness it in the new WoW expansion. The point wasn't that you can't have a story with both orcs and smurfs in it; of course you can (I'd be shocked if there wasn't a smurfs episode with at least ogres in it). It's that people have very different (and fairly predictably different) aesthetic reactions to, e.g., orcs and smurfs. If they added smurfs as a playable race in WoW, I would expect some people to object that they don't like the aesthetic. Unfortunately, I'd also expect someone to reply HURRRRRR GAME ALREADY HAVE FANTASY BIPED WITH UNNATURAL SKIN COLOR, THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME!! And I'd feel entirely free to call that reply idiotic. Note that this doesn't prove anything about whether adding pandabearmen or smurfs to the game is a good or bad thing. Just that "they are exactly the same as tauren/orcs" is far from a justification for the inclusion of either. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soulflame on August 19, 2012, 02:32:27 PM Weren't pandaren in Warcraft 3? I don't find it unreasonable to add them as a playable race.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 19, 2012, 02:41:03 PM All those historical connotations I remember about minotaurs totally had them dressing up like Native Americans and smoking enormous bongs, too.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 19, 2012, 03:20:35 PM Weren't pandaren in Warcraft 3? I don't find it unreasonable to add them as a playable race. They were. They've also been the #1 request to be added since launch day. The annoyance is the usual teen-male mindset of anything cute must be for teh gay. You saw it with blood elves, too, but at least they had T&A factor, rite? :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on August 19, 2012, 03:23:23 PM They were. They've also been the #1 request to be added since launch day. The annoyance is the usual teen-male mindset of anything cute must be for teh gay. You saw it with blood elves, too, but at least they had T&A factor, rite? :oh_i_see: Yeah, but the lady blood elves were like toothpicks. :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 19, 2012, 03:33:01 PM Toothpicks with enormous manhands that put mine to shame.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 19, 2012, 03:52:06 PM It still cracks me up the number of women playing dude BE's.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 19, 2012, 03:58:36 PM The dudes playing dude blood elves in my Moon Guard guild did not like having that pointed out. I accused them all of secretly being chicks once and they got all fussy about it. :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on August 19, 2012, 03:58:43 PM The annoyance is the usual teen-male mindset of anything cute must be for teh gay. I think the issue is more that it's childish than gay. Are you saying all gays are :pedobear:? I've had enough of your homophobia.Quote You saw it with blood elves, too, but at least they had T&A factor, rite? :oh_i_see: You need A for T&A, and the dranei got all that :inluv: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on August 19, 2012, 04:05:42 PM You need A for T&A, and the dranei got all that :inluv: No, they just got a totally back-breaking spine. Like painful looking it's so bent out of shape. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: tmp on August 19, 2012, 04:08:01 PM The point wasn't that you can't have a story with both orcs and smurfs in it; of course you can (I'd be shocked if there wasn't a smurfs episode with at least ogres in it). It's that people have very different (and fairly predictably different) aesthetic reactions to, e.g., orcs and smurfs. If they added smurfs as a playable race in WoW, I would expect some people to object that they don't like the aesthetic. Unfortunately, I'd also expect someone to reply HURRRRRR GAME ALREADY HAVE FANTASY BIPED WITH UNNATURAL SKIN COLOR, THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME!! And I'd feel entirely free to call that reply idiotic. The thing is, when it comes to WoW out of all things, this "different aesthetics reactions" argument falls short imo, because it's a game which built its very identity around deviating from standard 'race expectations' in favour of cartoony aesthetics and "y so srs, we've heard u like pop culture references" approach. As a result, this is not a matter of vague 'game already has fantasy bipeds' but rather the entire style of these fantasy bipeds in WoW is such, it makes kung fu bears fit such settings pretty much seamlessly. Whereas having these bears next to 'traditionally' rendered minotaurs or orcs could indeed generate a sense of clash like you say.Note that this doesn't prove anything about whether adding pandabearmen or smurfs to the game is a good or bad thing. Just that "they are exactly the same as tauren/orcs" is far from a justification for the inclusion of either. Or to put it differently, if you make your smurfs like this e.g.: (http://ididnotknowthis.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/blogsmurf-300x225.jpg) the "aesthetic reaction" of such design is going to be quite different from the 'traditional' smurfs, and they'll fit where no 'traditional' smurfs would. WoW does similar thing to the 'traditional orcs' etc, except in opposite direction so to speak. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on August 19, 2012, 04:09:49 PM No, they just got a totally back-breaking spine. Like painful looking it's so bent out of shape. That's what makes it hot. I bet you're gonna play Pandaren, aren't you? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 19, 2012, 04:32:30 PM For those concerned about the leveling curve, some analysis has been done.
For starters, XP needed to level from 70-80 was nerfed in patch 4.3 by 33% across the board. This was also in addition to a 20% nerf to 70-80 when Cata first launched. Prior to 4.3, level 70-80 took a combined amount of 14 million XP. 4.3 reduced it to 8.5 million. For patch 5.0.4, it looks like XP from 10-39 was cut by 20%. From 40 all the way to 82, the numbers look to remain the same they are now. 82-84 looks like it got a 33% cut (a combined 9.2 million XP cut to 6 million XP), and 84-85 was cut by 50% (9.1 million to 4.5 million). The new MoP content is where you're gonna hit that wall. Hard. 85-86 will take 13 million, 86-87 will be 18 million, 87-88 is 22.6 million, 88-89 is 27.3 million, and for the final bout of 89-90, 32.8 million XP will be needed. Keep in mind too that the only heirloom slot that'll work post 85 is the new legs they're introducing for guild purchases, so overall the new content should last a while before you reach the end. Also, with the new legs, combined with everything else, and you can breeze through vanilla, BC, Wrath, and Cata like nobody's business. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 19, 2012, 04:33:58 PM Good lord, 10-40 was already too fast.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on August 19, 2012, 04:38:49 PM Agreed. I hated leveling out of a zone before finishing its story line. That they revamped the zones for. At least in Rift I can finish them and still gain xp from mobs and quests.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 19, 2012, 04:41:44 PM Agreed. I hated leveling out of a zone before finishing its story line. That they revamped the zones for. At least in Rift I can finish them and still gain xp from mobs and quests. Don't use heirlooms, and only kill what's needed for quests. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 19, 2012, 05:08:49 PM Or just finish the zone if it interests you?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 19, 2012, 05:10:32 PM Or just finish the zone if it interests you? Damn you and your logic! You know common sense is a fucking super power that not everyone has :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on August 19, 2012, 05:45:09 PM Mobs were gray so I didn't finish zones.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on August 19, 2012, 10:10:01 PM Mobs were gray so I didn't finish zones. than clearly levels > story to you. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 19, 2012, 10:26:46 PM than clearly levels > story to you. You shouldn't have to decide between seeing the end of the story in a zone or gaining experience/fighting mobs that put up a challenge. The game is giving you feedback that you shouldn't be in zones anymore (grey mobs and no character progress) when you're only halfway through them. It's a broken xp curve. I think the xp changes Luckton posted are beta specific. They wanted characters to level faster and get to MoP content. Hopefully that means that they won't be nerfing 1-60 further in MoP, which already goes much too fast. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on August 19, 2012, 10:39:07 PM 80-85, on the other hand, could do with a nerf.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 19, 2012, 11:07:17 PM Mobs were gray so I didn't finish zones. than clearly levels > story to you. They shouldn't have to be exclusive. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on August 19, 2012, 11:24:50 PM Mobs were gray so I didn't finish zones. than clearly levels > story to you. They shouldn't have to be exclusive. Unless you want them to completely re-invent the standard MMO experience system, I dont really see how you are going to fix the problem (especially when there really isnt a problem to begin with). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 19, 2012, 11:30:34 PM It would not be hard to balance XP gain so that someone without the extra bonuses didn't outlevel every zone they went through. Even on characters with no rest XP, no heirlooms, and no guild bonuses, I was having trouble not outleveling zones before I finished them.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 19, 2012, 11:38:34 PM Yeah, that was the weird part, I'd go out of my way to slow my XP down and I'd STILL outlevel zones a little too fast. So I find it bizarre they made it even faster.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on August 19, 2012, 11:43:35 PM They're probably just going all-in on the "get everyone to endgame ASAP" thing. Maybe they had metrics that showed people abandoning their characters in the 10-40 range, so they figured this'd be a solution?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on August 20, 2012, 12:06:01 AM It would not be hard to balance XP gain so that someone without the extra bonuses didn't outlevel every zone they went through. Even on characters with no rest XP, no heirlooms, and no guild bonuses, I was having trouble not outleveling zones before I finished them. Then you end up with an opposing issue. What if I want to leave a zone early, but can't because I need to finish it for my proper XP curve? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on August 20, 2012, 12:14:34 AM It would not be hard to balance XP gain so that someone without the extra bonuses didn't outlevel every zone they went through. Even on characters with no rest XP, no heirlooms, and no guild bonuses, I was having trouble not outleveling zones before I finished them. Then you end up with an opposing issue. What if I want to leave a zone early, but can't because I need to finish it for my proper XP curve? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on August 20, 2012, 12:26:46 AM Well you can turn xp off at your capital city... :awesome_for_real:
It'd work better if there was an xp-off toggle ala COH. It'd be even better to have automatic sidekicking/mentoring to the zone/quest's level like COH, GW2 and RIFT. Of course, these are all attacks against the Sacred Cows of DIKU, so they're not very likely to happen. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Xanthippe on August 20, 2012, 09:11:48 AM I haven't read most of this thread, and haven't even kept up with WoW since I quit a few months after Cataclysm.
I just saw the trailer for Mists of Pandaria and didn't see anything in it that makes me want to come back. It's the worst trailer ever. Not even as intriguing as the first WoW trailer. I saw mention of Farmville and Pokemon in another thread. If anything would make me want to play, that would do it. Alas, I think I'm done with Blizzard. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 20, 2012, 09:28:08 AM Was it the trailer or the opening cinematic? I didn't think there was a trailer for the x-pac yet.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Kail on August 20, 2012, 09:28:27 AM Well you can turn xp off at your capital city... :awesome_for_real: It'd work better if there was an xp-off toggle ala COH. It'd be even better to have automatic sidekicking/mentoring to the zone/quest's level like COH, GW2 and RIFT. Of course, these are all attacks against the Sacred Cows of DIKU, so they're not very likely to happen. I'm not sure what the term is, but couldn't they just broaden the con range thingies? Like, when a mob is grey or red? Like right now, you're going to get grey mobs if you're fighting something five levels lower than you (I think, something like that) but they could expand that to seven or ten levels and allow you to keep gaining XP throughout the zone. That way, rather than having to chop off the last half of every zone, you could just skip the next zone altogether. You'd still get to the endgame faster, but you'd still get to experience a full zone before moving on. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Xanthippe on August 20, 2012, 10:39:48 AM Was it the trailer or the opening cinematic? I didn't think there was a trailer for the x-pac yet. This one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYXoyxLv64 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYXoyxLv64) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: LK on August 20, 2012, 10:56:21 AM Supporting many different playstyles and many different priorities in leveling can be very difficult, yes.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 20, 2012, 11:29:43 AM Was it the trailer or the opening cinematic? I didn't think there was a trailer for the x-pac yet. This one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYXoyxLv64 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYXoyxLv64) Ah, yeah, that's mislabeled. That's the opening cinematic you'll get after installing the game that we were discussing a page or so back. Not a trailer. Still the best DIKU, IMO and I've got pokemans to play with as well.. which are damn fun. I haven't tried the farmville stuff yet. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on August 20, 2012, 12:24:25 PM Unless you want them to completely re-invent the standard MMO experience system, I dont really see how you are going to fix the problem (especially when there really isnt a problem to begin with). <cough>GW2<cough>Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on August 20, 2012, 02:34:43 PM Unless you want them to completely re-invent the standard MMO experience system, I dont really see how you are going to fix the problem (especially when there really isnt a problem to begin with). <cough>GW2<cough>Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on August 20, 2012, 03:35:01 PM The words "New Game Experience" spring to mind.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Xanthippe on August 20, 2012, 04:17:22 PM Was it the trailer or the opening cinematic? I didn't think there was a trailer for the x-pac yet. This one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYXoyxLv64 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYXoyxLv64) Ah, yeah, that's mislabeled. That's the opening cinematic you'll get after installing the game that we were discussing a page or so back. Not a trailer. Still the best DIKU, IMO and I've got pokemans to play with as well.. which are damn fun. I haven't tried the farmville stuff yet. I called it the wrong thing. What I was trying to say is that I thought this was the least compelling of all of the cinematics so far. I thought it was so completely not-awesome, unlike the others. For me, Blizzard's like a bad ex (and has been for a long time, I think) that I keep going back to. This time, though, I don't think I will. (Unless pokemon is completely awesome and minecraft doesn't add pokemon ever). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on August 20, 2012, 04:39:35 PM (Unless pokemon is completely awesome and minecraft doesn't add pokemon ever). Pokemon in Minecraft? There's Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on August 21, 2012, 07:57:46 AM Unless you want them to completely re-invent the standard MMO experience system, I dont really see how you are going to fix the problem (especially when there really isnt a problem to begin with). <cough>GW2<cough>Since they also spent a huge amount of effort to revamp the 1-60 game, it would benefit them, too. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 21, 2012, 09:51:20 AM I'm totally lost in this discussion as I've ignored GW2 as a waste of my time because I couldn't stand the 1st one. What is GW2 doing that you're touting as a revolution for the DIKU experience system, Lant?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on August 21, 2012, 12:13:09 PM Each area has a level range. You're de-leveled to the top of the range automatically so the content poses at least a little challenge. You also get xp and level-appropriate drops. In PvP everyone is 80.
Level still determines traits known and has an effect on stats an equipment, but it's not quite the end-all be-all. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pennilenko on August 21, 2012, 12:16:25 PM Bah, everyone knows guild wars is terrible, that is why they cant charge a sub... :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on August 21, 2012, 03:45:13 PM If anyone needs to pick up some WoW expansions, I'd suggest that they do it now: http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08/21/world-of-warcraft-series-75-off-until-august-27th/
Quote Blizzard, in a move that we're certain has nothing to do with an upcoming high-profile game launch, has decided to cut, slash, and otherwise mutilate the prices for World of Warcraft and its many expansions. The World of Warcraft Battle Chest, which includes the original game and the Burning Crusade expansion, is on sale for a paltry $5 US, while the Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm expansions are reduced to $5 and $10, respectively. If you have somehow managed to resist playing WoW for the past however-many years, now's the perfect time to succumb to the temptation and give the game a go, especially considering that patch 5.0 goes live in a week, and Mists of Pandaria soon after that. Surely you don't have any other plans for the 28th, right? If you wanna capitalize on the savings, though, just head on over to the Blizzard store, but do so quickly! The sale ends on August 27th. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: El Gallo on August 21, 2012, 04:52:19 PM The thing is, when it comes to WoW out of all things, this "different aesthetics reactions" argument falls short imo, because it's a game which built its very identity around deviating from standard 'race expectations' in favour of cartoony aesthetics and "y so srs, we've heard u like pop culture references" approach. As a result, this is not a matter of vague 'game already has fantasy bipeds' but rather the entire style of these fantasy bipeds in WoW is such, it makes kung fu bears fit such settings pretty much seamlessly. Whereas having these bears next to 'traditionally' rendered minotaurs or orcs could indeed generate a sense of clash like you say. Thanks for the serious reply, and I see where you're coming from. Here's how I see it. Blizzard has rigidly adhered to traditional "srs bsns" archetypes for player character races. Big green orcs, Conan-sized humans, stocky dwarves, etc. The non-traditional elements generally come in non-graphic forms: unexpected cultures for some of the races (e.g. orcs, undead, tauren, goblins) and various lol pop culture stuff in game. As far as the actual look of the characters (some gear aside), they are cartoons, but cartoons of srs bsns. I think adding Kung-fu Panda, Moonlite Sparkle, or MasterShake to this lineup is a pretty big change. There's a reason Blizzard introduced pandas as a joke and generally treated them that way in the past. It's not going to stop me from playing, but I groaned as soon as I heard it and I groaned when I saw the panda appear in the MoP cinematic. I don't think I've ever groaned at a WoW visual before. Then again, I thought the goblin dialogue and quests were a little too over-the-top, so I may just be a miserable killjoy. Disclaimer: I would roll a MasterShake character in a heartbeat if I could (same with MoonliteSparkle). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 22, 2012, 12:23:01 AM Gnomes = srs bsns
There is nothing about the pandaren that was particularly out of step with the other races goofy-wise when I played around with them in the beta, except your own weird baggage about them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 22, 2012, 05:51:00 AM Each area has a level range. You're de-leveled to the top of the range automatically so the content poses at least a little challenge. You also get xp and level-appropriate drops. In PvP everyone is 80. Level still determines traits known and has an effect on stats an equipment, but it's not quite the end-all be-all. Huh. So it's like auto-sidekicking. At first I was trying to wrap my head-around why you'd want that instead of the mob adjusting to your level, but it makes grouping with a much wider range viable, and - as you say - means old content isn't unused. You just hop to the zones you want when leveling and maybe pick-up others down the road when bored. Kinda nifty, I hope others adopt it. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on August 22, 2012, 05:54:27 AM Yep, it's pretty much what's already in COH missions. RIFT has also implemented this a few patches ago in its Instant Adventures and when running through old dungeons (only through the dungeon finder tool, though). EQ2/RIFT/AOC all have mentoring, so the foundations for such a system isn't anathema to DIKU by itself.
But like I posted earlier, WOW is Different™. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on August 22, 2012, 09:11:40 AM Implementing a system like that can really go against the grain of your existing architecture, though. Games like CoH and EQ2 were built with the level/power scaling capabilities in mind, and if you don't do that, adding it on later can be a much larger effort, relatively speaking.
Which is not to say they can't do it. Clearly, they're able to put massive amounts of time and effort into something, once they put their minds to it. I'm thinking here of the revamp of the 1-60 areas of Azeroth. They didn't just reorganize the quests; they also had to pretty up the world so that you could fly over it. On the other hand, we have to be careful what we wish for. Look at the transmog system. Having played CoH and LotRO, I didn't get why Blizzard took so long to steal those games' uniform/wardrobe systems. I mean, really? I can't have a cosmetic outfit? But look at how clunky and relatively inflexible the transmog system is. It's almost like their system programmers didn't understand what was being asked of them. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 22, 2012, 09:14:13 AM Implementing a system like that can really go against the grain of your existing architecture, though. Games like CoH and EQ2 were built with the level/power scaling capabilities in mind, and if you don't do that, adding it on later can be a much larger effort, relatively speaking. Which is not to say they can't do it. Clearly, they're able to put massive amounts of time and effort into something, once they put their minds to it. I'm thinking here of the revamp of the 1-60 areas of Azeroth. They didn't just reorganize the quests; they also had to pretty up the world so that you could fly over it. On the other hand, we have to be careful what we wish for. Look at the transmog system. Having played CoH and LotRO, I didn't get why Blizzard took so long to steal those games' uniform/wardrobe systems. I mean, really? I can't have a cosmetic outfit? But look at how clunky and relatively inflexible the transmog system is. It's almost like their system programmers didn't understand what was being asked of them. Or their art/design teams have a lot more sway than people think. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on August 22, 2012, 11:25:59 AM Is shit like "Main Hand/One Hand" being incompatible them being douchebags, or is it legacy coding issues (like the main bag being stuck at 16 slots?)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 22, 2012, 11:32:49 AM I'll bet it's a simple coding issue due to how it looks-up item types. "One hand != Main Hand :: No Transmog!"
They can override it like they do for Hunter's ranged weapons, though, so no idea why they don't. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 22, 2012, 11:39:25 AM I believe the general idea is that because weapons classed as 'main hand' are almost always caster weapons, it keeps melee type guys from running around looking like they're using caster weapons, and vice-versa. I don't really have a guess as to why they want to stop that (target ID in PVP maybe?) but I'm pretty sure that's the root of it.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on August 22, 2012, 12:14:05 PM Is shit like "Main Hand/One Hand" being incompatible them being douchebags, or is it legacy coding issues (like the main bag being stuck at 16 slots?) I think that's being fixed in next week's patch.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on August 22, 2012, 12:17:12 PM Since they did away with weapon skills, I'm not sure what it matters as long as it keeps the 1-h or 2-h designation, and weapon type for any skills dependent upon that. But does it really matter if my sword looks like an axe, a dagger, a stick, or a chicken leg?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 22, 2012, 12:22:00 PM Pretty sure the chicken legs and fish and such are separately flagged as no-trans. FOR GOOD REASON. :-P
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on August 22, 2012, 12:28:32 PM Since they did away with weapon skills, I'm not sure what it matters as long as it keeps the 1-h or 2-h designation, and weapon type for any skills dependent upon that. But does it really matter if my sword looks like an axe, a dagger, a stick, or a chicken leg? They're not too keen on having one class specifically look like another for world pvp reasons. Also, having fish tmoggable inevitably results in a bunch of rogues stun locking you with a grouper. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Nevermore on August 22, 2012, 12:35:05 PM Well, we certainly wouldn't want anything silly in such a serious business game. :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 22, 2012, 01:03:19 PM Well, as we've seen from El Gallo's post everyone has their line where the silly just becomes too much. For me it would be everyone running around with fish tanking things in their Easter dresses (as I am sure I've said a million times.)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 22, 2012, 01:29:28 PM I believe the general idea is that because weapons classed as 'main hand' are almost always caster weapons, it keeps melee type guys from running around looking like they're using caster weapons, and vice-versa. I don't really have a guess as to why they want to stop that (target ID in PVP maybe?) but I'm pretty sure that's the root of it. There's several rogue daggers and *I think* some dual-wield swords flagged as Main-Hand so that can't be it. It's really just a silly flagging system for one handed weapons. How many main-handers have you ever said "dude, this would be great offhand!" Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 22, 2012, 01:39:03 PM Hardly any, but I've always been Titan's Grip when dual wielding. I did a search on Wowhead for mainhand daggers (with no spell power or intellect) and came up with very, very few:
http://www.wowhead.com/items=2?filter=qu=2:3:4:5:6:7;sl=21;ty=15;cr=123:23;crs=3:3;crv=0:0 If I add back in caster weapons, the number goes up to 218, from 4. Fist weapons is another story but I think they have to do that for those because of the graphics so that probably helps with transmutes not looking retarded too. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 22, 2012, 01:49:01 PM I believe the general idea is that because weapons classed as 'main hand' are almost always caster weapons, it keeps melee type guys from running around looking like they're using caster weapons, and vice-versa. I don't really have a guess as to why they want to stop that (target ID in PVP maybe?) but I'm pretty sure that's the root of it. There's several rogue daggers and *I think* some dual-wield swords flagged as Main-Hand so that can't be it. It's really just a silly flagging system for one handed weapons. How many main-handers have you ever said "dude, this would be great offhand!" There was a BoP 1H sword that dropped from trash in Dragon Soul like this. http://www.wowhead.com/item=78878/spine-of-the-thousand-cuts The item would have been perfect for a tank with transmog. Problem was, the sword was set to main-hand only. Further compounding the problem, it was an agi sword in a tier where it was very easy to get superior agi rogue weapons through the legendary quest line. The item served no purpose for the only class that could use it, and it couldn't even be used for transmog due to the dumb restriction. As for the 'caster weapons' thing, there are no restrictions on caster shields or most caster armor. If my rogue wants to look like a caster, there are dozens of druid set recolors or look-alike items to pick from. My warrior can wear paladin armor or a shaman shield, so why can't she wear a weapon that *might* look like a caster weapon? It's a stupid restriction, and one I'd hoped they would have done away with during the MoP beta. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 22, 2012, 01:51:30 PM I'm not defending it, just speculating on the 'why'.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 22, 2012, 01:54:21 PM I'm not defending it, just speculating on the 'why'. I wasn't saying you were. I believe you're correct about the 'why'. I'm saying that their reasoning falls apart when you look at what is already allowed in-game. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 22, 2012, 01:59:58 PM Ah ha, I see where I'm confused now. I could have sworn the rogue PVP daggers were main hand/ one hand but WoWhead says no. What I'm remembering is daggers flagged as offhand/ onehand for rogues. Which.. makes even less sense to have caster daggers flagged as main hand since they can't dual-wield. :uhrr:
Do rogue weaps run in to the same problem with this? I've never tried transmuting my rogue's daggers to see. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 22, 2012, 02:03:39 PM Caster daggers/maces all got flagged as main hand back when there was this kind of silly elemental build that would go up in enhance to get dual wielding and run around with giant +spellpower boosts, I believe.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sjofn on August 22, 2012, 02:04:32 PM Can't make offhand into main hand, but one hand to one hand is fine, and since pretty much all the daggers I wanted to transmute were one handed, it didn't really come up.
In fact, the only time it came up for me was when I wanted to transmute my paladin's tanking weapon. The mace model I really, really like is apparently a caster mace, so it was a MAIN HAND ONLY OMG model, and my tanking weapon was a one hand. :heartbreak: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 22, 2012, 02:18:54 PM For casters, keep in mind that, in addition to your current weapon skills, wands are being turned into primary weapons for you lot, stats and everything to be on-par with one-handed stuffs. And there are some pretty swank looking wands out there.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 22, 2012, 02:22:26 PM Yeah but I'm irritated that my Priest won't be able to run around with Benediction anymore.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on August 22, 2012, 02:24:02 PM Terestian's Strangestaff nooooooo
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on August 22, 2012, 02:33:10 PM Are they getting rid of staves?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on August 22, 2012, 02:42:01 PM Caster daggers/maces all got flagged as main hand back when there was this kind of silly elemental build that would go up in enhance to get dual wielding and run around with giant +spellpower boosts, I believe. Yeah, this is where that came from. Dual Wielding Ele Shaman. I think they also did it because at one point (way back when) dual wielding Spellpower Weapons as an Enhance Shaman was actually better then Dual Wielding Agi weapons due to the sheer amount of Enhance damage that is done through spells, and the old formulas that let Enhance double dip from both Spellpower and Agility for increased Spell Damage.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 22, 2012, 02:45:34 PM Are they getting rid of staves? I'm also confused. Staves were usable on the beta, I don't see any reason why you'd have to stop using Benediction. Are they removing staves from item tables in 90 content or something? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 22, 2012, 02:52:02 PM Are they getting rid of staves? I'm also confused. Staves were usable on the beta, I don't see any reason why you'd have to stop using Benediction. Are they removing staves from item tables in 90 content or something? No, they are not. I think the fear comes from lack of proper communication of the weapon system change + Monk entering the fray and competing with staff users for AGI and INT staffs. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on August 22, 2012, 03:49:07 PM The item would have been perfect for a tank with transmog. Problem was, the sword was set to main-hand only. Further compounding the problem, it was an agi sword in a tier where it was very easy to get superior agi rogue weapons through the legendary quest line. The item served no purpose for the only class that could use it, and it couldn't even be used for transmog due to the dumb restriction. Nerd police says that this sword was BIS until you hit the end legendary daggers if you were combat. I do hate the main hand thing though. Double flaming swordy things from FL (the int caster sword) would be awesome. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 22, 2012, 04:20:05 PM No, they are not. I think the fear comes from lack of proper communication of the weapon system change + Monk entering the fray and competing with staff users for AGI and INT staffs. I believe Windwalker and Brewmaster monks prefer 1H weapons atm due to more procs on their passives, but that could change by the time MoP rolls out (if it hasn't already changed). You could see Mistweaver monks prefering 1H weapons for smaller and more consistent heals off Blackout Kick auto-attack heals, but it seems like dps healing for Mistweavers will be impractical for anything except easy content. Nerd police says that this sword was BIS until you hit the end legendary daggers if you were combat. Even when you consider the proc from the earlier steps of the legendary? I actually heard that the axe off Madness was best for combat, but only before you finished the daggers. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 22, 2012, 05:14:29 PM No, they are not. I think the fear comes from lack of proper communication of the weapon system change + Monk entering the fray and competing with staff users for AGI and INT staffs. I believe Windwalker and Brewmaster monks prefer 1H weapons atm due to more procs on their passives, but that could change by the time MoP rolls out (if it hasn't already changed). You could see Mistweaver monks prefering 1H weapons for smaller and more consistent heals off Blackout Kick auto-attack heals, but it seems like dps healing for Mistweavers will be impractical for anything except easy content. Only Windwalkers. Brewmasters get no fancy procs from hitting more frequently, and none of the Brew special skills use the off-hand, just main hand for damage calculations. Windwalker does have skills that use main + off hand damage. Add to that the 2-hand passive that Brew 'does' get for 40% melee haste, and there's no argument. If anything, they're making the same mistake they made with DKs; just because you CAN dual wield doesn't mean it's viable or that you're supposed to. Just lock down the DW skill to Frost and Windwalkers already. They didn't have a problem with doing this to Shamans. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 22, 2012, 05:19:07 PM Only Windwalkers. Brewmasters get no fancy procs from hitting more frequently, and none of the Brew special skills use the off-hand, just main hand for damage calculations. http://mop.wowhead.com/spell=128938 It's for more stacks of Elusive Brew, their dodge cooldown. Edit: http://mop.wowhead.com/spell=124502 Gift of the Ox too. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 22, 2012, 05:48:09 PM Well ,fine then. I guess DKs just continue to be fucked with :oh_i_see:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 22, 2012, 06:03:32 PM Are they getting rid of staves? I'm also confused. Staves were usable on the beta, I don't see any reason why you'd have to stop using Benediction. Are they removing staves from item tables in 90 content or something? No, they are not. I think the fear comes from lack of proper communication of the weapon system change + Monk entering the fray and competing with staff users for AGI and INT staffs. Also: the expectation that Wands + offhand will be > staves for all casters to ensure they pick them up over taking Monk loot. Well ,fine then. I guess DKs just continue to be fucked with :oh_i_see: Well, duh. What part of the last 2 expansions didn't underline this for you? :awesome_for_real: Oh, and they've said multiple times about dual-wielding DKs that it was a mistake and they wish they'd never done it in the first place. 2h was always supposed to be superior and only the constant press from the DK community was what kept it viable at all. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 23, 2012, 08:52:59 PM The mobile guild chat and AH are now free for all players. (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/7039180/Mobile_Armory_Guild_Chat_and_Auction_House_Features_Now_Free-8_23_2012)
Nice change, it was silly that they were charging for these minor perks when Rift was offering better versions of the service for free. Next up is making server transfers free :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on August 24, 2012, 07:59:19 AM Add to that the 2-hand passive that Brew 'does' get for 40% melee haste, and there's no argument. If anything, they're making the same mistake they made with DKs; just because you CAN dual wield doesn't mean it's viable or that you're supposed to. Just lock down the DW skill to Frost and Windwalkers already. They didn't have a problem with doing this to Shamans. Or they could pull their heads out of their asses and make the offending abilities and procs weapon/wield agnostic. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on August 24, 2012, 08:19:25 AM That doesn't follow the Vision. Look how long it took them to crack on appearance items.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on August 24, 2012, 09:18:23 AM That's the part I don't get. There are working examples of that in the game right now, some of them dating in one form or another to 2005ish.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 24, 2012, 09:37:03 AM None of which have ever resolved well-enough to anyone's satisfaction. You either felt gimped because your Dual-Wield weapon couldn't match the damage output of a 2h weapon because the skill was tied to weapon damage; or you were way overpowered because your weapon was hitting 1.5-2x faster than a 2h weapon and getting more procs.
They could tie abilities to the DPS of weapons instead of their damage range - like Diablo III - but that would require a complete and total overhaul of the combat from the ground up. Something better served for a sequel or another game, not updating your waning flagship. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Sheepherder on August 24, 2012, 02:49:10 PM They could tie abilities to the DPS of weapons instead of their damage range - like Diablo III - but that would require a complete and total overhaul of the combat from the ground up. Or it would require them to copy Bloodthirst, like they did with Heroic Strike and Cleave. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 25, 2012, 06:06:08 AM Looks like Bliz is making one exception to the "no more rep grinding through tabards" rule. The Horde and Alliance Pandaren factions will have a rep tabard available through their mount vendors, which is pretty much the only reason to get Exalted with them anyways.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on August 25, 2012, 08:11:22 AM How are you supposed to rep grind now, if not via tabard?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 25, 2012, 08:16:53 AM How are you supposed to rep grind now, if not via tabard? Why do you think they took the 25 daily quest cap away? :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on August 25, 2012, 08:21:11 AM Funny thing is, I thought getting rep as a 'side effect' of dungeon runs was a lot less grindy and tedious than doing eleventy billion solo daily quests for them instead.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 25, 2012, 08:28:59 AM Maybe, but it didn't get people out in the world doing things, which is what they want people enjoying more of instead of instance grinding. Considering that Valor gear is now acquired through getting Revered with the various MoP factions (not just one, but ALL, because they spread the pieces across them), it gives them another time barrier to work with.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on August 25, 2012, 08:42:15 AM How are you supposed to rep grind now, if not via tabard? Why do you think they took the 25 daily quest cap away? :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 25, 2012, 01:50:01 PM Was reading over Mr. Robot's blog regarding the changes to Hit, Expertise, and other stuffs for patch 5.0.4 and MoP. Might be good info for some.
(http://blog.askmrrobot.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/MoPHelp_venndiagram.png) Quote Casters:Get 15% Spell Hit - Expertise now gives you Spell Hit - Racial weapon bonuses count toward Spell Hit Hunters & Melee DPS:Get 7.5% Hit and 7.5% Exp - Rogues, Enh Shamans, etc, no longer need to worry about Spell Hit caps since it ‘lines up’ now (see picture) - Hunters now need to get Expertise since their attacks can be dodged (previously, they could not be dodged). Tanks:Get 7.5% Hit and 15% Exp - Expertise isn’t “twice as good” as Hit anymore! - Expertise reduces your chance to be dodged up to 7.5%, then the next 7.5% reduces your chance to be Parried. Previously, Expertise affected both at the same time. Combat Table Coverage (Tanks) - CTC (Combat Table Coverage) used to work nicely with a 1-roll system. You had a chance to dodge, parry, block or be hit by a boss. With a 1-roll system, you could max your dodge, parry, and block so that you always mitigated the boss’s attack. - However, now it’s a 2-roll system. The first roll determines if you dodge, parry or get hit. If you get hit, there is a second roll to determine if you block the attack or get hit. This means your chance to block would need to be ridiculously high (and not currently possible) to ensure that you block all of those attacks. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 27, 2012, 07:03:12 AM So.. I didn't realize the huge amount of changes going in tomorrow also included the alterations to zone tech to allow cross-realm and instanced zoned solutions.
I will now predict a good 3-4 days of total server clusterfucks as the bugs get worked out. I think I should take a few shots of the actual pets I have in case they disappear and never come back like they did on test. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on August 27, 2012, 07:17:43 AM Maybe, but it didn't get people out in the world doing things, which is what they want people enjoying more of instead of instance grinding. Considering that Valor gear is now acquired through getting Revered with the various MoP factions (not just one, but ALL, because they spread the pieces across them), it gives them another time barrier to work with. If they wanted people out in the world doing things, they could have decided not to make the entire 80-85 game into a solo instance. Ah well, the second half of my sub expires over Christmas. Probably time for a 11-month break then and come back when they pull their heads slightly out of their arses. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on August 27, 2012, 07:35:53 AM I don't think that matters to Bliz now. At this point, any new server architecture stuff (a la phased server mergers) is just stuff they're testing for Project Titan. That'll be the GW2 killer :why_so_serious:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on August 28, 2012, 08:28:07 AM Too bad we'll be on GW3 by the time we even find out what Titan is.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 28, 2012, 08:57:58 AM Too bad we'll be on GW3 by the time we even find out what Titan is. According to the leaked schedule it's supposed to come out at the end of 2013. They just announced that there would be a Blizzcon in 2013. I think chances are high that we're going to hear about Titan at or before then. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on August 28, 2012, 09:41:10 AM There was any doubt of there being a Blizzcon in 2013?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on August 28, 2012, 10:34:10 AM There was any doubt of there being a Blizzcon in 2013? Yes, since there isn't a Blizzcon 2012. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on August 28, 2012, 01:26:26 PM Seriously? Huh. Didn't know that.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on August 28, 2012, 01:47:31 PM Well they couldn't announce their release of nothing in Calendar 2013.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on August 28, 2012, 06:46:00 PM There was a BoP 1H sword that dropped from trash in Dragon Soul like this. http://www.wowhead.com/item=78878/spine-of-the-thousand-cuts Speaking of which, I logged in today and noticed that this is now just a regular one-handed sword so you can use it for transmog. Progress! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 10, 2012, 04:57:55 AM So I decided to play beta over the weekend for a 'little while' because, hey, I've only diddled around with pet battles and the new talents so far.
I haven't enjoyed leveling content this much since Vanilla and Nagrand in BC. (Hated the 1st 2 zones) WOTLK was nice but never 'clicked' for me. Something about this is different. I got sucked-in and gained 2 levels when I planned on only playing around for a few hours. Perhaps it's that I'm not too manly for Pandas. (Oh noes, they'll give me teh immaturity!) But the zones are gorgeous thus far and remind me a lot of Nagrand. Probably because there's just so much damned green. I'm eager for launch now. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 10, 2012, 05:05:15 AM I'm hoping they say "Fuck it all!" and open up the Theramore scenario this week instead of next.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on September 10, 2012, 05:13:12 AM Our guild eagerly awaits the changes as well. There's something exciting about conquering dungeons that's lost at the end of an expansion. I'm hoping scenarios can bottle that magic mid-5.1 once the new wears off of the dungeons.
Oh, also, if you haven't checked out videos of the new Scholomance... :heart: :heart: :heart: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hawkbit on September 10, 2012, 10:45:08 PM What level can one feasibly start MoP zones? I came back for a week on a 7day, and I don't really feel like playing my main toon anymore. I have an 80DK I might consider rolling around in frost, but I really am not sure I have the patience to level to 85 again with Cata zones.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on September 10, 2012, 10:55:23 PM IIRC you needed 80 to start the Cata quests at all, so I'd say you need to get to 85.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 11, 2012, 05:30:46 AM IIRC you needed 80 to start the Cata quests at all, so I'd say you need to get to 85. Yes, you have to be 85. There's an intro quest from King V. or the orc guy that get you on the airboats to Pandaria. You can't get them until you're 85 and there's no other method to the continent. (After those quests portals open up.) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Draegan on September 11, 2012, 12:57:02 PM (http://i.imgur.com/xNV3A.jpg)
Heh. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 11, 2012, 01:26:20 PM :why_so_serious: :drill:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on September 11, 2012, 08:13:26 PM :headscratch:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on September 12, 2012, 05:02:38 AM Previous reference. (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=11268.msg1103577#msg1103577)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on September 12, 2012, 09:29:40 PM Hurm, except for the holding up of TBC as the greatest moment of WoW (though it was better than Vanilla in many ways), it all makes sense now.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 13, 2012, 03:24:08 PM Official preview for Farmville a la WoW (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/faction/the-tillers)
I'm actually really looking forward to this :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on September 13, 2012, 05:05:48 PM It's not Farmville.
... It's Harvest Moon. :oh_i_see: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soulflame on September 13, 2012, 05:26:23 PM Oh good lord. I hope my children don't get wind of this.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on September 14, 2012, 05:01:06 AM Official preview for Farmville a la WoW (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/faction/the-tillers) I'm actually really looking forward to this :awesome_for_real: Something need doing? Zug zug. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 14, 2012, 05:05:24 AM The intro questline to this happens at ~level 86. I did it two weeks ago and can see the attraction. Bonus that you can plant crops that will give you the "primal" of this expansion - motes of harmony. Note that unlike previous expansions these are bind on pickup, so you HAVE to harvest them yourself. Big change there.
On the downside of the system; using tools like Watering Cans/ Bug Sprayers/ Hoes takes up an inventory slot. You can destroy the item after you're done tending crops but you still need that free inventory slot plus the slots for whatever you're harvesting at the time. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on September 14, 2012, 07:13:07 AM As long as they add the next evolution in bag space or a farming bag that has huge space like the other profession bags, I'm fine with that.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Tannhauser on September 14, 2012, 07:23:09 AM I saw one of the NPC's was a brewer. So can you brew beer or just raise crops? What role if any does beer have to play in this? I grew up having to help tend three gardens so I'm not interested in this unless it involves beer.
Beer. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on September 14, 2012, 07:34:26 AM I saw one of the NPC's was a brewer. So can you brew beer or just raise crops? What role if any does beer have to play in this? I grew up having to help tend three gardens so I'm not interested in this unless it involves beer. Beer. Cooking becomes more specialized in this expansion, much like alchemy. However, you may specialize in all three at once, iirc. Brewing is one specialization. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on September 14, 2012, 07:35:29 AM Yeah this is going to be a disaster on my Fall time. Luckily I don't care after October 15th. :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 14, 2012, 07:54:47 AM The brewing stuff wouldn't let me touch it until I hit 90. The level 86 quest just introduces you to concepts and the faction then says "come back when you have more free time!" I figured it was just for flavor, interesting to hear its not.
Ah - I Missed the update back in May apparently. http://www.wowhead.com/news=203461/mists-of-pandaria-cooking-specialization-preview Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on September 14, 2012, 10:04:19 AM Thanks for linking, Merusk. On a phone so linking is miserable.
I think MoP overall will be worth a 3-month timecard. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 17, 2012, 05:09:47 AM No problem.
For those interested - the rare mobs (Silver crest) of this expansion all seem to drop bind on pickup loot rather than the previous bind on equips of prior expansions. Add on that the key crafting mats - motes of spirit - are also BOP and it becomes obvious they REALLY want you out in the world hunting items rather than playing the AH. My question is are they going to nerf the ore nodes. There were TONS of them in beta. So many that people stopped harvesting because it was more time consuming than questing. Think first 2 weeks of Cata in Deepholm.. yes that many. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 17, 2012, 05:37:16 AM No problem. For those interested - the rare mobs (Silver crest) of this expansion all seem to drop bind on pickup loot rather than the previous bind on equips of prior expansions. Add on that the key crafting mats - motes of spirit - are also BOP and it becomes obvious they REALLY want you out in the world hunting items rather than playing the AH. My question is are they going to nerf the ore nodes. There were TONS of them in beta. So many that people stopped harvesting because it was more time consuming than questing. Think first 2 weeks of Cata in Deepholm.. yes that many. There 'has' to be tons of nodes. Have you seen what crafters have to do to get a freakin' usable material now from the basics? Sure, they made the universal 'elemental' item easier to acquire and use, but good god, Blacksmiths are gonna loose their shit over what MoP would have them harvest for ores. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on September 17, 2012, 05:47:13 AM There 'has' to be tons of nodes. Have you seen what crafters have to do to get a freakin' usable material now from the basics? Sure, they made the universal 'elemental' item easier to acquire and use, but good god, Blacksmiths are gonna loose their shit over what MoP would have them harvest for ores. I think with the advent of CRZs, the nodes need to be increased. I play on Grizzly Hills, which is pretty much the ass end of severs, population-wise. We've seen a serious increase in people competing for nodes, so I'm sure this factors somewhat. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 17, 2012, 06:21:31 AM MoP zones will not be CRZ'd.
Lemme explain it this way: In Cata, you had Folded Obsidium, which was a few Obsidium bars compressed together, which required a lot of raw ore. One Folded Obsidium took 4 raw ore being crafted into two bars. In MoP, not only do we have Folded Ghost Iron, but Quality Folded, Masterfully Folded, and Perfectly Folded Ghost Irons. Additionally, Trillium Bars are crafted by Blacksmiths to make Living Steel, the Alchemy Transmuted epic-material for epics. Those Trillium Bars need 2 Black Trillium and 2 White Trillium ores to make a single bar, both ores being rare-spawns in the lvl 90 areas. It could be that the massive amount of nodes is Bliz planning for the future in which the MoP zones will be CRZ'd, but for now, I think it's because of the mass amount of stuff needed just to make the same volume of stuff we made in previous times. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on September 17, 2012, 06:24:53 AM I don't think I've crafted a single epic on any of my chars since vanilla (except for engineer headpieces), the main purpose of my craft skills was to increase the power of the character they're attached to. I guess crafting the i372ish blues near the end of Cata was ok to gear up alts and guildies, but that's about it.
Is there going to be any REAL benefit for a non-raider to crafting ph4t ep1x in MOP when compared to LFR / dungeon runs / rep rewards / valor and justice rewards / etc? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 17, 2012, 06:26:29 AM I was playing my hunter, who's an engineer, so I hadn't checked out the quantities required for the other profs on ores. I know I was able to max engineering using one mining-bag of Ghost Ore so I was happy. Everything after that will be profit/ shipped to the blacksmith character.
Though, reviewing the items on WoWhead nothing looks out of the ordinary. 7-12 bars per item is pretty normal. Plus you'll find that isn't per point of skill, either. A lot of the recipes are using the +3/ +5 skill per combine now. Plus it's just ghost iron, which is the 'leveling' stuff and not the Trillium that people want for level 90 gear. I don't think I've crafted a single epic on any of my chars since vanilla (except for engineer headpieces), the main purpose of my craft skills was to increase the power of the character they're attached to. I guess crafting the i372ish blues near the end of Cata was ok to gear up alts and guildies, but that's about it. Is there going to be any REAL benefit for a non-raider to crafting ph4t ep1x in MOP when compared to LFR / dungeon runs / rep rewards / valor and justice rewards / etc? No more than usual, no, which is why I've stuck with engineering all these years. Each profession now has one or two 'sellable' things and a personal benefit. If you're not in early on that sellable market, you may as well just pick the prof that's most fun or benefits your alts the most. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on September 17, 2012, 10:33:43 AM At a certain point I thought I'd like to be self sufficient so I trained a few alts to max professions. I am certain it cost me radically more money training them than I ever saved by not having to buy stuff off the auction house. It was a dumb idea and I won't be doing it again.
I like that as engineers we won't have to leave MoP zones to go to an AH. The thing I'm curious about is whether or not they will reduce the number of mats required to level a tradeskill through the 80-85 range. You needed a huge amount to do that and with the zones about to go empty I don't know how any budding new level one is going to level up something like smithing or, God forbid, enchanting. On a side note I am hording cata leather to sell to the monks when they try to max out leatherworking. There is a horrible choke point for leathercrafting at, I believe, the thick and heavy leather level ranges too. I need to get some of that before MoP hits, for my monk. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 17, 2012, 10:47:35 AM Keep in mind with your master leather selling plan that, thanks to Cata changes, some recipes offer more than just a point of skill at a time without too much additional investment, esp. if the person is gathering the mats on their own as they're playing/leveling. Also, once you break out of vanilla's crating stuff at 300, you don't need 'too' much to get up through BC, Wrath, and Cata, as you only need 350, 425, and 500 for expansion cut-offs.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on September 17, 2012, 10:50:32 AM I honestly never thought enchanting was that hard to level up, assuming you grab it early on with a fresh character. I've got...4 max level chanters, I think, just because it's one of the easiest. Plus like luckton says, you never need to get the last 25 points (which are where it gets expensive with lots of Shards and Crystals) because the new expansion starts up. There are a few bottlenecks, sure, but most of those revolve around the Rods and weird vanilla mats that no one farms anymore (Golden and Black Pearls come to mind).
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on September 17, 2012, 11:08:06 AM Yeah I might wait for the darkmoon fair to get the last five points from the profession quest for free.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on September 17, 2012, 11:18:21 AM Fresh profession leveling isn't too bad, especially for old expansions. Because an expansion covers a smaller amount of skill-ups, and there are less types of materials, it's usually cheaper than 1-300 profession leveling to be honest. The really expensive skill-ups that use lots of rare materials are usually skip-able with cheap catch-up recipes from the next expansion.
The gathering professions are somewhat harder now with CRZ. I leveled mining recently on my hunter and while I didn't notice any problems in the vanilla zones, there was an obnoxious amount of node competition in the TBC/Wrath zones. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 17, 2012, 11:18:45 AM The thing I'm curious about is whether or not they will reduce the number of mats required to level a tradeskill through the 80-85 range. You needed a huge amount to do that and with the zones about to go empty I don't know how any budding new level one is going to level up something like smithing or, God forbid, enchanting. On a side note I am hording cata leather to sell to the monks when they try to max out leatherworking. There is a horrible choke point for leathercrafting at, I believe, the thick and heavy leather level ranges too. I need to get some of that before MoP hits, for my monk. Item 1) they addressed in the AMA and said they were going to be making adjustments to them. I'd guess these aren't in already or we'd be seeing the effects on live by now. Item 2) you're right. That's dead on where i stopped leveling my rogue's leatherworking because it was too damn much effort to do. I should really drop it for another gathering skill but :effort: to level-up. I'd agree in principle on attempting to be self-sufficient - it's pointless for a number of professions. Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, Tailoring - aka the profs that are good only for gearing-up alts and not even that now that Heirlooms are everywhere. If you've got someone maxed for Gemcutting, Inscription and Enchanting I think it's still worth it. Particularly since you can always feed greens to the enchanter plus mats you pick-up in dungeons for ease of leveling. In no case have I seen a benefit to Alchemy since the nerfing of potions & flasks to near uselessness. All my primaries are miners or herbers so Gemcutting & Inscription are pretty easily fed. It helps that neither is particularly picky about what you feed it. 5 stacks of whatever will give you the mats you need to level. Easy-peasy vs. the insanity of Smithing & Alchemy where you have to buy some damned expensive mats just to level-up. Double bonus in that scribes have items that sell fairly well long after the expansion has been out a while because people are always making new alts. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on September 17, 2012, 11:37:51 AM I don't think I've crafted a single epic on any of my chars since vanilla (except for engineer headpieces), the main purpose of my craft skills was to increase the power of the character they're attached to. I guess crafting the i372ish blues near the end of Cata was ok to gear up alts and guildies, but that's about it. Is there going to be any REAL benefit for a non-raider to crafting ph4t ep1x in MOP when compared to LFR / dungeon runs / rep rewards / valor and justice rewards / etc? Benefit for the character who had the craft skill isn't a 'real' benefit? In any case, I got a shitload of use for me and my guildmates out of the epic blacksmithing weapons/shields at the start of Wrath (less so with the ones in Cataclysm, since the stupid Chaos Orbs were much harder to come by than Frozen Orbs, and the recipes needed more of them on top of that), and a lot of personal use out of the upgradeable armorsmithing breastplate during TBC - not sure if you are lumping that in with the 'you get an extra gem slot' type benefits or not. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on September 17, 2012, 11:59:30 AM Go visit the pale roost in Deepholm if you're interested in really fast leather farming. Pretty nice farm area. :)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on September 17, 2012, 12:20:10 PM I don't think I've crafted a single epic on any of my chars since vanilla (except for engineer headpieces), the main purpose of my craft skills was to increase the power of the character they're attached to. I guess crafting the i372ish blues near the end of Cata was ok to gear up alts and guildies, but that's about it. Is there going to be any REAL benefit for a non-raider to crafting ph4t ep1x in MOP when compared to LFR / dungeon runs / rep rewards / valor and justice rewards / etc? Benefit for the character who had the craft skill isn't a 'real' benefit? In any case, I got a shitload of use for me and my guildmates out of the epic blacksmithing weapons/shields at the start of Wrath (less so with the ones in Cataclysm, since the stupid Chaos Orbs were much harder to come by than Frozen Orbs, and the recipes needed more of them on top of that), and a lot of personal use out of the upgradeable armorsmithing breastplate during TBC - not sure if you are lumping that in with the 'you get an extra gem slot' type benefits or not. Lock [tailor/ench]: the only character I really crafted epic max-level stuff on.. but only for myself, really (especially since vanilla/BC had those specializations and I was the only lock in the guild). Robe of the void in vanilla, frozen shadoweave in BC (which was better than Kara stuff). I got some decent mileage out of enchanting my other chars' gear after they put vellums in (instead of having to pay the gougey prices on the AH) Shaman [jc]: the BOP trinkets, some of the fancy JC-only gems, crafting gems for my other chars Warrior [blacksmith]: crafted Thunder in BC, but getting the higher-level orbs was stupid so I just pvp'd for a better weapon instead. Didn't bother crafting anything in WOTLK, and saw no point in levelling cata except for maybe the skeleton keys and the new belt buckle... but eh. DK [leatherworking]: I crafted maybe 2 items total for my shaman for use while levelling (which was all of... 4 hours of gameplay before I found a better piece) Druid [alch]: made the philosopher's stone du jour for myself (both tank and boomkin flavors) and maybe a few pots. I've crafted armor for guildies very rarely... maybe once or twice total, including the time when I made a set of (blue) jewelry and cloaks to get some fresh 85s past the ilevel hurdle of COT heroics. Never crafted anything better than a blue, because like I said, there was no point. So basically the crafters get all those benefits for themselves and maybe craft one or two items as well as serve as an annoyance reducer for "why aren't there any +stats enchants on the AH for less than 600g" moments. I certainly had zero use for crafting any of the max-level epics -- by the time I could get the insane amount of materials for them, I'd have better options from drops, jp, vp, or pvp. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on September 17, 2012, 12:23:29 PM The Wrath epics had very reasonable material requirements!
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on September 17, 2012, 01:39:41 PM I did make quite a lot of gold selling the leatherworking BoE epics in Cata, but that wasn't the primary benefit of the profession. It's the power increase and the cheaper version of enchants/kits. For my leatherworking rogue in Cata this meant that every time I got a new pair of pants, it only cost me two black dragonscales (~40g total) to enchant it instead of 20 black dragonscales and 1 primal leather (~800g total). I also got cheap/excellent character-only bracer enchants.
There is plenty of incentive to level crafting professions besides "make money". I didn't know about the mobile AH engineers got, that's pretty tempting. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on September 17, 2012, 01:48:37 PM I don't think it's mobile is it? I thought it was the same thing as in wrath where engineers could access that auction bot in Dalaran. Mobile would be cool.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 17, 2012, 02:01:30 PM Yeah that's my understanding of things. The mobile item we get is a forge & anvil.
http://mop.wowhead.com/spell=127131 And this gem of free monies!: http://mop.wowhead.com/spell=127129 Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: cmlancas on September 17, 2012, 09:56:15 PM Played the scenario with my girlfriend tonight and another friend. Was ridiculously easy, but had a very nice lore piece to it.
Overall, was a nice segue, but isn't mind-blowing. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Azazel on September 18, 2012, 07:41:34 PM I did it with my wife and a friend last night. I actually really enjoyed it. No healer needed, and something fun and pretty casual that we could just jump into. They'd want to have quite a few of them though, to keep us interested. There'd be a big risk of them just becoming as boring as the three HOT instances.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 19, 2012, 04:51:18 AM Crafting changes from Bliz. (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/7305441/Mists_of_Pandaria_Professions_The_Art_of_Discovery-9_18_2012)
Mostly QoL stuffs. - You no longer need harvesting tools to get ore/herbs/skins, but if you still keep them in your bag, you'll get a +10 bonus to the skill. Gnomish Army Knife will give a +10 to all three harvesting skills. - Alchemists will get discoveries more often, but they will mostly be with whatever mastery they're spec'd into. - BS, Leather and Tailor will all use the same single meta element to purchase the recipes for and craft end-game stuffs. Each craft will have a faction that will cater to their recipe needs, and the new 28-slot bag for MoP is going to be just as much a nightmare to make as the Illusionary Bag, so start saving mats. - Enchanting materials can be upgraded and downgraded on demand and as needed. Note that downgrading materials will come at a higher cost than upgrading. - Engineers get MoP versions of all the stuff they loved from before (gliders instead of parachute cloaks, the Blingtron instead of Jeeves, etc.) - Herbs are now a bit zone specific, and are specifically designed to work with certain stats (You wanna make Intellect pots? Go farm Silkweed) - Miners: Ghost Iron is the new Obsidium. It's freaking everywhere and used for essentially everything. Deal with it. Trillium is the new Pyrite, but you have a 50/50 chance of it being either black or white trillium when you mine it. You need a little of both to make n actual bar, which goes on to being used for end-game blues, or transmuted by Alchs into Living Steel for end-game epics. Kyparite is another unique ore that can be mined in certain locations; it's what's used to gain faction and buy end-game BS recipes. - Skinning's been simplified to Exotic Leather and Magnificent Hide. 50 Exotic leathers can be rejiggered by LWs into end-game leather mats of their choice. - Jewelcrafters will no longer do a daily to get JC currency for end-game recipe cuts. Instead, you attempt to get a jewel color (of the six) of your choice for a random discovery of that color. Unique JC equipable gems have been reduced from 3 to 2. In exchange, JCs can now prospect their own meta gems and find meta recipes as BoP world drops that will show up only for them (because fuck you Alchemists). - The First Aid changes in Cata worked well, so they're repeating it with MoP. You can make decent bandages early on, and once you max it, you'l need fewer mats to make the same decent bandages. Also, no "Make 5000 end-game bandages" achieve this time around. - Fishing is getting love with another Fishing-specific faction that's more better and more awesome than the Kalu'ak were. And Nat Pagle is with them. And a new Friday night fishing tourney is joining the Sat and Sun afternoon ones. What else you want? Oh, your own private fishing boat? Done. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fordel on September 19, 2012, 05:29:26 AM Quote Herbs are now a bit zone specific, and are specifically designed to work with certain stats (You wanna make Intellect pots? Go farm Silkweed) How is that different at all? Certain Herbs have always grown in certain zones (and even in specific terrain types in certain zones). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 19, 2012, 05:37:01 AM - Fishing is getting love with another Fishing-specific faction that's more better and more awesome than the Kalu'ak were. And Nat Pagle is with them. And a new Friday night fishing tourney is joining the Sat and Sun afternoon ones. What else you want? Oh, your own private fishing boat? Done. It better not be like the damned turtle or Mr. Pinchy I *STILL* haven't fished-up... or those damned coins in Dalaran. 500 casts later and I still don't have Andurin Wrynn's gold coin. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 19, 2012, 06:02:54 AM I don't think so. The difficulty will be in having to both appease the Fishing faction and Nat's personal standing with you.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on September 19, 2012, 06:58:10 AM - Fishing is getting love with another Fishing-specific faction that's more better and more awesome than the Kalu'ak were. And Nat Pagle is with them. And a new Friday night fishing tourney is joining the Sat and Sun afternoon ones. What else you want? Oh, your own private fishing boat? Done. It better not be like the damned turtle or Mr. Pinchy I *STILL* haven't fished-up... or those damned coins in Dalaran. 500 casts later and I still don't have Andurin Wrynn's gold coin. I got the coins done in...one hour? Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 19, 2012, 07:03:15 AM I did the coins in about three hours while my truck was getting maintenance.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 19, 2012, 07:31:57 AM Fuck you both. :oh_i_see: I've got 8 hours in at least. I've spent several Saturday evenings sitting there while watching a movie on the other monitor.
I've tried for YEARS to get a single Mr. Pinchy. Never had him pop. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 19, 2012, 08:00:16 AM Heh, I still don't have "Salty" though, because I haven't won a tourney. Really wish they'd take that req. out of the meta.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on September 19, 2012, 08:28:43 AM Fuck you both. :oh_i_see: Yes.The longest thing for me was probably getting one of the very rare fish. I got lucky with Mr. Pinchy and got him from the first box I got, although the box took quite a while. The derby in Northrend is almost pure RNG plus a few things, if you just show up every derby you will get it eventually. Fewer people might be doing it now that the acheive is account wide. Just be sure to be bound at the inn beside the turn in, be sure your hearth is up, have some sort of sprint, do not wait to make a decision on which reward to get while standing at the npc just pick one and end it and lastly you get zero indication that you have fished up the item you need so keep your bag open and read the damn chat to see if you got it. I got mine from the pools on the south shore of dragonblight. Don't go into the frozen sea though because you can't hear when the tourny starts. Most importantly - FISHING BOAT??? Need more info. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 19, 2012, 08:32:48 AM http://www.elsanglin.com/mop_fishing.html
Specifically: http://www.wowhead.com/item=85500 Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on September 19, 2012, 08:43:57 AM Holy shit that's awesome. It's fun little stuff like this hooks people.
On an unrelated note I did the scenario yesterday and while compared to other stuff in WoW it was sort of meh it was radically better than any dungeon in GW2. It was refreshing to play something enjoyable, something where I didn't want to punch a whole in the wall, Fire golem in Sorrow's Embrace I'm looking at you. I really hated the idea of pandas but I'll learn to live with it. If I want silly shit like fishing rafts I need to be able to tolerate silly damn pandas. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: SurfD on September 19, 2012, 10:29:48 AM Fuck you both. :oh_i_see: Yes.The longest thing for me was probably getting one of the very rare fish. I got lucky with Mr. Pinchy and got him from the first box I got, although the box took quite a while. The derby in Northrend is almost pure RNG plus a few things, if you just show up every derby you will get it eventually. Fewer people might be doing it now that the acheive is account wide. Just be sure to be bound at the inn beside the turn in, be sure your hearth is up, have some sort of sprint, do not wait to make a decision on which reward to get while standing at the npc just pick one and end it and lastly you get zero indication that you have fished up the item you need so keep your bag open and read the damn chat to see if you got it. I got mine from the pools on the south shore of dragonblight. Don't go into the frozen sea though because you can't hear when the tourny starts. Most importantly - FISHING BOAT??? Need more info. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on September 19, 2012, 10:51:42 AM I had a quy invite my recently to level with him, and I got the message "this may switch you to another realm"
I was like, uhhhhhhh. I don't want to do that. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on September 19, 2012, 11:37:45 AM Yeah that doesn't seem to be a new thing at all to me, goes all the way back to vanilla.
EDIT: oops, missed a page. That was agreeing with Fordel about the herb thing. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on September 19, 2012, 12:04:20 PM WotLK is now baseline: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/5945062
Quote Haven’t yet ventured to the frozen reaches of Northrend? Beginning today, September 19, players will be able to get the original World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King for only €14.99 as part of the newly upgraded digital Battle Chest, available now on Battle.net. In addition, all World of Warcraft subscribers will now automatically have access to all of the content and features of both The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, even if they never purchased either expansion, at no additional cost. It’s time to sail north, adventurer — the Lich King awaits! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lantyssa on September 19, 2012, 01:48:13 PM Heh, I still don't have "Salty" though, because I haven't won a tourney. Really wish they'd take that req. out of the meta. Vu won the very first time attempting Northrend's tourney. I tried several times. I've caught one 'winning' fish almost an hour after start, when of course you need to get it within five minutes. None of the other rares.Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on September 20, 2012, 08:01:18 AM They have now disabled the fishing derbies until they can stop the crz stuff from screwing them up.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on September 20, 2012, 08:10:24 AM Pretty good video of clips for all the new stuff. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vOeUvGrugbc)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on September 20, 2012, 03:34:30 PM Pretty good video of clips for all the new stuff. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vOeUvGrugbc) Great trailer. Plenty to be excited about. :heart: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on September 20, 2012, 04:49:26 PM Pretty good video of clips for all the new stuff. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vOeUvGrugbc) That looks badass. Even with my concerns about Pandas. I wish they would do a serious graphics upgrade. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ingmar on September 20, 2012, 04:50:30 PM Redoing the old player models might be enough to lure me back to see how much I hate the new protection warrior in actual practice, yeah.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on September 20, 2012, 04:57:35 PM I haven't actually played since '08. I got on and farted around with Cataclysm a bit, but I just didn't have the time to get interested. And really, it was more of the same. At least this looks fresh.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 21, 2012, 05:03:46 AM The problem with Cata is that the 1-60 revamp was considered part of the total package, and as such most players thought that the 80-85 content was rather limited, which was intentional due to time and resource constraints.
We will not have this problem with MoP. Everything was poured into 85-90. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on September 21, 2012, 07:27:11 AM With so many people making monks and having to run through the 1-60 content again maybe people will quit bitching about the time spent on the makeover. The new 1-60 is very good. The only problem with it, if you can call it a problem, is that there is too much content for the speed of levelling. If you start a fresh zone it will probably go gray to you halfway through its quests. Man if they could put in some sort of gw2 system that, strictly as an option, could downlevel you so that you keep getting good xp and rewards that would be nirvana. Then copy the 100% map completion bonus and make it nirvana with hookers and blow.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on September 21, 2012, 07:30:10 AM They already have cross-server zones... as I play on a pvp server (Crushridge), I expect the gank factor to be 11/10 for the first month or so.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on September 21, 2012, 09:50:10 AM With so many people making monks and having to run through the 1-60 content again maybe people will quit bitching about the time spent on the makeover. You would need to roll 5 characters per faction to see all of the new quest zones without over-leveling them, and you'd have to avoid using heirlooms or other xp boosts. So, probably not. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on September 21, 2012, 08:16:15 PM With so many people making monks and having to run through the 1-60 content again maybe people will quit bitching about the time spent on the makeover. The new 1-60 is very good. The only problem with it, if you can call it a problem, is that there is too much content for the speed of levelling. If you start a fresh zone it will probably go gray to you halfway through its quests. Man if they could put in some sort of gw2 system that, strictly as an option, could downlevel you so that you keep getting good xp and rewards that would be nirvana. Then copy the 100% map completion bonus and make it nirvana with hookers and blow. I liked the old days when you had to eke out a level here and there and really explore the world to get a few extra quests. The "on rails" thing has been beaten to a pulp though. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Malakili on September 22, 2012, 06:25:51 AM I liked the old days when you had to eke out a level here and there and really explore the world to get a few extra quests. :why_so_serious: I liked Vanilla WoW, don't get me wrong, but I don't particularly have nostalgia for hoofing it out to The Hinterlands to do some obscure quest to finally bump myself up to level 50 so I can hit the Plaguelands finally. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on September 22, 2012, 03:56:07 PM I liked the old days when you had to eke out a level here and there and really explore the world to get a few extra quests. :why_so_serious: I liked Vanilla WoW, don't get me wrong, but I don't particularly have nostalgia for hoofing it out to The Hinterlands to do some obscure quest to finally bump myself up to level 50 so I can hit the Plaguelands finally. That's what The Barrens felt like as Horde Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on September 22, 2012, 10:11:13 PM I liked the old days when you had to eke out a level here and there and really explore the world to get a few extra quests. :why_so_serious: I liked Vanilla WoW, don't get me wrong, but I don't particularly have nostalgia for hoofing it out to The Hinterlands to do some obscure quest to finally bump myself up to level 50 so I can hit the Plaguelands finally. That's what The Barrens felt like as Horde Eastern kingdoms was a lot better but I think 50-60 sucked for everyone. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Soln on September 23, 2012, 08:50:00 AM I liked the old days when you had to eke out a level here and there and really explore the world to get a few extra quests. :why_so_serious: I liked Vanilla WoW, don't get me wrong, but I don't particularly have nostalgia for hoofing it out to The Hinterlands to do some obscure quest to finally bump myself up to level 50 so I can hit the Plaguelands finally. That's what The Barrens felt like as Horde Eastern kingdoms was a lot better but I think 50-60 sucked for everyone. Now 60-65 sucks since you to quest in Outland or LFD through it. Im grumpy because I rerolled and had a great time till 60. Cant move on in a crafting tier or start in Northrend. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 23, 2012, 11:45:28 AM 50-60 was easy as Alliance. I remember finishing up Ungoro at about 50 then hitting East Plagues and West Plagues. Finished hitting 60 in Winterspring with quests remaining.
As for your BC lament, I had an easy time running through there on my Warrior and Druid. A few dungeon runs and a couple of quests in Nagrand and I was off to Northrend.. where I immediately crapped-out on both of them at about 72. I'm still tired of that content right now. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on September 23, 2012, 08:12:07 PM OK, I finally did the Theramore (level 85) scenario with a couple of guildmates, earlier tonight.
I (on my hunter) and the feral druid in our group each pulled too much aggro, in separate fights. Outside of that, it was perfectly manageable by three dps classes; our 3rd party member was a not-tanking warrior. So the only party member getting any healing was my pet, and he could probably have tanked the entire thing if I'd done a better job of minding him. Anyway. The whole thing reminded me very much of the skirmishes in LotRO. Lots of steps, with overt guidance from the game in terms of where to go and what your goals are at each step. In LotRO, the accumulation of Skirmish Marks was the incentive for doing any given skirmish more than once. (Well, also Deeds.) If Blizzard expects me to do these scenarios multiple times, the reward needs to be more enticing than a handful of fireworks o.O I haven't read up on these things AT ALL, so it's entirely possible that Blizz have already laid out the loot plan, and I just need to try it again when I get to 90 ;) Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 23, 2012, 08:20:42 PM I haven't read up on these things AT ALL, so it's entirely possible that Blizz have already laid out the loot plan, and I just need to try it again when I get to 90 ;) This. 85 Theramore was just a small taste; a very small tip of a large iceberg underneath. Loots, rep, lorelol...all will be waiting for you. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: ghost on September 23, 2012, 09:54:59 PM I liked the old days when you had to eke out a level here and there and really explore the world to get a few extra quests. :why_so_serious: I liked Vanilla WoW, don't get me wrong, but I don't particularly have nostalgia for hoofing it out to The Hinterlands to do some obscure quest to finally bump myself up to level 50 so I can hit the Plaguelands finally. It was cool the first time, but it did get old with subsequent characters. But it's not like the "on rails" won't get old too. I just liked feeling like it was important to explore a little bit. Now there's now point. They just point you toward the nearest dungeon and there you go. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on September 23, 2012, 11:15:21 PM I've also done the scenario on my chars... impressions:
- The overall implementation is solid. Also, Captain Grunk. :awesome_for_real: - Really easy. Even pulling half of the docks with a 3-dps group didn't cause anyone to get below 50%. 'Course this may be due to overgearing, but still! However, if they are an alternative to daily quests I'll definitely take them no matter the difficulty -- because man, fuck daily quests. - Healers are almost completely superfluous. My resto shaman just spammed lightning bolt and various damage totems 98% of the time, occasionally tossing out a healing stream totem or a riptide. My disc priest was basically doing a lolsmite DPS rotation on the biggest mob and sometimes mind searing, with a nagging feeling that I could have just gone shadow and done the same stuff a lot faster/better while still having enough healing if necessary. This'd be a lot better if there were NPCs to heal that DPSd for you / tanked for you depending on group makeup (like in lotro skirmishes) - Tanks fare a bit better, since there's lots of mobs and some decent vengeance buildup - still, having more than one tank could be bad (3 tanks in a pug... I know, right?) - The ilevel hurdle of 353 is especially silly considering how easy it is... all this accomplished is that my fresh-85-horde-lock can't run it. I'm definitely not going to spend $$ on level 85 gear two days before MOP :oh_i_see: - Lots of drops, and the new rift/swtor-esque AOEloot functionality is nifty... TSW and GW2 have spoiled me with their 'push button to loot everything near you' button, though. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Register on September 24, 2012, 01:59:13 AM I've also done the scenario on my chars... impressions: - The overall implementation is solid. Also, Captain Grunk. :awesome_for_real: - Really easy. Even pulling half of the docks with a 3-dps group didn't cause anyone to get below 50%. 'Course this may be due to overgearing, but still! However, if they are an alternative to daily quests I'll definitely take them no matter the difficulty -- because man, fuck daily quests. - Healers are almost completely superfluous. My resto shaman just spammed lightning bolt and various damage totems 98% of the time, occasionally tossing out a healing stream totem or a riptide. My disc priest was basically doing a lolsmite DPS rotation on the biggest mob and sometimes mind searing, with a nagging feeling that I could have just gone shadow and done the same stuff a lot faster/better while still having enough healing if necessary. This'd be a lot better if there were NPCs to heal that DPSd for you / tanked for you depending on group makeup (like in lotro skirmishes) - Tanks fare a bit better, since there's lots of mobs and some decent vengeance buildup - still, having more than one tank could be bad (3 tanks in a pug... I know, right?) - The ilevel hurdle of 353 is especially silly considering how easy it is... all this accomplished is that my fresh-85-horde-lock can't run it. I'm definitely not going to spend $$ on level 85 gear two days before MOP :oh_i_see: - Lots of drops, and the new rift/swtor-esque AOEloot functionality is nifty... TSW and GW2 have spoiled me with their 'push button to loot everything near you' button, though. Scenarios are rumored to be around LFR difficulty, so it's design is supposedly more skewed towards casuals and lore exploration than gear progression. On my newly 85 DK I can basically solo the whole scenario, carrying people that are lost/semi afk/dead from attacking boss mobs when they are reflecting damage... :uhrr: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on September 24, 2012, 02:15:19 AM I have zero problem with them being easy, really... they aren't any more trivial than daily quests (have I mentioned in this post how much daily quests suck? if not, I'll say that now :why_so_serious:) or farming trivially-easy mobs in felwood / silithus / elemental plateau / icecrown / tol barad (pick your favorite expansion). Just the fact that there are two other players in there immensely adds to the replayability and reduces tedium for me. (see also: invasions in RIFT and basically the entire game in GW2)
My main concern is just that being a healer in a scenario is kind of... pointless, and I'm not entirely convinced that it wouldn't be better for a tank to just use a damage spec. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on September 25, 2012, 03:15:08 AM I really dislike these stupid monkey people and their annoying slang.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Jimbo on September 25, 2012, 05:50:44 AM ARRRRRRGH!!! Cure you, you damn poke-mon game! I spent hours playing and leveling my pets and went to see if I could capture a baby murloc I saw before I trained in pet battles. This will keep me from leveling like I should be doing, instead I'm out trying to battle and catch them.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 25, 2012, 05:56:14 AM I warned you!
Though, it does slow down once you hit level 12 with a group.. at least it did for me in beta. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 25, 2012, 06:18:29 AM I'm not even gonna worry about the pet thing till I'm lvl 90 and had my fill of quests and stuff. If they keep their promise of trying to bang out new patches at a faster pace than Cata, I ain't got time for Pokemons. I gotta get my raid on :drill:
Just a couple more hours at work. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ginaz on September 25, 2012, 09:28:50 AM I logged in for a bit around 4am mst and saw nothing but pandas running around SW. I probably won't get much time to play today since I'm shooting on the range all day but I'll be going in balls deep this weekend.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on September 25, 2012, 09:34:26 AM Logged on my resto shaman, figured I'd try out dungeon leveling (mostly because screw questing on a pvp server at launch, especially with cross-realm zones). 14min queue - mkay, I need to clear out my bank and read up on MOP stuff. Anyway, the queue pops, I get in a group that apparently lost its healer, and then...
"Transfer Aborted: instance is full" I point this out to the group, get zero feedback. Keep trying for a minute or two, same results. Shadowpriest pipes up, asking 'still full?', I say yeah. I spend another minute trying and looking up where to find the entrance to the instance (I note that the group's fighting through all this, with healthbars going up/down), then I get votekicked out of the blue. 10 mins before I can queue again, woo! Sounds like a new WOW expansion, alright. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on September 25, 2012, 09:39:44 AM I played a teeny bit this morning. Long enough to uncap my professions, do the fishing and cooking dailies in Org, and then catch the awesome-looking new Horde airship to "Paint this new land RED", on the orders of my increasingly crazy warchief. And then did a couple hub's worth of quests in the Jade Forest.
Anyhow. I am digging questing so far. I like the new gear symbol, above objects that you have to interact with for quests. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 25, 2012, 09:56:42 AM Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on September 25, 2012, 03:16:10 PM 50 minutes into it and I was bored rotten. The storytelling was all :metzen: and the gameplay was nothing new and the graphics although improved, feel really dated. Maybe hitting 10 level 85s in Cata has ruined the game for me, but I thought that after a decent break I'd be refreshed and ready to give this a go. Obviously not.
TSW and GW2 have ruined WoW for me. Maybe I'll just roll a Panda and check out the starting zone Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on September 25, 2012, 04:46:30 PM I disagree; once you get done the introductory quests, it opens up a lot and I'm really liking the "quest through the area however you want" much better than the on rails approach of Cata. I'm almost 87 and having a blast; the quests are pretty interesting and there are a lot of nice QoL improvements (a lot of quest items are clickable while mounted, for example). My only complaint is that they've taken the "back to WotLK" full tilt which means more vehicle quests. :uhrr:
The two 85 normal dungeons are both easy and short; I'd say run each at least once for the quests because they're worth of ton of xp. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on September 25, 2012, 04:59:13 PM Someone in my guild got an achievement for the irst dungeon within 20minutes of the expansion coming out, it was a bit :uhrr:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Zetor on September 25, 2012, 09:17:38 PM I keep trying to press my mouse side button for active dodging, and trying to cast ground effects by just pointing the mouse at the location and using the skill, then being annoyed when the targeting circle pops up.
More importantly, I'm assisting every other quester in killing their mobs and don't rush over to mining nodes as soon as I see them (which obviously means they're gone by the time I make my way over there). Ah, GW2, you have broken me on a psychological level :awesome_for_real: To add some actually relevant comments, I don't really mind the quests so far, though I wonder if I'll still be saying that when I am leveling my third toon. I am kind of miffed about the dungeon queues and the general lack of them (there are maybe 2+2 of them that are available before level 90?); dungeon xp seems low too, which is a pity because I loved leveling 100% in dungeons in cata. The dungeons themselves are pretty over-the-top, especially the brewery... but I'm fine with that too! Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on September 25, 2012, 09:18:58 PM I like it so far. The Jade Temple dungeon wasn't bad with my guild group of all melee and a healer, and the questing zones are total chaos early on. It feels like a war because there are people everywhere fighting nonstop spawns. I'm almost 86 on my warrior tank, but I haven't worked my way through the jade zone much yet.
A couple of quests actually made me laugh out loud, both of them dealing with flashbacks and raccoons. Another quest with the sniper was really fun, and the quest to keep balanced in your dream state was a nice touch. Downside? Overpopulation of zones can drive some insane (not me because I'm a grinder). Also, panda children/cubs are fucking creepy. The look is creepy, the voices are super creepy, and the animations just seal the whole thing into one big creeper creepfest of a design. DO NOT WANT. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 26, 2012, 02:54:22 AM Finished Jade Forest this morning. So much stuff to cover...I'll just throw out random bullet thoughts.
- Airship intro was :awesome_for_real: - Ghost Iron...Ghost Iron everywhere. Already at 585 Mining and 580 Jewelcrafting. - Jewelcrafting changes are niiiiiiiice. No more daily quest for currency, now it's just Inscription-style research that gives a pattern AND a couple of pre-cut gems. The JC-only 'eye' gem generation is simplified; already have about 8 eye gems ready to cut when I'm ready. And I've already picked up two meta gem recipes from mob killing. - It may be 'Metzen' style, but questing is a far cry better than when this game started now. The kill 10 foozles stuff is there, sure, but most were relatively painless to complete and didn't have me walking all over damnation to do. The flavor quests, like the sniper thing that was mentioned, was fun. - I could listen to these music tracks all day long - Unique NPCs with unique speech/click voices. :awesome_for_real: - Maxed First Aid with little effort. Took maybe 100 of the new cloth and now I have 100k HP bandages. :awesome_for_real: - Pet battle icons everywhere. Clicked on one just for kicks and had my lvl 1 drake vs a lvl 25 tanooki. Needless to say, I did not survive :why_so_serious: - Minor issue with quest rewards: Your reward is now dictated by the spec you're in when you turn the quest in. Sometimes you get an option, like at the end of a story line that gives a rare-qual item, but otherwise if you don't like the tank item being offered, you gotta switch to DPS/heal/vice-versa to get the 'other' reward. - Kite taxi :drill: Moving onto Valley of the Four Winds today after work. Can't wait to start my Farmvile adventure. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Setanta on September 26, 2012, 05:21:51 AM Ok, I may have had some fun. Logged my DK, specced to blood as I found out the hard way that the geist glyph shuts down dark transformation (WTF) in unholy. Went into the temple and got to the point where I could non-stop pull packs and disease the crap out of them.
Rolled a Panda monk - ok, but I miss the personal story and scenarios in GW2. Plus the dodge mechanism, plus the AoE to mouse mechanism, plus the scenarios. Yeah, GW2 wrecked WoW for me I think. It's "nice" the way an old jumper is "nice". I just don't feel immersed. I can remember being a hard-core raider in Vanilla, but those days are over. WoW is going to be a very casual thing for me. BTW, I'm sick of hitting "F" to loot/interact etc in WoW - god I miss that. Caveat: Maybe I'm bitter as all hell towards Blizzard after the Cataclysm/Diablo 3 fails. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on September 26, 2012, 06:59:36 AM Yeah it doesn't sound like you are taking the game at face. Which is your choice, because you can compare your fun however you want, but it does sound a little bitter.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Fabricated on September 26, 2012, 07:07:48 AM I have literally 0 interest in logging onto WoW while I have Torchlight 2, Borderlands 2, and a backlog of steam titles. I still have my sub going however; derp. Need to cancel for now and come back when I'm done with my ARPG/shooterfest.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Ironwood on September 26, 2012, 07:09:11 AM Ditto.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 26, 2012, 08:07:08 AM Re: Dungeon XP - The Xp gain is still good in dungeons. What you're seeing is that it takes a SHITLOAD of Xp to make each level. Since there's only 5 levels they've upped the XP per level significantly vs. Cata where it was still at WOTLK levels. People who did the "save 25 dailies to turn in" thing only got a bubble out of it, not half a level like at Cata launch.
Enjoying the hell out of it even though I played a bit of beta. Helps that I skipped nodes and zones and didn't push too hard as I was just trying to get a feel for the new skills and talents. There's a shitton of ore nodes everywhere and they're respawning PDQ so while I'll get pissy if someone takes a node while I'm fighting the mob on it, it's never too long before it or another pop again. Those disinterested/ bored: You're done with the game. It's returned to the state of WOTLK and doesn't seem to have any of the problems Cata did with cranking the difficulty and focusing on the wrong crowd. If you can't enjoy it now I'll posit you're simply not interested in WoW itself anymore. That's fine, but move on and don't return because you'll just be a bitter bitch when you do. Admit it to yourself, enjoy the time you had and don't invest any more money for the Xp or the game time that'll just turn you more bitter about it. You should know this by now and after all these games. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on September 26, 2012, 08:12:47 AM I don't like the alliance has to ally with fish people, but Horde get to ally with monkey people.
1 - Fish people are ugly 2 - I WANT TO ALLY WITH MONKIES Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on September 26, 2012, 08:22:57 AM I think that in order for Blizzard to steal the GW2 shared-resource model, they'd have to crank down on the number of nodes available. Because damn, I mined a ton of ghost iron last night.
Jade Forest is either flippin' huge, or it just seems that way because flying mounts don't work. I started in on Archaeology. While digging in the Arboretum, I was assaulted by what seems to be a special Archy mob. Resembled a Sha. He dropped Mogu shards as loot. Nice touch. I completely have passed by on pet battles so far. Not out of disdain; I just keep forgetting to go visit the trainer. In other pet news, I have tamed a crane, a porcupine, and one of the wasps from the Arboretum so far. I immediately ditched the wasp, because he reminded me why I don't already have a wasp pet. (I hate the noise they make). The cats in the JF are too pretty, so I'll probably have one of those soon. I wish I could upgrade my stable. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Hutch on September 26, 2012, 08:24:46 AM I don't like the alliance has to ally with fish people, but Horde get to ally with monkey people. 1 - Fish people are ugly 2 - I WANT TO ALLY WITH MONKIES One of the horde npc's has the opposite rant. "The Alliance outnumber us 30 to 1, and we're allied with monkies!" Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on September 26, 2012, 08:31:54 AM It's a proud day when you can ally with monkies. This NPC should be shot.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 26, 2012, 09:15:37 AM It's not just you, Jade Forest is HUUUGE. So are the next two zones. I think they're larger than Nagrand and that zone was large.
Really, pass pet battles until 90 unless you want to take your time leveling. 1) It's much more of a time killer than you expect when you first get in to it. 2) If you're like me you'll be pissed when leveling and you see all the level 25 critters around you that you can't tame and it'll just tempt you to go level your team up instead. I went back to the hunter main myself and, yeah, tons of tamables I want. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on September 26, 2012, 09:23:04 AM Best part of pet battles? Re-naming my Mr. Grubby to Hans Grubber
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Selby on September 26, 2012, 09:41:22 AM Lots of idiots in Jade Forest last night. Think I'll let the fury die down over the next few days and focus on alts ;-)
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on September 26, 2012, 10:51:26 AM I started up the pet battles today; it's very Pokemon-esque which is a good thing. Made it to level 6 or so with my squad (Mini Deathwing, Netherray Fry, and Clockwork Gnome). How do you rename them?
The zones are really large, but in a good way ala Nagrand/STV and not "This is so boring and forever taking!" like Deepholme. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Lakov_Sanite on September 26, 2012, 11:17:05 AM Right click their portraits on the left-hand side of the ui to rename/dismiss etc. Also bear in mind most of the pets you had are poor quality and that catching in the wild will sometimes yield uncommon and rare pets with much better base stats.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pennilenko on September 26, 2012, 11:34:14 AM I am really happy with the whole expansion and all of the changes. I have only one minor tiny complaint, I want to be able to sort my battle pets by quality, and or level, and right now I can't or at the very least I can not figure out how.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on September 26, 2012, 11:36:35 AM Parndaria starter area is a bit underwhelming so far. Done a little more than half I think? At level 6 now.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Pennilenko on September 26, 2012, 11:42:52 AM Parndaria starter area is a bit underwhelming so far. Done a little more than half I think? At level 6 now. I disagree I think it is nice. I thought that the goblin and worgen starts were terrible and long. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Simond on September 26, 2012, 12:05:15 PM The only mod you need for pet battles: http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/pet-battle-pokemon-music
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 26, 2012, 12:23:03 PM Right click their portraits on the left-hand side of the ui to rename/dismiss etc. Also bear in mind most of the pets you had are poor quality and that catching in the wild will sometimes yield uncommon and rare pets with much better base stats. It won't affect much for the player trainer or overland battles (unless you run in to a rare that's of a strong type vs your squad), but in PVP battles, yeah, you'll get wtfpwnd. They changed it so some of the harder to acquire old pets are 'rare' quality. Here's the list. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6080522555 Rendakor - the only 'rare' quality pet you're using is the Clockwork Gnome. You'll want to change your squad if you plan on doing player vs player battling. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on September 26, 2012, 01:29:47 PM I'm digging it so far despite coming down with the flu on Monday. The quest flow isn't quite as boring as 1-60 and Cata, the zones are beautiful, and it feels like they have made an investment to telling story through the game this time. The lorewalker stuff is the obvious example (which is what arch should have been) but the quest themselves also seem to have a bit more meat to them.The normal alliance/horde heroes and villains are all more or less mia and the game is free to tell new stories which is pretty refreshing. Plus no Thrall (so far).
You can tell there was a greater attention to detail compared to Cata. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rendakor on September 26, 2012, 06:31:00 PM It won't affect much for the player trainer or overland battles (unless you run in to a rare that's of a strong type vs your squad), but in PVP battles, yeah, you'll get wtfpwnd. They changed it so some of the harder to acquire old pets are 'rare' quality. Here's the list. Thanks for that. The UI indicates which of the new pets I've acquired are uncommon, poor, etc. but doesn't give me quality for my old ones. Lil Deathwing's on there too, so I've only gotta swap out my Nether Ray. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6080522555 Rendakor - the only 'rare' quality pet you're using is the Clockwork Gnome. You'll want to change your squad if you plan on doing player vs player battling. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Jayce on September 27, 2012, 06:48:30 AM One of the horde npc's has the opposite rant. "The Alliance outnumber us 30 to 1, and we're allied with monkies!" Funny, I just had an Alliance NPC tell me last night that the Alliance is outnumbered by the Horde 30 to 1. Fog of war? :awesome_for_real: You can tell there was a greater attention to detail compared to Cata. I agree with this. I spent some time last night just wandering around a town and checking out the detail. It has the same feel as Dalaran in that behind every door is a cohesive little environment with interesting little touches that make it feel lived-in. I'm enjoying it so far. I really love this time in an expansion when the later zones are still just names to me and everything is mysterious. Won't be long until everything is known and routine again, but this is a good time to be playing. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on September 27, 2012, 07:16:13 AM Yes, at times when I'm leveling around the place, I do stop and notice the details they've put in for buildings and zones. I finished Jade Forest zone last night, and I felt that it was very large and diverse in terms of area quests.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 27, 2012, 10:22:30 AM Must be making progress. Several overpopulated realms just got the green light for free realm transfers off in order to reduce queue times.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on September 28, 2012, 01:39:52 PM I'm loving the quest content and the overall world, but the dungeon content has taken a step down from Cata. I'm not really talking about difficulty which I know is everyone's favorite topic on F13, but quality/pace. I ran the four leveling dungeons a few times and came away with mixed feelings. Brewery was definitely the best of the bunch with lots of fun mechanics and a brisk pace. It felt like the size/variety a dungeon should have, you just move through it quickly. Temple of the Jade Serpent and Mogu'shan Palace feel a bit too brief/simple which is fine for leveling dungeons but will be be disappointing at 90. They remind me of Azjol-Nerub. Shado-pan Monastery felt like it dragged. It wasn't legitimately long, but the aesthetic wears thin within the first few minutes and the fights aren't note-worthy. You don't feel like you are moving quickly due to the density of trash and the same-ness of every area in the dungeon.
I think if 90 heroics aren't going to bump the challenge anymore, they should be making other changes to differentiate them from the leveling versions (which need to be even faster/simpler). A new boss or two, a new wing to explore, etc. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on September 28, 2012, 01:44:15 PM I've done Jade so far. It's nothing special. In fact several times I wandered through there just sort of confused by what the hell I was fighting and why.
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Merusk on September 28, 2012, 02:17:42 PM Read the quests and it tells you! :mob:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Trippy on September 28, 2012, 02:19:32 PM Read quests? What kind of barbaric system is that?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 28, 2012, 02:25:12 PM I've fought Direbrew 31 times now as a tank. 31 times he has not dropped the dodge trinket. I cry w/sad :cry2:
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on September 28, 2012, 02:26:55 PM I imagine it's a new loot table, maybe he doesn't have one?
Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: luckton on September 28, 2012, 03:10:19 PM Oh no, he's got one. I just have a 1 in 6 chance of it dropping each time.
http://www.wowdb.com/npcs/23872-coren-direbrew Edit: Finally got it after kill #34. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on September 28, 2012, 08:09:49 PM Read quests? What kind of barbaric system is that? I read quests back when I did the Lolore thing for the worgen. That's the only time I'd ever bother. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on October 02, 2012, 01:33:32 PM I guess the honor vendor is now up and the gear there is a tiny bit better than what you can get from heroic dungeons for most dps and some healers. So instead of banging your head against the wall in an lfg group hoping for the random drop you want you can just go run some bgs and buy exactly what you want to get the best PvE gear in PvP.
There is no resilience taking the place of an important secondary stat anymore so the gear isn't lack lustre for PvE like it was in cata. Fake edit: If you care about colour the ilvl 463 heroic dungeon gear is blue while the ilvl 464 honor gear is purple (http://www.wowhead.com/news=206980/season-12-pvp-preview#armor-priest). Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Paelos on October 02, 2012, 02:02:43 PM I guess the honor vendor is now up and the gear there is a tiny bit better than what you can get from heroic dungeons for most dps and some healers. So instead of banging your head against the wall in an lfg group hoping for the random drop you want you can just go run some bgs and buy exactly what you want to get the best PvE gear in PvP. There is no resilience taking the place of an important secondary stat anymore so the gear isn't lack lustre for PvE like it was in cata. Fake edit: If you care about colour the ilvl 463 heroic dungeon gear is blue while the ilvl 464 honor gear is purple (http://www.wowhead.com/news=206980/season-12-pvp-preview#armor-priest). That's actually how I plan to get my dps gear for my second spec. Good call. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Rokal on October 02, 2012, 02:28:14 PM I guess the honor vendor is now up and the gear there is a tiny bit better than what you can get from heroic dungeons for most dps and some healers. So instead of banging your head against the wall in an lfg group hoping for the random drop you want you can just go run some bgs and buy exactly what you want to get the best PvE gear in PvP. They've noticed this too, no longer worth doing. The buffed JP gear should be extremely easy to get. Quote We’re working to adjust current Justice and Honor gear to better align with intended values. Currently it’s more lucrative to run Battelgrounds for ilvl 464 epics, and convert all Justice to Honor to gear up. While some crossover is fine, the most optimal way to gear for PvE doesn’t make sense to happen through PvP. This hotfix will ideally go out today, and once applied will change all Justice and Honor items (including those already purchased) in the following ways: Justice Items Current – ilvl 450 Rare New – ilvl 458 Rare Honor Items Current – ilvl 464 Epic New – ilvl 458 Rare We’ll be increasing the PvP Power and Resilience on the Honor items by 15% to compensate for this change. Again, our design in Mists of Pandaria is to allow for a greater degree of crossover between PvE and PvP using the same gear, but the original item levels simply made Honor gear (through Battlegrounds or conversion of Justice to Honor) a far better route to gear up for PvE. Players who enjoy PvE shouldn’t feel forced to PvP to get the best gear, and vice versa. Title: Re: Mists of Pandaria Post by: Miasma on October 02, 2012, 02:43:51 PM Holy shit that was fast, what the fuck? How did that slip by everyone if it wasn't intended?
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