WoW Patch...

[Der Helm]

*hands Haemish some valium*

While I do not like this death penality at all, I would say, this is one of the easier things to change, even in retail. No game stopper for me.

Strange enough, I am enjoing the game at the moment, might be because today way day 1 for me and the Oh.Shiny-fanboy is still strong in me. Nonetheless, I preorderd the US-Import today.

I know I am still able to cancel it, but hey, try to convince me of my mistake, worst case would be that you could make fun of me 2 months from now

[Riggswolfe]

One thing I ask everyone to remember is the rest system. It was implemented very harshly and people whined and bitched. Blizzard tamed it way down so now it is barely noticeable. I suspect this will go the same way.

If the devs are doing things as I suspect here is there pattern:

Implement new system. Go all out with it. Gradually scale it back to a workable level.

I think it's a smart way to do things. Most devs put in a wimpy system, then scale it up. By doing it this way it gives the impression that Blizzard is listening and adjusting things to fit the customer base.

Time will tell if my prediction is correct.

[El Gallo]

I don't care about the basic idea of durability loss, I would just like to see some field repair kits available so you don't have to bail out on an instance.  Not that this matters now, since they have screwed the pooch on the aggro system and entirely flushed every second we spent testing and balancing instances down the toilet with this fucktarded new taunt shit.  That ability was the cornerstone of instance groups; every single encounter was balanced around it.  Then they decided to effectively remove that mechanic from the game with 2 weeks to go before release.

Good luck, motherbitches.  I don't know that even Smedley would be willing to do pull that shit.

[MrHat]

I don't care about the basic idea of durability loss, I would just like to see some field repair kits available so you don't have to bail out on an instance.

I think I remember a dev mentioning that this might be implemented as a skill for engineers.  That way they have something they can sell just like leatherworkers and blacksmiths (armor kits and sharpening stones).

[Riggswolfe]

Yeah, the taunt thing makes zero sense. On the one hand it seems they're trying to encourage warrior diversity, OTOH it seems that every late game instance is designed for the stereotypical taunt warrior.

I have mixed feelings. I was super good at taunting and keeping almost every mob on me, OTOH it got real boring so I tended to do alot more soloing than instancing. If they rebalance instances so taunt is no longer the keystone, will warriors have a place in groups anymore?

It'll be interesting to see how this develops.

[MrHat]

If they rebalance instances so taunt is no longer the keystone, will warriors have a place in groups anymore?

Instead of being the cornerstone, now they would just be another cog in the wheel.  Like every other class except for Mage and Priest.

[Masuri]

This new patch fucking blows.

I'm a level 27 mage, and I'll tell you, reagents chap my ass.  It now makes infinitely more economic sense for me to use the windriders/bats than to cast my own teleport spells.  What the fuck is that?  I'm all the way out in Gadgetzan (btw, coolest area ever), and my rogue buddy says he's gonna hop the Windrider and go back to Orgrimmar.  I check out the price to travel via Windrider from way-the-fuck-out-there in Gadgetzan, and it's 7 silver.  Hrm, 10 silver for me to teleport.  Nice.  Good thing I've got those spells...  Don't even get me started on slow fall's reagent.

Also, I had to use the spirit healer yesterday, when I got my dumb ass into a situation from which I could not CR.  I was in Stonetalon and, after 6 or 7 deaths, I realized I was going to have to take it in the ass.  I took the spirit healer route and was alive again, smack in the middle of Stonetalon.  All my shit was busted, and I had rez sickness, which reduces everything about you by 75%.  I didn't realize how fucked I was, at first, and started on down the path to go back to the barrens.  A level 16 Stormsnout attacked me and I nearly died.  What the fuck.  ONE level 16 mob nearly killed me because I was totally unable to defend myself.  Good fucking plan, Blizzard.  The 70 silver I had to pay to repair everything I fucking owned was an added bonus.

So far, this patch makes me say 'fuck' a lot.

[El Gallo]

except that the wheel is now a roughly-hewn square made out of solidified shit.  With Blizzard's patch rate, this might be reformed into something remotely worthwhile in time to compete with EQIII.

Warriors, by the way, are more powerful than ever.  The most effective group right now is 3 warriors and 2 priests/shamans.  Each warrior can cc 2 mobs and nobody is allowed to do more damage than a warrior anyway.

Copying and pasting EQs aggro management system into a geme with no pulling or mass crowd control is an ass idea.

[Riggswolfe]

nobody is allowed to do more damage than a warrior anyway.

quote]

Except Mages, Warlocks, Rogues, Shadow Priests, Paladins, Hunters and Shamans.

Ok, you're right. Warriors outdamage Druids. Nerf them!

[Glazius]

nobody is allowed to do more damage than a warrior anyway.

Except Mages, Warlocks, Rogues, Shadow Priests, Paladins, Hunters and Shamans.

Ok, you're right. Warriors outdamage Druids. Nerf them!

Read that as "nobody is allowed to do more damage than a warrior AND LIVE" and I think you'll get the point.

--GF

[El Gallo]

Except Mages, Warlocks, Rogues, Shadow Priests, Paladins, Hunters and Shamans.
Ok, you're right. Warriors outdamage Druids. Nerf them!

If you do more damage than the warrior, you are the tank.  Assuming your warrior has maxed out his defiance talent, you can do 1.15 times the warrior's damage, but that assumes that the tank warrior does nothing but maximize her dps on a single target.

All those classes can do well over 1.15 times a defensive warrior's damage, but if they do so, they are the tank, and they die.  So they each have to fight with 1 arm tied behind their back.  Note that in EQ, this was a decent mechanic, riding the edge of aggro was the mark of a good damage dealer, but in EQ damage dealers could do an order of magnitude more damage than the tank and still avoid aggro.  An offensive warrior can also do 1.15 times the defensive warrior's damage, but when they tank they don't die.

A warrior can hold aggro over a healer petty reliably on 2 mobs right now.  To deal with 6 mob pulls, which are unavoidable, you bring 3 warriors.  CC classes don't help much, since mages and rogues can only cc 1 mob at a time, their cc is unreliable, and they have the defensive skills of a wet paper bag.

[MrHat]

This seems relevant:

Hi all,

First of all we would like to thank everyone participating in the Open Beta. The development team has been able to gather valuable in-game data over the past few days. Based on this data and your feedback on the forums, we will be making a few changes in the next patch:

- Players will only receive a 25% durability loss instead of 100% when using a Spirit Healer to resurrect

- Players will now only incur a maximum 10 minutes of resurrection sickness instead of 30 minutes when using a Spirit Healer to resurrect

- Some key buff spells will have their reagent requirements removed

- Changes to Warrior’s Defensive Stance that will improve their ability to hold aggro

We are hoping to get the next patch out early next week.

EDIT: Guess they put it in high, and brought it back down to acceptable levels.  Think they covered everything people were complaining about, except the recent lag fest.

The spirit healer changes effectively make it the same penalty (at least to me) as it was before patch, trading an exp loss for a money one.  This allows them to add another moneysink w/out all the fuss.  The 30min res sickness was just absurd to begin with.

I still feel that they should keep the reagents, but make it optional.  If you played FFXI you know that food wasn't essential, but when you ate it, it definately increased your effectiveness.  Reagents should be the same way, ie. Power Word: Stamina, the priest stamina buff, gives you 10 stamina at L6 or whatever.  It lasts a half hour.  If you use a reagent, it lasts the play session or until you die.  Just an idea.

I wonder how they will implement the aggro system on defensive stance.  Will it just be an odor you put out while in defensive stance that makes mobs hate you, or will it add taunt effect to each of your hits?

I'm bored.

[Riggswolfe]

About the patch:

Excactly as I predicted.

 To El Gallo, I apologize, I suspect you were saying that people who do more damage with the current patch get aggro. I took it as a snide swipe at warriors. My bad. I know the pre-taunt nerf it didn't matter how much damage my group dished out I never lost aggro. I haven't played since the latest patch simply because I've had alot of other things to do.

[Kageru]

I wonder how they will implement the aggro system on defensive stance.  Will it just be an odor you put out while in defensive stance that makes mobs hate you, or will it add taunt effect to each of your hits?

That would be `increase' rather than add. I believe coupled with the reduction to taunt as an action they increased the agro generated by other actions. A pretty reasonable response to the warriors complaining they spent all their time mashing taunt and their ability to lock down more mobs than the designers wanted.

[ajax34i]

I think what they did was rather dumb, to be honest.  No value whatsoever is gained from going so much overboard like they did.  Anyone could have told them that 100% decay is too much.  Are they that stupid that they didn't realize, after taking one look at the numbers, that 100% is too damn big a death penalty?  The only thing they did with that idiotic move was to alienate most of their beta testers.

You want to go overboard and then tone it back?  You're not sure what % decay is the "just right" value?  Implement something reasonable like 50% and THEN tone it back to 25% based on feedback.

[Soukyan]

I think what they did was rather dumb, to be honest.  No value whatsoever is gained from going so much overboard like they did.  Anyone could have told them that 100% decay is too much.  Are they that stupid that they didn't realize, after taking one look at the numbers, that 100% is too damn big a death penalty?  The only thing they did with that idiotic move was to alienate most of their beta testers.

You want to go overboard and then tone it back?  You're not sure what % decay is the "just right" value?  Implement something reasonable like 50% and THEN tone it back to 25% based on feedback.

It wasn't dumb. They obviously wanted to keep the 100% penalty. The best way to do so is to put it in and see if the players would become complacent to it. Obviously the backlash was more severe than they expected so they had to make the change, but I'll bet if they had left it at 100%, in a couple weeks, the vast majority of players would have accepted it and all those who complained about it would have stuck around anyhow. Complacence. It's what drove the addicts in EQ to keep playing as well. Let's face it. In the MMOG genre, once you have the captive audience, you can fuck them over for years before they realize you haven't been using Vaseline.

[ajax34i]

There was a thread on the WoW boards where a lot of their level 60 (and less) testers posted that the cost of repairing one death was more than they could possibly make in the dungeon/instance/etc.  If that's true, 100% is obviously too high and shouldn't have been implemented in the first place.

They reduced it to 25%, which is very different from the initial 100%.  That may be because of the severity of the backlash, but honestly if they felt strongly about 100% they would have reduced to 80%.

They will do things like this in retail.  I don't understand why one would choose the "go overboard and then scale back" system instead of the "figure out that 25% is probably the best value and implement that in the first place" system.  With the last few patches, they seem to have gained a lot of experience at going overboard, and not much experience at guesstimating the right numbers for any change they wish to make.

[HaemishM]

25% is much more reasonable. I still cannot understand in what Bizarro-world they ever thought that 100% would be palatable. Sure, they could have left it in there; it just would mean no one would use it except in the most dire of circumstances. EQ-like corpse runs would have been the norm, without the need to avoid mobs while you're naked.

[Fargull]

A few hours of playing and some observations.

Right now I can make money pretty effeciently.  I have only spent money on my skills and weapon, I am playing a rogue.  I took skinning and leather working to make my own armor, so that might be part of the equation, though not much.  From what I can tell (pre-20) it seems that armor does not impact as much as I had thought it would, however weapon quality and damage potential certainly does.

Grouping seems weird, but I really like the roll the dice to win the loot option.  Quests seem scaled well.  Have not had an issue with the Quest Camper syndrome from previous games.  Right now the server side lag seems to be the biggest pain after you stab your eyes out with the download / patcher.  From what little (as in no) knowledge I have A MMOG server engine, it would appear localized to the areas of largest PC concentration (go figure).  I had a human paladin that was experiencing huge lag and then hopped on with a tauren hunter and the lag was gone.  Same server (non PvP obviously), so I am guessing the cities/zones are on different servers with in the world cluster?

Overall I like the pace of combat and the world construction, will have to see how the upper levels begin to pan out before making a final statement.

[MrHat]

From what little (as in no) knowledge I have A MMOG server engine, it would appear localized to the areas of largest PC concentration (go figure).  I had a human paladin that was experiencing huge lag and then hopped on with a tauren hunter and the lag was gone.  Same server (non PvP obviously), so I am guessing the cities/zones are on different servers with in the world cluster?

The 2 continents are different servers.