Ulduar

[Fordel]

Blizzard overestimated how good and/or devoted the 'average' was.

[kildorn]

Yeah, the enrage on Hodir seems shorter than it needs to be, given all the other crap flying around.

Although at the same time, if he didn't have one at all, we'd probably still be fighting him with four people. 

So without an enrage, he's totally the heigan of Uld. Dance and all.

[Sjofn]

Pretty much! But there's no pattern and you can't carry people through it. :(

[Paelos]

The end result of Naxx was that the designers took it personally. Everyone was stomping the content and raging on the forums how a bunch of one-armed midgets could deal with the raid. They were bitching about a challenge.

The natural response was what we got with Ulduar. "Oh you want a challenge? Fuck you then, here you go."

I say this with the original design in mind, not the constant nerfs that have happened. Think about it. It's a battle of hubris v. ignorance. Nobody is winning because Blizzard should be better than that, but after 4 years they still haven't learned anything when they are hit in the mouth. They react just the same.

EDIT: Then when they actually learn they swing back too far to the other side and set themselves up again.

[Fabricated]

I think most of the problems (and good things) about each raiding tier Blizzard has released from Vanilla to now has been them trying shit out and seeing what works and what doesn't. It really is like we're beta testing the game for them, but I can't really think of a good way to do it otherwise and find shit people like.

[Phunked]

There are also a lot of "better" raiding guilds, many of whom swore they'd quit if they saw naxx25 level difficulty again.

Obviously they have to cater to the masses, but I think some part of keeping just a couple of things (titles/mounts/etc) exclusive helps promote the mystique of raiding.

The sheer fact that world firsts are 'important' and people compete for them is free marketing for them.

[Sjofn]

The end result of Naxx was that the designers took it personally. Everyone was stomping the content and raging on the forums how a bunch of one-armed midgets could deal with the raid. They were bitching about a challenge.

The natural response was what we got with Ulduar. "Oh you want a challenge? Fuck you then, here you go."

I say this with the original design in mind, not the constant nerfs that have happened. Think about it. It's a battle of hubris v. ignorance. Nobody is winning because Blizzard should be better than that, but after 4 years they still haven't learned anything when they are hit in the mouth. They react just the same.

EDIT: Then when they actually learn they swing back too far to the other side and set themselves up again.

I figured it would happen after all the MEW MEW MEW NAXX IS SO EASY whining, to be honest. Those drove me crazy partly because it was totally obvious it was the noob raid, they said it was about a billion times. I can only imagine it was even MORE irritating as a dev.

[Fabricated]

Even though Ulduar 25 and the 10-man normal mode of the Coliseum provide loot up to 3 tiers better in ilevel, there's gonna be some real "FUCKING CASUALS" whining about the new 5-man.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=74311.0

Niiiiiiiiiice. Very good patch for your alts and guildmates who are cursed by the RNG gods.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I'm really excited about the new five man. It having really nice lewts is icing on the cake for me.

[Paelos]

I'm hoping for a good design on the 5 man as well. What I'm really hoping is that they avoid the Magisters Terrace design template and go for something with less annoying trash and no "you got your pvp in my pve" fights.

[Sjofn]

I liked MgT, even though it was rude to my holy paladin and kind of annoying to tank with my warrior. I did enjoy the howling about the PvP fight from the poopsockers at the time, though.

[Paelos]

I was a warrior tank at the time and I hated the place. It was also back in the OMG CROWD CONTROLZ hayday that made putting together any random group of classes an exercise in 'doh. It was loaded with pull after pull after pull of caster groups that were exactly the same, and the pvp fight which made bringing a tank completely pointless even though you needed it for every other fight.

Today I could see the pvp thing as less annoying because of dual spec. It still wouldn't be fun though. Also I hear the first fight in the new 5 man is...

Jousting. Ugh.  

[Gobbeldygook]

I was a warrior tank at the time and I hated the place. It was also back in the OMG CROWD CONTROLZ hayday that made putting together any random group of classes an exercise in 'doh. It was loaded with pull after pull after pull of caster groups that were exactly the same, and the pvp fight which made bringing a tank completely pointless even though you needed it for every other fight.

I'll give you that there the trash was way, way too repetitive, but I really enjoyed tanking it as a warrior.  IIRC, I really only 'needed' one CC.  I range-tanked one caster with spell reflect and kept the other four from killing the healer with thunderclap/cleave.  There was always some shit to dispel with shield slam and plenty of opportunities to shield bash.

The PVP fight was a lot less annoying once you knew how to use /target macros to figure out what the enemy comp was before the first pull, so you'd know if you should leave and try for a better composition.  If you went in before you put the group together you could even recruit classes based on the comp.  It was a really fun fight when it actually went right.

[SurfD]

I was a warrior tank at the time and I hated the place. It was also back in the OMG CROWD CONTROLZ hayday that made putting together any random group of classes an exercise in 'doh. It was loaded with pull after pull after pull of caster groups that were exactly the same, and the pvp fight which made bringing a tank completely pointless even though you needed it for every other fight.

I'll give you that there the trash was way, way too repetitive, but I really enjoyed tanking it as a warrior.  IIRC, I really only 'needed' one CC.  I range-tanked one caster with spell reflect and kept the other four from killing the healer with thunderclap/cleave.  There was always some shit to dispel with shield slam and plenty of opportunities to shield bash.

Meh, other then maybe having a mage or rogue or hunter to sap / sheep one of the adds, you really didnt usually need massive croud crontroll to deal with those packs.

If anything, that dungeon was an awesome way to train people how to LOS pull, and not be a dumbass and let the mobs actually come around the corner so the tank could get aggro on all of them before unloading with threat.  People learned real fast that when i said i was going to LOS pull a group, they didnt to anything unless they were to CC a target, because if they pulled something when it was incoming, i generally let it kill them before picking it up.

[Merusk]

Also I hear the first fight in the new 5 man is...Jousting. Ugh.  

It is.. AND it's so buggy it causes you to crash when you win from what I've read.  Awesome.  I wonder if it also has the usual jousting problem of "you are too close to do that" followed by the mob warping around randomly.

[Paelos]

The designers can cram jousting right up their narrow asses. This expansion will only be remembered for the shitty abortion that was vehicle combat.

[Ingmar]

I quite enjoyed the arena style fight in MagT, personally, although there were a couple enemy lineups that were a lot harder than the others. A 5-man like that *should* be hard, though.

[Musashi]

Jousting. Ugh.  

Yay for shoehorned mechanics.

[Phunked]

The new 5man is terrible.

Not because of the loot - fucking everyone has alts now, and an easy way to gear them is fucking awesome (and any hardcore that cries about it is a retard). I for one love being able to gear my new shiny warlock alt without having to do naxx25 again.

The actually instance, however, is worse than naxx25. In addition to lul vehicles it's short, has shitty fights and has an extra long RP sequence at the start (wonder why I never ran CoT? Yeah). It's also the most efficient badge farm (on normal even), and so will be  run repeatedly by groups of the people getting their conq gear.

It's bad content. MGT was hard but fun. This is... neither.

[K9]

Time to unload your abyss crystals too; since even normal mode is a 10 minute fountain of epics.

[Fabricated]

Time to unload your abyss crystals too; since even normal mode is a 10 minute fountain of epics.

certainly makes berserker a less annoying enchant now since it requires a fucking fountain of epics to make.

[Rendakor]

Phunked, could you provide some more details? How are the fights shitty? Too easy? Too hard? Annoying?

You seem very angry but besides vehicles (which I don't mind after seing FL) and the zone being short (which is actually a plus imo) I don't realize what's wrong with it.

[Paelos]

The new 5 man isn't even close to done yet in terms of bugginess, so that is obviously causing ppl headaches atm.

[Nevermore]

I don't really mind the jousting that much when it's the one you can group and gang up on the mobs.  It's only annoying when you have to do all those solo duels, not because it's hard (I'm at the point now were I can win all seven duels in a row without having to use the self heal once, so fuck you 'in combat' bug) but because it just takes too long to do it.  It's still not half as annoying as that fucking 'kiss the frog' quest.

[K9]

It's still not half as annoying as that fucking 'kiss the frog' quest.

A macro is your best friend for that. Frankly though all the "Fetch me a sword from the other side of the world!" quests suck balls.

[Dewdrop]

Both of those quests are god awful. Theres no excuse for it.. Really, I have to travel the entire diagonal length of a whole fucking continent to do a quest.. REALLY?? Is that supposed to feel 'epic'? And whats more is, I find it impossible to believe that when they were writing that quest not one single person thought 'well, thats alot of travel, thats pretty annoying, I would really hate that shit if it were me..'

I had quit out of wow after the Naxx debacle and just came back a couple of weeks ago into a semi-casual guild that had just downed Yogg. I actually quite enjoyed Ulduar, given that I havent had to go through the entire learning curve. I think Mimiron, XT, and Yogg are all reasonably well designed and fun encounters, the first time through. But, after now more than one kill on every boss in there it just feels.. lacking. I still remember killing Ragnaros and Nefarian and even Vashj and Kael Thas were pretty memorable. But BT, Sunwell, Naxx25, and Ulduar have all felt pretty dull, overall. Maye I've gotten older and after 10 years of MMO's its time to hang up my hat.. And the Coliseum certainly doesnt look like itll be a cure for boredom..

Ok.. back to lurking.

[Nevermore]

The actual kissing was only part of the problem.  I have the macro, it still just takes forever to fly out there and takes forever and a year for the stupid princess to spawn even using the macro.

Those princess quests remind me of the suck ass TBC cooking dailies.

[Merusk]

You know what sucks worse than doing those suck ass TBC cooking dailies?

Doing them a year later on your DK because you want that fucking Chef title and need the recipes only those quests drop.  Fucking Kibler's Bits.

[K9]

Both of those quests are god awful. Theres no excuse for it.. Really, I have to travel the entire diagonal length of a whole fucking continent to do a quest.. REALLY?? Is that supposed to feel 'epic'? And whats more is, I find it impossible to believe that when they were writing that quest not one single person thought 'well, thats alot of travel, thats pretty annoying, I would really hate that shit if it were me..'

I'm right with you. They're just about bearable with an epic mount, because you can afk-autopilot to them in a couple of minutes. Without an epic mount they are unbearable

[Khaldun]

The weapons-fetching quests are really just about the worst that WoW designers have ever shoveled out the door in terms of lack of imagination + tediousness. Right up there with the shredder pages. Just stupid. I can think of ten tedious standard quest templates I'd rather have endured than have the same assholes tell me to fetch the same fucking stupid sword again and again.

[Nevermore]

You know what sucks worse than doing those suck ass TBC cooking dailies?

Doing them a year later on your DK because you want that fucking Chef title and need the recipes only those quests drop.  Fucking Kibler's Bits.

It would be Broiled Bloodfin for me.  Literally the only thing I need to get Chef.

[Phunked]

Phunked, could you provide some more details? How are the fights shitty? Too easy? Too hard? Annoying?

You seem very angry but besides vehicles (which I don't mind after seing FL) and the zone being short (which is actually a plus imo) I don't realize what's wrong with it.

Reasons it sucks (non-bug related. I imagine those will be fixed). Spoilers below. Don't read if you don't want to know.

1. The instance starts with a 4minute (yes that long) RP moment ala Arthas in CoT. Not skip-able. This is fine, the first time. Or ten. But you're going to be doing this till your eyes bleed because of the well itemized loot, badges, etc. You sit there, and listen, or better yet, half the group AFKs and you come back to a dead body. Do they not realize that you can only in the mountains for so long?

2. The trash is low. The bosses are three. Sounds good right? The actual fight mechanics are pretty bad. It's like giving you back the ulduar tier in 5 man glory. The first boss is a vehicle fight on the jousting mounts. My problem with vehicle fights is that they're almost always exactly the same (not even small variation in group comp, because every member has the same skills) and they don't go any faster. My entire guild hates FL+4 for this reason: it isn't any faster now than when we first did it two months ago.

3. The bosses themselves are bland and boring. MGT had interesting mechanics (loved the 5s team, the mini TK event at the end, etc). Here, there's a boss that has the Yogg mechanic (second boss) where you don't look at him while he casts. That's about all that's new. There's a guy who summons an old boss (ala memory) for you to fight. That's awesome. Heroic hogger? This is how they bowed down to the casual QQ about upgrading level 60/70 content to 80 without having to design new fights.

4. There's a 5s team of the opposite faction. They're about 5x easier than the MGT version.  Much easier.

5. The black knight is the last boss. He summons two adds (read: you kill 3 bosses here - the two faction leaders then him). It's amazing. The guy is a stock DK - does disease, sets up damage, etc. Can you 5v1 my DK?  Can you do it 3x? Now you win!

[Rendakor]

Thanks for the heads up. None of the things you describe seem to bother me, except the RP scene.

[Khaldun]

The RP scene strikes me as "grr, annoying", but I can live with it.  Everything else I'll want to see to see how I feel, but nothing triggers burning intuitive hatred just on hearing about it. Well, maybe jousting.

[Phunked]

I just hate seeing recyled content. I really look forward to new mechanics. If I can describe something as  "take yogg's stare add a bursty tank thing a la thorim and that's it" it frustrates me, because they can make new and innovative content (for those who think it's all been done before, it clearly hasn't since they do add new mechanics at times). Just shoddy, in my opinion.