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Falwell
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Reply #35 on: February 18, 2009, 12:30:31 AM

It's not like they are making you siege the final boss, which would be continually stupid.

Aka Malygos

I like what I hear so far about Ulduar. I'm gettin sick and god damn tired of recycled mobs as bosses. Still strikes me as amateur hour, but it's a small complaint should Ulduar really be the super-mega-epic-deep-fried-jesus raid of all time.

I think the true test will be if the train sets will be usable in said massive vehicle encounter. Raid griefing your guildies never gets old.

caladein
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Reply #36 on: February 18, 2009, 01:58:45 AM

Imagine you are a raid leader couple month down the road. Would you bring new player to raid and then risk WIPING ON FARM CONTENT until your new player learns encounter? Don't think so.

I would be surprised if they don't offer dailies that offer "practice" for each vehicle in the encounter ala "Aces High!"

That said, I agree that it isn't reasonable to expect a population who, on average, don't know how to do something they've spent 80 levels "practicing", to pick up something off the bat.  The vehicle fights so far have been relatively forgiving:

- Heroic Occulus is only a hassle if you try for the Ruby/Emerald Void achievements.
- 10-man Malygos's Surge of Power hits for jack-crap.
- 25-man Malygos's Surge of Power does kill people that screw up, but losing 1/4-1/2 the raid isn't much of a concern if P1/2 went at a reasonable pace.

Overall, I'm optimistic when it comes to Ulduar.  Naxx has stayed pretty fun for the most part thanks to achievements, and Sarth 3D is a major challenge even this close to the next tier of content.

"Point being, they can't make everyone happy, so I hope they pick me." -Ingmar
"OH MY GOD WE'RE SURROUNDED SEND FOR BACKUP DIG IN DEFENSIVE POSITIONS MAN YOUR NECKBEARDS" -tgr
Fabricated
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Reply #37 on: February 18, 2009, 03:37:31 AM

11 hard mode bosses. Woo, I can look forward to all this awesome loot I'll never see provided they're anything like 2+ drake Sarth!

"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
Sjofn
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Reply #38 on: February 18, 2009, 04:52:26 AM

Honestly, I MUCH prefer the "hard mode" thing to "let's tune this ten man to people who have been raiding the top 25 man raids, ha ha, fuck you Karazhan people." I have a lot easier time putting the loot I'm not getting out of my mind when I can still, you know, kill the bosses.

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kildorn
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Reply #39 on: February 18, 2009, 05:57:32 AM

About that, sjofn. You're tanking 2 drake Sarth next week. <3
Nevermore
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Reply #40 on: February 18, 2009, 06:09:53 AM

Sjofn can't tank, she's a girl!  why so serious?

Over and out.
kildorn
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Reply #41 on: February 18, 2009, 06:18:02 AM

Sjofn can't tank, she's a girltoo busy complaining about bear ass!  why so serious?

Err, wait, that's TBC era sjofntank.
Sjofn
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Reply #42 on: February 18, 2009, 07:56:35 AM

Sjofn can't tank, she's a girltoo busy complaining about bear ass!  why so serious?

Err, wait, that's TBC era sjofntank.

Yeah, all the instances just looked like bear butt back then. :(

You will note THAT character has a penis!

God Save the Horn Players
Khaldun
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Reply #43 on: February 18, 2009, 08:32:35 AM

Heroic Oculus is possibly my least favorite experience in WoW EVER. So no, no, no to this fucking shit. There are selected vehicular quests in the expansion that I enjoy, that are fun or interesting, that have that spark that makes them stand out. Mostly though it's like watching a kid break into a candy store, eat every fucking candy bar on the shelf, and then shit himself while he howls in pain on the store floor. They came up with a new mechanic and figured it would be fun to do every third quest. Most vehicle quests are basically an exotic delivery system for QTEs: there is nothing free-form or open about them at all, you discover.

Putting them in an instance, as a requirement to do the rest of the content? Fuck off, Blizz.
kaid
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Reply #44 on: February 18, 2009, 09:36:36 AM

I like vehicles in wotlk but I am not a fan of the occulus.  Occulus is just a bit to weird for many of my guild if they were fighting using vehicles on the ground it would be one thing but having to keep track of what the hell they are doing in 3 axis on a boss thats very easy to make evade bug if you fly a bit to low is a pain in the ass especially when we were doing the amber and ruby void achivements by going all 5 emerald drakes.
Xanthippe
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Reply #45 on: February 19, 2009, 06:49:11 AM

I'm really surprised by all this hate.

We're always bitching about the lack of new mechanics in mmos - well, here's a new mechanic.

Why not wait and see what it's like before crying about it?

It does occur to me that those of us who bitch about lack of new mechanics are not necessarily the same as those of us who raid.

Is it just my perception, or are a lot of people unhappy with WoW lately?  I'm as happy as I ever was, but I'm not a raider, I'm a hardcore casual.  My raider friends seem terribly unhappy though, as do people in this thread.

Khaldun
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Reply #46 on: February 19, 2009, 06:54:22 AM

I'm happy. I just don't like the overuse of the vehicle mechanic, and I don't like it when it's a serious cockblock in an instance. It's best when it's an amusing diversion, when it has a kind of coolness--or when it's fluid and allows for freedom of action, as in Wintergrasp. When the vehicle mechanic is tightly scripted as in a typical boss encounter AND absolutely necessary for progression, it stops being fun.
Lakov_Sanite
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Reply #47 on: February 19, 2009, 08:33:13 AM

I think occulus/drake vehicles really sour people on vehicles and I know why.

It's the kedge keep of wow. 3-axis fighting sounds fun in theory but even blizzard can't quite pull it off in a way that's fun.

Vehicle combat outside of drakes is generally well-liked and the only thing I would do to change it would be something minor.  Add a user interface that makes you feel like you're in a vehicle, maybe force 1st person if you're in a turret or something. Right now vehicles just seem like you're in a different mode, where you can still see all your stuff except a new bar pops up. just adding a bit of immersion to the various tanks and such would go a long way.

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Reply #48 on: February 19, 2009, 09:53:25 AM

Is it just my perception, or are a lot of people unhappy with WoW lately?  I'm as happy as I ever was, but I'm not a raider, I'm a hardcore casual.  My raider friends seem terribly unhappy though, as do people in this thread.

It's not just your perception, I'm encountering it, too.  The gripes all boil down to that they're out of content to explore and bored.  I'm still enjoying it, but finding less of a desire to login.  It's not that I'm burnt, so much as the general tone of people is so negative I'd rather avoid it.

I love the vehicles with one caviat.  I hate that you can't loot in them, so when you're killing things you either have to dismount and run back to pick up a new vehicle or just forget about the loot.  (Icecrown in particularl is bad about this with the Water Reaver and EB Death Gryphon quests.)

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Ingmar
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Reply #49 on: February 19, 2009, 10:59:06 AM

I'm really surprised by all this hate.

We're always bitching about the lack of new mechanics in mmos - well, here's a new mechanic.

Why not wait and see what it's like before crying about it?

It does occur to me that those of us who bitch about lack of new mechanics are not necessarily the same as those of us who raid.

Is it just my perception, or are a lot of people unhappy with WoW lately?  I'm as happy as I ever was, but I'm not a raider, I'm a hardcore casual.  My raider friends seem terribly unhappy though, as do people in this thread.



I would say activity in my guild at least is near its all-time high; on top of that, as a server, we filled 4 raids for Wintergrasp last night and I see PUG raids happening all the time. People don't seem to be getting bored or burned out or unhappy, in a sort of overall general sense. Certainly there are always some people having issues - our partner guild that we raid with is struggling to get enough people to even run their own 5 man instances lately, for example.

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kildorn
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Reply #50 on: February 19, 2009, 11:03:10 AM

The content cleaners are somewhat pissy that they're out of shit to do already, but the middle ground casual-ish players seem absolutely thrilled with how Wrath has shaped up.
Paelos
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Reply #51 on: February 19, 2009, 11:23:33 AM

The content cleaners are somewhat pissy that they're out of shit to do already, but the middle ground casual-ish players seem absolutely thrilled with how Wrath has shaped up.

True, but even the upper edge of the middle ground is basically done with most of the content. In our alliance we have one group that's been farming everything for at least a month, and our "fun run" which I do has killed off everything Except Kel'Thuzad and Malygos in 25. This is with a group of folks who don't really go the mmo-champion "best in class" route and it's still going down hard. We've done everything in 10s. Most consistent people are sitting in 75% or more 213 gear.

I'm feeling a bit of the boredom setting in, and the real problem is that Blizzard is nowhere near ready to put in the new content. I applaud them for putting in easier stuff, but they had to figure that most of the raiders that took it 3 days a week were going to be done in 3-4 months. So, by the time March rolls around, I'm probably not going to be raiding much at all, and just goofing off with achievements. That's fine, but I don't want to be doing that until May because of Blizzard's glacial process. For people that have already been done for a month, it's just compounded.

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Phred
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Reply #52 on: February 19, 2009, 11:18:32 PM

  (Icecrown in particularl is bad about this with the Water Reaver and EB Death Gryphon quests.)

The gryphon quest in icecrown is so bad I don't even bother using the gryphon anymore. it does such pathetic dmg that I find it way faster to dps down the gryphon riders on my own, rather than having to put up with the horrible cooldown and aiming mechanics of a spell that hits for maybe 1k. This is why I find myself a bit worried about the new fights using vehicles. They just don't seem to be able to make them fun. In the gryphon quest, you have a low dps ice bolt that can only be cast while facing the opponent and a plague strike that only works from melee range. So, really, your only option for this fight is to sit hovering in the air and blast until the enemy dies. The enemies spears can't be dodged or avoided by any mechanism. How creative, what a unique use of innovative vehicle mechanics.

Don't even get me started listing the multiple retardation that is Blizzard's implementation of a shoot em up.



« Last Edit: February 19, 2009, 11:24:57 PM by Phred »
Lightstalker
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Reply #53 on: February 20, 2009, 12:43:27 AM

I'm really surprised by all this hate.

We're always bitching about the lack of new mechanics in mmos - well, here's a new mechanic.

Why not wait and see what it's like before crying about it?

It does occur to me that those of us who bitch about lack of new mechanics are not necessarily the same as those of us who raid.

Is it just my perception, or are a lot of people unhappy with WoW lately?  I'm as happy as I ever was, but I'm not a raider, I'm a hardcore casual.  My raider friends seem terribly unhappy though, as do people in this thread.

Implementation.

Vehicles are a new mechanic, and they don't fit well into the engine / ui at all.  Healing breaks, mods break, the player is provided 5 buttons they don't know the purpose of but only get to experiment with while the pressure is on.

Kara Chess was like vehicles-light, but it was paced slow and the player had the advantage of 'knowing' the game and function of the vehicles before they started.  Click to select in a flappy dragonball in order to get your heal off isn't something that is easy or intuitive on Malygos, and the vehicles strip out important information like name, making it counterproductive and frustrating to actually try to heal the player who is injured (rather than just find something to target and spam the AoE heal).  Not to mention they remap hot-keys including one to dismount the vehicle which causes you to 'lose' the encounter - why map that function at all?.  I know why they did it, but it is lazy.

So, from their recent push I do expect to see more vehicles that 'break' camera interactions, make it difficult to control your character, and make it difficult to coordinate your actions.  I do expect that the limitations of the User Interface will be glaring and shoved up in my face while I play - because they are in this most recent wave of vehicle quests.  Many vehicle quests are harder in the vehicle than without, unless there is some class-check:vehicle gimmick to the fight that forces you to put up with it.

So, in contrast to the normal run of play in a UI optimized for normal play, yeah it is pretty easy to see why people dread "Cool new game mechanic" in the next 'hard' raid instance.  I've long thought more fights should be like Kara chess, where class and gear requirements don't matter to completion of the event, and was called out by a guildmate for my dislike of the vehicle fights.  It really comes down to implementation.  I'd much rather have anyone able to pick up the critical raid task (witness 10-man Raz vs. 25-man) but this last wave of vehicle quests just don't work right/reliably/at all, which is really worse than not trying that new thing at all (because now we all have the expectation that it will suck working against any future attempt to get it right).
El Gallo
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Reply #54 on: February 20, 2009, 04:19:10 AM

If they made a vehicle that was even close to being as well-developed as an actual character class, they might not totally suck.  But they haven't and they won't.  If you've ever thought "WoW would be great if my character was totally and completely dumbed down to the point where I only have 3 abilities to ever think about using" then vehicles are for you!

This post makes me want to squeeze into my badass red jeans.
Hindenburg
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Reply #55 on: February 20, 2009, 04:53:31 AM

If you've ever thought "WoW would be great if my character was totally and completely dumbed down to the point where I only have 3 abilities to ever think about using" then vehicles are for you!

Three times more complex than MC frost mages  Ohhhhh, I see.

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K9
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Reply #56 on: February 20, 2009, 05:43:12 AM

The gryphon quest in icecrown is so bad I don't even bother using the gryphon anymore. it does such pathetic dmg that I find it way faster to dps down the gryphon riders on my own, rather than having to put up with the horrible cooldown and aiming mechanics of a spell that hits for maybe 1k.

I didn't even know that you had a vehicle to use for that daily, let alone that you're supposed to use it  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

Doubt I'll change up anytime soon, I can finish the whole thing in ~5mins and that's as a holy priest.

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Phred
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Reply #57 on: February 20, 2009, 09:31:30 AM

The gryphon quest in icecrown is so bad I don't even bother using the gryphon anymore. it does such pathetic dmg that I find it way faster to dps down the gryphon riders on my own, rather than having to put up with the horrible cooldown and aiming mechanics of a spell that hits for maybe 1k.

I didn't even know that you had a vehicle to use for that daily, let alone that you're supposed to use it  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

Doubt I'll change up anytime soon, I can finish the whole thing in ~5mins and that's as a holy priest.
lol. ya the first time I did it I didnt notice he gave me a bone  gryphon either. Not using one makes it slightly more of a pain for melee chars than ranged thanks to the wonderful targetting on flying mobs but not so much that it's worth using that mount. Hell, I just killed 7 now with my melee druid. There's one tower it's impossible to avoid agroing the roaming flyers from so my 1 turned into 7. fast quest finish at least.

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Reply #58 on: February 20, 2009, 09:42:21 AM

The NPC tells you that you don't have to use it, at least.  I figure it's for classes without a reliable ranged attack, or horrible dps.  I enjoy just deathgripping them in and pummeling them.

On the 1-into-7 thing.  Yeah, fuckers spawn so damn fast I always mentally plan on having at least 3 mobs jump in while I'm killing the first guy.

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El Gallo
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Reply #59 on: February 20, 2009, 11:39:47 AM


Three times more complex than MC frost mages  Ohhhhh, I see.

I've been superslam.jpg'ed.

This post makes me want to squeeze into my badass red jeans.
Ingmar
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Reply #60 on: February 20, 2009, 01:11:20 PM

The gryphon quest in icecrown is so bad I don't even bother using the gryphon anymore. it does such pathetic dmg that I find it way faster to dps down the gryphon riders on my own, rather than having to put up with the horrible cooldown and aiming mechanics of a spell that hits for maybe 1k.

I didn't even know that you had a vehicle to use for that daily, let alone that you're supposed to use it  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

Doubt I'll change up anytime soon, I can finish the whole thing in ~5mins and that's as a holy priest.
lol. ya the first time I did it I didnt notice he gave me a bone  gryphon either. Not using one makes it slightly more of a pain for melee chars than ranged thanks to the wonderful targetting on flying mobs but not so much that it's worth using that mount. Hell, I just killed 7 now with my melee druid. There's one tower it's impossible to avoid agroing the roaming flyers from so my 1 turned into 7. fast quest finish at least.



Wait, you get a mount for that?  ACK!

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Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
Hindenburg
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Reply #61 on: February 20, 2009, 01:31:28 PM


"Who uses Outlook anyway?  People who get what they deserve, that's who." - Ard.
Sjofn
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Reply #62 on: February 22, 2009, 12:44:13 PM

The gryphon quest in icecrown is so bad I don't even bother using the gryphon anymore. it does such pathetic dmg that I find it way faster to dps down the gryphon riders on my own, rather than having to put up with the horrible cooldown and aiming mechanics of a spell that hits for maybe 1k.

I didn't even know that you had a vehicle to use for that daily, let alone that you're supposed to use it  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

Doubt I'll change up anytime soon, I can finish the whole thing in ~5mins and that's as a holy priest.
lol. ya the first time I did it I didnt notice he gave me a bone  gryphon either. Not using one makes it slightly more of a pain for melee chars than ranged thanks to the wonderful targetting on flying mobs but not so much that it's worth using that mount. Hell, I just killed 7 now with my melee druid. There's one tower it's impossible to avoid agroing the roaming flyers from so my 1 turned into 7. fast quest finish at least.



Wait, you get a mount for that?  ACK!

wtf do you think you had to go steal a goddamn griffon for! OMG REED UR TEXT

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Dren
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Reply #63 on: February 23, 2009, 09:38:01 AM

As far as the higher than normal hate question earlier in the thread:

Our casual guild is now more active than ever and running regular 25-man Naxx runs once a week.  I can see us going to 2 per week soon.  We're running two separate 10-man Naxx groups per week still getting people geared up quickly.  We do 25 and 10 vault and OS.  I'd say in a month's time we'll be moving on to higher raids.

Slow?  Yes.  Happy?  Yes.  No hate here.
Fordel
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Reply #64 on: February 23, 2009, 06:14:15 PM


and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
Ingmar
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Reply #65 on: February 23, 2009, 06:27:54 PM

Can the inevitable CIVILIZATION ... DYING... MUST BUILD OBSTACLE COURSE expansion be far behind?

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Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
caladein
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Reply #66 on: February 23, 2009, 08:25:31 PM

I was thinking more Isle of Quel'Danas Mk. II, which I whole-heartedly approve of if that's the case.

"Point being, they can't make everyone happy, so I hope they pick me." -Ingmar
"OH MY GOD WE'RE SURROUNDED SEND FOR BACKUP DIG IN DEFENSIVE POSITIONS MAN YOUR NECKBEARDS" -tgr
Lakov_Sanite
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Reply #67 on: February 23, 2009, 09:06:40 PM

I was thinking more Isle of Quel'Danas Mk. II, which I whole-heartedly approve of if that's the case.

it sounds a LOT like the isle, which was fun but a pain in the ass to try and get quests done on a crowded server, let's hope they learned some lessons.

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K9
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Reply #68 on: February 24, 2009, 12:31:42 AM

Patch Notes.


UNDOCUMENTED
« Last Edit: February 24, 2009, 12:51:05 AM by K9 »

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K9
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Reply #69 on: February 24, 2009, 12:40:49 AM

Wow, just going through these there's a LOT of interesting changes. As a priest deep holy just got really buffed if I'm reading stuff right, although they have completely destroyed OO5SR mana regen with the removal of clearcast procs on holy concentration.

Oh wow, renew can crit now!

edit: other interesting stuff

# Players at maximum level will now be able to visit their trainer to pay a one-time fee and access the dual talent spec feature.
# A new Gear Manager feature has been added. Players will now be able to save gear sets for easy gear switching.
# Players will now be able to queue for battlegrounds from any location.
# Prospector Khazgorm, found in Bael Modan in southern Barrens, now sells the recipe for Dig Rat Stew to the Alliance.
# Most of the recipes in the 1-300 skill range of blacksmithing have had their stats updated to be more useful.
# Added a new recipe for the Titansteel Spellblade.
# Added a recipe for enchanting staves with spell power.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2009, 12:56:27 AM by K9 »

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