Cracks starting to show?

[Sjofn]

TBC, if you're Horde, isn't quite as terrible story-wise as if you're Alliance. You get the blood elves joining the Horde because Sylvannas demands they get let in plus they're all "Weeeeee know there are still ooooorcs out there, Thrall, maybe we'll help you find them!" and then they later finding out Kael'thas is a douchebag (although this is not nearly as dramatic as it should've been, Drakuru turning out to be the Lich King's homie was done way better. Shit, Abercrombie's I AM BAD reveal, which anyone who reads the text already knew from basically his second sentence, was more dramatic.), Thrall's coming home and finding his roots (this gets cockblocked by shitty dungeon quests though I think? I never actually finished the series and I seem to recall that's why.), the introduction of Garrosh, and finally the cleansing of the Sunwell. Alliance you have these aliens crash into the planet that are allowed to join because mumblemumblemumble, you get to find out some people from WC2's expansion are still kicking around, and uh ... Well, Caverns of Time was pretty cool, right?

The draenei going back to Outland isn't nearly as interesting as the orcs, because no one gave a fuck about them to start with, plus there's no "oh shit some of us are still here and not slaves to demons or anything!" aspect to them. The draenei were a last minute "shit, we have to come up with something" race and it shows in almost every way.

[Fordel]

Yea, Draenei as the player race, could not exist at all and Outlands would hardly change story wise. Their contribution started and mostly ended with them being wiped out by the Orcs pre-Azeroth invasion.

[ghost]

I think that when they release an expansion, the expansion should be the level 70-80 content and the rest should shift downward appropriately.  There's really no need to expand the level cap in the game, as the end game of raiding makes it all moot anyway.  I also think they should cull out a lot of shit people don't do any more, or make it more end game level appropriate. 

[Rendakor]

You need to raise the level cap to do a proper gear reset.

[Sheepherder]

You need to raise the level cap to do a proper gear reset.

Only because of the way combat ratings work, which they had changed prior to TBC to force a hard gear reset because they wanted people to wear their TBC clownsuits.  Which lead directly to Sunwell Radiance, Chill of the Throne, and capped combat ratings.

It would be easier in the end if the multiplicative stats on gear were separated from additive stats, and the cost in item budget were tabulated accordingly (easiest way is to convert ratings into percentages based on an arbitrary level derived from the iLevel of that particular piece, rather than the level of the player wearing it).  At which point they could go fucking crazy with iLevels, not increase player level, and the only numbers which would inflate would be attack power, spell power, and stamina.  Which is good, because those three stats should be all you need to mudflate all your previous content assuming that they keep shit like critical strike chance close to targeted values.

Of course, you'd probably want to do something else to segregate the new expansion into zones and brackets, which to an extent tells the player where they should be.  But nothing precludes you from having TBC, WotLK, and Cata from all being level 60-65, but having those five levels only persist in the expansion you earned them in.

[caladein]

The itemization problems that led to Radiance/Chill of the Throne are because Timmy the Itemization Intern is fucking stupid.

All a gear/resources reset needs is a means of funneling everyone through a process so they come in different but come out the same.  That can be a reputation wall or just adding some new areas and tuning the new stuff to the new, hysterically powerful, gear.  It's just the level is the default "You must be this tall to ride the ride." number.

[Ingmar]

Actually it was because they ended up with one more tier of raiding gear than they originally planned, with hardmode gear on top of it. We weren't supposed to get 4 tiers with 3 levels of gear each, just 3 tiers with 2 levels each, in the original conception. This screwed up all the gear scaling for the whole expansion.

[Fordel]

Timmy the itemization intern is pretty stupid regardless.

[Sheepherder]

Sorry for the edit in my first post, don't hate me.

1. Retardation was partially the problem.  The second part is that they tried to treat 1 dodge as if it were equal to 1.5 stamina (the two grew in equal proportions as ilevel increased), because that's what the item budget spreadsheet says.  Which leads to point two...

2. They started with a great system for slow mudflation.  While that level 20 piece which gave 1% dodge would always give 1% dodge, it still wasn't much of an issue because the stamina of higher level pieces made the difference so long as you didn't make a level 20 piece with 10% dodge.  Since stamina scales logarithmically you're free to mudflate to your heart's content, because no matter how much stamina you stack you're still not ever getting into melee immune tanks on gear appropriate bosses.  The same goes for AP and SP, which scale damage output logarithmically.

EDIT:

3. Ratings seems to have lead them to take liberties with avoidance, assuming that the hatchet job they did to make pre-TBC avoidance gear degrade as levels increased would fix scaling problems perpetually.  They don't have the extra tier excuse for Sunwell Radiance.

[Ingmar]

No, but the point was they said "ok that sucks, let's have a plan to not have to resort to that in the last tier this time." And if they had stuck with their plan, it would have been fine.

Regardless with all the extra avoidance from +defense gear and talents (and other various avoidance talents besides) removed I really have a hard time imagining it getting out of hand this time.

[Zaljerem]

Man, great thread. A lot of insight, history, viewpoints and very little nerd rage. Kudos, f13. 

I played WoW from launch until mid-Northrend; had a lot of fun. Every once in a great while I consider picking it back up, then I come to my senses. I can't gather another bear ass, not even for some awesome title in front of my name. The first time through an instance is always great; by the 5th I want to kill the devs, everyone around me, and myself - in that order. I'm not going back for Cataclysm ... kinda sad about that in ways, but it's for the best.

I was a Master Angler. I'm a sick, sick man. LET'S GO FISH!

[Sheepherder]

Third time's a charm?

They're doing a lot of insane tweaking to keep avoidance levels in check, when it really doesn't have to be that hard: just stop handing out avoidance in ever increasing amounts, chucklefucks.

I'm not even sure why we're having this argument, because they're pretty much already committed themselves to rebuilding the world a third time if they ever want to remove the craters and officially kill off Methwing.

[Lantyssa]

Regardless with all the extra avoidance from +defense gear and talents (and other various avoidance talents besides) removed I really have a hard time imagining it getting out of hand this time.

We need a way to sticky posts that will come back to haunt us later.

[Fordel]

I'm not even sure why we're having this argument, because they're pretty much already committed themselves to rebuilding the world a third time if they ever want to remove the craters and officially kill off Methwing.

I'm hoping they'll be updating the world as the content patches come later down the line. It seems like they spent a lot of time on the technology to do that better/faster or whatever.

[Azazel]

Meh, you can level through Outlands so fast these days it's hardly worth complaining about. With the RDF and lowered XP curve you can pretty much bypass HFP and just hit up Zangarmarsh (which does have a reasonable quest flow).

Hellfire > Terrokar > Nagrand > Borean Tundra

[Selby]

Hellfire > Terrokar > Nagrand > Borean Tundra

I do Zangarmarsh too so I can get to 70 and then hit Northrend.  Some of the mobs being 70-71 when I am 68 cause more issues than I like to deal with.

[Azazel]

I'm hoping they'll be updating the world as the content patches come later down the line. It seems like they spent a lot of time on the technology to do that better/faster or whatever.

Yeah, the odd thing to me now that everything has suddenly changed is that it doesn't feel like this had just happened. The game world feels like The Sundering (or WTF it's called) hit about 6 months to a year ago in most places.

[Rendakor]

Hellfire > Nagrand > Howling is my route, with only a few dungeons and BGs thrown in.

[caladein]

I'm hoping they'll be updating the world as the content patches come later down the line. It seems like they spent a lot of time on the technology to do that better/faster or whatever.

Yeah, the odd thing to me now that everything has suddenly changed is that it doesn't feel like this had just happened. The game world feels like The Sundering (or WTF it's called) hit about 6 months to a year ago in most places.

It's not consistent, that's for sure.  Loch Modan and Wetlands (Menethil especially) feel like The Shattering was relatively recent.  Stormwind still has some rubble and scaffolding around.  Then you have Orgrimmar which has been completely made over with only light touches of construction still left.

[Polysorbate80]

That's because the Horde builds everything out of sticks and old animal pelts--cheap to put back together.

I can't gather another bear ass, not even for some awesome title in front of my name.

Just you wait, they'll add that "Assmaster" achievement yet.

[Simond]

That's because the Horde builds everything out of sticks and old animal pelts--cheap to put back together.

I spy someone who hasn't been to New Orgrimmar yet. 

[Maledict]

Actually it was because they ended up with one more tier of raiding gear than they originally planned, with hardmode gear on top of it. We weren't supposed to get 4 tiers with 3 levels of gear each, just 3 tiers with 2 levels each, in the original conception. This screwed up all the gear scaling for the whole expansion.

This wasn't exactly true BTW. It added to the problem, but Wrath was already broken before they even started introducing the extra tier for heroic. Blizzard were just covering for their silly mistakes when they announced that.

i) We started off too powerful. Unlike the previous transiition from Vanilla --> TBC, when raiding guilds farmed Naxx they were getting substantial increases to their power and surviveability ahead of what we had in Tier 6 / SWp. Loot in Wrath simply started off at too high a point, and before we'd even heard of raiding heroic modes people were commenting on how Naxx gave up far too good loot for it's position in the raiding tiers. even in the very first tier tanks were getting far too high stats, and to much avoidance.

ii) The leap in ilevel between raiding tiers was higher than it ever has been - for no real reason. Still not sure why Blizzard committed to so thoroughly rendering the previous tier of raiding utterly worthless, but by giving folks a 19 ilevel increase between tiers it ramped up the stat inflation far more than any other jump. An extra 6% power each tier really doesn't help the situation.

[Sheepherder]

Still not sure why Blizzard committed to so thoroughly rendering the previous tier of raiding utterly worthless, but by giving folks a 19 ilevel increase between tiers it ramped up the stat inflation far more than any other jump.

The number is 13.  The jump between Naxx10 and Ulduar10 is atypical.

[Polysorbate80]

That's because the Horde builds everything out of sticks and old animal pelts--cheap to put back together.

I spy someone who hasn't been to New Orgrimmar yet. 

Nope.  I've done pretty much all the Eastern Kingdoms, but none of the Kalimdor stuff.

[Azuredream]

The number is 13.  The jump between Naxx10 and Ulduar10 is atypical.

IIRC Uld25 -> ToC25 is also 19, as is ToC25 -> ICC25, and ToC10 -> ICC10. I'm not sure whey they couldn't decide on a uniform increase.

[Maledict]

The number is 13.  The jump between Naxx10 and Ulduar10 is atypical.

IIRC Uld25 -> ToC25 is also 19, as is ToC25 -> ICC25, and ToC10 -> ICC10. I'm not sure whey they couldn't decide on a uniform increase.

Indeed - I went and looked up the increase before posting to make sure I wasn;t doing something silly. ToC to ICC is 19 again (245 to 264), and there was absolutely no need for it to be that high.

[Ingmar]

It was set that way because hardmode ToC 25 gear was 258 iirc. Now, why they went for a full 13 ilvl tier jump on the hardmode stuff is a good question.

[Rendakor]

It was like that in Ulduar too; Uld10 regular dropped 219s, heroics were 232s.

[kildorn]

I'm hoping they'll be updating the world as the content patches come later down the line. It seems like they spent a lot of time on the technology to do that better/faster or whatever.

Yeah, the odd thing to me now that everything has suddenly changed is that it doesn't feel like this had just happened. The game world feels like The Sundering (or WTF it's called) hit about 6 months to a year ago in most places.

It's not consistent, that's for sure.  Loch Modan and Wetlands (Menethil especially) feel like The Shattering was relatively recent.  Stormwind still has some rubble and scaffolding around.  Then you have Orgrimmar which has been completely made over with only light touches of construction still left.

It feels like the idea behind the world is "we all came back from northrend with the lich king defeated and WHAT THE SHIT HAPPENED BACK HERE!?!", but it is very sporadic timespan wise. I mean, I get Org, thrall was just sitting on a shitload of resources and peons, so rebuilding was pretty quick. Dude had been running lumber mills across kalimdor for years.

[DraconianOne]

It feels like the idea behind the world is "we all came back from northrend with the lich king defeated and WHAT THE SHIT HAPPENED BACK HERE!?!", but it is very sporadic timespan wise. I mean, I get Org, thrall was just sitting on a shitload of resources and peons, so rebuilding was pretty quick. Dude had been running lumber mills across kalimdor for years.

The Horde are just that supremely organised and efficient.

Deathwing destroys Orgrimmar and the Horde have rebuilt the city before the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team have even got out of bed.
Deathwing destroys Stormwind and the Allies are still standing around saying "Can anyone smell something burning?"

[kildorn]

It feels like the idea behind the world is "we all came back from northrend with the lich king defeated and WHAT THE SHIT HAPPENED BACK HERE!?!", but it is very sporadic timespan wise. I mean, I get Org, thrall was just sitting on a shitload of resources and peons, so rebuilding was pretty quick. Dude had been running lumber mills across kalimdor for years.

The Horde are just that supremely organised and efficient.

Deathwing destroys Orgrimmar and the Horde have rebuilt the city before the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team have even got out of bed.
Deathwing destroys Stormwind and the Allies are still standing around saying "Can anyone smell something burning?"

Efficient?! Any time I see Alliance peasants, they're out chopping trees. Meanwhile, the horde has to conscript every level 2 orc in durotaur to wake the lazy bastards up!

[Lakov_Sanite]

Alliance have unions, work breaks, lunch breaks, vacation, time off. 

Horde are lucky to ever get time off and have to sneak in the occasional nap, if they do they are often clubbed over the head.

[Numtini]

Alliance have unions, work breaks, lunch breaks, vacation, time off. 

And the Horde brought in guest workers rather than do it themselves.

[kildorn]

Alliance have unions, work breaks, lunch breaks, vacation, time off. 

And the Horde brought in guest workers rather than do it themselves.

The goblins are totally scabs. Or slaves. One of those.

[Polysorbate80]

Until the day the Horde and Alliance both realize that the goblins, after decades of selling to both sides, now own the entire world.  All hail the new goblin overlords!