Patch 5.2: Thunder, Thunder, Thunder, Thunder King Ho!

[SurfD]

Looks like the new bonus boss in the heroic tier is going to have limited attempts. Given that devs outright said that limited attempts didn't work well in Wrath, I'm a bit  to see them show up again. Not that it really matters because almost nobody will ever fight this boss until the next expansion, but it's still pretty funny.

Ahem: From the Blues:

A few comments on our thinking. First off, I've seen some people quoting a 2010 WoW Dev Twitter chat where we said "Limited Attempts didn't really work out" as one of the WotLK retrospective points. That was true as they were generally utilized in that expansion. In the very same dev chat, we also said "If we do limited attempts again it would probably be limited to optional bosses like Algalon."

Its an Optional boss, available to heroic mode raiders only, and on a limited attempts system similar to the End Wing ICC bosses (number of attempts, rather then algalon style time window).  I really see no problem with it.

[Paelos]

I only have a problem with them thinking this will work any differently than the other times. It's not going to magically become a good idea. The players will just work around it so-as not to waste tries, and the associated cooldowns.

[SurfD]

I only have a problem with them thinking this will work any differently than the other times. It's not going to magically become a good idea. The players will just work around it so-as not to waste tries, and the associated cooldowns.

Huh?  I think you have been out of the loop for a while.  All cooldowns longer then 5 minutes reset immediately uppon a raid wipe or boss death.  Assuming they wipe, 90% of their cooldowns will be back up by time they can run back in and re-buff / eat their stat food (barring things like someone popping a 4 minute cooldown seconds before the wipe).

Also, the entire point of using the "number of tries" model instead of the "you get 2 hours a week on this boss" model is so that they dont have to stress out about "rush back, buff up, pull asap, times a waisting" shit and can actually do as much strategy planning between attempts as they want while they figure the encounter out.   Not exactly sure how anyone is going to "work around" it so as not to waste tries.  Short of doing someting insane like full heroic clears on alts just to "test" the encounter to consume tries in a different raid id before makeing "real" attempts on their mains, I dont see how you are going to game the system.

[Sheepherder]

Doesn't spending points to upgrade an item instead of replacing it preserve the gems? That seems like a pretty big upside to me.

You can't "level Up" an item to ever be equal to the next-highest drop.   So LFR gear leveled-up is still 5 ilevels below Normal Mode gear and the same for Normal -> Heroic.

There's a pretty obvious way to fix that problem.

[Merusk]

Doesn't spending points to upgrade an item instead of replacing it preserve the gems? That seems like a pretty big upside to me.

You can't "level Up" an item to ever be equal to the next-highest drop.   So LFR gear leveled-up is still 5 ilevels below Normal Mode gear and the same for Normal -> Heroic.

There's a pretty obvious way to fix that problem.

Well of course, in any sane system.. But that "invalidates" the "work" those Normal and Heroic players put in to getting the gear!   Arguments about how it would take 4-5 runs just to upgrade one piece of gear one level - meaning an LFR heroic piece would have more hours of /play than a regular drop - are invalid!

[Fabricated]

This never works well since for pretty much every major tier that the hardcore crew has cared about, there's been pretty blatant cheating/exploiting. The limited attempts thing will just reward whoever can figure out an exploit first.

[Paelos]

Huh?  I think you have been out of the loop for a while.  All cooldowns longer then 5 minutes reset immediately uppon a raid wipe or boss death.

No I'm aware of that, but not 100% of cooldowns react that way yet. And a bleeding edge guild won't want 90% of anything. They would wait 30m for one cooldown if it mattered. Not that I care, but I'm pointing that one aspect out that I heard on the forum conversations regarding the topic. There is a much larger concern though.

This never works well since for pretty much every major tier that the hardcore crew has cared about, there's been pretty blatant cheating/exploiting. The limited attempts thing will just reward whoever can figure out an exploit first.

It's this.

[SurfD]

I dont know.  From the latest blue stuff regarding the attempts limit, Blizzard seems like they will be watching this one like a hawk.  Latest blue post indicates that Shaman Reincarnation (one of the few cooldowns not reset per wipe) will have a special exemption for Ra-Den attempts, and they are tuning the attempt limit in such a way that accidental pulls or very short fights (30 second wipes or the like) wont count as an attempt.

While I wont put it past the nutjobs heavily invested in the world first race to try to game the system, chances are, Blizzard will be literally breathing down their necks while they put in attempts on Ra-Den, and any obvious exploiting would likely result in immediate reprocussions.

[Paelos]

I'm trying to remember the last time they banned a world first guild for something on an actual endboss. I'm coming up blank. I know they've been given slaps on the wrist for exploiting loot farming stuff, but not the boss itself.

So my guess is no, there won't be repercussions for anything on the limited thing.

[Rendakor]

I'm trying to remember the last time they banned a world first guild for something on an actual endboss. I'm coming up blank. I know they've been given slaps on the wrist for exploiting loot farming stuff, but not the boss itself.

So my guess is no, there won't be repercussions for anything on the limited thing.

HM Lich King; Ensidia was banned for 72 hours for the Saronite Bombs exploit and had their loot/achievement/world first credit taken away. And that's just the first one that comes to mind.

[SurfD]

I'm trying to remember the last time they banned a world first guild for something on an actual endboss. I'm coming up blank. I know they've been given slaps on the wrist for exploiting loot farming stuff, but not the boss itself.

So my guess is no, there won't be repercussions for anything on the limited thing.

I suppose that depends on what you would consider ban worthy vs what they do.  The Heroic Lich King example listed above was definately an exploit, and was treated as such.  Dont recall Heroic Rag having any controversy.  I remember talk about Heroic Neff and Druid Stacking, but I believe Blizz ruled on that one as "creative use of game mechanics" and not exploit, and as such, just hotfixd the fight so Druid Stacking wouldnt outright trivialize the dps requirement, instead of banning anyone who druid stacked.

Vaguely remember hearing something about a pathing / aggro exploit with Paladin Healers on Yogg 0 Lights, but cant remember if that was on a EU / US server or an Asian one, so Blizz might not have had to make the call there.

[Merusk]

Not that there aren't people exploiting but it's never reached EQ-levels.  Largely because the devs hand the strategies to the top guilds on a platter.

Honestly I have more respect for the folks in the mushy-middle who struggle through encounters with their % players who refuse to read stats than I do for the top tier where they're discussing or raiding with the guy who designed the thing.

[Maledict]

The guild that first killed Yogg 0 exploited by having paladins and warlocks generating aggro in the brain room, which meant all the adds just spawned and ignored the players dps'ing Yogg. They had the kill removed and were banned as well.

Generally blizzard is very good at dealing with high end guilds who exploit.

Heck, it was Blizzards banning of Conquest in vanilla that changed the entire way raiding works. Up until that point guilds didnt share strategies and how to kill bosses was a closely guarded secret. Data on how to kill bosses on appeared months after it was relevant - that was how everyone played in EQ and that's how everyone started in WoW. But when Blizzard banned conquest for doing something that they thought was completely fair and would have been okay in EQ (pulling Golemag back to Garrs room to split his dogs off) they reacted by publishing all their strats to date in revenge.

It didnt have the intended effect however - it made raiding accessible to anyone and changed how guilds approached raiding forever. If they hadn't done it raiding would never have been as popular as it became. Funny how that worked out.

[Fabricated]

Ensidia exploited the flower power buff from the Freya encounter to beat heroic Hodir before anyone else, then Blizzard hotfixed the trick out and didn't do anything to Ensidia.

Granted Ensidia got beaten to 0-light Yogg by a Chinese guild that stacked warlocks (higher DPS during the final phase where you have to look away to avoid being instantly driven insane), but still. I think there was some exploiting in heroic trial of the crusader but I don't really remember that embarrassingly bad tier.

[Paelos]

Did anybody get perma-banned though? I'm not talking about a 72 hour slap on the wrist.

[Fabricated]

The only guild I know of in WoW that really got shitcanned was whatever guild literally used hacks to do model swaps in AQ to bypass the trash.

[Paelos]

The only guild I know of in WoW that really got shitcanned was whatever guild literally used hacks to do model swaps in AQ to bypass the trash.

That one is the only example I remember as well, and it was for blatantly hacking the game. I've never heard of anyone getting more than their knuckles rapped for "exploiting" in the top 1%.

[Rokal]

The only guild I know of in WoW that really got shitcanned was whatever guild literally used hacks to do model swaps in AQ to bypass the trash.

I had completely forgotten about this. What an amazing way to get banned.

[koro]

To be fair, it was some really shitty trash.

[SurfD]

Did anybody get perma-banned though? I'm not talking about a 72 hour slap on the wrist.

Far as I know, Blizzard will almost never outright ban you for "exploiting" in raids, mainly because 90% of the exploits exist because of unexpected interactions with their code during normal gameplay (Re: Saronite Bombs on Lich King patforms, etc).  The Game lets the players do it, so Blizzard cant really permaban them, even if abusing the exploit is in bad taste / poor sportsmanship, etc.   With the exception of the above mentioned Flat out Hack exploit in AQ 40, i dont believe anyone has ever been permabanned for "exploiting".  That being said, a 72 hour ban for a "world first" raid race guild on progression content is usually a deathstroke for any attempt they might have to get first kill.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Blizzard CAN permaban anyone for looking at them funny, it's sort of their game.  That idea that they say "Our bad, we coded that poorly" is very, very optimistic.

[Ingmar]

That sort of banning probably is a negative PR hit for them overall, though, there always seems to be a fairly stunning amount of non-involved people who get mad when those bans happen. They have a fairly narrow edge to walk with that sort of thing.

[Hutch]

The official trailer is up.

[Fordel]

More Trolls?

[Zetor]

Come on, don't tell me you haven't been expecting the standard troll dungeon of the expansion. Though it looks like the new raid is mostly mogu and random spirit things?

[Rokal]

There must always be a troll dungeon.

[Paelos]

It's trolls and DINOSAURS

[Hutch]

To be fair, it's not like they just dropped in a troll dungeon with no tie-ins. Some of the leveling quest lines in Kun Lai Summit are about the Zandalars invading Pandaria, locating the King's corpse, and then reanimating it. They're trying to loot the Mogu'shan vaults, too.

Da trolls, dey ev'rywhere mon.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Remember when the zandalari were good guys and blizzard just decided to say "fuck it we need an excuse for more troll dungeons, make em evil" ?

[Simond]

Having your home island go Atlantis on you might make people a little more...forthright and determined, mind you.

[luckton]

*sigh* Maybe the next expansion will be troll-free.  Bring on a freaking evil Gnome dungeon.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Having your home island go Atlantis on you might make people a little more...forthright and determined, mind you.

That's the point though, blizzard didn't have to make their island be destroyed in the cataclysm, it's not like we ever saw it.  They just needed a reason to bring ZG and ZA back and decided just swapping out the troll names would work fine.  Troll dungeons were a joke back in lich king and now, it's just sad.

I think the first time I saw trolls in pandaria was one of those "well, looks like it's downhill from here" moments.

[Fordel]

Troll dungeons have always, always been the filler dungeons. It's blizzards "shit we need more content, I know! TROLLS!".

This could be the greatest dungeon experience crafted yet, it would still have to overcome that stigma.

/shrug

[Rokal]

Sad part is that the trolls do not add anything to this story. The Kun-Lai quest chain could have played out almost the exact same way with Mogu instead of trolls. Now there is this gigantic impressive raid zone that is supposed to evoke Ulduar, and all anyone sees is another boring troll dungeon/raid.

Fucking trolls.

[Nevermore]

Blizzard is just trolling you all.