BWL

[chinslim]

Too bad about this instance and all the work that went into it.  If it weren't for RaidAssist, Decursive, and already dozens of well-honed and MC-disciplined/equipped raid groups, this dungeon may be a challenge.

As it is, it's:

1) 1st attempt - chatlog

2) 2nd attempt - Analyze and design a strategy.  Script a mod if you have such a person.

3) Run into a bug that makes you wait until next week( locked gates )

4) Go clear MC in half-zombie mode.

[Paelos]

I hope I get a chance to see it once. I'll never actually loot anything from it but I do loves me some views.

[Morfiend]

Too bad about this instance and all the work that went into it.  If it weren't for RaidAssist, Decursive, and already dozens of well-honed and MC-disciplined/equipped raid groups, this dungeon may be a challenge.

As it is, it's:

1) 1st attempt - chatlog

2) 2nd attempt - Analyze and design a strategy.  Script a mod if you have such a person.

3) Run into a bug that makes you wait until next week( locked gates )

4) Go clear MC in half-zombie mode.

5) Have to give up two days in a row due to 10 second lag on the BWL server.

[Jobu]

I'm so screwed now. I can barely muster enough enthusiasm to do the simple 5-10 man raids on Strath and SM for my Tier 1 sets. And now they poop out another insanely grindy, hardcore only, super dungeon. I hope the trend doesn't continue, because while I really like Warcraft, I really do not look forward to being completely and utterly gimped simply because I have no inclination to raid MC/BWL every week for hours and hours each time. Maybe I'm just foolish and naive to think mudflation would be limited or curtailed.

I'd like to see a mechanism where a "casual" player at 60 can still work towards achieving some nice high-end loot. Maybe really long chain quests, like the questline with the Egg of Hakkar and the Sunken Temple to get that Lifeforce Dirk (which I still use).

Or maybe I just whine because I'm a rogue. You can't spend two seconds in IF without seeing nonstop "LFM, full on rogues" spam. *shrug* At least I have alts that are still a lot of fun to level up.

[Merusk]

There's epic item quests. The Breastplate of Bloodthirst for one. There's not many of them, but they are out there.  They should have a full questable set, I agree, but they don't.

Of course, if you mean Tier 2 items. You'll never get those until the level cap is upped and it's easier for pickup groups to do the current 'elite' instances.

The logic is, if you're truly casual you don't give a crap and don't have the time to invest in MC/ BWL lair raids anyway.  Same as EQ, and probably destined to be the same in any PVE MMO where Items are a key component of power.   You're getting into the metagame though, and worried about competing that way.  For everyday level 60 instance runs/ guildie help the tier 1 stuff is more than sufficient.

Edit: Crap that was messy, and I wasn't even drinking last night.

[chinslim]

I'm so screwed now. I can barely muster enough enthusiasm to do the simple 5-10 man raids on Strath and SM for my Tier 1 sets. And now they poop out another insanely grindy, hardcore only, super dungeon. I hope the trend doesn't continue, because while I really like Warcraft, I really do not look forward to being completely and utterly gimped simply because I have no inclination to raid MC/BWL every week for hours and hours each time. Maybe I'm just foolish and naive to think mudflation would be limited or curtailed.

I'd like to see a mechanism where a "casual" player at 60 can still work towards achieving some nice high-end loot. Maybe really long chain quests, like the questline with the Egg of Hakkar and the Sunken Temple to get that Lifeforce Dirk (which I still use).

Or maybe I just whine because I'm a rogue. You can't spend two seconds in IF without seeing nonstop "LFM, full on rogues" spam. *shrug* At least I have alts that are still a lot of fun to level up.

Whines like this, and I'm thinking...well what the fuck is it you want?

Anyways, we took on the new and improved BWL tonight, and the first encounter was much tougher, but subtley so.  Maybe the mages had more HP or something.  Ironically, it was incredible lag that allowed us to beat it.  It took us an hour of slow-mo, Bullet-Time befuddlement, but because timers and regen seems to be client-side, timers were always refreshed and our mana was nearly always full.

To get back on track with the direction of my topic, I'm wondering if it is possible for game devs to keep up with the increasingly sophisticated player base out there.

[Paelos]

I think what I'd like is another 15 man dungeon max, NOT another 40 man dungeon when barely a few guilds have managed to crack the first one all the way through. Things like Dire Maul are a cool addition, and I'd like to see more such things. Things like BWL are cool for their crowd, but I don't think you need to cannibalize your other 40 man so early in the game's life.

[Calantus]

Quit my guild because raiding was getting me down and it's a raiding guild... /sigh. The problem with raiding is not the time invested but the incredible boredom and pain of having to put up with 39 other people going afk or lagging out or not buffing, or whatever. 15-man max would still be a little high for me. 10 is good though, and 5 would be sweet. What I'd like to see is not casual acquirement of loot, but the ability to get it without a giant clusterfuck of a raid. Want me to collect 20 items that drop 1 at a time from a 10-man raid boss that takes 2 hours to kill before I get my epic? Fine. Want me to spend 2k in gold on my epic headpiece that I still have to quest for? Ok, just don't make me have to raid it up with 39 other people. :/

Hence... BWL does not thrill me.

[Zetor]

Or maybe... make 5 / 10-man dungeons that are Hard? With epic lewts?

Surely it's possible.


-- Z.

[pants]

To get back on track with the direction of my topic, I'm wondering if it is possible for game devs to keep up with the increasingly sophisticated player base out there.

I think Blizzard have also backed themselves into a corner with their powerful macro language they've included.  I loaded the latest version of CT Raidassist, not only does it show the health of every member of your raid, mana of every member, allow certain crucial characters to be flagged as important when their health goes low, display to everyone who the Main Tank is attacking, and display to everyone the target of the Main Tank's target (ie who the mob is beating on), but now they've included all the mob-specific mods for MC, ie the 'You are the bomb - such and such is the bomb' mod, the warning when Magmadar is going to fear, warning when Shazzrah is going to blink, what shields Domo have on etc. 

These mods take out what is arguably the hardest part of raiding MC, all the members of your raid have to be paying attention, which was a good part of WoW raiding - no more Main Tank CH rotation chain everyone else attacks a la EQ Velious/PoP raiding.  Get a couple of people who are good at coding WoW macros/mods (and theres plenty of really smart people out there), and it makes it even easier.

[Merusk]

Or maybe... make 5 / 10-man dungeons that are Hard? With epic lewts?

Surely it's possible.


-- Z.

BRS and UBRS were designed with this in mind.  Then in Beta people whined they were 'too hard' to get done with that number of people.

[Sogrinaugh]

Or maybe... make 5 / 10-man dungeons that are Hard? With epic lewts?

Surely it's possible.


-- Z.

BRS and UBRS were designed with this in mind.  Then in Beta people whined they were 'too hard' to get done with that number of people.

Awwwwww, challenge in a mmog?!?  The horrors.  Challenge greatly amplifies the fun in a game and makes the experience far more memorable, irregardless of the loot recieved.

Chin, i been thinking about casuals and how they can get stuff that doesn't nut in the face of people who been doing mc and whatnot.  In a way, i think the carnivals and those 8-card deck things are somewhat for this.  Its a way to get a really kickass trinket (well some classes anyway, like SHAMANS ARCANE POWER WTF).  I think another way to do it dungeon wise would be:

Take the average time it takes a competent guild to clear MC.  Multiply this by 40.  Divide this by the total # of purples that drop.  Whatever this number is, make a dungeon whos "average time to clear" is a factor of this, where the % chance for an epic to drop from the end guy is equal 100 divided by the same factor as the dungeon.

Of course dont make the dungeon suck and just be long as hell or you are killing the whole reason for its existence in the first damn place.  Make a portion of that "time to clear" count as gathering quest-specific BOP mats from various mobs scattered throught the world.

Finally, the dungeon should require different paths to the "boss" that differing combinations of classes would be required to traverse, this would allow blizzard to build extremely complex encounters, requiring skillful employment of class abilities and percisely excecuted strategies for success.  They currently can't do this for any of the "casual" dungeons, because besides requiring a warrior and a healer, any combination of classes has to be able to clear a given dungeon.

[El Gallo]

They are supposedly adding another 20-person dungeon in the patch after next (i.e. 2007).  They cut down spawn density and some mob linkage in Stratholme and Scholomance in the last patch, which makes them less tedious to clear in a 5-person group.  There are some decent quest rewards there.  Ditto on the need for more Dire Mauls. 

Also, it's been said a million times but Molten Core does not take a lot of time, it just takes some level of organization.

[Sogrinaugh]

They are supposedly adding another 20-person dungeon in the patch after next (i.e. 2007).  They cut down spawn density and some mob linkage in Stratholme and Scholomance in the last patch, which makes them less tedious to clear in a 5-person group.  There are some decent quest rewards there.  Ditto on the need for more Dire Mauls. 

Also, it's been said a million times but Molten Core does not take a lot of time, it just takes some level of organization.

I think what some others were asking is why can't thier be an "MC for 5-man", because its not a time issue but a "i dont want to deal with 39 other people" issue.

[Zetor]

Or maybe it's an "our 8-year-old guild that has 20 level 60s on doesn't want to group with 20 random asshats just to devolve into bickering about loot and waving of epeens" issue.


-- Z.

[Paelos]

Or maybe it's an "our 8-year-old guild that has 20 level 60s on doesn't want to group with 20 random asshats just to devolve into bickering about loot and waving of epeens" issue.


-- Z.

This man gets the cookie.

[El Gallo]

Well, there's always going to be that problem.  I'm sure there are 8 year old guilds with 100, 75, 50, 40, 35, 23, 19, 14, 9, 7, and 3 members too.  I find it unlikely that Blizzard will come out with a new instance designed for exactly that many players with enough regularity to keep people from ever having to exclude anyone from an instance or meet a new person ever.  Maybe someday the magic scaling content will happen, but I doubt it.

There's DM, Strat, Scholo, UBRS, LBRS, and BRD for 5-15 person goodies, and a 20-person loot pinata coming "soon."  There's farming cash to buy world drop goodies.  There's 1-10 person PvP, albiet with a buggy queue system.   I mean, if the complaint is "Blizzard is slow as fuck creating content of all types" then I'll be the first to holler amen.  They are slow as fuck creating new content considering the pace of the game and the amount of money flowing in.  But if it's "Blizzard isn't giving me exactly what I want" then I think I'm off the bus.  Frankly, having a bunch of places hard capped at 5, a bunch hard capped at 10, a bunch hard capped at 15, a bunch hard capped at 20, and a bunch hard capped at 40 sounds like a recipe for guild drama and destruction.  They should come up with a group dunegon size and a raid size and stick with that, and guilds will naturally grow or contract to numbers appropriate for those numbers. 

[HaemishM]

Or just take off the hard cap numbers and let people play the fucking game the way they want to.

[Mesozoic]

Or just take off the hard cap numbers and let people play the fucking game the way they want to.

20 people getting wiped in a 20-man instance need a better plan.  20 people getting wiped in an unlimited instance just need more people. 

[Calantus]

My problem with MC et al now is that they are the way of getting the phattest loot. My whole game right now revolves around messing about fishing/cooking/etc, PVPing, and gearing up for PVP. Now while I can putz around in any old gear, and while the argument can be made that a casual PVEer doesn't need uber gear, the same cannot be said for PVP. People running around in BWL epics will have an advantage over those with ubrs/strat/scholo/dm blues mixed in with a few world drop epics. That's the only real problem I have with the system right now, people who can stomach raiding PVE instances with 39 other people get an advantage in another totally unrelated aspect of the game. I want direct alternatives I can get with 1-10 people, I'm not asking for less time, hell they can make it take more time in exchange for less people if they want.

[El Gallo]

Shocker that throwing in PvP into a PvE game as an afterthought without changing any of the basic combat mechanics would turn out to suck monkey balls.  They need to segregate those playstyles, but they won't.

[SurfD]

actually, with the way they have currently broken Alterac Valley, you could probably get all epiced out in there in roughly the same amount of overall time as getting epiced out in MC, and with a lot less work involved.

Seems the new "shared faction" system is totally fucked.  People in my guild have been reporting that instead of "ultra ninja looting click fest" to get your faction doohickies for turnin, av is now just a "go afk while someone else does the work" system.  You can litterally go to AV, and stand there doing absolutely nothing and get moderately decent faction/cp over time (not to mention that if your side wins, you also share in the massive cp/faction "bonus", despite having contributed nothing.

[chinslim]

Fuckin' make your own "whine about not being part of a DKP-raid group" thread plz.

This is for all 2 of us who actually do BWL.

[Calantus]

Yeah... never even thought about that my post derailing the thread. In hindsight it was obvious where it would be taken though. :P

[El Gallo]

  People in my guild have been reporting that instead of "ultra ninja looting click fest" to get your faction doohickies for turnin, av is now just a "go afk while someone else does the work" system.  You can litterally go to AV, and stand there doing absolutely nothing and get moderately decent faction/cp over time (not to mention that if your side wins, you also share in the massive cp/faction "bonus", despite having contributed nothing.

Looks like they started suspending people for that http://fohguild.org/forums/showthread.php?t=15547

[Sogrinaugh]

Well my guild had BWL schedualed for saturday, but appon entering the lag was so unbearable that we said fuck it and raided AV 4 times.  With CTF down/bugged, we have 4-6 AV's up during primetime, so our 37+ man raid was enough to cause a new instance to spawn each time we went in, our longest wait was like 7 minutes, and every time it was a brand new AV, meaning we got to farm all the mini-bosses and hog all the frostwolf rep.  Our record for sweeping AV was 57 minutes, and our longest bout was 1 hr 45 minutes.

If ctf stays bugged, farming our way up to exalted with Frostwolf en masse is a real possibility.

[kaid]

at least on our server it seems like the ctf unbugged itself late yesterday. I could not get in at all on saturday or most of sunday but late sunday night I started getting more normal looking ETA on queue times and we actually got into a couple CTF matchs.


kaid