Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsGhostcrawler cleans up two dev chat questions
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 24th 2009 at 4:00PM
The first is in response to some feedback about what the devs yesterday called "binary" hard modes -- they said that instead of providing multiple levels of difficulty (as in Sarth and his drakes), they'd prefer to have a hard mode either on or off (you'll be able to toggle between the two in Icecrown). This relates to what we just said recently, with different types of guilds looking for different types of content to play. GC replies that the "in-betweens" in terms of difficulty will come with later bosses in normal mode -- if you want to play a challenge without stepping into the hard modes, Blizzard will do their best to make sure that the last bosses on normal give you that challenge. Which makes sense -- bosses should ramp up in difficulty as the instance goes along, and no one would suggest, for instance, that Yogg was nearly as easy as Flame Leviathan.
And GC also talked about one of my favorite (and missed) game mechanics: crowd control.
The question was asked yesterday about bringing crowd control back into the game, and the devs cited the Faction Champions fight as an encounter where it was still necessary. Obviously, players weren't quite happy with this one either, pointing out that as a showcase for CC, a fight meant to emulate PvP, where crowd control is still on diminishing returns, might not be the best option. Not to mention that plenty of guilds don't bother to use CC at all in the fight, and get along just fine.
Ghostcrawler falls more in line on this one, saying that if you're completely ignoring CC for the heroic version of Faction Champs, he wants to see the fight. He does admit that Trial of the Champion was a little bit of a break from standard raiding, and that Icecrown will have the trash that a normal instance has, though he seems to stop short of saying crowd control will be required in there. It actually seems like Blizzard does want to bring CC back as a mechanic, but because of all of the different levels of raiding and gear they're putting into the game, they're finding it hard to nail down an encounter where certain players won't end up being overgeared. Hopefully they'll find a good balance -- I do agree that it's nice not to have to have two mages bring two sheep spells along for the ride during every encounter, but on the other hand I miss the tactics and strategy that a big CC-required fight can put into play.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Instances, Bosses, Classes, Buffs
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
gundamxzero Oct 25th 2009 12:10PM
@flawless
Im not sure if you ever did 25m uld. You cant aoe that crap.
The vezax trash is the worst part of that instance.
Chamual Oct 24th 2009 4:39PM
CC trash had it's place, back in TBC CC was required from 5mans right through to Sunwell. The speed of your guild in getting through this was imo what seperated the good guilds from the bad ones, and there was a nice mix of AoE and CC pulls.
However now in Wrath most players know how to CC effectively and the trash pulls that require it (Freya and Vezax etc.) are no longer a challenge, if your groups CC's correctly it is a piece of cake.
I much prefer the wave trash such as Hyjal or even Shattered halls. I don't nessacarily want big CC pulls back, but would like more dynamic trash with adds coming, waves, time limits, knockbacks for the dreaded double pull and anything else Blizz can think of to make trash more involved.
mysticalos Oct 24th 2009 4:50PM
cc freya/general trash? we just have a paladin run in, tank everything facing away from raid, aoe it down. Hurricane is easily interuptable so the two scary tree druids aren't a hastle being aoed down either. General trash you focus fire the healer down with melee while dk deathgrips the warrior out for ranged to kill, then both aoe the rest. Profit.
Babasyzygy Oct 24th 2009 6:27PM
DK deathgrip *is* CC.
mysticalos Oct 24th 2009 4:47PM
we don't use CC in our heroic FC, at least in terms of sheeps and hex and such, between DR and at least 3-4 dispellers in any given group comp it is almost entirely pointless. We just use the 3-4 prot warrior strat, all specced imp spell reflect to mitigate a lot of the ranged damage every 12 seconds, plus their arsenal of disarms, stuns, fears, snares etc...they usually do what they can with melee, rogues/feral druids take care of healers. mages counterspell a focus target (usually the mages arcane school to lockout the arcane blast burst and sheeps) when it's up but focus on dps mainly. we pretty much heal/dispel through whatever the ranged do that warriors haven't spell reflected with imp spell reflect, and melee it is your own responsibility to avoid them. Having all the melee targeted by prot warriors on ora2 there is no reason not to know who each one is targeting and if you see your name on there to stay out of dodge. If you die to melee it's because you failed at kiting.
If you died to 3 ranged at once focus firing you down in like 0.5 seconds, you just got RNG screwed heh. But it happens.
Rin Oct 24th 2009 4:50PM
"Will Worgen get mounts?" is quite possibly one of the best questions ever and I'm glad they picked it.
I mean, I know not everyone who plays the game follows sites like this one, wowhead, mmo champion, or hell, even wowwiki as religiously as I and I'm sure a lot of you reading this just now do, but come ON. You don't even have to have played WoW for very long to understand that this a dumb question.
I agree with Knob; this Q&A was a good idea in theory, and I'm sure a lot of less learned people gleaned a few tidbits of information they didn't know from it, but for most of us, we really didn't walk away from it any more "in the know" than if we hadn't read it.
Skarn Oct 24th 2009 7:49PM
Best questions ever? No it wasn't. The answer is obvious. Of course they are getting new mounts. Why was it answered? Because it was such an easy question to answer. A good question? Nope. An incredibly simple question? Yes.
inexcistance Oct 25th 2009 7:27AM
Skarn;
Sarcasm missed much? Suppose you missed the line; "You don't even have to have played WoW for very long to understand that this a dumb question."
Ed Oct 24th 2009 5:12PM
I'm just disappointed that the dev chat didn't answer my burning question:
Will Cataclysm still support keyboards or is Blizzard abandoning that input method?
Instead of answering a bunch of niche questions like "Will Worgen have mounts?" and "When you say we can use flying mounts in Azeroth, do you mean we will be able to actually get on flying mounts and fly around in Azeroth, in the sky?", they should stick to the questions that matter.
brucimus Oct 24th 2009 5:23PM
"Will Worgen get mounts?"
maybe this could be the answer of the incoming werewolf invasion? Make the Worgens walk. that would/could keep their numbers down a bit? if not.... better stock up on flea collars.
after thought...they made Belfs gay and that didnt stop their population from exploding...so I guess im wrong all around
brucimus Oct 24th 2009 6:42PM
you people have no sense of humor at all
Rubitard Oct 24th 2009 6:23PM
With the constant stream of QQ about how easy WoW is to play, and how it's only gotten easier thanks to casual players ruining it for the l33t, why is it that there's still anyone doing high-end raiding? Leave the game and find something that challenges you! I don't believe for a second that the majority of people who post complaints about WoW's raid difficulty have any other real interest than sounding superior. No rage like nerd rage, as they say. It seems that many of the whiners would be happier with some other activity that challenges them.
CyberNigma Oct 24th 2009 6:28PM
maybe someone somewhere had some notion that an ability like plainsrunning was going to be introduced for Worgen. I never heard that, though. I think bringing Plainsrunning back for Tauren and giving something like that to Worgen would be rather neat, but one of the reasons it never made it to release in the first place was because too many people cried.
staffan.johansson Oct 24th 2009 6:28PM
@Jinee: Sure, TOC was a bit anemic. I think that was because most of the dev resources for that patch went into Isle of Conquest instead - a whole new battleground, with vehicles and all sorts of other weirdness, takes a little more than an afternoon to create.
Clydtsdk-Rivendare Oct 24th 2009 7:50PM
The real reason why TOC (in all incarnations, except heroic-mode 10/25 perhaps) is so easy?
It's right in the lore. We are being PREPARED for Icecrown.
Attack Gypsy Oct 24th 2009 7:14PM
I asked a simple question. One that could have been responded to even with a Maybe, maybe not.
"Are there any plans to revisit Outlands in a future expansion."
Not even a peep. I think they made up the questions themselves.
SoundScape Oct 25th 2009 8:13PM
Your question lacks a question mark. Perhaps that was the issue. =)
Quiz Oct 24th 2009 8:14PM
Crowd Control seems to go against their "bring the player not the class" mentality, since certain classes are far more desirable when crowd control is necessary.
ghostbear Oct 24th 2009 8:49PM
People who complain that there is no more CC remind of a friend whose in the car with you when you get pulled over and start arguing with the cop. You just want them to STFU.
Killchrono Oct 24th 2009 9:24PM
It's funny cos it's already been confirmed there are Gluth-like mobs right before Festergut, Decimate and Zombie Chow all intact. If there turns out to be a Thaddius mob I will laugh so freaking hard.
....then cry when my guild keeps wiping due to polarity changes =(