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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Has Cataclysm let you down?
by Josh Rose 
Jan 11th 2011 at 8:00AM
After all the anticipation, all the build-up, all the hype ... Cataclysm is here. For all intents and purposes, Cataclysm has delivered on much of what was promised. However, as with all change, there is good as well as bad and things that left us without the enjoyment we thought we would have. Some still complain that offering only 5 levels isn't a full expansion; whether level cap really effects all that much other than being an arbitrary number at which max-level content is at remains to be seen. Others complain about having to find the instance portals to queue for those instances, but it does make sense that you should have to know where you are going to go there.
There are numerous moments I found epic. The Uldum quest chain with Harrison Jones was great, but at the same time, the fact I had to go back and find those couple of random quests that begin by killing animals to finish my Uldum quest achievement kind of annoyed me. Another disappointment was the length of the Vashj'ir boat phasing scene, at least for Alliance -- and after this nearly 10-minute snorefest, it bugged, did not give me credit, and I had to hearth to Stormwind and repeat the awful process. As an herbalist, the fact Azshara's Veil is only in Vashj'ir was also disappointing. These small, annoying little issues are trivial, however, and only show small flaws in an otherwise great expansion.
So what things in Cataclysm have disappointed or annoyed you -- or have you been completely pleased? Or are you in the small fraction of players yet to get Cataclysm?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Cataclysm, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 17)
Titleist Jan 11th 2011 8:28AM
The problem isn't in rewarding tanks more (that is the insta-queue part), it's because tanking is significantly harder than it was in Wrath. People complained about the roflAOE style of heroics and were in turn rewarded with precise pulling and required CC. While this creates a different type of gaming paradigm it also decreases the number of people who are tanking (or turns them off from learning) thus increasing your queue times. Very similar topics exist on the healer camp as well.
Which would you prefer?
Junionn Jan 11th 2011 8:43AM
As a DPS I feel your pain, however, I usually find myself with enough to do while my queue pops. For the first one of the day, I'll do my fishing/cooking dailies followed by my faction dailies and by that point the queue usually pops (30-40mins). For the following queue, I'll then head to Tol Barad for their dailies and while I'm there I'll fish up the eels and the wreckage for great lewt while skilling up.
If I even make it to the the next queue I'll then level my archeology or go farm Elementium/Pyrite.
Blizz has done a great job in making sure people have things to do with 'downtime'.
Herculis Jan 11th 2011 8:40AM
Blizzard's changes to both tanking and healing are directly responsible for your LFD queue times increasing. They have exacerbated the wait time problem with their nerfs to both roles.
Not saying that ALL the changes are bad, but you know, cause and effect.
Surtr Jan 11th 2011 9:00AM
My biggest problem with tanking randoms is that they just take so long. In Wrath, it was easy to find a half hour here or there to tank a random. But with a full-time job that often stretches into evening work and a family, an hour to an hour and a half is weekend-only time for me.
I don't miss the zergfest, but I wish the instances were shorter. So, they should still require skill/care but not this long contiguous time commitment. There's a reason I don't raid.
Jack Spicer Jan 11th 2011 9:07AM
@Sutr
I disagree with your assumption that 5-man dungeons are something that players should be able to blow through in 20 minutes. I understand that Wrath, in all its misguided-ness taught you that lesson, but in BC and in Vanilla, 5-man dungeons were a reason to play the game in an of themselves, and not merely a fast method of earning phat lootz.
Parrin Jan 11th 2011 9:14AM
WoW needs to allow two healers in a PUG. Tanks would be required to do a heck of a lot less managing, and healers would be allowed to breathe. Just set up the LFD tool to supply 3 slots for the roles, and add another healer if the first one doesn't have the achievements and gear necessary. Too many really good tanks and healers have been driven from their roles by Blizzard's insistence that they work harder than anyone else on the team.
Smid Jan 11th 2011 12:08PM
Ok, here goes...
I'm not sure I'm long for this expansion....
I had 11 chars at 80 (all classes on alliance and a pally on horde), mainly focused on tank and healers when I got to cata and thats the problem.
My druid is 85 healer and is going to get mothballed, its not just challenging, its plain annoying to be oom after every trash pull in a normal (nope, I doubt I will stick getting geared enough for heroics), but the instances are long, the dmg is a lot of time party dmg when all my healing mana is costly for those. It was ok during the levelling instances, but the mana cost went so massive that it feels like 85 is far weaker than 80 (ok so its gear too blah blah). But I really seriously feel for someone who's going to tank or heal in blue and greens in a level 80 normal...
My pally tank is struggling too (my warrior is hopeless to play too, the dps in 200-226 gear wont hold in an 80 instance), not with aggro, but the length of the dugeons, the lack of drops, the progression in general, I've spent about 2K on gear from the AH and a plate drop is rare as a unicorn giggle and badly matched to be dodge and hit, that the dps plate roll for it too... My ilevel says its geared for heroics, but I aint going into one of those soon...
Lack of healers? Lack of tanks? Lack of balance of effort vs reward, imho. If I'm going to be treated like this is a job, I want paid...
Cyrus Jan 11th 2011 9:47AM
"WoW needs to allow two healers in a PUG. Tanks would be required to do a heck of a lot less managing, and healers would be allowed to breathe. Just set up the LFD tool to supply 3 slots for the roles, and add another healer if the first one doesn't have the achievements and gear necessary."
Four classes have at least some healing abilities, not counting all the damage-reduction and self-healing that practically every class has, and chances are very good that at least one of the DPS will be one of those classes. If a balance druid, elemental shaman or shadow priest refuses to heal even a little, or a enhancement shammy, feral druid or ret paladin refuses to keep themselves topped off when things go bad, they're just being jerks. It's unfortunate, but there's still nothing Blizzard can do to keep jerks out of LFD. Better strategizing and diplomacy (it's a human racial, remember!) seem like a much better solution to the problem of underprepared healers than a big, complicated change to the LFD system with god-knows-what unintended consequences.
Surtr Jan 11th 2011 10:13AM
@Jack
I don't really care about the loot; I started in Vanilla (just around when Dire Maul was added, so not from beta or anything) and remember taking two hours to get through half of Maraudon at-level, for seemingly no drops. That was a fun adventure, but I only had time on the weekend.
All I'm saying is that the length of 5-man content now, post-Wrath, means that on the evenings I can only really run a few daily quests. Shorter dungeons would mean I could shoulder some tanking load for randoms on evenings.
It's moot anyway, though. In another tier, maybe two, of content, we'll lolzerg it all and it'll be back down to 30 minute dungeon runs. It won't be particularly challenging, but at least I'll be able to play with others during the week :-)
naughtyzoot Jan 11th 2011 10:53AM
Don't believe any of the QQ of "tanks and heals have quit, content is too hard, DPS are baddies, blah, blah, blah". Queues are long for one reason and one reason only. There are just naturally WAY more DPS than tanks/healers. There are 4 tank specs over all classes, 5 heals (2 are priest) and 22 DPS with 4 classes having nothing but DPS specs. Combined with the xpac only being out 1 month, DPS queues will be longer. In a few months it'll even out and be around 15min instead of the 30-45min it is now. When I first hit 85 about a week in queues were over 45min always. Over the holiday weekend after Christmas I was getting ~15min queues or less as DPS. Now that people are back at school work it went back to around 35min. Remember WotLK introduced the LFD over a year after it's initial release, so there were tons of 80s leveled and geared by that point to use it.
Aruhgulah Jan 11th 2011 11:07AM
Not to mention that us tanks are tired of dealing with idiots in PUGs. Most of us are in guilds now, and we'll stick with guild groups for the rep & guild leveling bennies, thank you.
Elmouth Jan 11th 2011 12:52PM
AoE roflstomp was better overall.
End of Story.
The only people that were QQing and the ones that are laughing their asses off right now are the 5% that run exclusively with premade groups of guildies & friends.
The new changes are like anal probing to the rest of the playerbase. Nobody really likes them, hence the shitty queue times.
I mean, making raid trash harder? Fine. But since when have heroics really mattered?
That and the healers getting weaker as they level up were the two big flaws of cataclysm.
Also note that both these changes didn't slow down the crazy bastards getting world-firsts nor any of the big guilds from gearing up and plowing trough raids within the first 2 weeks. The only people getting hurt are the average playerbase, you know, the majority. Only to please an elitist minority.
Blizzard screwing the majority to please a very loud minority is what let me down this expansion.
agregson1 Jan 11th 2011 12:57PM
Don't get me wrong, I run with my guild as much as possible. But, in all honesty, that's the only time I've ever cleared a heroic, when we were all on vent and at least one of us had seen the fight before. I've never cleared a heroic in a pug and most tanks will drop group after the second wipe...on the first boss.
Wildstaff Jan 11th 2011 8:10AM
There are only 2 things that I don't like about cataclysm
1. Arathi Highlands- they could've done some really great and epic things with it, but nothing happened. have they even given an answer as to why it wasn't changed?
2. Getting exalted with gilneas gives me nothing except a few cloaks that are useless to me. I don't even care about the mount, just give us something to show that we didn't get this rep for nothing.
3. the Peacebloom vs ghouls is not repeatable. if i'm not mistaken it was supposed to be playable once you finished the chain. what's up with that?
three things
Helston Jan 11th 2011 8:23AM
In response to PvG - I don't exactly know, but I'd have a stab at Popcap saying endless mode's a little too much, or the fact that Blizzard decided it was too much to have people playing heaps of a PvZ minigame when they could be playing WoW proper.
Rob Jan 11th 2011 10:06AM
The mount is your reward. Many, many, many people in this game love vanity items. You knew what the rewards were - if you don't like them, then yes, you did it for nothing.
Cyrus Jan 11th 2011 10:51AM
"The mount is your reward. Many, many, many people in this game love vanity items. You knew what the rewards were - if you don't like them, then yes, you did it for nothing."
There is no mount for Gilneas. That's the point, Gilneas has no reward. (OK, it has achievement points and vendor discounts and stuff, but it is less rewarding than other factions.) Obviously.
Artificial Jan 11th 2011 3:58PM
Not improving the Arathi Highlands more was a shame, but Silithus is a major crime. :(
Greyhame Jan 11th 2011 8:10AM
The amount of leveling time felt too short. I was not ready to be at level caps quite as soon as I got there. And I wasn't even rushing when I was doing this.
The fact that there's only one alchemy trinket that's mainly just good for tanks is also annoying.
Mainly minor complaints.
MW Jan 11th 2011 8:46AM
The Lifebound Alchemist Stone is not just for tanks, I equipped it for my healer. The Mastery boost makes it usable for all classes, and everyone needs crit. The blue gem slot can be filled with nice gems too.
The boost to mana pots makes it good for all casters.
The Alchemist Stones were never supposed to be endgame trinkets, but to be an epic that the alchemist could use until they got those good drops from dungeons.