Blue Posts and Other WoW News: Number of bosses, and an attitude that needs to sit in the corner
by Adam Holisky 
Dec 7th 2011 at 11:59PM
Don't forget to check out The Daily Quest and our Weekly Podcast Roundup to find out what else is going on in the WoW community. And if you have a news tip, feel free to drop us a line and let us know.
Blue posts
Zarhym -- Attitude of LFR
Quote:
Personally, I think LFR is way too dumbed down. It turns fighting Deathwing into a complete and utter joke.
I think it is ridiculous that many people downed Deathwing in LFR before GUILDS managed to do it in normal. No, this was not the case for my guild personally, but there were many guilds on my server that had not downed Deathwing in normal during the first week.
They shouldn't have released the final content in LFR for at least a couple more weeks. It completely takes all the excitement of downing someone who's supposed to be so powerful. To have derp pugs downing Deathwing like he's cake just completely defies Deathwing being such a hardcore dragon. Grats Blizz, you made end-game content playable for retards and in the process ripped the soul out of the game.
I know all you who don't have decent guilds and don't take this game seriously will disagree, but really think about it. Just imagine in your real life you work hard to achieve something all for others to simply get it handed to them. So what if we get better gear in normal and heroic? It doesn't matter considering you clearly don't need that gear to down Deathwing anyway. The only thing us hardcore raiders have now is the sense of achievement of downing the harder content. However, the RP of the game has been ripped to shreds IMO.
Personally, I think LFR is way too dumbed down. It turns fighting Deathwing into a complete and utter joke.
I think it is ridiculous that many people downed Deathwing in LFR before GUILDS managed to do it in normal. No, this was not the case for my guild personally, but there were many guilds on my server that had not downed Deathwing in normal during the first week.
They shouldn't have released the final content in LFR for at least a couple more weeks. It completely takes all the excitement of downing someone who's supposed to be so powerful. To have derp pugs downing Deathwing like he's cake just completely defies Deathwing being such a hardcore dragon. Grats Blizz, you made end-game content playable for retards and in the process ripped the soul out of the game.
I know all you who don't have decent guilds and don't take this game seriously will disagree, but really think about it. Just imagine in your real life you work hard to achieve something all for others to simply get it handed to them. So what if we get better gear in normal and heroic? It doesn't matter considering you clearly don't need that gear to down Deathwing anyway. The only thing us hardcore raiders have now is the sense of achievement of downing the harder content. However, the RP of the game has been ripped to shreds IMO.
This is absolutely the attitude and language that, in this community, needs to go sit in the corner for a while. If you can't stand the thought of there being multiple difficulty tiers of content -- into which we pour a lot of our development efforts -- to make raiding feasible for more than 2% of players, hit Heroic mode, turn on vent, and repeatedly remind your friends how good you are. I have no doubt they care. :)
Some people, like Vindicare, get it:
Quote:
I don't feel any sense of accomplishment from killing a boss if it doesn't involve some form of challenge or progression.
That being said, I can appreciate the LFR for people like the OP. It clearly wasn't designed for people like me who enjoy raiding for what it actually is. It isn't all that fun for me, and I use it as mostly a tool to get free epics for little effort to help with actual raiding but what can you do about that?
I'm glad people are having fun with it.
I don't feel any sense of accomplishment from killing a boss if it doesn't involve some form of challenge or progression.
That being said, I can appreciate the LFR for people like the OP. It clearly wasn't designed for people like me who enjoy raiding for what it actually is. It isn't all that fun for me, and I use it as mostly a tool to get free epics for little effort to help with actual raiding but what can you do about that?
I'm glad people are having fun with it.
Boss Numbers
We definitely don't want to stick to any formulas when it comes how many bosses are in each raid tier or expansion. You might see raids on the scale of Kara, Ulduar, ICC, Naxx, etc. in the future. It's just a matter of what feels right for each tier. Having three separate difficulties, however, does require much more development time for each raid.
Priest Talent Update
We are exploring the possibility of Holy Nova being Discipline's AE and Prayer of Healing being Holy's AE. Divine Aegis would be changed to work with Holy Nova and we would make other changes that make sense to support this change.
Our intent is to make the healing styles between the two as different as possible, while cutting down on the number of rarely-used-yet-core spells that each spec has. By that, we mean that some spells are designed to be situational, such as Fade or Leap of Faith. When you look at Holy Nova in 4.3, it feels like a spell you should use a lot, but the situations just don't come up often where another spell isn't better.
In 4.3, Holy Nova doesn't have a really strong niche, and priests have so many AE heals that we're not convinced the right call is to make Holy Nova used in X situation and Prayer of Healing used in Y situation. It might just be that priests have too many AE heals.
As with nearly all of the talent design though, this might very well change before we go live.
Your feedback is appreciated.
Our intent is to make the healing styles between the two as different as possible, while cutting down on the number of rarely-used-yet-core spells that each spec has. By that, we mean that some spells are designed to be situational, such as Fade or Leap of Faith. When you look at Holy Nova in 4.3, it feels like a spell you should use a lot, but the situations just don't come up often where another spell isn't better.
In 4.3, Holy Nova doesn't have a really strong niche, and priests have so many AE heals that we're not convinced the right call is to make Holy Nova used in X situation and Prayer of Healing used in Y situation. It might just be that priests have too many AE heals.
As with nearly all of the talent design though, this might very well change before we go live.
Your feedback is appreciated.
Disc Priest - Attonement
Our current plan is to make Atonement a major glyph, but that decision is not set in stone.
It could be a Discipline spec spell or a talent.
It could be a Discipline spec spell or a talent.
WoW news from other sites
- MMO-Champion Mist of Pandaria Talent Calculator Updated
- Wowhead News Mists of Pandaria Talent Calculator Updated
- Encrypted Text: A savvy rogue's guide to starting Dragon Soul via the Raid Finder
- Spiritual Guidance: How to get your shadow priest started with the Raid Finder
- The Light and How to Swing It: Raid gear for ret paladins in Dragon Soul
- Mists of Pandaria talent calculator gets an update
- Blood Sport: How should you prepare for season 11 PvP?
- Lichborne: Well of Eternity tips for death knights
- The Daily Quest: Dragon Soul-searching
- MMO Roundup: The Old Republic's beta pulls 2 million players
- Guide to the new Darkmoon Faire
- How to fix that %$!@# mature language filter bug
- WoW Moviewatch: The Device Has Been Modified
- The Queue: Get angry! Get mad!
- Around Azeroth: A cubic zirconia world
- Know Your Lore: Archbishop Benedictus of the Holy Light
- Breakfast Topic: How's the Guild Finder working for you?
- Star Wars: The Old Republic opens up pre-loading for early players [Updated]
- Shigeru Miyamoto 'retiring from current position' at Nintendo, working on smaller games
- Portabliss: Assassin's Creed Recollection (iPad)
Today in WoW brings you the preceding days's WoW and gaming news. Also of community interest: our podcast listing, staff blog and Twitter listings and WoW websites and blogs (all part of our Guide to WoW Resources). Find out what's going on in the WoW player community every week in The Classifieds.
Filed under: Today in WoW
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
e.friedman1992 Dec 8th 2011 2:19AM
I love it whenever an oboxious forum poster gets a not so subtle smack on the nose.
I was a HUGE PvEr since vanilla and because of some real life issues. I found it harder and harder to make in on time to raids. So I started PvPing instead. I'm proud to say I killed Deathwing today in the LFR and while I used to be a super hardcore elitest, I had a lot of fun and was very glad I got to see the content while it was still relevant.
LFR FTW!!
Narayana Dec 8th 2011 7:10AM
I'm right there with you. To me, raiding has always been the core of this game. However, my ability to raid has changed from the days when I was a 22 year old single guy to now when I'm a 30 year old dad.
Raid finder gives me access to that epic feeling that I used to get without requiring i go way over the top with research and without te 12 year-old gear score/achievement politics.
Sure- it could be harder. But multiple failures on the Spine of Deathwing illustrate that the level of complexity has to be low due to a refusal to both listen and to explain.
Bionic Radd Dec 8th 2011 7:11AM
I have never set foot inside an actual raid (I've done some low level raid dungeons at 80 for the hell of it, but that hardly counts). I fully intend to get my 85 geared so I can take a crack at Deathwing at some point in LFR. I love that Blizzard has implemented an option for the people that play randomly and don't particularly care about bragging to people about video game accomplishments. Sitting in front of a computer, playing a game, is not hard work.
EaterOfBirds Dec 8th 2011 7:16AM
So glad to see that smackdown.
Why does it piss people off so much that other people can have some of the fun? Ive yet to try LFR cause ive still to watch videos of all the fights (cause i like to be prepared in any case, like a boss) but it sounds fun, and I just don't have the time commitment to give to raiding on a set schedule, so hooray for blizz letting more than a tiny fraction get some exposure to endgame.
Xantenise Dec 8th 2011 7:18AM
I wish that LFR had been up when ICC was relevant. It felt fantastic to see content. Yes, it's easy mode, but NOBODY who's downed Deathwing in LFR thinks that achievement is just as good as downing him on norm or heroic. NOBODY. Yeah, sure, me and my friends cheered each other when we downed him for the first time on LFR, but that was because of "Isn't it great to see it?" and not because of "This makes you just as skilled as the raid guilds!"
Bynde Dec 8th 2011 10:47AM
Add me to those happy to see a blue post smacking down that elitist attitude.
I've played since just weeks before BC came out and I have been in exactly one raid. I don't even remember what it was but now, thanks to this lfr I can do them again and see the content that I am paying for.
If I had my druthers I would rather go with a guild, but the logistics of that simply do not work for me. I can't be at the computer on some days so it just doesn't work.
noel mcleod Dec 8th 2011 11:37AM
I had a previous post downrated for saying EXACTLY what the blue post says, which is that many of the elite 2% have insufferable attitude issues. I think it is awesome that Blizz is making this content available to us while it is relevant and I KNOW that it won't be the same as raiding at high level.
Boozard Dec 9th 2011 12:44AM
i agree the raids and dungeons are easier than ever before. i personally thought i would hate it ... but now i just can't stop queueing and having the time of my WoW life. apparently, blizz knows best.
omedon666 Dec 8th 2011 2:23AM
Blizzard, I love you.
We don't see eye to eye on everything, but for that "sit in the corner" post, you gain a lot of lost respect back. Thank you for "getting it".
dmberreth Dec 8th 2011 2:31AM
I couldn't agree more. I have thought a lot of times that Blizzard is out of touch with the player base, especially when they spend so much time, resources, etc on content that was just pointed out was only for about 2% of their 10 million players.
If nothing else, they are starting to "get it" now, and that can only mean awesome things are possible down the road.
raingod Dec 8th 2011 2:47AM
Agreed 100%. This is the first time in all my years of playing that I'm actually doing current end game stuff. I'm not a hardcore player, but more than casual, and Blizzard struck all the right notes in this patch-I'm enjoying it as much as when I started playing WoW-something I never thought would happen.
Ralod Dec 8th 2011 2:56AM
I am glad he put that guy in his place. That type of person/additude is one I am so sick of.
The simple fact of the matter is a player like that are the first ones to leave for a new game, the first ones to complain if they are not being catered to 100%, the first one to abuse and exploit the game. Good riddance. I hope that reply and the reactions to people to it prove once and for all, WoW is not a game for that playstyle anymore.
omedon666 Dec 8th 2011 3:25AM
I, too, am a proud "LFR success story", and I don't care who knows it! As a RP'er who has always had to be creative in motivating my small guild into feeling that 5-manning it up was being mover "and shaker" enough on an in-character level, I am so happy that we can now all be real, honest to goodness heroes and dragonslayers, on our own terms, without treating the game as a second job!
Bloodfurnace Dalvengyr Dec 8th 2011 9:10AM
I loved when he said that they need more designers like this guy that knows exactly what to do xD that was priceless.
Tirrimas Dec 8th 2011 2:32AM
Aww, the Cuddle-Bear has teeth and claws.
Rawr.
~Zarhym Fangirl.
Pyromelter Dec 8th 2011 3:04AM
While I think the blue posters make their case well, I think their case is weak, and I submit the following as evidence against their points:
Comparing Wrath to Cataclysm end-game (just end-game now, not referring to the 1-60 revamp):
1.They went from an expansion (in wrath) that had 17, 14, 5 (a forgettable 5, but still), and 12 bosses in raids (excluding halion), to an expac that had 13, 7, and 8. That's 48 total raid bosses to 28, and those numbers go to 52 and 31 if you count VOA and Baradin hold.
2. Significantly less expansion specific zones to play around in (10 or 11 in wrath, to 6 or 7 in cataclysm, depending on how you count)
3. One less raid tier (again toc, but still counts at least a little).
4. 15 completely new and original dungeons to 10 original dungeons in cataclysm. If you're going to count revamped dungeons, then I'd have to start adding more to Wrath raids for Onyxia.
5. 2 million less subscribers from Wrath to cataclysm 1 year later.
Your honor, I rest my case evidence, and here is a closing argument:
It took many normal, good guilds many months to kill the Lich King on normal mode, and was a bit of a challenge even for top-end guilds at first. I feel like I have an extremely casual friendly attitude towards wow and mmo's in general. I believe grinds are bad, 20 minute dungeons are good, and having an easy, medium, and hard mode is great for everyone. But the last boss of the expansion should feel epic, it should feel challenging, it should feel like you really worked hard and poured your blood and guts out to win that encounter. Everyone who beat the Lich King before Cataclsym knows that feeling of epic accomplishment. By making it an easy steamroll job in the LFR mode, it definitely takes away from that sense of accomplishment. So while I agree with Mr. Zarhym that the elitist e-peen attitude that pervades many forums should go sit in a corner, I believe the commenter he was responding to had a legitimate point.
A final mistake in an expansion littered with them.
tl;dr - Cataclysm's endgame was severely lacking compared to wrath, which I believe has led to subscriber loss, and the LFR end-of-expansion encounter does indeed cheapen the accomplishment of defeating Deathwing.
raingod Dec 8th 2011 3:21AM
It took many normal, good guilds many months to kill the Lich King on normal mode, and was a bit of a challenge even for top-end guilds at first. I feel like I have an extremely casual friendly attitude towards wow and mmo's in general. I believe grinds are bad, 20 minute dungeons are good, and having an easy, medium, and hard mode is great for everyone. But the last boss of the expansion should feel epic, it should feel challenging, it should feel like you really worked hard and poured your blood and guts out to win that encounter. Everyone who beat the Lich King before Cataclsym knows that feeling of epic accomplishment. By making it an easy steamroll job in the LFR mode, it definitely takes away from that sense of accomplishment. So while I agree with Mr. Zarhym that the elitist e-peen attitude that pervades many forums should go sit in a corner, I believe the commenter he was responding to had a legitimate point.
You ignore one crucial factor: no one is being forced to do easy mode, or even queue into the LFR. If you do, and then feel cheated of any sense of accomplishment, don't blame Blizzard, blame yourself, you knew what to expect going in.
Tyler Caraway Dec 8th 2011 3:22AM
The comparisons between Lich King and Deathwing, encounter wise, are rather unfair as the two have entirely different encounter premises. Lich King wasn't actually all that difficult of an encounter, it did, however, place a significant amount of emphasis on personal player responsibility. Arguably the most difficult part of the encounter was phase 2 -- phase 1 was rather mindless and phase 3 had multiple cheesy methods of dealing with it.
In phase 2 you dealt with Valks and Defile. The difficultly in this phase was 3 fold. First, there was adjusting Valk control based upon which players where captured, every Valk needed 3 - 4 assigned controllers despite only needing 2 per just in case. Second was Defile and having even a single person with so much as a toe in it causing a wipe. Third was tank positioning, if the tank was out of position for Valks, the raid wouldn't have enough time to bring them down.
In that phase, a majority of the ways in which the raid could fail rested on a single person's shoulders. One person stands in Defile, everything is over. The tank, again one person, gets out of position, and it's over. Whereas the group coordination wasn't as harsh. Fail to control a single Valk and you can still beat the encounter short that single player.
Deathwing, conversely, is a much more group oriented encounter. Aside from tank CDs on Impale, there isn't anything that a single player can do that will totally wipe the raid. If a DPS mucks up on Deathwing, the entire raid doesn't suffer. Mechanically, the fight is perhaps excessively simple given that the entire difficulty of the encounter centers around being nothing more than a massive DPS check.
LK was difficult because single mistakes could wipe you. A vast majority of wipes, I'm sure, were probably caused by Defile, with tank positioning on Valks being second. Deathing simply doesn't have that one mechanic. It lacks that thing wherein a single player can wipe the entire raid. Yes, a player with too low DPS will cause you to wipe, but other players can theoretically cover that mistake. No one can save you from Defile.
If Deathwing had just a single there where players could wipe everyone by making a mistake, it would have taken guilds much, much longer to defeat.
Noyou Dec 8th 2011 3:34AM
Comparing that to even normal mode is like saying the NCAA championship is more or less significant than a pro level championship. Sorry you feel that way dude. And for all you bozo's out there who take a game "so seriously" that it actually bothers you that people downed it on LFR, well /hug. That probably won't do you any good either.
Noyou Dec 8th 2011 3:49AM
You know what's challenging Pyro? Doing normal content with 9 complete strangers, no addons, no vent, no downing bosses on the PTR. Or how about playing WoW with a real life disability. Pick one. Being deaf, partially blind, ADHD, your choice. Those are real challenges some players actually have to deal with.