World of Warcraft: Current Year

Foggy

Foggy

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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I’ve killed it several times. It’s a very scripted and precise fight. It’s just a long dance. You memorize the steps; very few variables change from pull to pull. It is one of the best bosses ever designed in the game’s history.

Everybody is going to have the WA packs and timers but they aren’t doing anything. All positions are set in raid planner and memorized. They are not assigned in real time.
 
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Brodhi

Brodhi

I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
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I'm not defending blizzard or any of their devs compentency at this point. But all the doom and gloomers acting like they won't be able to raid or do high M+ without 3rd party addons do realize the company who is making the content is also controlling the tools that allow the content to be completed right? It doesn't really matter if their raid frames or nameplates or cooldown trackers all blow, as long as they still design the content to be completed with the tools they give you. If anything this might create more of a skill expression that will allow for more challenging content which you need half a brain to complete instead of relying on helpers to keep track of shit for you.
 
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Brodhi

Brodhi

I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
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Foggy said:
I’ve killed it several times. It’s a very scripted and precise fight. It’s just a long dance. You memorize the steps; very few variables change from pull to pull. It is one of the best bosses ever designed in the game’s history.

Everybody is going to have the WA packs and timers but they aren’t doing anything. All positions are set in raid planner and memorized. They are not assigned in real time.
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Yes, for better or worse it reminds me of FFXIV fights. You move to where you need to move, you do you rotation and mechanics. Mechanics are all easily identifiable and memorized for the sequence of the fight, no addons needed. This is the direction they are moving to with raids. Easier entry level, potentially higher ceiling.
 
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Neranja

Neranja

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Brodhi said:
But all the doom and gloomers acting like they won't be able to raid or do high M+ without 3rd party addons do realize the company who is making the content is also controlling the tools that allow the content to be completed right?
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Can you blame them? The community doesn't trust Blizzard, because Blizzard has proven time and time again that it does either panic hotfixes when something is in favor of players, and then let the game sit in an unbalanced state for months without even acknowledging community sentiment.

The WoW player base is way too good at pattern recognition. This made the retail crowd doomers, and the classic players rabid dogs that scream "no changes!" It'll take multiple expansions to win trust back.
 
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A

Ashin

Silver Knight of the Realm
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Brodhi said:
I'm not defending blizzard or any of their devs compentency at this point. But all the doom and gloomers acting like they won't be able to raid or do high M+ without 3rd party addons do realize the company who is making the content is also controlling the tools that allow the content to be completed right? It doesn't really matter if their raid frames or nameplates or cooldown trackers all blow, as long as they still design the content to be completed with the tools they give you. If anything this might create more of a skill expression that will allow for more challenging content which you need half a brain to complete instead of relying on helpers to keep track of shit for you.
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Similar to above - Blizz have a long record of saying they are going to make X change to the player experience, as it'll enable them to make Y change. They then do X, but don't do Y.

E.g. Last expansion they severely reduced Tank's self sufficiency (healing/mitigation etc) and Healer's healing output, saying that it was too strong in m+. Same with making stops not put mob casts on cds. They then didn't nerf trash's burst damage, or reduce number of boltcasters in dungeons - meaning the only way groups could push high was pull smaller, and optimise for classes that had max stops, and then hope they killed enough trash before they ran out of cds..
 
Neranja

Neranja

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Valorath said:
maybe XIV style UI and raid fights is what can turn it around for WoW.
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They certainly turned it around for XIV. But at the same time encounter philosophies differ between WoW and XIV, and XIV is also missing an endless scaling dungeon system like M+.

The big issue here is that Ion promised that without combat addons they could make simpler boss fights, because they don't have to factor in WeakAuras auto-solving some mechanics. We have to still see if that check bounces. But at the same time Ion doesn't seem to really care about M+, and some seasons just have been a shitshow.

Also, Blizzard woke the fuck up and finally improved their encounter visual language for standard mechanics, something XIV had basically since their reboot. It still sucks, it's still color-on-same-color, and you still can't easily differentiate between "avoid" and "soak" circles in hectic fights, but it is an improvement over the "look at those swirlies with blurry edges" bullshit they insisted on for years.

It's the same with class complexity: Some idiot elitist jerk devs couldn't handle that there were other smart people out there which figured out their designs, and made systems and class designs more complex and convoluted with each addon. Which lead to people developing and using WeakAuras and addons just to play their class. But at the same time Blizzard can't properly balance classes anymore themselves in the design process, and now just balances them according to the internal logs they gather.
 
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Cybsled

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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Neranja said:
Also, Blizzard woke the fuck up and finally improved their encounter visual language for standard mechanics, something XIV had basically since their reboot. It still sucks, it's still color-on-same-color, and you still can't easily differentiate between "avoid" and "soak" circles in hectic fights, but it is an improvement over the "look at those swirlies with blurry edges" bullshit they insisted on for years.
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That is one thing FF14 did well - the game teaches you the mechanics language as you level up. This means stack, this means spread, etc. Whenever the game throws a completely new mechanic at you, it typically does it towards the start of the fight or midway through it (ultimates/savages being exceptions) or it introduces a softer version in the dungeon for that patch series so you at least begin to learn what the tell means.
 
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jayrebb

jayrebb

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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Neranja said:
They certainly turned it around for XIV. But at the same time encounter philosophies differ between WoW and XIV, and XIV is also missing an endless scaling dungeon system like M+.

The big issue here is that Ion promised that without combat addons they could make simpler boss fights, because they don't have to factor in WeakAuras auto-solving some mechanics. We have to still see if that check bounces. But at the same time Ion doesn't seem to really care about M+, and some seasons just have been a shitshow.
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The gist I got is the M+ team is deeply entrenched (via eSports elitistjerks culture that's run the design the past decade) Ion has little authority to change anything without them agreeing. He can kick the tires and hold meetings with them, but when the entire team tells him to shut the fuck up, he shuts the fuck up. He had 10 different changes he discussed at length in various sit down interviews for M+ and not even 1 change went through, AND this was after Blizzard launching an official survey of M+ players which is usually the precursor to major changes occurring. Blizzard had to run a PR campaign after Season 1 of War Within practically. The only way to explain that is the M+ team call the shots, not Ion.
 
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Foggy

Foggy

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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M+ in TWW saw the biggest changes to the content since it was created. Unclear what you are on about.
 
jayrebb

jayrebb

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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Ironic out of all these "changes", they were all balancing changes and none of the overhaul Ion promised.

Stop-casts weren't changed for PUGs. Timers weren't changed-- in fact, the "change" ended up being adding time to timers. Etc. I could go on with several more changes Ion said were in the works last year at the end of Season 1.

Certainly tracks with the big changes Ion said he had coming.

Balancing doesn't register at this point as "biggest changes". That's compromising, not overhauling. Get the fuck out of here.
 
Folanlron

Folanlron

Trakanon Raider
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I don't know much about the whole Mythic system and everything,

but as a 14 player have they gone back and adjusted a lot of the "older" fights to present the new way things are gonna work? Or are they just throwing the kitchen sink at the problem and seeing what works?
 
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