Warlords of Draenor

[Storm 426]

Damien is going to make a new forum later, but I'm too excited to wait. This new expansion is making me more excited about wow than any other expansion ever has. It sounds like they're addressing a lot of the issues many of us have complained about, and adding some awesome new features.

- all raid difficulties except the new Mystic level will flexible

- all raids are cross realm-able for normal and heroic

- Garrison! (Player housing but way cooler)

More to come when I'm not on my phone

[ragebarr 153]

Death of 10m Heorics. =(

 

Sad ragebarr is sad.

[penance 0]

death of 10m H?

[Archimage 98]

Garrison sounds much like Travian. Sending Followers on missions like in Assassin's Creed II. 

 

I wonder if Blizzard will allow us to do Old Raids (with the bosses being level 90) as Mystic, new players will at least then see what older players have gone through.

 

I just hope that Heroic and Mystic will become what their name suggests, and not be cleared within 48 hours of release.

What will happen to the Recruit-a-Friend's level from 1 - 85 when you have instant level 90? cuts the "journey" aspect of RPG short.

 

 

Looking forward to: http://www.wowhead.com/blizzcon=223521/world-of-warcraft-raids-questing-and-more-panel

NEW INVENTORY SYSTEM!!! (Cross Realm Heirlooms, Craft out of Bank, etc.) 

Seeing some old lore characters like the fathers of Garrosh and Thrall.

Item Squish
Item stat change, no reforge needed.

[Oltier 471]

Have you heard some sort of release date? I've seen end of 2014 from some sources, but I can hardly believe that.

[ragebarr 153]

death of 10m H?

 

Heroic Raids are now called Mythic raids and are for 20 players only.

[Storm 426]

Heroic Raids are now called Mythic raids and are for 20 players only.

Actually the developers made it sound more like Flex is going to be tuned harder and will become more like normal. There will be heroic flex also, and Mystic is going to be a whole new level of difficulty. Since there is only one size to tune for they can put more time into tuning fights perfectly.

[ragebarr 153]

I'm just going to link Blizzard's own equivalence chart:

 

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/november/bconWoWRAD004.jpg

 

Also, I'm going to quote Blizzard themselves on the new difficulties:

 

"The new Normal will be as difficult as Flex is today.

The new Heroic will be as difficult as Normal is today.

The new Mythic will be as difficult was Heroic is today."

[Storm 426]

So, some more stuff since I'm back in my room now.

- massive stats squish. On the test pc's here I made a dk. With the default 528 ILvl they gave us my blood dk had about 35k hp, and while I didn't have a damage meter I would estimate I was doing about 5k dps. So we're back to mid wrath expansion numbers.

- no more hit and exp! I'm happy about this, they're easy caps to hit, and if anything they just make for a small annoyance when you're first gearing up, or if you have way too much of it on your gear

- No more dodge and parry. This is kinda weird. I'll wait to see what they do to compensate

- no more str/int or agi/int gear. Primary stats will automatically change to suit your spec! This includes set bonuses!

[Peelyon 416]

 

I'm just going to link Blizzard's own equivalence chart:

 

http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2013/november/bconWoWRAD004.jpg

 

Also, I'm going to quote Blizzard themselves on the new difficulties:

 

"The new Normal will be as difficult as Flex is today.

The new Heroic will be as difficult as Normal is today.

The new Mythic will be as difficult was Heroic is today."

 

 

Am I just being sceptical or is the addition of a "new tier" (in name) of raiding just another way to make "mediocre" players feel they can clear "heroic" content?

 

Am I just missing the point? Why the new difficulty names?

 

Or did they just feel that "flexible" wasnt a decent enough term due to the restructuring? 

[Oltier 471]

They felt that, if they estend flexibility to normal and heroics, the name flexible is useless. Basically why should they keep flexible name if the other 2 are also flexible already. Normal has been dumbed down to flexible difficulty, and heroic became normal...

Mythic is the new heroic. Poor 10m groups... ^^or even 25m groups with 30-35 roster. I can understand that balancing one single raid size on mythic is easier.

But how are they going to balance Heroic (former normal) for raid size of 15? If they can manage to scale the bosses with 15 different numbers of player why is it so hard to do the same for 2 different numbers?

They said they have cool mechanics ideas that are viable with 25 people but not with 10 people. So only Mythic will include cool mechanics? 

[Peelyon 416]

Ah right ok - makes sense!

 

I suppose Normal Heroic Mythic is better than Easy Normal Heroic ;)

[Tarazet 144]

It took the entire expansion to get used to special attacks for 300-400k as a tank. A return to sanity will be a good thing. There's also the instant bump to 90. I have 8 characters at level 90 already, but if I want a Warrior, Hunter, Warlock, or Rogue, I'll be all set to play in new content.

 

I'll be interested to see what they do about professions as well. The 1-600 grind for production professions is one of the worst things about the game.

[Storm 426]

They said during the panel that most mechanics they can scale with group size by doing things where, for example: there are 2 mind controls in 10 man, with 15 there are 3 mind controls. If you have 13 people you will always get 2 mind controls and have a 60% chance of a 3rd happening each time. The vibe that I got from them during the panel though is that the main reason they went with only 20mans for mythic is because they want to devote all their time to one difficulty to make sure it is perfectly tuned to be both fun, but also only attainable by the top 5% of guilds. I really think we will see mythic being much more difficult than current heroics. Sure fights like garrosh or Lei Shen won't change because the final bosses get all the attention anyways. But no more "joke of a heroic boss" like immersius or Ji Kun

[ragebarr 153]

They felt that, if they estend flexibility to normal and heroics, the name flexible is useless. Basically why should they keep flexible name if the other 2 are also flexible already. Normal has been dumbed down to flexible difficulty, and heroic became normal...

Mythic is the new heroic. Poor 10m groups... ^^or even 25m groups with 30-35 roster. I can understand that balancing one single raid size on mythic is easier.

But how are they going to balance Heroic (former normal) for raid size of 15? If they can manage to scale the bosses with 15 different numbers of player why is it so hard to do the same for 2 different numbers?

They said they have cool mechanics ideas that are viable with 25 people but not with 10 people. So only Mythic will include cool mechanics? 

 

That's one of the things that bugs me. It means that yes, only mythic will have to coolest mechanics, and that yes, everything will scale smoothly in both normal/heroic but they won't even bother trying with Mythic.

 

At the same time, there's something that really bugs even more me with the new changes in raid difficulty. I understand why they want to do it, but at the same time they added Flex last patch, and if you guys remember, Ion Hazzikostas said that they were adding it because there was a niche of people that had no content to raid, these people being the ones who did 10m normals back in wrath. That's who flex was for. 

 

So the way it's looking now if those who did 10m normals back in wrath are going to get back to doing the new normals in WoD. Those who were doing normals today will do Heroics next expansion (10 or 25, doesn't matter since it now scales). Those who raid 25m heroic now will have, sadly, to get rid of 5 players (or have a bench 5 players bigger) but that pretty much solves itself with people stopping to play at the end of the xpac. Those who raid 10m heroics now... have no content left to play. Yes, they gold go on a recruiting spree and get 10 more people or whatever, but the reason people raid 10m heroic is because they either don't want or cannot raid with 15 more people.

 

Overall, it's not the unified raid size that bugs me. It's the fact that just this patch they added a full raid difficulty to please some people who had no raids adapted to them, and now they're removing a full raid size and difficulty while just saying to the players "Deal with it".

[Storm 426]

As long as Blizzard does something different to really push the level of mystic fights, then I'm ok with being confined to 20m. I'm fully expecting every single boss battle to be the coolest battle I've ever done, all on the level of Firefighter Mimiron, Yogg, Lich King, Death Wing, etc.

 

These fights better not be easy, or else they definitely could have just flexed mystic.

[Drafty53 17]

I was pretty pumped about almost every single change and update for warlords...EXCEPT the mythic mechanic. It really screws over 10man guilds looking to do the hardest content. It sucks for 25 man also since they will have to cut/rotate out an additional 5 people to what they already do, but for a 10man guild to effectively DOUBLE its roster just to see the mythic content is a HUGE jump to make. I know for a fact there are some guilds on some servers that WILL NOT be able to double their roster's to 20 while maintaining a high level of play from all 20 characters that will be needed to complete this content. It's going to be a sad day for 10mans if there is not some possible to fix to this hard cap of 20. As I was sitting there it was the ONLY comment all day about the expansion that made me think...well that sucks. Everything else looks super awesome.

[Brewmonksta 157]

Didnt blizzard want to get away from cookie cutter style play.

 

Dumbed down talent trees, removal of reforging, removal of hit/exp, removal of 10 man heroic.

 

At least this tier there is a defintie flow/pathway of raiding.

LFR(lol afk) >  flex 10 - 25 people  > 10 or 25 man normal > 10 or 25 man heroic

 

WoD

LFR(lol afk) > Normal 10 - 25 people > Heroic 10 - 25 people > Mystic Sorry no 10 or 25 allowed get 10 more or drop 5...

 

Some numbers that worry me are if 10Man heroic is going to dissapear:

10 heroic - 30 Garrosh kills

25 heroic - 39 Garrosh kills

Not a great difference however,

10 Normal - 6460 Garrosh Kills

25 Normal - 865 Garrosh Kills

 

10 heroic - 4743 Immerseus Heroic kills - Must now be 20 man

25 heroic - 875 Immerseus Heroic kills - Must now be 20 man

10 Normal - 21,626 Immerseus Kills - Now Flex

25 Normal - 1736 Immerseus Kills - Now Flex

 

 

With the new raid structure approx 6460 10 man guilds would be finished their raid content or forced to merge/recruit to continue to mystic. How many of these were in the first week?

There are more than 5 times the number of 10H teams that killed immerseus than 25.

 

It just looks like WoW is going to be a casual game and i just dont think that mythic will cut it as the new "hardcore" and have enough excitement about it for the 6000+ Current heroic 10 man guilds to bother recuiting and keep playing?

Edited November 11, 2013 by Brewmonksta

[Muoric 3]

I suppose Normal Heroic Mythic is better than Easy Normal Heroic

Exactly this. Same as all other games have difficulties of normal, hard and impossible compared to easy, normal and hard that they used to have in the past. Where previous easy was about as easy as current hard. Just psychology, people just don't like to clear content on easy even if that's the brutal fact of it.

[Jiilthanor 0]

Allthough i agree that it's pretty dumb change, it's not as bad as you say it's gonna be. We are continuing to get connected realms, and they are also working to upgrade the group finder hidden in the game that no one uses. They said it was going to work like certain addons do (Oqueue much?) and that should help alot with getting new people. Allthough it's not a feature for recruiting, it's definetly something we can recruit from after you see their performance. Only issue i have with this is for it to be viable, we kinda need it BEFORE the expansion releases so we can actually test the thing. But on the other hand, they said they were doing the same thing as MoP, being that the first Raid Instance is not going to be the highest focus on Heroic and things aroud that Nature. I have no idea how it was since i wasn't here for the release of MoP, but it sounded like the second tier of WoD was gonna be the start of Mythic Difficulty.

So in conclusion, i think we need to see what the expansion brings us before we complain so much our Brains just melts on our Keyboards. I recognize that the "10 Man" Heroic/Mythic is dead on Arrival, but that's something i think most can adjust to if given the right tools. I'm in a 10 Man myself and i definetly like it, but i could just as easily like a 20 man setting aswell.

That's my 2 cent's of the matter!

P.S I'm pretty darn STOKED about WoD!

Edited November 11, 2013 by Jiilthanor

[Muoric 3]

The problem is that there won't be a 5.5 incoming. So there's very little chance for 10 mans to work with prior to WoD (imo). If they follow the MoP launch timetable there will be a whopping 1 week time after WoD comes to be ready for raiding. The question is if Mythic will be available that week or not. If it's there but requires a heroic clear it'll just mean that you push asap for that heroic clear and then go for mythic considering they don't share a lock in WoD.

Group finder etc isn't going to help you that much with recruitment for mythic unless they really get connected realms working. Atm there just aren't enough raiders on some realms. Not at least ones who'd really be going for mythic.

For the big picture I think this is a good change. I just think there should be a prepatch soon that would enable flex clearing of Soo. Soon as in in a couple of months or so, which should both give current guilds time to clear it if they are inclined to do it while also leaving current 10 mans ample time to recruit up to 20 mythic and actually be able to give those people raidspots.

[Krazyito 521]

The problem is that there won't be a 5.5 incoming. So there's very little chance for 10 mans to work with prior to WoD (imo). 

 

They told the 10 mans now.  They have until when ever its released (which will probably be around summer of this year) to start recruiting and getting ready.

 

 

 

I just think there should be a prepatch soon ™ that would enable flex clearing of Soo. 

 

There's always a pre expansion pacth (6.0) that implements all the new features of the expansion.  I'm not saying that the new raiding features are going to be implemented for SoO when this happens, but you can still trial people regardless.  By the time this happens, 10 mans with a roster to start doing Mythic content should be able to easily clear through heroic SoO as a 25 man if they have already done so as a 10.

[Peelyon 416]

I know I say this a lot but I do want to mention that I'm not currently in any form of setup or raid roster at the moment.

 

If I was (going back to the days of organising my own group) I'd be a bit wary of the changes but at the same time glad that they've let players know so early.

 

What I HOPE they do is make sure that what they say they are going to do actually happens.

 

I think it would be extremely unfair for groups to try and shift shuffle recruit and do whatever they need to do in order to get their roster "raid ready" for the new expac, just for Blizzard to come along and move the goalposts.

 

The last thing I would want would be to spend all that logistic time and effort in recruiting etc just to find that Blizzard change their mind before launch.

[nicarlitos 13]

Here's my two cents on the Mythic raid difficulty....I hate hate hate the 20man concept. I can't see how it satisfies anyone.

 

From a personal perspective....

I'm in an average enough 10 man guild, we raid twice a week. We usually clear a normal mode raid (eventually) and then think about doing a few heroic bosses before the next set of content drops. In ToT this only meant two heroic bosses, but it really felt like we had achieved something. This will now stop.

 

Unless we double our roster our progression will end at "heroic". We will never get the chance to dip into Mythic with our raid team. I really like our raid team too. TBH, I don't want to mix in 10 new people let alone go through the hassle of recruiting them. 10 man is great.

 

Like I said, I don't see how this satisfies anyone. At all. Except maybe for Blizzard. Makes their life slightly easier.

 

• 10 man heroic raid teams looking to progress.......get 10 more raiders or don't bother.
• 25 man heroic raid teams looking to progress.....sorry, 5 of you are now benched. Thanks for the memories.
• Current 10/25 man heroic teams....as above. 

 

I hope blizz drop this and just revert to the time tested 10 or 25 man setups for mythic. Surely it can't be that hard to tune for 2 party sizes. They've been doing it just fine for a while now!

 

And I don't think that we'll be changing our raid team too much. Sure, we'll probably carry a few undergeared guildies through the first couple of bosses, but I just can't see us wanting to double up to 20.

 

Blizz- you've just taken away from me a part of the game that I aspire to reach.

[Krazyito 521]

First, as 10/25 has been "time tested" the results have returned negative.  There is too much "10 vs 25" debate where one thinks the other is harder than the other in difficulty (This is talking about the highest level of difficulty in raiding).  This does not help the community work together as a whole to provide positive feedback since there is information coming in from differing sides.

 

While, yes they have been tuning 10/25 for a while now, they have found (and most agree) that you can't make them equal enough in difficulty to really call it equal.

 

Next, by having only 1 raid size to tune (This hasn't happened since BC) they will be able to tune the encounter so tightly and so well that it will provide a much more enjoyable run for everyone participating in it.  

 

Blizzard has already stated during Blizzcon, this change is not meant for the short term.  Its meant to help in the long term and they understand the struggles that mainly 10 man guilds will have.  But it is a decision they have made of the longevity of the game.

 

Now, for those 10 mans that are saying "i cant double my roster cause i don't have that many people on the realm", well since Normal/Heroic is going to be flexible you can cross realm them and find new people to recruit.

 

If you just straight up don't want to raid with 10 other people (becasue you like your small raid size), well unfortunately that's just something you're going to have to give up because you're part of the minority and the real reason most people raid is becasue of the content.

 

If you don't want to raid 20 mans becasue your computer can't handle it, then don't fear.  Because of the item squish all of our numbers are going to be much smaller, hence having your computer do less work and quicker calculations.