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  1. - Top - End - #1351
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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Man. I started in BC, and can't imagine playing on a BC server.
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    Quote Originally Posted by KillianHawkeye View Post
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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by The_Jackal View Post
    Oh, I liked the redesign of the world just fine. Getting flying in all areas was fantastic, and the new zones were stupendous. I really loved Azshara, I only wish they'd put in reasons to go back after you finished questing there. Deepholm was also a great standout, with good story and great visuals, and the addition of Scenarios was also, I thought, a good innovation, which I'm sorry they left behind. I feel like they should have kept Scenarios as the '3 man casual queue content' and put Heroics back to 'arranged team' content.
    Weren't Scenarios introduced in Pandaria? And even when Heroics were hard (BC, Cata) I was okay Pugging those, so I don't want to force those back into being "arranged team" necessarily. Speaking personally I succeeded much more often with a good group than I failed with a bad one.

    Quote Originally Posted by The_Jackal View Post
    But even Wrath, which I loved, heralded the beginning of trends that, I feel, were destructive to the health and stability of the game. Chief among them was bifurcating the difficulty of raids. Rather than simply accept that raiding was natively to be a challenging exercise, both logistically and in terms of gameplay, they basically put in a multi-tiered raid system, and of course, added a queue later. This perversely destroyed the relevance of dungeons, which were, in Vanilla, BC, and Wrath, my favorite form of play, which accounts for part of the utter mediocrity of the dungeon experience in later WoW. Simply put, dungeons don't matter anymore. The other part of why modern WoW dungeons are terrible is that they're too small, designed to be run in 15 to 30 minutes. But by turning every dungeon into a mere 'boss alley', it robs the game of any sense of place. What I loved about Vanilla was how Blackrock Depths feels like an actual CITY, which stores and barracks and a prison and a bar. You didn't need to do the whole thing, you could plot your own course, and pick off the bosses you want. Same with Scarlet Monastery, or Razorfen Kraul, or Dire Maul. These places were massive, sprawling edifices to explore, and really made the game feel amazing, and when they all got reduced to a 15 minute loot sprint run by one Mythic geared Druid blowing up everything he glances at, the game just feels pointless.
    And here's where you lost me, but I think you knew that. My low opinion of sprawling, bloated, byzantine, pseudo-raid "dungeons" like BRD is pretty well-documented by now.

    Rather, I'll just point out that I don't think "making raids more accessible" and "making dungeon difficulty trivial" necessarily have to go together. Legion dungeons were actually fun and a little challenging, including staples like "the more difficult optional boss" and "optional thing your group can do to clear the dungeon a little faster that also raises the difficulty." Rather, I think it's LFR that is truly extraneous. If they want something to bridge the gap between 5-mans and raiding, I think Mythic+ serves that role, while being an endgame in its own right, much like Nightfalls do in Destiny.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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  3. - Top - End - #1353
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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    I think they said at Blizzcon that the classic zones wouldn't scale completely from 10-60; the specific example was something like the Barrens being a 'low-mid' zone and Plaguelands being a 'mid-high' zone. So maybe brackets like 1-10,10-40, 40-60, etc.?
    So when they say "mid-high" zone, they later clarified that that was going to set the minimum level of the zone, while all zones from classic would cap at 60.

    The idea is you want all of the content to scale so you have enough time to finish the content, but you want to keep that feeling of "I've wandered into a place I'm not ready for yet" where you cross that zone boundry and start seeing skull level mobs. Similarly the cap is put in based on expansion level so that you do get that feeling of progression and that content now being trivial to you once you get past the expansion. So while the starter zone might be 1-60, you'll see a place like Darkshire as 20-60, and Plaguelands might be more like 40-60.
    If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?


  4. - Top - End - #1354
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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    I joined in Cataclysm and I am curious about vanilla servers if not exactly waiting for them. I would welcome a few modifications to normal classic (as I have heard levelling can be quite dull) but I would also be very accepting for pure vanilla servers for those who wanted them for so long. Point is: Without events the content eventually will get stale. Maybe they should roll out 1.0 in the first 6-9 months, then gradually add the other classic patches. But what will happen when you hit the end of classic? Will you then have "history" servers, going through BC onward?

  5. - Top - End - #1355
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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    They've declined to answer whether they're going to add BC, WotLK and so on servers as well.

    (And I mean "declined to answer," not "acted like they didn't hear the question." So I'm hopeful.)

    If I was in charge of Blizzard, I'd launch one server, named Azeroth, which would be, permanently, in the state the game was in the day before the BC-preparation patch launched; one server, named Outland, which would be, permanently, in the state the game was in the day before the WotLK-preparation patch launched; and one server, named Northrend, which would be, permanently, in the state the game was in the day before the Cataclysm-preparation patch launched. If they were popular enough that I needed to add more servers of that type, than I would, but one of each would do for a start--defined as PvE, and not explicitly RP. I told one of my guildmates about this when Cataclysm was the current expansion and Deathwing wasn't yet available to be fought, so he'll vouch for me having thought of this long ago, if you can track him down. People who wanted Legion's "improvements" could go on playing Legion.

    If people indicated seriously wanting classic PvP servers, not just idly (or fervently) speculating about what Blizzard would do, I'd have one each of those, too.

    If Blizzard does exactly what I just described, I'll play on Classic until the BC server is announced and then not at all (not ever, if they're all announced at the same time), play on the BC server for the foreseeable future, and play (death knights only) on the WotLK server occasionally.

    If their "classic" servers have "let's get to the endgame!" modifications or "get mashed together with other servers!" modifications, then I'll continue not playing WoW in any form.

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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    And here's where you lost me, but I think you knew that. My low opinion of sprawling, bloated, byzantine, pseudo-raid "dungeons" like BRD is pretty well-documented by now.
    Maybe BRD was a bit extreme. I would like to see more nonlinear dungeons, though. I would prefer for dungeons that are topologically just fancy decorated tubes with only one path forward to be the minority. Eye of Azshara is a nice design, for instance.
    Quote Originally Posted by Harnel View Post
    where is the atropal? and does it have a listed LA?

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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by gomipile View Post
    Maybe BRD was a bit extreme. I would like to see more nonlinear dungeons, though. I would prefer for dungeons that are topologically just fancy decorated tubes with only one path forward to be the minority. Eye of Azshara is a nice design, for instance.
    Something like the Halls of Origination jumps to mind?

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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by gomipile View Post
    Maybe BRD was a bit extreme. I would like to see more nonlinear dungeons, though. I would prefer for dungeons that are topologically just fancy decorated tubes with only one path forward to be the minority. Eye of Azshara is a nice design, for instance.
    Maybe dungeons which are dungeons instead of glorified monster gauntlets. Yannow, with traps, with switching monster groups. They do not have to be as hard as Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub Heroics.

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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by gomipile View Post
    Maybe BRD was a bit extreme. I would like to see more nonlinear dungeons, though. I would prefer for dungeons that are topologically just fancy decorated tubes with only one path forward to be the minority. Eye of Azshara is a nice design, for instance.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    Something like the Halls of Origination jumps to mind?
    See, I loved both of these. And Sunken Temple was probably my favorite pre-Cata dungeon of all time. So I don't mind a little non-linearity/backtracking. But BRD went way past the pale.

    It also made no damn sense. They send just 5 people to assault the entire Dark Iron civilization? That should definitely have been a raid, except the Horde wouldn't really give a crap about what was going on in there, other than maybe freeing some slaves or something?

    You do need some linear dungeons too though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sporeegg View Post
    Maybe dungeons which are dungeons instead of glorified monster gauntlets. Yannow, with traps, with switching monster groups. They do not have to be as hard as Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub Heroics.
    I'd love things like traps but they're just not as fun with WoW's current engine, where nothing has clipping or a hitbox higher than the floor. The next big fantasy MMO will hopefully be able to have much more diverse challenges than the monsters themselves in each instance.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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  10. - Top - End - #1360
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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    except the Horde wouldn't really give a crap about what was going on in there, other than maybe freeing some slaves or something?
    In the old quest, Thrall sent heroes to rescue the dwarf princess as a diplomatic gesture, hoping it would lead to long-term peace, or even a formal treaty, with Ironforge. And of course it backfired because Moira wasn't actually mind-controlled and was more inclined to declare eternal war on those who had killed her husband.

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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    In the old quest, Thrall sent heroes to rescue the dwarf princess as a diplomatic gesture, hoping it would lead to long-term peace, or even a formal treaty, with Ironforge. And of course it backfired because Moira wasn't actually mind-controlled and was more inclined to declare eternal war on those who had killed her husband.
    That's the best excuse they could come up with to get the Horde invested? Yeesh.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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  12. - Top - End - #1362
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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Back before they came up with the "the Horde and the Alliance fighting is explicitly eternal and positive" stuff, potentially going from a tense cold war footing to one of true peace had great value...but yes, Blackrock Mountain's denizens, up to Nefarian and down to Ragnaros, always were much more incidental enemies to the Horde and active enemies to the Alliance.

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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    BRD is the one dungeon I have never, ever cleared. I keep getting lost in that thing. I once wandered in there on my 90 mage (I had the drill machine remote thing) and while I slaughtered everything I could find, I still missed a lot I just flat out couldnt figure out. I understand that a hallway dungeon that leads you from a to b to c in a straight line can be dull, but geez that was nuts. The worst part is I remember the emperor or king or whatever he was, had a weapon my shaman wanted. It was one of his extremely rare drops, but I never got to fight the guy, let alone farm him. Sunken temple was kinda cool, and I liked the wings of scarlet monastary, but neither of them are quite right, Sunken temple was, "You are in the center chamber. Go to the single room to the north, the single room to the east, west and south, then come back." No real exploration, just go to the hallway till you reach the chamber at the end, then kill the mini boss and come back to travel another hall. Scarlet was like 5 dungeons in the same building, but they were pretty much single hall trips for each of them.
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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    Back before they came up with the "the Horde and the Alliance fighting is explicitly eternal and positive" stuff, potentially going from a tense cold war footing to one of true peace had great value...but yes, Blackrock Mountain's denizens, up to Nefarian and down to Ragnaros, always were much more incidental enemies to the Horde and active enemies to the Alliance.
    See, the Blackrock Orcs I could understand as being a universal threat. They're trying to weaponize dragons after all, and that would have disastrous implications for everybody. I could even see the Dark Irons as being strategically valuable ancillary targets due to helping supply them with materials, slaves, and what have you.

    But "save the Dwarven princess" is another matter entirely. Doing that might weaken the DIs, but it would absolutely strengthen Ironforge/Magni, who would no longer have a reason to hold back in the region (as he - mistakenly as it turns out - thought it was a hostage situation.) It's as pointless as the Horde helping to retake Gnomeragan, or quell the Stockade riot. Some dungeons just make more sense as being faction-specific; I almost don't blame Garrosh for thinking Thrall was a weakling if he truly authorized that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Traab View Post
    Sunken temple was, "You are in the center chamber. Go to the single room to the north, the single room to the east, west and south, then come back." No real exploration, just go to the hallway till you reach the chamber at the end, then kill the mini boss and come back to travel another hall.
    No, that's new Sunken Temple. The old one had 3 floors and something like 8 bosses that you could do in nearly any order. It was a ton of fun, not to mention being a tailor and leatherworker's paradise.
    Last edited by Psyren; 2017-11-11 at 09:44 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    For a while, before Mists of Panderia came out, I thought they were going with both Thrall and Garrosh having valid, if opposed, philosophies on how to lead the Horde. Thrall would always push for peace; Garrosh would reflexively retaliate against any threat. And when Varian declared war despite all Thrall's efforts, he realized the best thing he could do for the Horde was step aside for someone who could provide the war leadership his faction needed, unhampered by his reflexive desire to find a way to appease Varian.

    But then, of course, they went with, "no actually Thrall just put a monster in charge of the Horde for no reason and Varian was eager to make peace as soon as Garrosh wasn't there anymore" instead.

    Edited to add: Not that I think the "rescue the princess of Ironforge" thing was quite that irrational; Magni would have lost a tremendous amount of face in front of his people if the Horde had actually returned his unharmed, grateful-to-be-rescued daughter, who he hadn't been able to rescue, to him and he had responded with, "Yay, I have no reason not to immediately attack you now!" The public perception of honor, if not the reality, was always important to the Alliance, and to the dwarves most of all.
    Last edited by Kish; 2017-11-11 at 10:03 PM.

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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    For a while, before Mists of Panderia came out, I thought they were going with both Thrall and Garrosh having valid, if opposed, philosophies on how to lead the Horde. Thrall would always push for peace; Garrosh would reflexively retaliate against any threat. And when Varian declared war despite all Thrall's efforts, he realized the best thing he could do for the Horde was step aside for someone who could provide the war leadership his faction needed, unhampered by his reflexive desire to find a way to appease Varian.

    But then, of course, they went with, "no actually Thrall just put a monster in charge of the Horde for no reason and Varian was eager to make peace as soon as Garrosh wasn't there anymore" instead.

    Edited to add: Not that I think the "rescue the princess of Ironforge" thing was quite that irrational; Magni would have lost a tremendous amount of face in front of his people if the Horde had actually returned his unharmed, grateful-to-be-rescued daughter, who he hadn't been able to rescue, to him and he had responded with, "Yay, I have no reason not to immediately attack you now!" The public perception of honor, if not the reality, was always important to the Alliance, and to the dwarves most of all.
    Right, because all the other times the Horde saved their skin mattered so much to the Alliance
    (Hell, didn't we just come off of Thrall throwing his people's lives into Archimonde's meat grinder for the Night Elves' sake?)

    You're right though - they turned Garrosh into a rabid dog in seemingly mere moments of him assuming power, with no better justification than daddy issues.




    Rereading my post, I realized I sounded like I wanted BRD to be Alliance-specific. That's not the case - for a dungeon with that much detail crammed into it (however creaky and bloated I personally feel that made it), they absolutely should make it doable by the entire playerbase rather than one faction.

    Just... give the Horde a better reason to be there. Maybe instead of rescuing Moira, they're recovering something valuable that Dagran stole from them. Like, I dunno, maybe he took Doomhammer to use with his dark iron and make a WMD or something. That would be a quest worth risking Horde lives for. (I know, I know, not that kind of hammer, but still.) And it would even let you still use Dagran as the final boss. Some of my favorite dungeons are the ones that have dual-faction lore reasons to be there - like how both the Forsaken and the Worgen are leading the charge in Shadowfang Keep, for different reasons.
    Last edited by Psyren; 2017-11-11 at 10:14 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    If I was in charge of Blizzard, I'd launch one server, named Azeroth, which would be, permanently, in the state the game was in the day before the BC-preparation patch launched; one server, named Outland, which would be, permanently, in the state the game was in the day before the WotLK-preparation patch launched; and one server, named Northrend, which would be, permanently, in the state the game was in the day before the Cataclysm-preparation patch launched. If they were popular enough that I needed to add more servers of that type, than I would, but one of each would do for a start--defined as PvE, and not explicitly RP. I told one of my guildmates about this when Cataclysm was the current expansion and Deathwing wasn't yet available to be fought, so he'll vouch for me having thought of this long ago, if you can track him down. People who wanted Legion's "improvements" could go on playing Legion.
    Brilliant!

    Not that I'd play on any of these servers, but I think it'd please a lot of people.
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    Quote Originally Posted by KillianHawkeye View Post
    As a DM, I deal with character death by cheering and giving a fist pump, or maybe a V-for-victory sign. I would also pat myself on the back, but I can't really reach around like that.
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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by danzibr View Post
    Brilliant!

    Not that I'd play on any of these servers, but I think it'd please a lot of people.
    And then we would hear tons of whining like "Aww MAN! I wanted to play the game from patch 1.205 back when it was GOOD! Not From patch 1.207 when they nerfed my favorite thing!" Come on, you know it would happen. Because everyone has a different idea of what the "perfect" point in the game was. Personally for me it was having my enhance shaman in dungeon blues beat the tar out of a warrior in molten core raid dps gear in a warsong gulch fight, but im cruel like that. (Enhance shaman were so op for awhile there, with a good 2h weapon and a windfury crit even the tankiest warrior could lose half his hp in an instant)
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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    I'm sure people would post things like that.

    I'm just not sure any of the people posting them would be people sincerely interested in any form of Classic, rather than trolls (Internet, not Azeroth) who regarded wanting Classic servers as a big joke.

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    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sporeegg View Post
    I joined in Cataclysm and I am curious about vanilla servers if not exactly waiting for them. I would welcome a few modifications to normal classic (as I have heard levelling can be quite dull) but I would also be very accepting for pure vanilla servers for those who wanted them for so long. Point is: Without events the content eventually will get stale. Maybe they should roll out 1.0 in the first 6-9 months, then gradually add the other classic patches. But what will happen when you hit the end of classic? Will you then have "history" servers, going through BC onward?
    Hmm, well, eventually I suppose everyone will beat Naxx and something new is required. That said, very few people actually did that pre-BC. If memory serves, something lower than 1% of players downed any bosses in Naxx at all. There were enough raids before that, with some hard gear-checks to get there, so it just wasn't terribly fast to run out of content. Depending on how they release the content, it could last quite some time. On the flip side, how to do the raids is much more available information now.

    But, sooner or later they'll indeed hit a point where folks will want additional content. I'm generally down with this, so long as it's in the style of classic. This means no new continents, no flying mounts, sticking to 60 as the level cap, etc. After all, if you're just doing all the same updates as the main game, it kind of...becomes the main game. Just on a time delay. If folks were really eager to eventually play the game that wow is now, they could just...go play wow. So, I don't think that's a viable path for vanilla fans.

    You could maybe have different servers with higher content for people to transfer to if say, someone is a particular fan of TBC, but nothing after it. That said, that risks fracturing the playerbase. There have been so many updates and patches that maintaining servers for all of them would eventually become ridiculously difficult. Classic and Modern is a pretty decent split for now, I think.

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    And here's where you lost me, but I think you knew that. My low opinion of sprawling, bloated, byzantine, pseudo-raid "dungeons" like BRD is pretty well-documented by now.

    Rather, I'll just point out that I don't think "making raids more accessible" and "making dungeon difficulty trivial" necessarily have to go together. Legion dungeons were actually fun and a little challenging, including staples like "the more difficult optional boss" and "optional thing your group can do to clear the dungeon a little faster that also raises the difficulty." Rather, I think it's LFR that is truly extraneous. If they want something to bridge the gap between 5-mans and raiding, I think Mythic+ serves that role, while being an endgame in its own right, much like Nightfalls do in Destiny.
    BRD was my favorite dungeon. It just felt delightfully complex and alive. For something set in a giant city, I think that feel is important. That said, not every dungeon ought to be that. Variety is nice. Onyxia, for instance, has a ridiculously straightforward dungeon layout. Go into the dragon cave, kill the dragon. In some ways, that's extremely simple, but it's still fun, and it feels right for that encounter, I think.

    So, in terms of overall dungeon design, I think it's best to have a variety, rather than stick to any one magic formula, which will then feel samey. If every dungeon were like BRD, people would rightfully complain that wayfinding was too difficult, but if every dungeon were a straightforward hallway of stabbing, it'd get boring really quick. I think that modern wow seems to have shied away from both extremes(BRD and onyxia), and most modern dungeons represent some midpoint of the two...which is not at all a bad thing, and is probably going to be decently liked by a lot of people, but means that dungeon runs will overall feel a lot more similar to each other, thanks to lower diversity.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    BRD was my favorite dungeon. It just felt delightfully complex and alive. For something set in a giant city, I think that feel is important. That said, not every dungeon ought to be that. Variety is nice. Onyxia, for instance, has a ridiculously straightforward dungeon layout. Go into the dragon cave, kill the dragon. In some ways, that's extremely simple, but it's still fun, and it feels right for that encounter, I think.

    So, in terms of overall dungeon design, I think it's best to have a variety, rather than stick to any one magic formula, which will then feel samey. If every dungeon were like BRD, people would rightfully complain that wayfinding was too difficult, but if every dungeon were a straightforward hallway of stabbing, it'd get boring really quick. I think that modern wow seems to have shied away from both extremes(BRD and onyxia), and most modern dungeons represent some midpoint of the two...which is not at all a bad thing, and is probably going to be decently liked by a lot of people, but means that dungeon runs will overall feel a lot more similar to each other, thanks to lower diversity.
    I didn't experience Onyxia, but I did do Gruul who was fairly similar so I get where you're coming from.

    As for BRD, I'm just of the opinion that that level of complexity doesn't need to be in dungeons at all. Make it a raid - not only does it make more sense narratively (5 people vs. a city... doesn't), but it also greatly increases the group's chances that someone knows where they're going. I can't count the number of times I've zoned into BRD (in those horrible pre-Outland LFG doldrums) to end up with a group who was as clueless as I was about where to actually go, not helped by the fact that the entrance has multiple different portals to choose from.

    In fact, why don't we have any "10-man dungeons?" Something that requires two parties, but is much more forgiving than a raid. LFR is a clownfiesta because it forces you to have the full 25-man group, so nobody is paying attention to anything and getting carrried anyway. Something like a Cata heroic where the two groups have to communicate just a little - even if only by marking targets - would be ideal.

    Anyway, I digress - for complexity, the most I'm willing to tolerate is the likes of Wailing Caverns, Maraudon or Dire Maul - something that isn't just a monster corridor, but that pugs can actually learn without a divining rod and a gps.
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    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    I didn't experience Onyxia, but I did do Gruul who was fairly similar so I get where you're coming from.

    As for BRD, I'm just of the opinion that that level of complexity doesn't need to be in dungeons at all. Make it a raid - not only does it make more sense narratively (5 people vs. a city... doesn't), but it also greatly increases the group's chances that someone knows where they're going. I can't count the number of times I've zoned into BRD (in those horrible pre-Outland LFG doldrums) to end up with a group who was as clueless as I was about where to actually go, not helped by the fact that the entrance has multiple different portals to choose from.

    In fact, why don't we have any "10-man dungeons?" Something that requires two parties, but is much more forgiving than a raid. LFR is a clownfiesta because it forces you to have the full 25-man group, so nobody is paying attention to anything and getting carrried anyway. Something like a Cata heroic where the two groups have to communicate just a little - even if only by marking targets - would be ideal.

    Anyway, I digress - for complexity, the most I'm willing to tolerate is the likes of Wailing Caverns, Maraudon or Dire Maul - something that isn't just a monster corridor, but that pugs can actually learn without a divining rod and a gps.
    Taking on an entire city does seem suitably epic for a raid. That said, for 5 man, it also felt good, because the scale of the dungeon was such that you simply didn't go murder everything. You waited for patrols to pass to bypass them, and went on specific runs, avoiding much of the dungeon. So, it felt like a daring incursion into enemy territory. Particularly so if you engaged in stealth runs or other shenanigans, which the dungeon worked pretty well for.

    I do think they should have different sizes as well, ideally. Not everyone loves the full on 25 man raid, or the 40 person raids of classic wow. That large of a run just brings a lot of complexity in organization, and getting everyone on the same page can be a challenge. Fine if that's your cuppa tea, but for everyone it isn't.

    UBRS was nice as a 10/15 man dungeon, though. I don't see any particular reason why that sort of thing can't be brought out again. It's a good in between experience, with a lot of the high points of both raiding and five manning.

    Maraudon basically broke down into purple or orange side, if memory served. Dire Maul had very specific, fairly linear runs heading out from a central hub. That sort of dungeon design is the sort of standardization I'm talking about. It's most folks's favorite design, because they can do a specific wing easily and with low navigation trouble. Unfortunately, because it's well liked, it runs into overuse issues. At present, quite a number of dungeons look something like this. A number of sub-runs that are basically linear branching out from a hub. Quest destinations have become designed similarly(quest hubs have always been part of wow, but it's gradually gotten more and more closer to a standard, with fewer exceptions).

    BRD was basically just an entire zone inside an instance.

    I wonder if it'd have felt different if the zone was on the world map, and only specific portions of it were instanced(corresponding roughly to traditional runs)? That gets you a structure far closer to the standard, and it feels different, despite having pretty much the same content. I guess the instance doorway really matters.

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    ...I have no idea what page I was typing this for, but I got pretty far with it and it happened to still be saved... Has been stuck in quotation box for clarity of old topic.

    Speaking as someone who was never super hard into WoW(have never actually been level cap, half due to alt-itis and half because I just... didn't play a whole lot), I agree with the sentiment that Wrath of the Lich King was the peak. It introduced plenty of new lore, but was not oppressive with how much was contradicted or revealed from no previous mention(looking at you, Broken Isles, turning a bit-piece from WC3 into an entire expansion's launch content and devaluing Wrathon with a War of the Ancients era Black Dragon that was purified by a practical nobody with a newly-introduced Titan Artifact)

    My own opinion on the value of an expansion is, essentially, how much fanfiction and RP it decanonizes. BC? Lots of stuff changed immediately. Thrall's heritage revealed, Grom retconned into having a son and extended family who didn't drink the demon blood, Kael became another case of "lol corruption" to add to the list of characters murdered for raid bosses and Illidan... Not quite derailed, but a heck of a lot more extreme than we've seen previously. It fits the WC3 characterization for Illidan reasonably well, albeit with problems for the people wanting a redemption arc because Arthas sure as **** wasn't getting one. Oh, also the whole Dranei=Eradar thing, which doubtlessly got a lot of people in a tizzy.

    Wrath of the Lich King? Some conspicuously-previously-absent Nordic inspirations, a couple new subspecies and mostly just new lore that explained more things. Having to retcon around the Titan works... not really subplot, but kinda-sidestory, was a blunder, but the way they handled it made a lot of sense. Even if it had lolcorruption involved, it gave an opening to properly explain the Curse of Flesh and some of the surroundings of Loken. Like why the Loki expy was in charge instead of the Odin expy(was Odyn actually part of the lore at that point? Not sure...)

    In regards to the WotLK raid splitting causing problems for Dungeons, there's an argument to be made in support of it. One of them is simply extending the grind area. The other is that it gives a reason to grind through the current content. Do the same for Dungeons and replace LFR difficulty with Heroic dungeon loot and you've got yourselves a nice extention. More stuff like the Ahn'qiraj "war" would certainly give room for more dungeons with narrative weight, as you have a place to put side objectives to the raid somewhere else. A more dynamic version of the Ahn'qiraj war where you have to keep doing the dungeons and raids to keep the raids open and surrounding area player-accessible would also assist in keeping dungeons relevant.

    To use Ahn'qiraj in particular as an example, imagine having a dungeon or two that's nothing but the absurdly fortified route out of Ahn'qiraj that the Silithid are using to attack places. These attacks actually happen in game, but going through the dungeons reduces the number of enemies that come for the attacks. If you let the attacks get severe enough, the Silithid overrun questing hubs and set up nigh-unbreakable guard forces around important entrances, cutting you off from your raids and forcing the raid group to do dungeons to clear the path to their progression. It forces some variety, instead of just grinding week after week with little to do in between.

    An equivalent in Wrath of the Lich King could have sufficient progress from the Scourge lead to Wintergrasp being attacked, so that the PvP players have to go off and PvE to clear up their battleground. And the Scourge would have the ability to actually take Wintergrasp, leading to "PvE" content that is mostly PvP mechanics. And you get to run over zombies with siege tanks, while you're at it. Pain to make? Yes, but it breaks down some of the player base separation by forcing overlap.
    The reason I even came back was to bring up some basic ideas for a Dark Ranger class, because it's kinda absurd to have only one class that actually relies on ranged weapons in the game after fourteen years. And there's at least some potential foreshadowing with Sylvanas promoting a guy to head the training of non-Elf Dark Rangers, so playable Forsaken can get their bony hands on it. I can't really think of details for what I think would work, because so many of the ideas I can think of either overlap too much with existing classes or have huge fundamental problems in one use case or another.

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    Yes, Wrath was the finale of several story arcs and thus a true finale for a game series that has revolved around a single character like Arthas for so long. But I do not think the writing was that much better than in the other expansions. You just got hyped up because many relatable characters were involved.

    You had Jaina and Sylvanas. With Guldan and Illidan out of the picture (for now), the story could unfold with important set pieces (Thrall is NOT a major character! Just as I do not accept Varian to be one). The next expansion they did a major mistake. They didn't portray the human side of Deathwing/Neltharion, making his threats empty, and his appearance divorced from reality. I know, he is an ancient dragon and not very "human" to begin with. But Wrathion was a well written character. As was Ebonhorn (imho). His plights, fears and desires were not shown as with Arthas. It was just a big thing to hit in the end raid (no matter if with or without tentacles).

    Pandaria did better with no 'clear' end game villain. I feel Lei Shen was a great villain - if only to show that killing him does almost nothing to the Sha - and the message of non-violence is well displayed. Why they had to throw Garrosh under the wheels and not a more power hungry character like - say - Sylvanas or Gallywix is beyond me. Draenor was ****ing weird to be honest. It would have been better if the entire middle of the story (Shattrath and its raid) wasn't cut completely.

    And Legion is cool mechanically and the Nightborn are fantastic. But everything else is just so bog-standard fantasy that it hurts my heart.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    ...I have no idea what page I was typing this for, but I got pretty far with it and it happened to still be saved... Has been stuck in quotation box for clarity of old topic.



    The reason I even came back was to bring up some basic ideas for a Dark Ranger class, because it's kinda absurd to have only one class that actually relies on ranged weapons in the game after fourteen years. And there's at least some potential foreshadowing with Sylvanas promoting a guy to head the training of non-Elf Dark Rangers, so playable Forsaken can get their bony hands on it. I can't really think of details for what I think would work, because so many of the ideas I can think of either overlap too much with existing classes or have huge fundamental problems in one use case or another.
    It's not absurd to have only one class that relies on ranged weapon use when there are a bunch of ways to blast things with magic from range. I DO think it's absurd there's still not a way to use spears for sustained ranged damage when the WC3 horde unit did exactly that. I believe this is Blizzard's most fundamental and persistent error in creating and sustaining a World of Warcraft.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Icewraith View Post
    It's not absurd to have only one class that relies on ranged weapon use when there are a bunch of ways to blast things with magic from range. I DO think it's absurd there's still not a way to use spears for sustained ranged damage when the WC3 horde unit did exactly that. I believe this is Blizzard's most fundamental and persistent error in creating and sustaining a World of Warcraft.
    I heartily agree. This was one of my primary beefs with WoW, going all the way back to the beta: There were all these great Hero concepts from Warcraft III that were simply unrealized, and in the case of the few that did get built, they wound up being a) realized wildly differently, and b) conflicting or eclipsing the bog-standard classes they populated the game with during the design phase of WoW. The only classes that made it anywhere close to their Warcraft III antecedents were those classes that were the Ileast innovative or interesting: Paladin, Mage. For classes like the Death Knight and Demon Hunter, they were definitely implemented, but because they stepped on their 'parent' classes wholesale (Warrior, Rogue, respectively), they ricocheted between being over-complicated, under-differentiated, and overpowered. Then there's the cool, flavorful Heroes that were simply never realized. Where was the Blademaster? Far Seer? Priestess of the Moon? Warden?

    That's not to say WoW wasn't a great game, but I always felt that the 'you == special' premise that WoW offered was handled wrong. There's no lack of NPCs telling you how great you are, but very, very, VERY few episodes where they show you being great. The cutscenes from Warlords of Draenor were a classic example of this: The party slogs through content, only to watch the named NPCs do a giant victory lap while you look on. By contrast, SW:TOR does a great job of making your character feel much more crucial to the class and planet arcs, companion stories, etc. If only you could take the single-player parts of SW:TOR and put the Blizzard team in charge of the game-design and world-building.

    A lot of this I actually put on Jeff Kaplan. I have a lot of respect for him as a smart designer, but he clearly came at WoW with very little attachment to the lore/fluff, and simply attacked the problem with a 'Let's fix all this awful garbage in EQ'. Which, to his credit, he did, very, very well. But some of the WoW flavor didn't make the jump. Oh well.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Icewraith View Post
    It's not absurd to have only one class that relies on ranged weapon use when there are a bunch of ways to blast things with magic from range. I DO think it's absurd there's still not a way to use spears for sustained ranged damage when the WC3 horde unit did exactly that. I believe this is Blizzard's most fundamental and persistent error in creating and sustaining a World of Warcraft.
    First, it is kinda absurd. The way magical attacks work is rather different from physical attacks, because weapon damage means nothing for the casters and quite a few mechanics function differently between them, as well. For instance, several abilities specifically block magical damage and, IIRC, armor only applies to physical damage (which makes wands wondrously crazy damage dealers in twinking, because nobody's packing good magic resistance). There's one way to do major physical damage from range, and it's only available for one class (BM Hunter and Demolock are able to be shut down with AoEs a startling amount of the time). Plus, it gets annoying having weapon types that exist for only one class' use, though personalized loot fixed the actual mechanical problems with that (Oh look, the raid boss dropped nothing any of us can use!)

    Second, spear throwing had some logic issues that kept it from being a thing early on, when ammo was still a thing, but with ammo gone (and a legendary rendered nothing but a statstick in the process) the issue of having hundreds of spears on hand is no longer there. As-is, it only makes sense for Survival Hunters because nobody else has baseline ranged abilities to shoehorn in throwing polearms and staves. It is, admittedly, a thing many people would probably like as an option, because melee hunters had a bad reputation right up until Legion's overhaul to make them not Bethesda-level jank. Warriors (and Paladins, but they have enough medium-ranged damage for a melee-focused class as-is) could use some such abilities, but they typically use swords and axes, not polearms. And throwing a two-handed axe directly at the enemy, with WoW's artstyle, just looks silly because of how absurdly huge the things tend to be. And Blizzard tends to shy away from specific-weapon-type-restricted abilities. Usually gets restricted to handedness and categorization (melee/ranged, 1h/2h, rogues have some dagger-specific ones and I can't think of much else)

    Quote Originally Posted by The_Jackal View Post
    I heartily agree. This was one of my primary beefs with WoW, going all the way back to the beta: There were all these great Hero concepts from Warcraft III that were simply unrealized, and in the case of the few that did get built, they wound up being a) realized wildly differently, and b) conflicting or eclipsing the bog-standard classes they populated the game with during the design phase of WoW. The only classes that made it anywhere close to their Warcraft III antecedents were those classes that were the Ileast innovative or interesting: Paladin, Mage. For classes like the Death Knight and Demon Hunter, they were definitely implemented, but because they stepped on their 'parent' classes wholesale (Warrior, Rogue, respectively), they ricocheted between being over-complicated, under-differentiated, and overpowered. Then there's the cool, flavorful Heroes that were simply never realized. Where was the Blademaster? Far Seer? Priestess of the Moon? Warden?
    They got split apart or were miniscule subsets. Far Seer is a very specific subset of Shaman that's only relevant for RTS style gameplay. Every ability Far Seer has was on Shaman at one point, but Farsight got phased out alongside the other flavorful abilities with minimal mechanical use, Spirit Wolves is a pseudo-defensive CD (the damage has basically never been a major contribution), Earthquake was a CD AoE CC... thing and Chain Lightning is part of a core rotation(even though I wish they'd cut it out with the lighting!).

    The thing is that the character classes were based on Ye Olden RPG, not Warcraft 3. The game wasn't built with the assumption that you'd be some madman mixing abilities from three different disciplines (Blademaster is Rogue/Warrior/Shaman, all at once, while Warden is Rogue/Mage), but that your character is a really good <insert class>. A lot of your complaints vanish when you add multiclassing, because all the abilities are there, or used to be. They just got split between the classes as thematically appropriate.

    That's not to say WoW wasn't a great game, but I always felt that the 'you == special' premise that WoW offered was handled wrong. There's no lack of NPCs telling you how great you are, but very, very, VERY few episodes where they show you being great. The cutscenes from Warlords of Draenor were a classic example of this: The party slogs through content, only to watch the named NPCs do a giant victory lap while you look on. By contrast, SW:TOR does a great job of making your character feel much more crucial to the class and planet arcs, companion stories, etc. If only you could take the single-player parts of SW:TOR and put the Blizzard team in charge of the game-design and world-building.
    Agreed on this. Like, when you've downed Illidan, you should start being The **** for a lot of things. Why couldn't they have the tank use Ashbringer for the Lich King fight, so that the tank gets damn good recognition as "The Guy Who Broke Frostmourne" instead of just being the beatstick? Warlocks get to throw goddamn meteor golems at things, Mages are twisting space and time to be in three places at once, the Priest responds to their death by turning into an angel... Meanwhile the Warrior just gets hit while being angry. There's little super-flashy bull**** for the tank being a tank in terms of what they are doing. Sure, they're surviving incomprehensible horrors... But so is the rest of the raid.

    I also think they introduced too much new lore with Legion, particularly in having the previously available Legendaries be ignored. Why, exactly, couldn't they have Unholy or Blood DKs go around with an upgraded Shadowmorne? Or have Elemental Shaman ignite Sulfuras' remaining spark of Ragnaros, focusing on fire for once instead of MORE LIGHTNING! And removing them is just lazy. I understand the mechanical point, but could you at least have had the reason we need to get rid of our Artifacts be that they're already corrupted from being present for an exploding Void Naaru and used to fight a Fel-infused World Soul? Then we at least have the plot hole of "why not make dedicated containment things so we can keep our Artifacts?" covered up somehow.

    Some of the Artifacts were made on the spot and we know that there's weapons of similar capacity to store power (like Shadowmorne, a weapon specifically designed to match Frostmorne's potential, which in turn had shards of it(not even all the shards, mind you) be used to make a major Artifact pair) to use for the "holding corruption" thing. Hell, Felo'melorn is so powerful just because it's old. Are you saying there's no other similarly-old High Elven weapons able to handle being infused with that kind of power for containment? There's too many alternatives to giving up our artifact weapons. It wasn't an immediate danger by any stretch of the imagination, there were at least weeks to go digging for alternatives and it's canon that all of the Artifacts exist in lore at the same time.
    Last edited by Morphic tide; 2018-01-03 at 09:41 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Morphic tide View Post
    First, it is kinda absurd. The way magical attacks work is rather different from physical attacks, because weapon damage means nothing for the casters and quite a few mechanics function differently between them, as well. For instance, several abilities specifically block magical damage and, IIRC, armor only applies to physical damage (which makes wands wondrously crazy damage dealers in twinking, because nobody's packing good magic resistance). There's one way to do major physical damage from range, and it's only available for one class (BM Hunter and Demolock are able to be shut down with AoEs a startling amount of the time).
    Those are spreadsheet problems, not concept execution problems, though. There's no conceptual or mechanical or development reason you can't have a second or third or fourth ranged DPS spec that isn't a spell-flinger. I also am mystified why whatever Legion designer got 'spear hunter' lodged into their head, to the point where they basically destroyed my favorite spec for the class.

    Plus, it gets annoying having weapon types that exist for only one class' use, though personalized loot fixed the actual mechanical problems with that (Oh look, the raid boss dropped nothing any of us can use!)
    Well, Legendary weapons wound up that problem, in what I think was the most graceless and least appealing ways possible: Every member of the spec has the same weapon! While I liked how they did an advanced progression system that gave daily quests and other open-world content meaning, I think the decision to remove weapon options from specs was a heavy blow to personalization, which is a critically important part of the RPG fantasy. They had just done all this cool work with transmogrification to let people build a unique look, and after two expansions, they basically tore it in half. In any case, the loot table issues have *always* been self-inflicted. City of Heroes had personal loot and a difficulty slider, and if you were fortunate enough to have played the game before it was shuttered, you would have enjoyed one of the most friendly, fun communities you've ever experienced in an online game.

    Second, spear throwing had some logic issues that kept it from being a thing early on, when ammo was still a thing, but with ammo gone (and a legendary rendered nothing but a statstick in the process) the issue of having hundreds of spears on hand is no longer there. As-is, it only makes sense for Survival Hunters because nobody else has baseline ranged abilities to shoehorn in throwing polearms and staves. It is, admittedly, a thing many people would probably like as an option, because melee hunters had a bad reputation right up until Legion's overhaul to make them not Bethesda-level jank. Warriors (and Paladins, but they have enough medium-ranged damage for a melee-focused class as-is) could use some such abilities, but they typically use swords and axes, not polearms. And throwing a two-handed axe directly at the enemy, with WoW's artstyle, just looks silly because of how absurdly huge the things tend to be. And Blizzard tends to shy away from specific-weapon-type-restricted abilities. Usually gets restricted to handedness and categorization (melee/ranged, 1h/2h, rogues have some dagger-specific ones and I can't think of much else)
    They had throwing weapons, back before Cataclysm started ripping the complexity from the game. Also, hunter melee weapons were most certainly not stat sticks, with abilities like raptor strike and wing clip offering burst potential and crowd control, and there was nothing stopping Blizzard from using relics, wands, throwing knives, etc. to add more interesting abilities into the game. If they'd put a tenth of the creativity they put into Legendary weapons into making ranged slot items interesting for non-hunters, then there's no reason they couldn't have kept the complexity and depth, in lieu of the path they wound up taking.

    They got split apart or were miniscule subsets. Far Seer is a very specific subset of Shaman that's only relevant for RTS style gameplay. Every ability Far Seer has was on Shaman at one point, but Farsight got phased out alongside the other flavorful abilities with minimal mechanical use, Spirit Wolves is a pseudo-defensive CD (the damage has basically never been a major contribution), Earthquake was a CD AoE CC... thing and Chain Lightning is part of a core rotation(even though I wish they'd cut it out with the lighting!).
    Yeah, gutting the flavor abilities was another trash tier decision I wish they hadn't made. I loved Eagle Eye, Kilrogg, etc. Yes, I know they wound up cobbling abilities from various WCIII Heroes (Avatar from the Mountain King, for example), but there was still an immense blandness to much of WoW's classes that I felt was avoidable. Really, the notion of classes is something that I think is holding WoW back, and other MMOs besides. A more a-la-carte ability system would have been harder to balance, perhaps, but would have offered a lot more customization. If you look at what Diablo 3 has done with their ability selection, or Wildstar with limited action sets, there's TONS of potential there.

    The thing is that the character classes were based on Ye Olden RPG, not Warcraft 3. The game wasn't built with the assumption that you'd be some madman mixing abilities from three different disciplines (Blademaster is Rogue/Warrior/Shaman, all at once, while Warden is Rogue/Mage), but that your character is a really good <insert class>. A lot of your complaints vanish when you add multiclassing, because all the abilities are there, or used to be. They just got split between the classes as thematically appropriate.
    No doubt, but I also think that the uninspired adherence to 40 year old gaming tropes is one of the main things holding MMO design (and class-based game design in general) back. Hence my preference for systems that offer more choices to the player.

    Agreed on this. Like, when you've downed Illidan, you should start being The **** for a lot of things. Why couldn't they have the tank use Ashbringer for the Lich King fight, so that the tank gets damn good recognition as "The Guy Who Broke Frostmourne" instead of just being the beatstick? Warlocks get to throw goddamn meteor golems at things, Mages are twisting space and time to be in three places at once, the Priest responds to their death by turning into an angel... Meanwhile the Warrior just gets hit while being angry. There's little super-flashy bull**** for the tank being a tank in terms of what they are doing. Sure, they're surviving incomprehensible horrors... But so is the rest of the raid.

    I also think they introduced too much new lore with Legion, particularly in having the previously available Legendaries be ignored. Why, exactly, couldn't they have Unholy or Blood DKs go around with an upgraded Shadowmorne? Or have Elemental Shaman ignite Sulfuras' remaining spark of Ragnaros, focusing on fire for once instead of MORE LIGHTNING! And removing them is just lazy. I understand the mechanical point, but could you at least have had the reason we need to get rid of our Artifacts be that they're already corrupted from being present for an exploding Void Naaru and used to fight a Fel-infused World Soul? Then we at least have the plot hole of "why not make dedicated containment things so we can keep our Artifacts?" covered up somehow.

    Some of the Artifacts were made on the spot and we know that there's weapons of similar capacity to store power (like Shadowmorne, a weapon specifically designed to match Frostmorne's potential, which in turn had shards of it(not even all the shards, mind you) be used to make a major Artifact pair) to use for the "holding corruption" thing. Hell, Felo'melorn is so powerful just because it's old. Are you saying there's no other similarly-old High Elven weapons able to handle being infused with that kind of power for containment? There's too many alternatives to giving up our artifact weapons. It wasn't an immediate danger by any stretch of the imagination, there were at least weeks to go digging for alternatives and it's canon that all of the Artifacts exist in lore at the same time.
    The whole introduction of standard-issue legendaries was a can of worms from word one, and honestly, they're one of the main reasons I can't see myself buying 'Battle for Azeroth'. I know you've got Doomhammer, but instead you should take this sharpened bone you looted from a dead murloc. Because that's a rational power fantasy.

  29. - Top - End - #1379
    Ogre in the Playground
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    May 2013

    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    Quote Originally Posted by The_Jackal View Post
    Those are spreadsheet problems, not concept execution problems, though. There's no conceptual or mechanical or development reason you can't have a second or third or fourth ranged DPS spec that isn't a spell-flinger. I also am mystified why whatever Legion designer got 'spear hunter' lodged into their head, to the point where they basically destroyed my favorite spec for the class.
    It's absurd because this chunk of mechanics is only used at range by one class. Meanwhile, the other setup is used abundantly in both melee and ranged (ever noticed how many DK and Paladin abilities deal magical damage?) DPS roles. We have one class for physical ranged damage, and it does extremely little for the setup.

    As for destroying the old Survival spec... Go sit in the corner with the crying Demolocks who got their metamorphosis taken away to be handed to the DHs, the BM Hunters who are now stuck with a menagerie instead of their superbeast, the Rogues who have to deal with their favored spec being replaced by pirates of all things and the Enhancement Shaman who are still complaining about losing their tank status.

    Well, Legendary weapons wound up that problem, in what I think was the most graceless and least appealing ways possible: Every member of the spec has the same weapon! While I liked how they did an advanced progression system that gave daily quests and other open-world content meaning, I think the decision to remove weapon options from specs was a heavy blow to personalization, which is a critically important part of the RPG fantasy. They had just done all this cool work with transmogrification to let people build a unique look, and after two expansions, they basically tore it in half.
    Well, the idea of the artifact weapons is a good one, in my opinion. It provides the vital role of actual ability progression at level cap, a thing the Honor Talent system provides more of in PvP. Azurite gear... Doesn't feel like it works, because you're looking for new pieces of gear that have different abilities on them. You aren't progressing your existing abilities, you're digging for a better set of abilities.

    They had throwing weapons, back before Cataclysm started ripping the complexity from the game. Also, hunter melee weapons were most certainly not stat sticks, with abilities like raptor strike and wing clip offering burst potential and crowd control, and there was nothing stopping Blizzard from using relics, wands, throwing knives, etc. to add more interesting abilities into the game. If they'd put a tenth of the creativity they put into Legendary weapons into making ranged slot items interesting for non-hunters, then there's no reason they couldn't have kept the complexity and depth, in lieu of the path they wound up taking.
    I know they had throwing weapons, I forgot that the things didn't use ammo. The issue of thrown spears still being an obvious melee-viable item persists, and would probably work as a way to have a "switch hitter" that swaps between actual ranged attacks and actual melee attacks. Probably having abilities that don't care what range mode you're attacking with. Could make Survival Hunter not pure melee.

    ...And I mentioned ranged weapons being stat sticks for non-Hunters, not melee weapons being stat sticks for Hunters. And for a sizable chunk of the game's lifespan... melee weapons should stay as stat sticks because the majority of your actual damage dealing is unusable in melee (was it mid-late TBC or WotLK that removed the minimum range?)

    Yeah, gutting the flavor abilities was another trash tier decision I wish they hadn't made. I loved Eagle Eye, Kilrogg, etc. Yes, I know they wound up cobbling abilities from various WCIII Heroes (Avatar from the Mountain King, for example), but there was still an immense blandness to much of WoW's classes that I felt was avoidable. Really, the notion of classes is something that I think is holding WoW back, and other MMOs besides. A more a-la-carte ability system would have been harder to balance, perhaps, but would have offered a lot more customization. If you look at what Diablo 3 has done with their ability selection, or Wildstar with limited action sets, there's TONS of potential there.
    May I point you to Project Ascension? It's a private server for WoW that goes and tries to make point buy in WoW work. Among other things, Sinister Strike deals 75% damage when used with two-handed weapons. It's a glorious mess because everyone can have anything. It's based on the Wrath of the Lich King engine, but last I checked it was restricting itself to Classic content.

    Admittedly, the attitude for nerfs is kinda off, with a lot of nerfs bashing silly builds like 100% uptime metamorphosis. The output is nothing compared to other builds that use resources more efficiently. A guy got to 25k HP as a bear and 3k DPS isn't unheard of. PvE content is balanced around these numbers.

    No doubt, but I also think that the uninspired adherence to 40 year old gaming tropes is one of the main things holding MMO design (and class-based game design in general) back. Hence my preference for systems that offer more choices to the player.
    It's a trope at this point. People don't quite know how to deal with classless systems, how to approach them in the first place, so they don't really see any attempts at use. Blame D&D for being a linear piece of **** that happened to establish a market.

    The whole introduction of standard-issue legendaries was a can of worms from word one, and honestly, they're one of the main reasons I can't see myself buying 'Battle for Azeroth'. I know you've got Doomhammer, but instead you should take this sharpened bone you looted from a dead murloc. Because that's a rational power fantasy.
    The reason we're moving away from artifacts is because Sargaras stabbed Azeroth and we have to draw out the corruption somehow. For some retarded reason, it's required to be our artifact weapons. Which include the skull of an Eredar warlock, an intelligent Old-God affiliated dagger, a staff made of a being of pure arcane energy and a branch of the tree that The World Tree burned down in WC3 to kill Archemond was a shoddy knock off of. That last one is a highway straight to the Emerald Dream, so shoving a large fraction of the power of Sargaras into it is a bad idea.

    As for Artifact weapons inherently being a problem... Kinda. Being fixed to one per spec is a problem, yes, and I kinda wish that the Azurite gear would be a more direct continuation of the mechanic (it seems to be modern talents built into the item, rather than picking points to put in things), but they serve a good narrative purpose for showing that **** Got Real and we're a bunch of actually-lore-relevant badasses now.

    A core part of the problem is that the specs have gotten more divided as the game goes on, making it extremely hard to make a single set of improvements work for multiple specs. Having cross-spec rotational abilities, or more common situational abilities cross-spec, makes it so that you can actually do this. Carefully wording other abilities to apply to multiple specs as desired, as well as having spec-specific rotational abilities apply to each valid spec's abilities, gives some vital flexibility in character archetype.

    As an example, the Paladin artifacts could let Protection spec Paladins choose between Ye Olden Self Heal by sharing the (current) Holy artifact and life leach (it's blasts of holy power, why isn't it healing you for whacking people with it?) by using Ashbringer, as well as damage mitigation for the board-users. Actual damage output would be only marginally different, as spec abilities and talents provide enough to deal with the numbers upset, but you end up with very different feels for mechanically similar characters.
    Last edited by Morphic tide; 2018-01-04 at 12:36 AM.

  30. - Top - End - #1380
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Imp

    Join Date
    Feb 2010

    Default Re: WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

    It's not absurd to only have one class of ranged physical damage dealers because "I shoots it with my bow/gun" makes it hard to differentiate between classes. How exactly would you make a ranged weapon using physical damage dealer that doesn't notably encroach on the territory already occupied by MM (which ate old SV) and BM?
    This signature is no longer incredibly out of date, but it is still irrelevant.

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