Update from Tigole on 2.1 - Page 3

Playered · 04/02/07, 3:00 PM

Originally Posted by Mosh

Allow me to make my first contentless post on EJ please: FUCKING AWESOME.

I wouldn't go as far as to say awsome untill some more information is known, but its still pleasing to atleast hear something finally if nothing else

Quigon · 04/02/07, 3:00 PM

Also, we’ve changed the NPC cleave mechanic so that it’s now a frontal cone ability rather than a 360 degree chain attack.

This was ambiguous in his original post. It sounded like it would be frontal cone, but still chain, and therefore making it non directional anyway, since it ALWAYS will bounce off the MT, and then chain behind the boss anyway. This change is an exceptional one... and puts cleave in the category of "making sense." I love this change personally.

For example, the trash should be significantly easier to clear in most cases – and take less time. Also, we’ve lengthened the time between respawn on a lot of the trash.

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We’ve also fixed some bugs that were allowing the trash to respawn after the boss for a certain area was dead.

After you frag tidewalker murlocs near the room "despawn." Yet they respawn after soft resetting or waiting 2 hours... clearly a bug. Killing tidewalker with this change would allow for a nice safe spot to run into and summon into his room for attempts on the next two bosses (or likewise from leotheras).

These are obviously good changes. Further, this may allow for longer attempts with scalding water on Lurker below for newer guilds.

We’re making substantial changes to the way certain consumables work . In particular, Flasks and Elixirs are going to undergo major changes.

Obviously this depends on the implementation, but I think we can assume there is something to the german client/poster's stacked implications. Still, this is so ambiguous its hard to say anything. You can actually "limit" consumables, and make matters worse... just like halving raid size, and stacking is twice as important.

I hate to be the standard reply to blue that "this is great news!" And just carry on like the world has been saved because we finally heard something.

But 1. We finally have some decent communication, and one of the largest issues (trash), is being addressed.
2. Melee tuning will extend beyond just the simplistic and mostly worthless cleave changes (although that needed a fix also).
3. Consumables are up in the air, ultimate tuning is up in the air.

Depending on tuning, many guilds may still be left in the dust. We shall see. We're limited by the amount of content available, and as I said, and as the thread about what I said has discussed over and over and over... if you have a lack of content, only creativity in using what you already have (read: nerfing the hard stuff, or buffing the easy stuff) is how you keep that progression for everyone.

I'm assuming they're going to nerf SSC... its probably a valid assumption considering Hydross is way too hard for Joe Raider; sorry Joe - no offense.

This is still a sweeping problem, but not one that can be readily hotfixed, as it is more of a content concern, unless they really just fix everything in one go... unlikely, but we've seen similar tuning to raid zones in rapid fire.

Finally, the itemization is clearly better... but its really nowhere near good enough for a T5 chest imho. Its a step in the right direction... a "good start." However, there are so many items that are straight to shard... Hydross loot for instance... good lord. Its just a shame to down a fun boss, and have that enjoyment ruined by looking at loot that is just absolutely terrible, and literally not an upgrade for anyone.

Anyway, a good start is the best way to summarize this. Communication at blizzard is generally sorely lacking, so we all applaud at even the slightest amount of feedback. But there is so much to be done. As praetorian said, nothing in 2.1 will address everything, its going to be a bit of a road. Still, things could certainly be going faster...

Sounds like bureaucracy to some extent... The bureaucracy involved in shitting this expansion up in the raid game should be reallocated downward, and new blood put in control of those resources. They can, even with the expansion, have these things tuned and in on time. This HAS been done better in the past... by them, and others. I know blizzard employees work hard and all that, but come on - if Tigole has the right answer and isn't allowed to implement it, then fire or get rid of that blockade. If Tigole doesn't have the right answer, then he's the problem. But there is clearly a problem, and ignoring it is going to lead to this same shitstorm over and over again. I know the general reaction once everything is OK is to forget about it and call it even. But I just think this cycle is ridiculous... it kills the game, it causes people to quit... friends and family that quit long ago would still be here had things been tuned from the get-go. Lots to do at R&D... good luck Jeff. Nice post.

Coriolis · 04/02/07, 3:01 PM

I'm really hoping the ommision of potions from the list for consumables to be changed was unintended.

Latham · 04/02/07, 3:01 PM

He should have added in a nice "Thanks to the raiding community for beta testing our instances, we'll try harder next time". I wish the changes to the instances were going to be implemented sooner since they had plenty of time already.

levk · 04/02/07, 3:02 PM

Originally Posted by Playered

Chest goes from ilvl 101~ to ilvl 109~ (unknown bonus armor ontop?)
Would of been better to see an example of an item worse for wear on budget than this, but still its an atleast a step in the right direction.

Yeah I'm hoping they look into stuff like ribbon of sacrifice and pendant of the violet eye.

Are you kidding me?

Well other than "non-epic-dropping non-bosses" I don't see anything.

Originally Posted by Coriolis

I'm really hoping the ommision of potions from the list for consumables to be changed was unintended.

What can they really do about this though? Either lengthen the pot cooldown or retune the fights to be shorter. Latter is much harder ofcourse.

Daeus · 04/02/07, 3:04 PM

Originally Posted by Coriolis

I'm really hoping the ommision of potions from the list for consumables to be changed was unintended.

I believe they count Potions as Healing/Mana pot and not the Super healing power or etc

Elixer would be the umbrella for all potion givings Artifical increase to player power is my guess

Grogzor · 04/02/07, 3:05 PM

Originally Posted by Cryect

I'm confused how your fury warriors can put out that much DPS without pulling aggro? Are they using Tranquil Air instead of WF for this group? You're talking DPS on the order 1.1k DPS to really past rogues which is going to be very sketchy on aggro for a class with no ways to remove it besides various 2 minute cooldown items.

Berserking Stance + BoS = FTW And since you have to exceed 10% of the MTs threat to pull...start out slow and scale up...not too mention if they are behind they get to spam execute at 19%.

Docjowles · 04/02/07, 3:06 PM

Originally Posted by torrent495

Good to hear. Yeah, weekly or bi-weekly developer notes seem like a good idea with no downside. The reaction to Tigole's posts whenver he deigns to make them are almost always universally positive, anyway.

The usual argument against this is that they don't want to get people's hopes up til something is set in stone. Every once in a while, Blizzard will post an idea or a timetable, that for whatever reason ends up getting scrapped. Then, .01 seconds after the proposed deadline, the forums erupt in a chorus of "ZOMG LIEZ!!!!" posts. After getting burned by this a few times, they've chosen to swing to the other end of the spectrum and just keep entirely silent.

Although I personally think it would be awesome to read regular updates from the dev team, I can see where they're coming from.

Latham · 04/02/07, 3:06 PM

Hopefully they just make certain flasks/elixirs not stack together and then nerf the dps required to down the bosses. So instead of using a flask + 4-5 pots per attempt most raiders can use a flask in place of the dps pots or dps pots instead of a flask.

boomix · 04/02/07, 3:07 PM

Quite amusing to see such huge range of reactions in one thread. I think we all still hold out hope for this patch to be step in right direction and not a small but huge "fraking" step. Yet majority holds back from celebrating because we've seen patches in the past.

Coriolis · 04/02/07, 3:09 PM

Originally Posted by levk

What can they really do about this though? Either lengthen the pot cooldown or retune the fights to be shorter. Latter is much harder ofcourse.

You just said it right there, increase the cooldown. Make it a 5-10 min cooldown - something you'd use in an emergency or maybe once per fight, not chain-chugged as a matter of course. Unfortunately this may require retuning a bunch of encounters. The other option is to make them alot cheaper so that chain-chugging them is cheap, personally I'm against this implementation but it would probably be easier from blizz's point of view.

Playered · 04/02/07, 3:10 PM

Originally Posted by Latham

Hopefully they just make certain flasks/elixirs not stack together and then nerf the dps required to down the bosses. So instead of using a flask + 4-5 pots per attempt most raiders can use a flask in place of the dps pots or dps pots instead of a flask.

That wouldn't really be enough to justify "but for now, expect big changes to Flasks and Elixirs." personally, however trying to work out what Blizz means when they say something like this is often a pathway to delusion.

tekmatt · 04/02/07, 3:10 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

Interesting, look at his wording at the bottom of the post about Black Temple and Hyjal.

vs

Seems to me this means that BT does not have significant keying process, whereas Hyjal of course does since it requires Vash and Kael kills. The keying being the part they'd have to "look into" in order to put Hyjal on the PTR and allow *everyone* access to it.

You can't really draw conclusions off keying process of Black Temple from a post saying you can test it on the PTR.

Malan · 04/02/07, 3:13 PM

Originally Posted by tekmatt

You can't really draw conclusions off keying process of Black Temple from a post saying you can test it on the PTR.

You can't really "draw conclusions" off anything in that post, but hey, here we all are, doing just that.

Antiarc · 04/02/07, 3:16 PM

Originally Posted by Cryect

I'm confused how your fury warriors can put out that much DPS without pulling aggro? Are they using Tranquil Air instead of WF for this group? You're talking DPS on the order 1.1k DPS to really past rogues which is going to be very sketchy on aggro for a class with no ways to remove it besides various 2 minute cooldown items.

Druid main tank and a bit of lead time gives the warrior a great bit of buffer. Salvation is assumed, as well. KTM makes most of this sort of thing relatively trivial. At 1.1k DPS, assuming a straight 1-1 DPS:TPS ratio, berserker stance + salvation puts the warrior at 616 TPS. Our druid hangs around in the 700+ range pretty easily.

As a rogue, I VERY rarely have to use my threat control abilities in raiding environments. I generally only have to if I am undisciplined and jump the gun too early, which is a player problem, not a class limitation.

Edit: The only place I can think of where Vanish's threat wipe is a huge advantage every single time is on the Curator during Evoc due to the non-scaling nature of warrior tank threat as damage taken increases. Vanish just before the Evoc lets me pop AR and beat the hell out of him with reckless abandon. A warrior couldn't do that as carelessly.