Any interesting concept. However I wonder how this will play out when your trying to help someone or someone is in general chat asking for help. In other words, what do you do with groups that have characters out of sync? It would seem odd for someone to say "talk to X" when "X" isn't there for everyone.
I do know LOTRO tried this and the way they pulled it off was for every "dynamic" npc to be instanced. Sometimes a door led to a room with a quest NPC in it and sometimes it didn't. The problem there of course is that only those on the quest could go there to see the NPC. This is where the mechanism of dynamic world change can be problematic.
Now when it comes to scenery changes then dynamic works fine as it should be the same for everyone.
I think Blizzard has been careful with this so far, however. For example, the first time I really noticed this was questing in Grizzly Hills on Horde, there's a chain which leads to a questgiver dying. Once this happens, you no longer see that person. There's really no need for you to see that person anymore. True, it would seem odd to later help someone on this chain and have to say "go talk to X" when X no longer exists for you, but is that really any more odd than saying "go talk to X" when you've already killed X and she's still standing in front of you? Not really, that's just what we're used to however. But from my perspective it was a great touch, since it made you actually feel like you had changed the world somewhat.
I think there's a lot of potential with this and very few real drawbacks. Unfortunately, because I didn't realize that this was really happening before the Grizzly Hills chain, I don't have many other examples of it.. but I imagine that they've existed and I've never known about it. For example, for Horde, you're directed to Dragonblight from Borean Tundra by a chain where you're supposedly evacuating a Taunka village. When you get to your destination, the new place is filled with refugees.. which I imagine may only be visible to you if you've completed the evacuation chain. And I wonder that if I went back to the original village in Borean Tundra if the NPCs would be gone now, maybe the village would even be on fire or something. It's really interesting to think of what can be done with this.
[Edit]
Reading over the post, it's amusing that they invoked the Keanna example as well. There's also a clear example in Dragonblight when you complete the Ruby Dragonshrine chain and go see Saurfang the Younger at the Wrath Gate - the entire base disappears after you turn in the quest. Obviously they haven't completed this area and it should lead to, you know, actual quests at the Wrath Gate, but it's clear that supposedly the base is supposed to change somehow for players once you've completed the chain. I wonder how?
And yea, there's also a flightpath in Sholazar that only appears after you've helped an NPC repair his flying machine. Neat, huh? Sad that they mentioned all my examples in the post though. I doubt that anyone who's actually noticed these things would find them anything less than awesome.
For now it doesn't seem like it applies to mobs that are hostile to the player. From the original post in that thread, it seems like one NPC is killed by another and if you've completed the quest that leads to that, you don't see the first NPC at all (I'm not in the beta so that is my assumption). I doubt Blizzard will apply it to mobs that are hostile to the player, since that would essentially throw a wrench into the idea of helping out a guildie with a quest that you've already done.
Well perhaps this mechanism is in place to eliminate the problem they encountered with the nether dragon quest line. Where those who completed it can't actually fight some of the mobs anymore to help friends/etc out. Fortunately at least the boss remained, see Zuluhed the Whacked - Quest - World of Warcraft
Learned very quick to clear the one building of caster mobs as the tank and one of the dps were already "friendly" with the casters.
There's a few example of this in the Old World... but very limited. I am glad to see this being more used. (For instance, Ramadar the repair guy in Auchindoun only shows up after doing the Auchenai Crypts quest, there's also Alliance quests that have Jaina teleporting around which only players on the quest can see)
[e]
Originally Posted by ZeroWashu
Well perhaps this mechanism is in place to eliminate the problem they encountered with the nether dragon quest line. Where those who completed it can't actually fight some of the mobs anymore to help friends/etc out. Fortunately at least the boss remained, see Zuluhed the Whacked - Quest - World of Warcraft
Learned very quick to clear the one building of caster mobs as the tank and one of the dps were already "friendly" with the casters.
You can actually just hit your tab to "At War" with them. At least that's how I did the Netherwing related Quests in Netherstorm after being exalted (by the way, you don't lose rep).
I thought Ramadar was always there, you just couldn't interact with him without doing the quest.
No, you can't even see him until you finish the quest line (which involves you getting a potion to see spirits) - I've had a 5-man where 2 of us were trying to point someone to Ramadar and he thought we were jumping in the middle of nowhere . . .
There's a few example of this in the Old World... but very limited. I am glad to see this being more used. (For instance, Ramadar the repair guy in Auchindoun only shows up after doing the Auchenai Crypts quest, there's also Alliance quests that have Jaina teleporting around which only players on the quest can see)
[e]
You can actually just hit your tab to "At War" with them. At least that's how I did the Netherwing related Quests in Netherstorm after being exalted (by the way, you don't lose rep).
You can't actually. The Netherwing faction you can set "At War" with, but the Dragonmaw are flagged as friendly to you once you swear the blood oath to Mordenai. Since they aren't part of the Netherwing faction, the At War flag has no effect though.
'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.
I think Blizzard has been careful with this so far, however. For example, the first time I really noticed this was questing in Grizzly Hills on Horde, there's a chain which leads to a questgiver dying. Once this happens, you no longer see that person. There's really no need for you to see that person anymore. True, it would seem odd to later help someone on this chain and have to say "go talk to X" when X no longer exists for you, but is that really any more odd than saying "go talk to X" when you've already killed X and she's still standing in front of you?
Seems like a happy medium would be to put some sort of memorial or marker or something at that location for people for whom the NPC is dead. That way if one player is trying to help another player, it'll be less confusing. "The guy was right here, I swear! But I don't see him so I'll keep searching." "What are you talking about? You're standing right on top of him!".
(Another nice touch would be for the NPC to be there when you're a ghost.)
Enrage
Creatures that used to "Frenzy" like Magmadar, Gluth, Princess Huhuran, Halazzi, etc. now "Enrage" instead. Tranquilizing Shot has been changed to dispel Enrage effects, and the wording on all those spells and associated emotes has been changed to reflect the name change to Enrage.
Frenzy
Creatures that used to "Enrage", now "Frenzy" instead. This is the type of effect that typically happened at low health or some other combat trigger. Examples of this would be all the Blackrock Orcs in Redridge, Jan'alai's low health/timed increase in damage, Maexxna at low health, etc. These effects are not dispellable, you are meant to deal with the increased damage as part of the fight.
Berserk
Many of our boss encounters have timers where if you do not defeat the encounter within the allotted time, the boss will suddenly do RADICALLY more damage. Players are not intended to be able to deal with the damage dealt by a Berserk boss, and a wipe should be around the corner. We try not to use the "Berserk" term for nothing else but these kinds of timers.
The current beta Tranq Shot tooltip states it will remove Frenzy, Enrage and Magic, though it doesn't actually seem to work. Though according to that post the old style Frenzy effects have been changed to Enrage so I guess Tranq shot will have a tooltip change in a later build.
It was mentioned here somewhere already but bringing it up again. Given DKs current heart strike prevents (removes?) haste effects it would be a nice utility addition to make it remove enrages so it's an alternative to tranq shot.
The idea is consistent with the 10 man raiding stuff and they could make more use of the enrage too. Nothing overpowering either in my opinion.
(Futher discussion about this HS ability should probably go into the DK thread if anyone has anything to add)
I'm very curious if this will apply only to helms.
A meta socket to one nonhelm spot is I think on par with an extra inscription slot with what I see on inscriptions. I want to hear what they're doing to other professions to get up there. Another thing is would this make the item require 450 armorsmith?
I think Blizzard has been careful with this so far, however. For example, the first time I really noticed this was questing in Grizzly Hills on Horde, there's a chain which leads to a questgiver dying. Once this happens, you no longer see that person. There's really no need for you to see that person anymore. True, it would seem odd to later help someone on this chain and have to say "go talk to X" when X no longer exists for you, but is that really any more odd than saying "go talk to X" when you've already killed X and she's still standing in front of you? Not really, that's just what we're used to however. But from my perspective it was a great touch, since it made you actually feel like you had changed the world somewhat.
I think there's a lot of potential with this and very few real drawbacks. Unfortunately, because I didn't realize that this was really happening before the Grizzly Hills chain, I don't have many other examples of it.. but I imagine that they've existed and I've never known about it. For example, for Horde, you're directed to Dragonblight from Borean Tundra by a chain where you're supposedly evacuating a Taunka village. When you get to your destination, the new place is filled with refugees.. which I imagine may only be visible to you if you've completed the evacuation chain. And I wonder that if I went back to the original village in Borean Tundra if the NPCs would be gone now, maybe the village would even be on fire or something. It's really interesting to think of what can be done with this.
[Edit]
Reading over the post, it's amusing that they invoked the Keanna example as well. There's also a clear example in Dragonblight when you complete the Ruby Dragonshrine chain and go see Saurfang the Younger at the Wrath Gate - the entire base disappears after you turn in the quest. Obviously they haven't completed this area and it should lead to, you know, actual quests at the Wrath Gate, but it's clear that supposedly the base is supposed to change somehow for players once you've completed the chain. I wonder how?
And yea, there's also a flightpath in Sholazar that only appears after you've helped an NPC repair his flying machine. Neat, huh? Sad that they mentioned all my examples in the post though. I doubt that anyone who's actually noticed these things would find them anything less than awesome.
Well they could cheat their own system and use hidden aura's. For example, they build the base, and while designing they design each state of a building. Normal, burning, utterly obliterated. Completing quest could enable hidden aura which makes enables the burning building state while disabling the normal and utterly obliterated state. This way the area will seem dynamic after completing quests and only you can see the state of the quest part where you are at now.
A meta socket to one nonhelm spot is I think on par with an extra inscription slot with what I see on inscriptions. I want to hear what they're doing to other professions to get up there. Another thing is would this make the item require 450 armorsmith?
From the sound of the Blizzcast, and I may be mistaken, but it sounds like they want the key bonuses (e.g. ring enchants, black smithing weapons, engineering helms) to be available before the cap of the ability. The example given was in today's terms of 350 instead of 375. I'd imagine in Wrath this would translate to 425 with 450 being the cap. This allows the crafter access to the perk of the profession without neededing to level out the last, and typically painful, 15 points.
I am assuming that the high end recipies, such as Mongoose or epic leg armors, would still require the max level skill.
Edit:
Other perks I am recalling are self only back enchants and a flying carpet mount for tailors, belt and glove (might be bracer - can't recall off hand) sockets for smiths along with weapon smiths socketing weapons and armor smiths potentially meta socketing an armor. I don't believe they have stated anything for jewel crafting, leather working or alchemy (beyond the potion buff blood thing).
From the sound of the Blizzcast, and I may be mistaken, but it sounds like they want the key bonuses (e.g. ring enchants, black smithing weapons, engineering helms) to be available before the cap of the ability. The example given was in today's terms of 350 instead of 375. I'd imagine in Wrath this would translate to 425 with 450 being the cap. This allows the crafter access to the perk of the profession without neededing to level out the last, and typically painful, 15 points.
I am assuming that the high end recipies, such as Mongoose or epic leg armors, would still require the max level skill.
Edit:
Other perks I am recalling are self only back enchants and a flying carpet mount for tailors, belt and glove (might be bracer - can't recall off hand) sockets for smiths along with weapon smiths socketing weapons and armor smiths potentially meta socketing an armor. I don't believe they have stated anything for jewel crafting, leather working or alchemy (beyond the potion buff blood thing).
There are LW-only leg armors that are significantly better than the BoE alternative. However, they are currently melee/tank only, which seems strange given that there is a -armor cloak enchant from tailoring with no cloth melee classes, while caster druids and shaman get left out with the current LW.
I don't think that either leather working or engineering has gotten the attention, or really any profession, that is needed to fully flush it out. I think it's far too early for the "<class> has been left out of <profession>" grumblings.
I meant to ask if socketing an item places a blacksmithing requirement on the item and it appears so from the screenie in the profession thread. Because as you all know, the hardcore people would have to go level BS to 430 to socket their brand new upgrade everytime (and no offense intended I'd just never be that hardcore.) One thing left to note is if you take inscription, get your extra glyph and drop. Would it randomly drop a glyph? Not let you drop?
EDIT: Engineering is looking pretty cool. I'm sure as hell putting rocket boots on every pair of boots. And they better make the rocket launcher a shoulder enchant which is visible on character as a bazooka. The mana embroidery is tempting, but not tempting enough.
I think we definitely learned from that one and we’re going to make it so that if you’re a 25 person raiding guild right now in Burning Crusade and you go into Wrath of the Lich King, short of leveling up and doing whatever 5 person content you do with your group to level up and get geared up, we’re going to let you go right away into the 25 person content - we’re not forcing you through the 10 person content.
While it's nice that a raid group can jump straight into 25-man raiding after gearing up in 5-mans, it does make me wonder where the initial 10-mans will slot in. Since there's supposed to be some stratification in terms of what loot is dropped in 10 vs 25 mans, there is either going to be a dramatic gear jump from 5-mans to 25 mans (1.5 to 2 tier equivalent) or 10-man raids are going to drop gear that's only barely better than 5-mans. Or the third possibility (which I hope for) is that the difference between 10-man and 25-man raid loot is only going to be half of a tier.
Rocket boots at the cost of run-speed and stamina/agility/whatever? That is the real question. If you have to make the trade off, then the "engineering enchants" are little better than today.
The tiering and balancing of gear is going to be a very touchy issue, especially early on. I suspect that 25 man Naxx will drop gear that is a substantial jump, as if you could go straight into T5 from 5 mans now. This is because they don't want people to leapfrog tiers by gaming the 10/25 system.
If Naxx has a hard gear check partially through (hello again Patchwerk), it can basically require guilds to farm the early bosses for a couple of weeks before downing him. This can work for both 10 and 25 man. However, that gear check in the 25 man can't be something that will be easily met by a guild that quickly farms the 10 man Naxx, or it trivializes the 25 man for guilds that do both. The 10 man gear check can require heroic level gear, so if you've farmed 5 mans for a while you can move through without having to farm the early 10 man as well. By the time you get all the way through the 10 man and farmed it for a while, you may be able to beat the 25 man gear check, but you shouldn't be able to do the entire instance easily.
The problems really arise when you get to the next tier. Say your 25 man guild clears Naxx and then falls apart, and you are left with 10 people. You're going to be overgeared for 10 man Ulduar, because it is tuned for 10 man gear. But if you blast through it, and then get back up to 25 people, you're not going to be geared well enough to be able to skip over 25 man Ulduar and go to the next 25 man. Plus, somewhere in the mix is the two Onyxia style encounters, and whatever gearing they add in.
Overall, it's going to be a very tough thing for them to balance, and I suspect we'll see even more gear tweaking and adjustments than we did in BC, unless they've spent a ton of time calculating and balancing things out, or they don't care that guilds that do both 10 and 25 mans could have a substantial advantage.
Rocket boots at the cost of run-speed and stamina/agility/whatever? That is the real question. If you have to make the trade off, then the "engineering enchants" are little better than today.
It's too early to say that the Rocket Boot part is the only thing that engineering is going to end up with. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to think that engineers will end up with some enticing reasons to keep the Prof. All it really needs is one best in slot choice (one enchant that is better than the enchanting alternative) to be valid for 98% of the raiders out there. There will always be a profession that is enough better that 2% of raiders will change professions but I think Blizzards goal is to balance for the 98% rather than the 2%.
Inadvertently a cold-blooded water-breathing vertebrate with a mood disorder.
I'm most likely picking up PoJ with a sheath build and as a healer I lose 4mp5 in today's terms from vitality? Easy choice to make. I used to put on the old AP rocket boots back when they didn't have caster ones on movement stuff, they save lives.
Another thing to think about though is if blacksmiths get a meta slot they can choose what they want. Jewelcrafters pick the gems they want. Inscribers pick whatever they want for extra glyph. Enchanters have a choice of enchants for rings. Looks like going to be the same for tailoring, as a paladin healer I have nothing to put on a cloak and basically the insightful meta there is far more than I could ask for. Engineering has always been a little left field there; sure boots would work out very well for me, but for example rocket launcher instead of the aldor/scryer shoulder enchant? Doesn't work out too well. Something said about haste to gloves? What if I didn't want haste, can I get something else?
My other profession is LW and I understand a lot of people would like just extra stats on leg armors, but me personally I'm a sucker for stuff like tailoring is getting with the cloaks more. It's just more fun when there's visible stuff happening.
08/11/08, 9:43 AM
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