seminarca

On the other hand, there were excellent Plate crafted items for frost/nature resist for Hydross, whereas Druids had to scrounge up AH greens just to meet the resist requirements. On top of this we had to somehow get 2.6% crit immunity. I remember way back when having to come up with a 295 resist crit immune set for this fight. Once my resist/crit requirements were complete, I had a set that used every single slot for either resist or crit reduction stacking, i.e. I had no room for threat stats at all.

For Illidan, I'd agree with you. There was parity in the gear available, which is one reason Druids were such good Flame tanks. Because of the great badge resist gear, we didn't need as many slots for resist stacking, so we could fit in lots more threat gear. In WotLK, the need for Druids to stack crit reduction goes away as well, further increasing our options.

It's interesting, also, to see how resist gear has progressed over time. In Vanilla, it was horrible in general. Tier 1/2 content, you had random smatterings of resist on the tier gear itself. Focused resist items weren't well itemized in general, and you needed to replace a whole lot of normal gear for resist items just to meet requirements.

AQ40, and aside from the alleged nightmare of Mara / green dragon farming, the options were slightly improved. The items themselves were better designed as well. And finally Naxx brought in the Frozen Rune mechanic, which is widely regarded as a good idea.

TBC saw random "of x resistance" items change to "of x protection", which came with a decent helping of Stamina. Not to mention, crafted items were of better quality, and you had the aforementioned badge FR gear. The most significant change was the amount of slots needed for resists. In Vanilla, you'd have to drop a lot of good gear to be able to make resist requirements. In TBC (especially re: badge fire resistance gear or Heart SR gear) you had fewer slots to swap, but the items you swapped in had higher resist numbers.

Fast forward to WotLK, and we are now down to 3 crafted FrR items, each one having a huge amount of resist. This, I think, is a far better way to deal with resists than the old methods. The fewer items you need to swap, the less of a hit you take to your preferred stats.

With the lowering of items swaps required and with a Frozen Rune or Heart of Darkness mechanic, I think resist fights are great.

Fully agree with you on resist mechanics though, 0/25/50/75 steps are disgusting, the damage reduction needs to be continuous in some way, not in huge ugly steps.

 

Prinsesa

Note that elemental melee attacks are now blockable as of 3.0/WOTLK, which should help in the damage reduction department quite a bit for Warriors and Paladins.

As for resistances, I've heard that partials resists are now in steps of 10%, but I'm not sure if that was anything more than a rumor (IIRC it cropped up around the time the spell hit cap was said to be 9%).

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Valerys

I wonder though, will it be possible to constantly transfer a level 55+ character between different realms and use that one character to create DKs on all those realms?

 

Korhaug

Probably. But you would still have to pay for the trasnfers, and incur the cooldown on character transfers.

 

raiod

Why should you want to transfer your lvl 55+ character to create deathknights?
Just create a DK on your home server, transfer it, create another one and transfer it to another realm.
According to Blizzards FAQ, this should be no problem.

 

Malleus

Really? I think resist fights are mildly annoying, but a Heart of Darkness mechanic turns them into a shitty cockblock.

Mother is a perfect example. I've seen guilds stalled longer on Mother than on the previous six bosses plus 4/5 Hyjal combined, because they were progressing well but only collecting 10 or 12 Hearts a week for their SR gear. Once they've got the SR gear she goes down in three pulls or less and they're inevitably on Illidan within at most one further reset.

The drop to three pieces over 4-5 for Sapphiron is a good change, but unless Frozen Runes have a higher drop rate than Hearts it's still not good. Grinding metal, leather, cloth and Eternals to progress is acceptable. Being dependent on random drops to progress is not.

 

Korhaug

Another interesting point about Frozen Runes will be their drop rates in 25 vs 10 raids. If the drop rate is similar, the 10-man raid will become a much better place to farm them.

Also, don't forget that Frozen Runes drop in the introductory raid. It can be expected that a lot more people will be doing Naxxramas then there were in BT/MH at the time. And seeing as these people will not all progress at the same rate, it should allow for a lot more leeway in gearing. I expect to start seeing Frozen Runes on the AH very soon after most people start to raid (say 2-3 months after release).

 

songster

It seems to me that one solution would be to also allow the purchase of resist gear (or of Frozen Runes) through the appropriate Tier of badges. Make it more akin to the Primal Nether / Nether Vortex economy than the HoD economy.

 

Stopokingme

I don't know where this Frozen Rune derail came from, but the current craftable frost resist pieces don't require them, and there don't seem to be any dropping from the new Naxxramas. The current craftables require Frozen Orbs, which are the new Primal Nethers.

Here's the list of them: Items - World of Warcraft

 

sadistic

What this would mean, if I read you correctly: You "pay" for your resistgear with items that could instead be used to boost your normal gear. This in turn means that you are giving up gear that you will get a lot more mileage out of, for gear that you will use rarely.

I think a combination of the AQ/Naxx solution would be best, have each boss drop one (or x) "extra" item(s) that is an resist item. In addition in an instance where resistgear is needed you can place the resistboss late in the instance, and also have trash/bosses drop <x> runes. This would mean that you get some gear "for free" through bosses, some gear "freeish" through runes, and the ability to buy runes from other guilds/AH if you progress faster then the "normal" pace (which ideally should gear your guild almost good enough through bossdrops/runes.

Have the runes work like HoD's so you get some extra effort to craft the items (and the gear isn't just 100% free).

Now thrash my idea please so we can find the best compromise.

 

seminarca

Well, it depends. After they added HoDs to Hyjal trash, it made it less of a cockblock. Also, you didn't need the entire raid to be fully kitted with all the crafted stuff (legs, for example, were shown to have the lowest SR/HoD ratio). You could get away with using a green shadow protection item here or there. You also didn't absolutely need the entire raid to be sitting at 295 unbuffed, my guild's first Mother kill was with a mean SR of somewhere around ~230 if I recall correctly.

 

tedv

We scheduled farming of the Mother Shahraz trash during raid times. And we also setup our own farming groups on weekends and before the raid that cleared the place every half hour. Trash drop epics went at reduced prices and people in the farming raid got priority on the epic gems (which was a big deal at the time), and all hearts went to the guild bank. I think we had a full raid of shadow resist in two weeks. If you're stalled on mother for a month or more because you have no hearts of darkness, then that seems like an issue with your raid scheduling. There's a reason Blizzard made the pre-Shahraz trash is a bunch of AoE trash packs that drop the full Black Temple loot table.

 

Malleus

Yes; the issue is that the guilds in question scheduled raids. It may be alright for a serious/hardcore guild racing to complete the game as fast as they can to knock off one of their five or six raids each week to spend four hours grinding trash and spend their nights off doing likewise, but ask a typical raiding guild to do that and people will leave - or it simply won't get done - because it's not fun.

Switching to the equivalent of Nethers is a good move, as they're guaranteed drops. "OK, guildies, you each need to do 15/20/25 heroics before we're 13/15" is a lot more palatable than, "OK, guildies, the RNG hates us, so tomorrow's raid is cancelled and Sunday night is Tedium Night!" Most people will have done a bunch of heroics already in the course of gearing up for Naxx, so if you tell people to set aside X Frozen Orbs for their resist gear they'll probably have the mats by the time they need it. That's how to set up a resist fight - let people accumulate the required gear in the course of properly playing the game.

 

Sydane

Seriously, if your guild would rather cancel a raid than farm trash in order to get progression, they deserve to be stonewalled. Personally I was surprised they never added Hearts of Darkness to the badge vender after adding Vortexes, it would have been a nice compromise for guilds that hadn't had enough time to farm them, but the system as it was implemented worked fine, once Hearts were added to Hyjal trash.

The FR badge gear was frustrating because only a few people in the guild needed it, and whomever was going to get it would have to make a personal sacrifice of badges that there was no way for the guild to supplant. Asking an entire guild to push back upgrades they could get in order to have a resist set they will barely use certainly isn't going to go over better than having them be raid drops and needing a bit of extra farming would.

The bag space issue is definitely the worst though, one of the things I'm most looking forward to is disenchanting about 15 pieces of resist gear and related pieces the moment LK hits. Maybe the ability to turn your gear back in for a refund, or trade it for a normal piece using something like the sunmote system, would encourage guilds to reach a point where they leave that set behind and move to the next instance. If need be, you could include the ability to trade back for a fee.

Empathy does not imply approval.

 

Lithose

I am guessing you never played EQ and there for have never farmed "bane" weapons. This concept, carried to even a moderate level, is not good..For example, if their basis for "resists" is anticipation then surely they can expand that, right?

What if Kel'thuzad got "Lich Kings Buff XX" and to hurt him you need special "heat blades", that could only be crafted after farming shards for them from bosses. In order to damage him, you would need to have a "Heat blade" equipped in your weapon slot, only then would your spells or melee hurt him.

But why stop there?

What if to make the fight harder, heat blades were Ilvl70 green equivalent items? Items you wouldn't even use on an alt, but since they are the only thing that can damage Kel, you have to use them.

If you think what I stated was absurd, you're probably right but this situation was how content, for some time, was made "harder" in EQ...When keys, resists and atunements weren't enough to slow progress, we had to make specialized weapons.

Resist fights are a type of "bane" system, its just less extreme. My main problem with them is that they detract from the consistency of gear progression..Why did we farm all that normal gear only to have to wear resist gear, which is gear that we will never touch outside of a few encounters? (Perhaps even one, Badge fire resist anyone?)

 

Ukerric

From bosses? You're too kind. I'd make them drop 10% of the time, from random spawn named. And, of course, one for each weapon, so dual wielding characters would have to farm them twice.

Yes. Perfect. Since it's used to craft weapons, we'd call it a metal. Make it a strange green one, for added mystery.

(in case you wonder, I put a candle every week or so for the fact that, as a cleric, I did not had to farm the Emperor Bane weapons alluded above)

Farming for a gimmick item, be it resist stuff or bane weapon, or "seed of X weakness" is simply a delaying mechanic. The goal is to prevent you from raiding a specific target until you've spent X weeks "preparing", by opposition to simply gearing normally in the normal course of raiding until you're ready to drop your target. And that's something they really, really don't want (witness the "thou shalt not have to farm consumable for raid"), but resist fights are the last bastion of that antiquated design.

 

Sydane

The way it is being done with Sapphiron is probably ideal. You don't have to have any Frost Resist, but if you don't, the encounter is much more difficult to the point that you probably want to bring more healers. So early on, when guilds are undergeared, using a couple pieces will make the encounter much easier. Later, when people are overgeared and farming for badges, they won't have to worry about grabbing their FR sets, they will be fine without them.

Obviously, you can take any mechanic too far. They clearly are removing a lot of things like attunements from the game and that's basically what anything like that is. Getting full SR sets is basically attuning your raid for Sharaz. The resist fight mechanics however often encourage guild cooperation (farming primals for gear sets for Hydross, farming Hearts, and so on), which is a good thing in terms of MMO design. I really don't think we have to worry that much about Blizzard going overboard in terms of creating those systems, especially if they already proved unpopular in other games.

Incidentally, this line of discussion is probably better suited for the About Design thread.

Empathy does not imply approval.

 

jurgan

I do have a question and I apologise in advance if the issue has already been raised.

I was in Icecrown last night and I wanted to nip to Un'goro for a Devilsaur (I'm a hunter). And I've not done many of the quests in Icecrown and so not done any quests at Fleshwerks. Now I asked a Mage if he was able to give me a portal to Shattrah. He said yes, invited me to a group and so I went to join him at the Fleshwerks.

Now here's the problem. Not sure if its a bug or not.

He had already completed quests at the Fleshwerks and I haven't. And we all know how there's the Dynamic Phasing system thats in play for the quests. So it would appear, or at least seems, that due to that, the bug arose. Because he had advanced, the game has altered for him whereas it is still the same for me. As a result to his progression he was unable to see me. And I was unable to see him due us being on different stages of the quest area. Wasn't able to access a portal dropped.

I only really thought about that situation after I logged and not gone back in to test it. Just wondered if its a problem or just a little cosmetic bug.

Sorry once again if the issue had already been raised.

 

Totemtoter

I think the biggest fault with SR farming for Mother is that a guild with a casual attendance policy pays a heavy price for it. If you need to gear up 50+ people to field 25, it really is a lot more annoying.

If the system were less frequent HoD drops that every player in the raid could loot, it would do a lot to keep casual guilds viable. That would mean the new guy has to get benched on the resist fight instead of snagging some HoDs from the guild bank though, so there's still problems.

 

songster

I've suggested before that they could do something this, only in reverse. Make a bane weapon that's craftable by getting X drops from that boss. So Hydross could drop 1 Tainted Shard per kill. Get 10 Tainted Shards, and make something that you can use to weaken Hydross. What's the point to such an arse-about system?

1) It takes some of the pain out of farming bosses you can already kill with your eyes shut.

2) Over time, the Tainted Shards will wind up on the AH, forming a source of income for the higher end guilds that need it to pay for consumables, while providing a leg-up for the lower end guilds to actually see some of the content.

 

Addled

What you're describing is basically the intent of vanilla WoW's [Onyxia Scale Cloak], which was relatively straightforward to craft, as the only "rare" reagent required were the Onyxia scales. I liked that system: since there are a limited amount of dragon scales available, raids can slowly, but constantly, gear up people for the Nef fight. And you saw that mechanic in work in early BC, where Kael and Vashj dropped a limited number of scrolls for people to attune themselves to the next tier of raid dungeons.

To be honest, I have never understood why people hated Princess Huhuran so much. I remember, as a holy paladin, gathering a ton of NR gear from Mara, having guild blacksmiths craft the plate NR pieces for me... only to have our MT decide that he wanted me in my Judgement gear, not NR gear, so I could maximize my healing throughput. We ended up having perhaps half the raid in their NR gear to soak; rest of the raid was in full DPS/healing gear and we killed the Princess fairly quickly. I actually still have a [Nightmare Engulfed Object] still in the bank. I didn't turn it in because there seemed no point to it; the MT wanted me in throughput gear, I went in throughput gear (For those of you who didn't raid preBC, the NEO was a drop off any green dragon that started a simple quest to retrieve [Malfurion's Signet Ring]).


The main thing behind a resist fight is: Blizzard wants to slow progression in a justifiable way so the content lasts longer. Well, that's fine, I just wish Blizzard wouldn't make it so darn expensive (in terms of badges, gold, Hearts, etc) and redo the Onyxia Scale Cloak design.

 

Corronach

It could be done in such a fashion that guilds will push to see how few of X item they need to kill the boss, and could then be another testament to skill. I like the idea.

 

Aditu

I don't think people mind farming for resists as much as farming resists in retarded places. If every class had a badge turn in for resist gear via the armor vendor, I think we'd be able to live with it.

 

bv728

There's a Sapphiron achivement for doing it with average FR below some value which results pretty much in FR having no effect on the fights (120?).

So it's already there for Saph. I'd say Saph should be like Curator; doable without the Resist gear, but noticably harder early in progression.

 

PSGarak

I heard tell of a guild that rerolled from my old, established server to a new one (before paid transfers), and very quickly got leveled up and started hitting the raids. Having already seen and beaten all of the content, repeatedly, they only needed their dungeon blues and some ZG drops, and breezed through MC and ony in less than a month and were facing down Nef with only 3 ony kills under their belt. And that is where the raid-crafted system Got Stupid(tm). They were absolutely ready to kill nef, except for the ony-scale cockblock. In essence, they were punished for beating the content to fast.

Slowing down content progression is good, but there are several ways not to do it. Making it grind-tastic is bad (Maraudon). Making the block's artificiality very apparent is bad (ony cloaks). And, in my opinion, making the entire fight *only* about the outside preparation, with little player skill involved, is bad. Fortunately I haven't seen many of those fights, Ragnaros still took playing (at the time), Huhuran took much more raid coordination that just farming gear (especially after horde needed tank rotations), and Nefarian took some balls-to-the-wall playing your first few times. Insert-NR-for-epix is bad game design.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Garak.png