2.4 PTR and Patch Notes - Page 50

acx · 02/14/08, 1:48 PM

Originally Posted by Merple

Who's up for a jumping puzzle next expansion? Or a game where the tank is required to play DDR?

Thaddius and Heigan not good enough?

Riallatar · 02/14/08, 2:00 PM

Originally Posted by acx

Thaddius and Heigan not good enough?

I think that was the point of his joke.

Thaddius, Heigan, Noth, etc.

They're all new and interesting mechanics for November 2006, and while they'll be 'old hat' for the established raiders, for an incredibly large number of players, they'll still be new and interesting - something they've only read about or seen in videos, and that they now get to experience firsthand.

◊ Merple · 02/14/08, 2:00 PM

Originally Posted by acx

Thaddius and Heigan not good enough?

One jump isn't a "jumping game", and running back and forth isn't DDR. I'm talking complex, random movement.

Picture 5 tiles spanning a chasm with lava in the bottom. One player in the raid has to jump their way across the chasm to pull a lever once every 20 seconds to trigger a vulernability.

Oh, and the tiles move all over. Think Mario Brothers.

And/or trampolines like in the Nagrand Egg quest that one player has to navigate.

Plea · 02/14/08, 2:09 PM

Originally Posted by KrinKer

WE've asked for a solid gear check, not a new patchwerk. To me kalecgos is a much better gear check than brutallus where EVERYBODY has to be on the ball otherwise there's no way in hell u can keep up with it. You need to have good dps, competent healers and tank that aren't retarded and geared to the teeth or they will be 1 shotted by the demon.

Many of us asked for a new Patchwek, not a gearcheck. There are enough of them in the game already, hell the game is in fact built on gearchecks. Aren't we arguing that Najentus will be a gearcheck for the new guilds? I also disagree with the general opinion that patchwerk was "the" gearcheck. Loatheb, or even Thaddius were harder for us to meet the dps requirements.

At Patchwek, pressing the same 2 buttons for 7 minutes was somehow more fun than it looked at first; and yes, I'd love a new iteration of that.

Habanero · 02/14/08, 2:57 PM

Originally Posted by Merple

One jump isn't a "jumping game", and running back and forth isn't DDR. I'm talking complex, random movement.

Picture 5 tiles spanning a chasm with lava in the bottom. One player in the raid has to jump their way across the chasm to pull a lever once every 20 seconds to trigger a vulernability.

Oh, and the tiles move all over. Think Mario Brothers.

And/or trampolines like in the Nagrand Egg quest that one player has to navigate.

That sounds terribly fun for anyone with an older computer that they play WoW on. For us, Lurker is the true hardest boss in T5 content. Limit that to only requiring a certain number of people in the raid to have fast computers, maybe, and it could be fun.

mek · 02/14/08, 3:12 PM

Originally Posted by Habanero

That sounds terribly fun for anyone with an older computer that they play WoW on. For us, Lurker is the true hardest boss in T5 content. Limit that to only requiring a certain number of people in the raid to have fast computers, maybe, and it could be fun.

To be fair, there is old, and then there is old. How old a computer are you talking about? WoW is a pretty unique game in that old computers ran it well at release, so three years later, old must be very old indeed. If anything, Heigan and Thaddius encounters are problematic because of latency and server performance (hello 3am raids, hello aussie players); client performance is a non-concern at this point in time, even a 5 year old laptop can get a decent framerate out of WoW.

◊ Penguin · 02/14/08, 3:14 PM

Originally Posted by Plea

At Patchwek, pressing the same 2 buttons for 7 minutes was somehow more fun than it looked at first; and yes, I'd love a new iteration of that.

It's fun because it's a benchmark fight. Currently almost everyone uses Teron for this, but it's mitigated by spellcaster pushback from the aoe, and the randomness of getting ghosted. Having a fight where you can just sit and refine a dps/healing/threat cycle without really worrying about other mechanics is a good idea at least once per expansion.

Valerian · 02/14/08, 3:47 PM

Originally Posted by Penguin

It's fun because it's a benchmark fight. Currently almost everyone uses Teron for this, but it's mitigated by spellcaster pushback from the aoe, and the randomness of getting ghosted. Having a fight where you can just sit and refine a dps/healing/threat cycle without really worrying about other mechanics is a good idea at least once per expansion.

Having a fight like this earlier would be a decent idea too. Or something to allow people to actually TEST rotations rather than needing to theorycraft them up. Kinda off topic here, but a lot of people in more "casual" guilds have problems with maximizing whatever their cycles are mainly from not wanting to wade through lots of theorycraft. Something like targetting dummies or whatever (a la Dr. Boom) would be nice for people to test things on.

Metrosexuelf · 02/14/08, 3:53 PM

Originally Posted by Merple

One jump isn't a "jumping game", and running back and forth isn't DDR. I'm talking complex, random movement.

Picture 5 tiles spanning a chasm with lava in the bottom. One player in the raid has to jump their way across the chasm to pull a lever once every 20 seconds to trigger a vulernability.

Oh, and the tiles move all over. Think Mario Brothers.

And/or trampolines like in the Nagrand Egg quest that one player has to navigate.

I think that would be a terrible idea. While I agree it is always good to come up with new mechanics for a boss encounter, if I wanted to play an action game I would play an action game. For an old example of how poorly this can be implimented see, e.g., Ultima 7 to Ultima 8... and yes, I just dated myself.

◊ Merple · 02/14/08, 4:00 PM

Originally Posted by Metrosexuelf

I think that would be a terrible idea. While I agree it is always good to come up with new mechanics for a boss encounter, if I wanted to play an action game I would play an action game. For an old example of how poorly this can be implimented see, e.g., Ultima 7 to Ultima 8... and yes, I just dated myself.

Of course it could be implemented badly. That was my point.

I've consistently been impressed with the level of totally beatable and yet agonizing mechanics Blizzard has come up with. People complain about Blizzard not being innovative with BC. They have been. From Chess Event to Bloodboil, they've consistently come up with great ideas, and I'm sure they'll find more.

That said, in a miracle world with no lag, ONE fight like this would be damn fun - at least for me.

Tacitus · 02/14/08, 4:09 PM

Originally Posted by Merple

Of course it could be implemented badly. That was my point.

I've consistently been impressed with the level of totally beatable and yet agonizing mechanics Blizzard has come up with. People complain about Blizzard not being innovative with BC. They have been. From Chess Event to Bloodboil, they've consistently come up with great ideas, and I'm sure they'll find more.

That said, in a miracle world with no lag, ONE fight like this would be damn fun - at least for me.

It would be fun for the few, agonizing for the most and completely undoable for the rest.

Chirality · 02/14/08, 4:49 PM

Originally Posted by Tacitus

It would be fun for the few, agonizing for the most and completely undoable for the rest.

I for one would love to dispense with the "click the cube" mechanic so prevalent on BC fights. Magtheridon, Archimonde, Gorefiend, Kael'thas...all of these are fights where a single player not on the ball can wipe a raid. It's frustrating to see "Shadow of Death: Terribaddruidhealer1" and know that you'll wipe at 10% because they can't hit simple buttons. It's frustrating to hear excuses like "I pressed Soulshatter instead of Tears of the Goddess" and see Soul Charge wipe a 20th attempt in a row.

Maybe I'm just being nostalgic, but I miss the days when losing half the raid to Deep Breath just meant you had trimmed the fat. The flip side, of course, is that in a 40-man raid there was a LOT of fat that needed trimming.

As a side note: Tacitus, thank you for alerting me, via your signature, that RA3 is coming out!

Skyhoof · 02/14/08, 5:00 PM

I'm still unable to copy a character to the PTR. Could a shaman on the PTR take a look at [Ashtongue Talisman of Vision]. Is the proc for healing still based on Lesser Healing Wave? I've been hoping they would change it to Chain Heal, or at least Healing Wave.

◊ Kyth · 02/14/08, 6:23 PM

Originally Posted by Chirality

I for one would love to dispense with the "click the cube" mechanic so prevalent on BC fights. Magtheridon, Archimonde, Gorefiend, Kael'thas...all of these are fights where a single player not on the ball can wipe a raid. It's frustrating to see "Shadow of Death: Terribaddruidhealer1" and know that you'll wipe at 10% because they can't hit simple buttons. It's frustrating to hear excuses like "I pressed Soulshatter instead of Tears of the Goddess" and see Soul Charge wipe a 20th attempt in a row.

Maybe I'm just being nostalgic, but I miss the days when losing half the raid to Deep Breath just meant you had trimmed the fat. The flip side, of course, is that in a 40-man raid there was a LOT of fat that needed trimming.

I agree and disagree with you.

The problem with Teron is two fold:

- it's a mechanic you cannot practice outside of a player-created flash game that you might go months without seeing, and
- it can wipe the raid with pretty much zero way to recover from it.

Archimonde, however? A soul charge is very managable by the rest of your raid if they play well.

I would like to see a bigger focus on "god this REALLY sucks" mechanics that are still, theoretically at least, recoverable from. A single error wiping the raid by a random raid member doesn't make for as much fun as "god it sucks that you screwed up, but we all played great and overcame it / and we really need to be better at handling when that happens, because it *will* happen."

Originally Posted by Penguin

It's fun because it's a benchmark fight. Currently almost everyone uses Teron for this, but it's mitigated by spellcaster pushback from the aoe, and the randomness of getting ghosted. Having a fight where you can just sit and refine a dps/healing/threat cycle without really worrying about other mechanics is a good idea at least once per expansion.

I hate to say it but I agree. I really am looking forwards to having damage meters and doing that fight each week to see what I can get out of it without random elements

. It's also longer than Teron so can't be as easily cheesed with bloodlust.

I also enjoyed the Kalecgos fight and I love how involved the fight is and how it requires you to adapt as you go, but Brutalis does have his charm.

Aoife · 02/14/08, 6:36 PM

Originally Posted by Emeraude

I don't see how you're gonna be able to kill Kazzak when it's a daily quest hub and you'll almost always certainly have somebody of the other faction up there to grief you, it doesn't take much effort to wipe a guild on that encounter..

A T6 geared guild shouldn't have too much trouble on Kazzak, even if he heals 30-50% you still probably have the DPS to burn him. We killed DLK and DW one night when the instance servers went down and were griefed and he healed a good 30% during the second enrage and we still burned him down. He's only got something like 1.5m HP so it isn't too much of an issue if you're overgeared for it. I don't see a T4-T5 guild doing it though with griefers around.

Daidalos · 02/14/08, 6:51 PM

Originally Posted by Skyhoof

I'm still unable to copy a character to the PTR. Could a shaman on the PTR take a look at [Ashtongue Talisman of Vision]. Is the proc for healing still based on Lesser Healing Wave? I've been hoping they would change it to Chain Heal, or at least Healing Wave.

Yeah I'll take a look tonight.

EDIT: Checked as of today after patch it remains unchanged. So basically only decent for enh shamans still.

acx · 02/14/08, 7:16 PM

Originally Posted by Riallatar

I think that was the point of his joke.

Thaddius, Heigan, Noth, etc.

They're all new and interesting mechanics for November 2006, and while they'll be 'old hat' for the established raiders, for an incredibly large number of players, they'll still be new and interesting - something they've only read about or seen in videos, and that they now get to experience firsthand.

But Naxx is making a comeback for WoW 3.0 so you can have your pie and eat it too!

Illundai · 02/14/08, 7:23 PM

They just pushed out a new PTR patch, after skimming through the notes, I didn't find anything new, anyone did?

Axl_Stukov · 02/14/08, 7:28 PM

Check the MPQ for added voice files or something along those lines?

Edit: Nope no new voices, still gotta wait to see if Kil'jeaden is either going to have a Malchezzar voice or the laughable Archimonde style one.

glowacks · 02/14/08, 7:41 PM

Originally Posted by mek

To be fair, there is old, and then there is old. How old a computer are you talking about? WoW is a pretty unique game in that old computers ran it well at release, so three years later, old must be very old indeed. If anything, Heigan and Thaddius encounters are problematic because of latency and server performance (hello 3am raids, hello aussie players); client performance is a non-concern at this point in time, even a 5 year old laptop can get a decent framerate out of WoW.

I had to add more RAM to my computer and install XP to be able to play WoW. The only reason it had such a low amount of RAM and was still running ME is that it was a continual upgrade job; it got upgrades when they were needed, basically. The processor and video card were not absolutely minimal, but the RAM always has been.

I lagged in Molten Core. I lagged to hell in the suppression room, although Razorgore was always playable until near the end of Phase 1 (where I mainly just tried to stay alive). In BC I very rarely had issues, and they were almost always in Shattrath - Hydross was a problem until I turned off the range detector. I can't imagine what trying Heigan would have been like on my rig, but requiring fairly precise movements has never been a good thing for me (in any PC game, really). I'll echo the sentiment about Lurker, where I'd have to guess when to jump to make it up, and it rarely worked. I loved getting Ice Block for free because I could just Block through the first Spout, hope and pray that he only does one before the first wave of adds, sheep my add, then stay in the water the rest of the fight. It certainly was better DPS than continually trying to jump off.

If the graphics are kept to a minimum (ahem, no huge freaking lava spurts), and there is a decent amount of leeway between being toast and being safe, I wouldn't mind. Spout was fine for me because I could always see it coming and even if I was a mote too slow, I might only get hit once and survive. Heroic Mechano-Lord Capacitus, with the Thaddius-like charges, was perfectly fine as well since there wasn't "instant death". Void Zones are generally fine as long as you can survive one tick (I died to a one or two on Netherspite taking 30+ stacks of blue beam, but that comes with the territory). Running away from the raid with a bomb effect has worked well for Blizzard. So had separating people in multiple areas. Requiring people to play Massive Multi-player Mario Brothers is just not acceptable. Blizzard has made plenty of movement-oriented fights that haven't been like platform games, and hopefully they can continue doing so without requiring us to do some stupid dance.

Laith · 02/14/08, 8:17 PM

is there a standalone ptr patch I could download? I always get some crappy "could not properly apply the patch" message.

*edit* a standalone ptr patch for the current build, date 2/14

Krag · 02/14/08, 8:18 PM

Originally Posted by Chirality

I for one would love to dispense with the "click the cube" mechanic so prevalent on BC fights. Magtheridon, Archimonde, Gorefiend, Kael'thas...all of these are fights where a single player not on the ball can wipe a raid. It's frustrating to see "Shadow of Death: Terribaddruidhealer1" and know that you'll wipe at 10% because they can't hit simple buttons. It's frustrating to hear excuses like "I pressed Soulshatter instead of Tears of the Goddess" and see Soul Charge wipe a 20th attempt in a row.

Maybe I'm just being nostalgic, but I miss the days when losing half the raid to Deep Breath just meant you had trimmed the fat. The flip side, of course, is that in a 40-man raid there was a LOT of fat that needed trimming.

As a side note: Tacitus, thank you for alerting me, via your signature, that RA3 is coming out!

I can't really see how allowing half the raid to be retarded and die and still being able to kill the boss would be possible in anything past entrance level raiding. It would simply be too damn easy for guilds who can field a raid of semi-competent players.

• Insom · 02/14/08, 8:22 PM

Originally Posted by Kyth