Jagiya

Just stepping in whilst people are on the topic of whether or not the Coliseum will host a new Tier of gear or not: the label of "Tier X" is provided by the players, not the developers. Blizzard didn't design AQ40 and say, "War of the Shifting Sands has been released! New 40 Man dungeon with Tier 2.5 Armor set!" The community just makes this stuff up (except for back in the day when they previewed "Dungeon set 0/1/etc" on the WoW site).

So when Blizzard said, "A new tier of armor and weapons" (as they do with every major content patch) people immediately jumped and slapped on that "Tier 9" sticker. Until we see what actually drops in there, you can only take the word "Tier" for what it's worth - a linear leap in item level. Nothing more.

As for the (redundant) discussion on whether or not X qualifies as a "Tier above" Y due to poor itemisation: it's irrelevant. If the item level increases, the dungeon difficulty will increase in parallel, and thus - you have a new Tier of raiding/gear. It's a given that some classes will take upgrades and some won't - that doesn't disqualify an increase of 6-12 iLvl's.

 

Cartesian

Blizzard actually does acknowledge the tier numbering system, though I couldn't say whether it's originally the invention of players or them. I do agree though, that "tier of gear" doesn't necessarily need to have anything to do with a tier set. Weird though, I fail to remember what was the exact reason T2.5 got called that, it not being a "full tier" (8-piece set) or a smaller ilvl jump from the previous set, but I notice its absent from the dropdown menu.

 

Leviathon

I think they just consider is not a actual tier set similar to the ZG sets.

 

katholas

Source


That thing about set bonuses not being around really points to there being not just a new jump in ilevel but also a full tier set. I don't remember reading about set bonuses being changed so I think this is a nod in the direction of a full new tier set as part of 3.2.

 

Jagiya

Wow, last time i looked at that page, (like during TBC) they weren't listed as "Tier #", but rather "Netherblade (TBC Raid #1)" and "Deathmantle (TBC Raid #2)", etc. Looks like they did embrace the community labels and stick with them. My bad then.

 

Vaccine

My head hurts.


On topic, the "No bosses as hard as sunwell" was said before they were into the hard mode idea, and before they had announced different raid lock outs. There is no reason now with normal/hard mode split that hard mode encounters can't be as hard or harder than Sunwell (though preferably not as soul crushing as M'uru). Hell, depending on who you ask Freya hard and Firefighter are as hard as M'uru. Not tried Firefighter yet but Freya +3 seems of similar style though probably not quite as hard.

I'm actually looking forward to a linear progression path once more. If they make the 5 encounters 5 Freya's instead of 5 easy encounters then this could actually be really fun. For normal I'd like something that maybe each boss took 3-4 nights for a casual guild. This gives them a decent chunk of content to work on even with just 5 bosses. Also important is that they hit the difficulty scale on the hard modes off the bat instead of all the fannying about tuning them for the first 4 weeks.

 

Morfina

I'm not sure I ever said that I had an issue with what Blizzard intend to do. Do I have to have an issue with it to post in this thread? I made an observation that I disagree with the theory certain individuals put forth as to the reasoning behind it. I'm well aware that 'they haven't done it before' doesn't mean they won't in the future, but I was referring to the idea of radically different encounters to the point where they are in effect as different as Ragnaros and Majordomo Executus are in style. Perhaps I should've made that more clear. I don't believe any encounters currently qualify to be that different between 10-man and 25-man, or between normal ways vs. hardmodes. And before someone jumps down my throat for insinuating that someone actually made a comparison between Ragnaros and Executus: I realize that was never said. But 'completely different encounters' was said, and that was the degree of difference that I gathered from it.

I also don't see whether I underestimate players or not has any relevance (nor have I given any personal opinion on whether I underestimate the average player); I believe Blizzard tries to cater to the lowest common denominator, because that is what they've shown thus far, and that is what they've stated they wish to do. That isn't a critique of average joe, its simply an observation on the design direction of the game as a whole.

The statement on art was with regards to someone stating that since the main timesink for releasing content was art, it'd make sense if they attempted to utilize their assets better by taking the same thing and making it two entirely different encounters. They're already doing this with hardmodes to a much lesser degree, but I don't see why they wouldn't slap up new textures for a boss / adds if they were to design a completely different encounter in the same environment.

 

Exemplar

Not of any pressing importance, but I'm always curious when things like this are implemented.

What's the destination of the teleport? Dalaran?
What happens if you're flying over a battle and dismount:
- Do you crater and suddenly you cannot reach your corpse because your spirit is teleported?
- Do you teleport once you rez at the corpse?
- Do you not suffer fall damage and teleport first?

Somehow I doubt the last - server timing tends to fail on that.

I do see one decided positive in the queue system - no more gaming vehicles. A current popular tactic is to log on alts across faction before a game and position them at a siege workshop. Fight starts, your raid kills your guild's alts to get to Lieutenant instantly, one person pops out a dozen siege engines and everyone mounts up. 10 Siege Engines in the first 20 seconds of the game all moving together and hitting a wall is an overwhelming advantage. Often they're in the central courtyard before half the other team has reached Wintergrasp and ridden their mounts anywhere halfway useful.

Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."

 

Duodecimal

There's a minimum allowed altitude for flyover for noncombatants. I guess the teleport would trigger whether you're mounted or not if you go below that height. 175 yards - warning, teleport after typical delay; 150 yards - immediate teleport whether timer ran out or not.

We'll find out either way, it's just a technical detail.

 

Copernicus

Under Development: Argent Crusader's Coliseum

This might mean it will be a month from the release of patch 3.2 before people can start attempts on the "heroic" version.


A couple of the bosses-


Also, an update on the Glory of the Ulduar Raider mounts-

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Glory of the Ulduar Raider Reward Changes

 

Camaris

So.. just summarizing the text on the Under Development page, this is how I understand it:

- You have to clear the normal mode to get access to the Heroic mode instances. A 10-man normal clear enables 10-man heroic, a 25-man clear enables 25-man heroic.

- "Trial of the Grand Crusader" is the name of the heroic instance. "Trial of the Crusader" is the normal instance, "Trial of the Champion" is the 5-man.

- You can do "tribute runs" in the Grand Crusader instance. The fewer wipes, the better the loot is in the Crusader's Tribute, which probably is a chest that pops up after the last boss.

One thing that I don't see here is the meaning of this earlier quote:
I'm assuming this means that in the first week, you can only kill the first boss. The second week, you can kill two bosses, and after five weeks, all bosses are 'released'? It sounds like a Sunwell Gate type of system.

 

Mideci

You've almost certainly interpreted that comment correctly. It serves two purposes, by the way:

1) It extends the life of the content by at least a month.
2) It allows more time for testing the latest parts of the content (both the end bosses as well as the "hard modes")

 

zaiboss

The way I understood that is that you can only do the "tribute" run. In the heroic version of each 10/25man, you only have a set number of attempts (tributes) in which to finish the instance.

 

Tyrian

In addition to what Mideci posted, it will extend Ulduars lifespan by that month too. Guilds will hardly kill 1-4 bosses on normal mode (and unable to start tributes before the 5th week) and call it a week. Ulduar and it's hardmodes will still be up - and you'll want the best gear available from it to help give you the advantage. Dropping Ulduar prematurely in the hopes that ~5 bosses will gear guilds out quickly enough for the heroics (that haven't farmed ulduar/hardmodes enough already) won't be a good idea.

I'm a bit relieved by this. I like Ulduar and i'm not quite ready to let it go just yet. A gradual period where both instances are done in parallel for at least 5 weeks: before the option of Heroic Tributes open up (and potentially phasing out Ulduar then) is appealing. Moreso than feeling prodded or compelled into abandoning Ulduar immediately to bash heads in the Heroic Tribute right away, as that simply won't be an option until it opens up.

 

Vaccine

All this for me points to an even sooner release than I'd first estimated which was early September. The fact they specifically say they decided not to take the drakes out suggests they are releasing it soon, and the format of the Colliseum is such that they can dedicate heavy internal testing to the bosses post release as they won't be instantly unlocked anyway. It also allows them to tune the hard modes once the easy mode tweaks and nerfs have been put in place.

I think we could be looking at mid-August now, maybe even pre-Blizzcon. I guess the big deal for the PTR testing will be the new BG.

 

Tanoh

You can only do the Vault twice (one 10 man and one 25 man) per week though. If you do it them both on Wednesday evening (first day after reset in EU), then you have 6 days where losing or winning WG doesn't matter a whole much to you. Especially as the quests there are weekly and you probably already got the "Win WG" weekly done and the lesser by accident.

I don't see why someone wouldn't go to WG to herb/mine if they want to. I think they should remove all nodes from the zone and be done with it. I wonder if they'll do any change to the fishing daily where you have to go to Wintergrasp and fish. They probably will not, but it'll be a bit of a nuisance if you can't do it because there's a battle you don't care the slightest about.

All in all, a forced pvp zone might look good on paper, but it's obvious it doesn't work. They should just have made it into an instance instead.

 

footloop

I'm curious as to how you got to this conclusion. As near as I can tell, the zone is hugely popular and such a resounding draw that they're being forced to put in a population cap because their engine/hardware/whatever just can't handle the massive number of people who want to participate.

Now this technical limitation might be what you're referring to, and the new system is about as close to instanced as you can get without being actually instanced, but I'm still not sure why you think it 'doesn't work'. It quite obviously did, just not as seamlessly as could be hoped for.

 

Kaejin

I can't say much about other servers, but I know WG is largely abhorred by the Horde on Mal'Ganis. It tends to lag the Northrend server heavily when the battle is going on, and Tenacity makes the actual battle itself impossible to enjoy for Horde. WG is just an obstacle between the players and WG marks, vendors, Vault access, farming (elementals, mining, herbs, fishing), and dailies.

The zone's infamy should not be confused with popularity.

 

ZulazeeluIcecrown

I love Wintergrasp and think it's a resounding success. Apparently one's attitude towards it is entirely server dependent. The bigger the server, the less you like Wintergrasp? Although Icecrown is not exactly small, heh.

 

Malleus

You may want to reappraise your argument.

 

Vaccine

The intent is clear but if you wish to nitpick, originally they had categorically stated that they would be removing the drakes when 3.2 hit, now they have revised their statement to say they may stay in longer. The ordering of this suggests if anything the possibility of it coming out sooner than expected.

 

Tanoh

Probably server dependant, but on "my" server horde aren't even close to being on equal terms with alliance until late in the nights. Any battle before ~22:00 (later on weekends) will mean a lot of tenacity stacks and the fight being lost in a matter of minutes. Who cares if we hit like a falling train and have health like a Molten Core boss, you still get zerged.

And that's the problem with non-instances combat. The few times it's fair it's fun, but when it's not it's not playable. Blizzard adding restrictions to how many can enter the zone points to that they don't like the huge imbalances either.

I think Wintergrasp is popular because for ages it was by far the best honour per effort and time anywhere in the game. You used to get silly amount of honour for even lost battles. Anyone getting honour and who didn't do the dailies there were just left behind. Now with them being weekly quests, I don't know. I'm leveling another alt atm so I haven't been there in a while.

I still think it would have been better as a new (instanced) battleground than a free for all (or not so free for all anymore) outdoor fighting zone.

 

Lucinde

Even though the weekly quests are that, weekly, it's still by far the best way to get honor. Generally speaking, winning wintergrasp gives you 3 quest completions for ~3.700 honor each. That's over 10.000 honor for just half an hour of work.

Also, I noticed, not all weekly quests are not really "weekly". I can, for example, complete "No Mercy for the Merciless" multiple times a week, but definately not every day. I suspect it has to do with the NPC that gives the quest; when your factions controls Wintergrasp the NPC giving out the quest is a different one than the NPC that gives it when the opposing faction controls it. I suspect it's a third NPC that gives it while the battle is raging, making it completable three times a week which would support my "gut feeling" of being able to pick it up three times a week.

Also, the various gathering quests are ALL completable during the week and not just the one that happens to be the "daily". I suspect those quests still rotate on a daily basis and anything you haven't completed that week is still doable. Since there's four different ones and it's not unlikely all four come up during the week, that's another 13.5k honor for literally 5 minutes per quest.

What they did change was the amount of honor gained during the battle. Winning WG used to give 5.000 honor if I remember correctly and is now down to 500. Similarly, destroying a fortress or southern tower used to give 125 honor which has been reduced to 62 honor. The same is true for the bonus honor at the end of the fight that you get for towers still standing.

I think the best way to make Wintergrasp and actual battle instead of something you just zerg through to get the honor, is to make the honor rewards more in line with the battleground honor and adjust the honor cost for PvP gear accordinly. That, or greatly increase battleground honor gains to make it feasible to get honor reward gear through them at a more reasonable rate.

Since WotLK I have found it awkward how hard it is to get mid-grade PvP gear compared to how easy it is to get high-end PvE gear. Buffing BG rewards would be a big step in the right direction.

 

Lileith

My Opinion on Wintergrasp is that they have failed at designing a World pvp area, back when Southshore/ Tarren Mills were the place you would pvp at, it was a permanent fight. Whenever a side would reach Southshore/ Tarren Mills they were overwhelmed by an insane amount of guards causing the offensive team to play defensive and to move back to their own town.

What surprised me when they released Wintergrasp was the incredibly long time between two Battles.

It's not surprising that when the fight take place for roughly 10 minutes every 3 hours you will have an insane amount of people here. Back when the quests were dailies, you had at most one opportunity to play a Wintergrasp match before raiding hours (assuming you wen't back from work 2 hours before). If you wanted to get the gold/honnor you only had one opportunity/day. No surprise the lag made the battle unplayable on most servers.

Instead of making the daily->weekly quests change, they could have easily made the time between fights a lot shorter. They could then give a buff to each players who won the previous battle that would last through death and allow access to the vault for 3 hours (and change the entrance of the vault of course).

If the battle was permanent the average amount of people would have been the same, but with way fewer people at a given time.

The ranks would have been a lot better too, rewarding players for their dedication in the battle (making the difference between people who just entered the battle and those who played it for the past hour). Allowing them to use more fun/different vehicle.

 

Camaris

I wonder if the "one month prior notice" about Proto-Drake removal could actually coincide with the 5-week gated release. IE, the announcement of drakes being removed will come at the same time 3.2 is launched.