"epic level 70 blue. " - I would love to have one of these, do you know which boss will drop them? :-P
On a side note - Raising the level cap is a stupid choice IMO. The best way to maintain the balance for casuals/raiding would be to have more scaling 5/10 man instances at level 60 rather than 10 new levels. But hey thats in the past and WoW was given a ton of awards for the 1-60 process so they want to sell the 1-70 process (we made 1-60 fun, 60-70 will be great too!).
Either way here is how I would have liked to see the "problem" handled instead of an additional 10 levels.
Instead of adding new levels which will make a character more likely to resist, hit, dodge, w/e mobs, the instances should've had teired upgrades, but with different playstyles taken into account. Separate the 2 sets in function, allow the raiding sets to be VERY effective in raid settings, PvP sets VERY effective in PvP settings, and a third teired set from new 5/10 man instances with more emphasis on technical fights and with quest/key storylines to access which will be VERY effective in 5/10 man instances. Of course they should be relatively equal at the maximum level of each different playstyle, but honestly, how hard would it be to scale a new 5/10 man instance to be just as hard to beat as a new 40 man raid and release them at the same time? They moved towards this with the .5 set but expanding further with instances would be ideal. They could keep the raiding and 5/10 man sets different with the equip bonuses as well as resistances, currently frost, fire, and shadow are on raid sets (although Naxx brings nature in) so keep the 5/10 man stuff holy (Scarlet _CRUSADE_), or provide equip bonuses like the one from onyxia scale cloak where it is situationally useful for a set playstyle.
Just my 2 cents, not that blizz will care but hey I would like to be able to go through 5/10 man content which actually required a little bit of skill rather than zomg 3 sunders are down and the boss doesnt do anything so go ahead and kill him.
That the cap would be raised was known before they ever got any of those rewards, or any subscribers AT ALL. Iirc the manual (while wrong in many areas, it is not all wrong) not only states that they would raise it to 70, it states that down the road, it will be raised even more.
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
Just keep in mind we are clearly in the realm of speculation here. I expect people in the boat you describe with - partial T1 for example - will go to the new instances for some of their progression. And there they will have an option to get upgrades to their ZG/AQ20 blues (the non-T1 half of their sets) with new Outlands blues. And when an epic falls from these new instances - as it does reasonably often in ZG/AQ20 - it will be a clear upgrade to anything they have. And another option they will have is to go to a 40-man raid instance where epic items rain from the sky. That can be an insanely hard level 70 40-man - which they won't have the group to do - or it can be a place like BWL or AQ40 which will now be doable with 20-man groups.
The alternative is that Blizzard starts to break the trends they have already set and items scale wildly in the expansion.
As for the person who hates raiding of any kind and will only do 5/10 man instances. Well, I hope he isn't dressed in T1 or T2 anyway; he is looking for a clear upgrade to his Dungeon 1 or Dungeon 2 set. If he is geared in T1/2 and doesn't like to raid, he will certainly be in the minority and he'll be damned disappointed with his ability to get new loot.
"epic level 70 blue. " - I would love to have one of these, do you know which boss will drop them? :-P
whoops, must have made an incorrect correction.
Originally Posted by Foeresh
Instead of adding new levels which will make a character more likely to resist, hit, dodge, w/e mobs, the instances should've had teired upgrades, but with different playstyles taken into account. Separate the 2 sets in function, allow the raiding sets to be VERY effective in raid settings, PvP sets VERY effective in PvP settings, and a third teired set from new 5/10 man instances with more emphasis on technical fights and with quest/key storylines to access which will be VERY effective in 5/10 man instances. Of course they should be relatively equal at the maximum level of each different playstyle, but honestly, how hard would it be to scale a new 5/10 man instance to be just as hard to beat as a new 40 man raid and release them at the same time? They moved towards this with the .5 set but expanding further with instances would be ideal. They could keep the raiding and 5/10 man sets different with the equip bonuses as well as resistances, currently frost, fire, and shadow are on raid sets (although Naxx brings nature in) so keep the 5/10 man stuff holy (Scarlet _CRUSADE_), or provide equip bonuses like the one from onyxia scale cloak where it is situationally useful for a set playstyle.
Just my 2 cents, not that blizz will care but hey I would like to be able to go through 5/10 man content which actually required a little bit of skill rather than zomg 3 sunders are down and the boss doesnt do anything so go ahead and kill him.
It's very difficult to make a 5man instance "epic", 10man is a bit easier because you can reasonably expect every class to be in the group, however, the reason you cannot make 5man instances epic is because you have to cater to the lowest common denominator of each role, for example lets take this group:
Paladin, Paladin, Paladin, Paladin, Paladin.
Yes, that is a serious group composition that fills every group role. This is how a 5man instance *has* to be designed based on Blizzard's hybridization, they didn't want to pigeonhole a holy trinity, so there has to be some sort of unholy trinity. That is the Paladinx5 group. Worst at everything it can do besides buff compared to the rest of the classes (since tanking, healing, and DPS are part of its given role). Assume this is not an Undead based instance. Sorry if I'm being a bit... classist.
Regardless, 5man instances do have plenty of raiding gimmicks, however they aren't as prevailent, how often do you hear (ok make sure 'x' has well established aggro so the knockback doesn't slaughter our healer). We've got a boss that Mind Controls, a boss that constantly spawns adds that cause you to take fall damage, a boss with a deaggro knockback, a boss that summons AoEable skeletons and has an AoE shadow damage aura. Notice how those *are* gimmicks that would easily be incorperated into a 40man raid instance (and many of them are). Blizzard really needs to expand on these in 5mans, it's sad to see all the creativity go into 40mans though. I love doing a good 5/10man with friends, even if I raid.
It's also very very difficult to standardize gear into being good in one role in the game. The only way to really make this easy is to make one portion of a class 100% mandatory in a raid (lol healing) and completely useless in PvP. This does not sound like fun or intresting design, otherwise items are going to be a clusterfuck of "ONLY WORKS IN ARATHI BASIN"
Originally Posted by Oaken
As for the person who hates raiding of any kind and will only do 5/10 man instances. Well, I hope he isn't dressed in T1 or T2 anyway; he is looking for a clear upgrade to his Dungeon 1 or Dungeon 2 set. If he is geared in T1/2 and doesn't like to raid, he will certainly be in the minority and he'll be damned disappointed with his ability to get new loot.
Never said they would "hate" raiding, but mostly they don't have enough time to dedicate to a hardcore raiding guild or they're the 500000000th undead Rogue on the server, most people are very capable of throwing away some time in Molten Core once a week. Many of my friends on Sargeras aren't in a raiding guild but damn if they won't jump at the chance to get a few pieces of MC loot, considering it takes about as much time as maybe 2 Scholo runs. To be dead honest, MC is too easy and trivialized at this point which is a part of the problem. Any 40 idiots can and WILL get up to at least Domo.
Oaken- Once again the Dungeon T2/T3 would be seperate from the Raid T2/T3 and serve a different purpose, while it would be semi-useful in a raid setting it would not be as good as the loot gained in a raid. On the other hand the gear gained raiding would not be as good in the 5/10 man instances as the gear available from that instance for that purpose. Having a multi-wing instance on a 3 day reset, with Onyxia style instances for each wing, but a final boss like Hakkar where the other wings should be completed to make the boss easier/possible, and other balances would make it so raiding and pvp's loot wasnt trivialized, however still made the loot available from the high level instances a viable alternative in a raid if they decided they would like to take part in a raid at some point.
henaki the lack of creativity is what I was getting at, as far as 5/10 man instances go its a DPS fest and theres no aggro wipes on any bosses until ZG (unless Im forgetting one or there is one in BRD I have avoided that place as much as possible) However that is also the area which the casual player has the most access. If you cant find/make 4-9 friends to run around with perhaps you should not be playing a Massively Multiplayer game. As far as group composition nothing says the same caps should be used player wise - although I did say 5/10 that could be changed to 8/15. With an 8 man group you have the ability to get every class if you choose, do not force it after a few clears but if it is the first time for many of your members this group make up would be key. As it is now it doesnt even take brain power to make a group for a 5 man. LF1Healer, Tank, 3 DPS for Anything PST.
Anyway, no matter what Blizzard has said they will do in the future I will never agree that raising the level cap is the appropriate way to introduce new content. I can see why they are doing it, so that there is the essence of exploring a new high level area similar to the questing exploring system. But how long can they increase the level cap with the same kind of rate /played to level without making it impossible for new casual players (the type Blizzard hopes to attract with expansions) to ever see the new content? However making key quests for individual wings of a new dungeon requiring questing in and outside of the instance, would still introduce content, but not completely nerf the past "high-level" zones. Make new content slowly available for players, but make them level up in ability rather than actual player level. Either way when expansions start rolling out is when hardcore players start getting fed up with an MMO, dont believe me now but when 2 expansions from now they do something that makes raiding trivialized and there is a new MMO out I promise I wont say I told you so :-P
All knockbacks deaggro IIRC but that may not be the case with random world mobs and stuff. Also Eranikus in ST as a real bitch of a deaggro but it's not a knockback.
If you disagree with the level cap, what is the point of the expansion? Just releasing new dungeons? Are we all just gonna scale with gear? What I like about the expansion is it puts everyone back on the same page (although some people may read faster than others!). It means that raiders and casuals are back together playing together to a common goal besides killing Gandling, it means that I am sent to new areas that people won't ignored because they can't ignore them, it means more world PvP, it means that Blizzard has a chance to fix massive problems with the game without having a catastrophic outcome. The expansion gives Blizzard a chance to fuck with totems, change rage generation and alter talents, and it gives them time to fine-tune them while everyone is still fucking with the new content and confused with new mechanics.
The expansion isn't just for us, it's for Blizzard to fucking fix what they fucked up big in the long run.
I guess the way I feel about an expansion pack is different from you then, so we will never agree on the best way to handle them - which is OK. And from your point of view I can see how the new levels would be exciting.
However, I feel an expansion should be just that, expanded content of a game which has already been released. If I wanted to be equal with those who have not put as much effort into a game as I had again I would purchase an entirely new game. But hey thats just me, personally grinding is fun for me so Im not going to worry too much about it, but I dont like feeling phased out as a player when an expansion comes out just because all that I used to know as high level content can be done with 10-15 people and is farm status for pugs.
As far as knockbacks go, the 5 man knock backs are such a small % of threat wiped that I very rarely lose agro because of them. In some cases (the Beast) these knockbacks dont even wipe agro, just retarget momentarily so I did not even consider them. Even Drakk's Conflag doesnt wipe agro and seeing as he is the hardest boss in an instance that seems silly to me.
06/17/06, 4:40 PM
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