I really really have to agree and this has been said before, even though it's rarely the part of the argument that gets the most attention. Flying is fun. I'll agree gliding can be fun too, and maximizing the use of limited flying or gliding buffs/items can be its own kind of fun game.
But flying was a thing that made WoW feel unique to me. Especially on my druid. I can't tell you how many times I geeked out by flipping my night elf off cliffs/buildings just to shift to raven and fly about aimlessly.
Flying wasn't what made you play WoW, but flying was always one reason I kept playing WoW over other things. imho it's always been a balance changer for me. Something more or less that only WoW (in addition to all the fun MMORPG stuff) had in such depth. I want to fly in new zones, because I enjoy it. I don't care if it offers me an advantage, if its practical or useful. It's just a way I enjoyed exploring the world.
I don't know, I really don't have much to contribute here I guess. I just think this is a dumb decision, as there's so much saturation in this market taking something fun and unique away feels like a bad idea no matter what justification you give it.
This is basically exactly how I feel. I played WoW shortly after launch, and never got too far into it. When they added flying in BC, I got back into the game, and flying was cool as shit! Then they kept it through the next several expansions, and it was absolutely one of the main reasons I stuck with WoW, even after trying a ton of other MMOs. That feeling of freedom to fly all over the world (save those few weird zones that never got it), whether it was to do old quests, find some random areas I'd never been to, or just fly around for the fuck of it.
If it really never comes back, I seriously doubt I will either. I'm interested to see how FFXIV's flying pans out. If it's awesome, that'll be my new go-to MMO now that flying is dead in WoW.
The reason why flying mounts are bad for the game while ground mounts aren't is twofold: the first is the speed difference and the second is that flying can be used to bypass content ground mounts can't.
The problem is both of those are good things, because travel downtime is boring, and being dismounted by low con mobs / dealing with shitty terrain design isn't "content."
Also, again, personal choice. If you don't want to fly, don't. Outside of the exceedingly weak world pvp arguments, it's simply an equally valid personal choice to do either.
First, downtime is required to make the uptime more poignant, something that's fundamental to all forms of entertainment. If you eliminate all downtime from the game because it's "boring" then you've eliminated the majority of the game. Second, "shitty terrain design" is the root cause of your complaint, it would remain shitty regardless if you're forced to walk over it, mount over it, or fly over it. The solution should be to fix the terrain design rather than to just shrug and let you fly over it. And your want to be able to bypass content without risk is noted, but I disagree with it.
And again, these are game design problems and how people interact with the game they've created. There's a difference between being forced not to fly by the game and choosing not to fly when you could.
This is incredibly untrue. Also flying isn't removing downtime, it is making it shorter/less annoying to the player. No one ever thinks, "Oh boy, I get to run 30 miles to get to the next quest." or, "Oh boy, I get to go back to town because my bags are full of crap I need to sell."
Relying on downtime to pad your game is a bad crutch.
If you want to put downtime in your game, you do it in a way that promotes social behavior and that players can partake in or skip as they feel the need.
SWG kind of had it right, with the dancers and whatnot providing buffs if you watched them, I can't recall if they were mandatory or not to restore your health bars (I'm not going to go into the other issues that game had).
You know what's "artificial padding" is when they double the size of the world to counteract the fact that flying at twice ground mount speed effectively halves the size of the world. That means when you're on foot for the levels where you're not allowed to fly you're forced to go twice as far to pay for the fact you get to fly later. If they made flying mounts the same speed as ground mounts they could cut that out and being forced on the ground wouldn't feel like such a punishment/flying wouldn't feel as required.
And downtime is not a crutch, it's a required aspect of entertainment and in games it's needed to create a compelling game loop. The downtime needs to be proportional to the gameplay though, so too much can be bad as is can be too little.
Downtime can already be achieved through other means than just moving around on a mount though.
Questing is practically "downtime" for me. How many quests are adrenaline fueled battles for my character's life? Not many. The basic gameplay loop of WoW is not very taxing. Even then quests have built in downtime in that you're probably reading the quest text before or on the way to the quest. Then there's just relaxing quests that punctuate other combat heavy quests. Clicking on flowers to collect them. Throwing bottles of apple ale at a Pandaren as he explains his fears that war will overtake his continent. There are more engaging ways to punctuate your game than forcing a player to jump on a mount and climb a mountain. Not to say travel doesn't have its place... but it is overused.
I agree though that flying speeds got too high. They kept using flying as a gold sink and slowing increasing their speed. I can't help but feel that speed difference created the situation today.
Of course I still remember the flying "poverty mounts" of BC. 160% flying speed felt like you were fighting the air just to move through it. Without some speed to soar with it doesn't really feel like flying! There had to be a happier medium.
You know what's "artificial padding" is when they double the size of the world to counteract the fact that flying at twice ground mount speed effectively halves the size of the world. That means when you're on foot for the levels where you're not allowed to fly you're forced to go twice as far to pay for the fact you get to fly later. If they made flying mounts the same speed as ground mounts they could cut that out and being forced on the ground wouldn't feel like such a punishment/flying wouldn't feel as required.
And downtime is not a crutch, it's a required aspect of entertainment and in games it's needed to create a compelling game loop. The downtime needs to be proportional to the gameplay though, so too much can be bad as is can be too little.
I wouldn't have a problem with slower flying mounts, as long as the ability to fly remained. There is nothing wrong with having large play spaces though, they just didn't do anything interesting with them. I don't think anyone is fighting for the speeds to stay the same or they are quitting, just the fact they are removing flying in general.
They could have had more migration to their placements of mobs. Have animals move based on seasons or whatnot, have armies move between encampments. It also gives you more spaces to have events occur in.
You know what's "artificial padding" is when they double the size of the world to counteract the fact that flying at twice ground mount speed effectively halves the size of the world. That means when you're on foot for the levels where you're not allowed to fly you're forced to go twice as far to pay for the fact you get to fly later. If they made flying mounts the same speed as ground mounts they could cut that out and being forced on the ground wouldn't feel like such a punishment/flying wouldn't feel as required.
And downtime is not a crutch, it's a required aspect of entertainment and in games it's needed to create a compelling game loop. The downtime needs to be proportional to the gameplay though, so too much can be bad as is can be too little.
except that pandaria is the best landmass they've ever made, and riding around on the ground while leveling never felt like "punishment", it felt like being in a real place
otoh, most of draenor is super cramped and feels very "game"-y.
like, is there even anywhere in shadowmoon that isn't a quest hub?
You know what's "artificial padding" is when they double the size of the world to counteract the fact that flying at twice ground mount speed effectively halves the size of the world. That means when you're on foot for the levels where you're not allowed to fly you're forced to go twice as far to pay for the fact you get to fly later. If they made flying mounts the same speed as ground mounts they could cut that out and being forced on the ground wouldn't feel like such a punishment/flying wouldn't feel as required.
And downtime is not a crutch, it's a required aspect of entertainment and in games it's needed to create a compelling game loop. The downtime needs to be proportional to the gameplay though, so too much can be bad as is can be too little.
except that pandaria is the best landmass they've ever made, and riding around on the ground while leveling never felt like "punishment", it felt like being in a real place
otoh, most of draenor is super cramped and feels very "game"-y.
like, is there even anywhere in shadowmoon that isn't a quest hub?
I don't understand how you can say Pandaria's ground mount experience wasn't terrible outside of maybe the Valley of Four Winds. Sometimes it's better to make a place feel less "real" if it means the gameplay is better and on the whole I think Draenor delievered on that (with some missteps, of course).
0
Options
HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
One thing's for sure, I haven't seen this much of a dust-up with the WoW community vs. the devs since the Real ID/Real names fiasco years ago.
You know what's "artificial padding" is when they double the size of the world to counteract the fact that flying at twice ground mount speed effectively halves the size of the world. That means when you're on foot for the levels where you're not allowed to fly you're forced to go twice as far to pay for the fact you get to fly later. If they made flying mounts the same speed as ground mounts they could cut that out and being forced on the ground wouldn't feel like such a punishment/flying wouldn't feel as required.
And downtime is not a crutch, it's a required aspect of entertainment and in games it's needed to create a compelling game loop. The downtime needs to be proportional to the gameplay though, so too much can be bad as is can be too little.
except that pandaria is the best landmass they've ever made, and riding around on the ground while leveling never felt like "punishment", it felt like being in a real place
otoh, most of draenor is super cramped and feels very "game"-y.
like, is there even anywhere in shadowmoon that isn't a quest hub?
I absolutely loved Pandaria questing. The massive zones, the stories being told, the battles between the Alliance and Horde getting fleshed out over time. Plus there was a ton of space to just go and check out the landscape, to see the cool sights and stare in awe at the artwork of the zones. That continent felt truly EPIC when just wandering about.
WoD was great for leveling in, but.. it doesn't have that same feeling of being this huge place. SMV is basically small mini-zones that you go down into or up onto for a quest hub, and that's it. There's no little towns tucked away or events hidden back in some valley that you can really only find if you're off the road between two hubs. The exploration stuff with the toys and everything was neato, and a great addition, but there just wasn't enough space for it to really feel like I was exploring. I felt like I was just in a small sub zone, and anything outside of that little zone was part of a different quest series or whatnot and that I'd get there eventually. I wasn't worried that I'd miss something.
The only places in WoD that I felt were epic and crazy were the elemental areas of Nagrand and the city of Karabor. Being up on those tall plateaus with air, fire, water, and earth elementals all in a massive death match was amazing. Looking out over the gathering spot of the Furies, seeing the massive creatures in the distance, rumbling on with their quests for other adventurers while you were parked what felt like half a zone away in the middle of a warzone. Karabor was likewise amazing for me, just in the scope of the place. There's so many little spots to wander around in, look for neato hidden NPC interactions, or just spots that had an amazing view of the ocean and harbor. There's a couple spots like that in each of the zones, but they're very obvious in where you can find them because it's the one or two spots on your map that you didn't uncover when doing the quests for that zone.
AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
Practicing the perfect Oregorger roll strat on Heroic in preparation for Mythic tomorrow. Only myself and the Raid Leader have any idea what the strat is or how it works.
Man we don't even bother with a roll phase strategy. We just kinda wing it. Don't get rolled, don't stand in too much fire, healers are around the middle. It seems to work out.
AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
Yea, that's the backup strat. But it's literally a 50s video to watch that shows a simple, flowing strategy everyone can follow. Melee only have to do 3 things, Ranged have to do 4, and healers get to heal since there's 2 stacked groups at all times.
Keep in mind that there are at least two different roll patterns based on what boxes fall down when you start. The raid needs to quickly identify which pattern it is and respond accordingly.
except that pandaria is the best landmass they've ever made, and riding around on the ground while leveling never felt like "punishment", it felt like being in a real place
otoh, most of draenor is super cramped and feels very "game"-y.
like, is there even anywhere in shadowmoon that isn't a quest hub?
I don't understand how you can say Pandaria's ground mount experience wasn't terrible outside of maybe the Valley of Four Winds. Sometimes it's better to make a place feel less "real" if it means the gameplay is better and on the whole I think Draenor delievered on that (with some missteps, of course).
Pandaria's Ground experience was much better than Warlords. The quest flow was better and while it still had quest hubs they advanced the story in a much tighter way. It felt more engaging. The only zone that was complete crap on the ground was Dread Wastes but it gave good XP relatively speaking, the story was interesting and you didn't have to do that much of it without flying.
Draenor is crap. It starts of crap and rarely rises above it. As Pablo said it feels more gamey. The story is complete nonsense even for WoW. Even worse it's pointless. As a general in the alliance it feels like I had less of an impact on the story in WoD than in Mists where we were part of why it's all messed up. The other characters in the game quickly steal the players thunder and devalue your impact. The iron horde fall over despite having the time to prepare and ultimately had little to no impact on Azeroth. They're just there so they can justify revisiting the characters from the RTS from back in the day.
In retrospect they should have had the iron horde pour out the portal and actually have some impact instead of having them pour out the portal to get wrecked and go to draenor right away. All the way through the introduction to Warlords of Draenor I wasn't thinking "I'm a bad ass kicking these guys ass!" it was "These guys are f***ing chumps! Why I am bothering when this Khadgar guy could solo it?".
I remembered the other day they said we in time after an update we could fly in Slivermoon and Exodar since they needed graphic updates
But then this never happened
I agree Draenor is crap I don't feel the threat of the Iron Horde they have guns pointed at my garrison that never fire. They have a huge base I walked into did really nothing to and walked away from.
except that pandaria is the best landmass they've ever made, and riding around on the ground while leveling never felt like "punishment", it felt like being in a real place
otoh, most of draenor is super cramped and feels very "game"-y.
like, is there even anywhere in shadowmoon that isn't a quest hub?
I don't understand how you can say Pandaria's ground mount experience wasn't terrible outside of maybe the Valley of Four Winds. Sometimes it's better to make a place feel less "real" if it means the gameplay is better and on the whole I think Draenor delievered on that (with some missteps, of course).
Pandaria's Ground experience was much better than Warlords. The quest flow was better and while it still had quest hubs they advanced the story in a much tighter way. It felt more engaging. The only zone that was complete crap on the ground was Dread Wastes but it gave good XP relatively speaking, the story was interesting and you didn't have to do that much of it without flying.
Draenor is crap. It starts of crap and rarely rises above it. As Pablo said it feels more gamey. The story is complete nonsense even for WoW. Even worse it's pointless. As a general in the alliance it feels like I had less of an impact on the story in WoD than in Mists where we were part of why it's all messed up. The other characters in the game quickly steal the players thunder and devalue your impact. The iron horde fall over despite having the time to prepare and ultimately had little to no impact on Azeroth. They're just there so they can justify revisiting the characters from the RTS from back in the day.
In retrospect they should have had the iron horde pour out the portal and actually have some impact instead of having them pour out the portal to get wrecked and go to draenor right away. All the way through the introduction to Warlords of Draenor I wasn't thinking "I'm a bad ass kicking these guys ass!" it was "These guys are f***ing chumps! Why I am bothering when this Khadgar guy could solo it?".
Hm, I wonder if the Alliance side Jade Forest quests are handled better than the Horde side since on Horde you end up bouncing back and forth across the entire zone, had a godawful buggy mess of a questline involving reliving what your NPC friends went off and did without you, and a good deal of the quest areas up in the mountains only had one path so you ended up wandering around trying to find the right stairwell/bridge to get there.
Hm, I wonder if the Alliance side Jade Forest quests are handled better than the Horde side since on Horde you end up bouncing back and forth across the entire zone, had a godawful buggy mess of a questline involving reliving what your NPC friends went off and did without you, and a good deal of the quest areas up in the mountains only had one path so you ended up wandering around trying to find the right stairwell/bridge to get there.
IIRC, alliance side Jade forest started in the southwest? and flowed east and then north/mid. I don't remember the exact starting locations or end locations, and I believe there were a number of off shoots that you could explore/ignore. I just have a vague memory of a burning town that you could run quests for or bypass depending on your level at the time. The other zones felt more linear but this was still when you HAD to move to a new zone when you reached certain levels because quest xp dipped dramatically at those breakout points.
Jade Forest as alliance felt great though. I remember the burning town, the various temples, some various subplots on the Jade Witch. It just felt huge and engaging. Following the core story was very fluid and, like i mentioned, there were little offshoots to pursue if you were leveling an alt and were bored with the main storyline.
Papagander on
“There are no happy endings, because nothing ends.” ... also, "Ah, turn blue!"
XBOne | LyrKing
does everybody else's launcher say there's game data to download? Mine claims there's future patch data to get, but then it just hangs at 'preparing to download'
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
They also said armor dyes would result in everyone looking the same.
I guess that's exactly what happened with transmog, eh?
It actually hasn't, there's some seriously cool stuff out there. Sure, you get the odd guy who just has Warrior T6 with Bulwark of Azzinoth like everybody else loves, but most people do a lot of really cool stuff.
Sorry, I was trying to be sarcastic and didn't come across very well. I was pointing out that it didn't happen with transmog, which I think was more likely than it would be with dyes.
0
Options
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
I remembered the other day they said we in time after an update we could fly in Slivermoon and Exodar since they needed graphic updates
But then this never happened
I agree Draenor is crap I don't feel the threat of the Iron Horde they have guns pointed at my garrison that never fire. They have a huge base I walked into did really nothing to and walked away from.
Well the silvermoon and exodar thing is because the zones are actually in outland and for some reason that makes it more complicated? Plus no one ever goes out there especially after you are high enough level to fly.
I think they just do not want to put the effort into making them a part of the real world.
So not only is Arcane's Tier 18 2Piece set bonus currently a DPS Loss that Arcane mages would want to avoid getting, one of Fire's BiS Trinkets, will be a healer Trinket with Spirit. It has Intellect and Spirit and gives X amount of Crit on use with just a 1 min and 30 second cooldown.
It is so ridiculously Best in Slot for Fire that the Normal version of this Trinket beats everything else on higher difficulties except for higher levels of itself.
Yea, that's the backup strat. But it's literally a 50s video to watch that shows a simple, flowing strategy everyone can follow. Melee only have to do 3 things, Ranged have to do 4, and healers get to heal since there's 2 stacked groups at all times.
Says the person that doesn't link the video!
In all honesty, I'll be fine once I do my research but last night was a cluster. "Melee kill the box at green, then move to the next one but don't kill it I mean kill it ok don't kill it I mean kill it NOW" Not to mention that the boxes won't go down nearly as fast on Mythic as you guys think they will.
Mugsley on
0
Options
HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
One thing's for sure, I haven't seen this much of a dust-up with the WoW community vs. the devs since the Real ID/Real names fiasco years ago.
Is it really a big deal? Seems like most people I've spoken to the reaction has been meh, blizz gonna blizz.
It seems pretty big, as WoW controversies go. It's also exacerbated by the fact that many players were already on edge due to other issues with the expansion, so dropping this news on them didn't really help (apart from the people who legitimately want flight gone permanently).
There's supposed to be a 'WoW Q&A' with Watcher/Ion Hazzikostas in a week or two that will have him tackling 'tough questions' from the player community. If past history is any indication, it'll be thirty minutes of softball questions cherry-picked by the CM team so no new information will be given, but who knows? Maybe this time we'll see something interesting.
Halfmex on
0
Options
AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
Yea, that's the backup strat. But it's literally a 50s video to watch that shows a simple, flowing strategy everyone can follow. Melee only have to do 3 things, Ranged have to do 4, and healers get to heal since there's 2 stacked groups at all times.
Says the person that doesn't link the video!
In all honesty, I'll be fine once I do my research but last night was a cluster. "Melee kill the box at green, then move to the next one but don't kill it I mean kill it ok don't kill it I mean kill it NOW" Not to mention that the boxes won't go down nearly as fast on Mythic as you guys think they will.
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
I don't feel the threat of the Iron Horde they have guns pointed at my garrison that never fire. They have a huge base I walked into did really nothing to and walked away from.
This is an excellent observation. The Iron Horde just does not feel like much of a threat, unlike the Lich King or the Sha of Hey, Is That Really a Gray Hair Down There.
Keep in mind that there are at least two different roll patterns based on what boxes fall down when you start. The raid needs to quickly identify which pattern it is and respond accordingly.
The start doesn't matter. He only has two possible roll paths for his first roll, and killing the 1st box in the pattern always forces him to roll south if he started by going west, or west if he started by going south, so that his third roll is always around the bottom to hoover up the box you just killed.
And the boxes always spawn 4 in the centre, 2 in each outer lane. The only change is a cosmetic one where a box might be slightly to the side of the lane rather than literally on the outside, which doesn't alter the kill or roll pattern.
I think their attitude about no flying is a bigger problem than no flying itself.
I was one of the ones who was very unhappy with with this expansion (first expansion I didn't buy at launch--got it a month later--and then I only played for a single month before unsubscribing and haven't been back since, which might be my longest gap of not playing). And really, Blizzard as a whole has kind of been going downhill in my eyes since around the time the NDA lifted on the Diablo 3 Alpha. Maybe I just had them on too high of a pedestal before.
But with WoW, they are really doing a good job about making my current break from the game a permanent one. The attitude of the devs since WoD has been grating, there have been a bunch of things implemented in recent years that I dislike or outright despise that they refuse to back down on (such as CRZ), and really, my game is at a great stopping point.
I'm level 100. I personally defeated Illidan and the Lich King and a couple of old gods. I stopped Deathwing from destroying the entire planet and then went an investigated an undiscovered continent which ultimately resulted in a truce between the Horde and the Alliance. All the threats are gone. So threats come in from another dimension and I beat the shit out of them, drive them back, destroy their way back to my world, set up various fortifications all around their world while taking out their strongholds and leaders, built an entire army, and essentially trained my own replacement to lead them.
So I can retire and not even feel bad about it. I know they wanted to try and emphasize that level 100 isn't the end, but I don't see any reason it can't be for me.
Hm, I wonder if the Alliance side Jade Forest quests are handled better than the Horde side since on Horde you end up bouncing back and forth across the entire zone, had a godawful buggy mess of a questline involving reliving what your NPC friends went off and did without you, and a good deal of the quest areas up in the mountains only had one path so you ended up wandering around trying to find the right stairwell/bridge to get there.
Yep, Alliance side Jade Forest stuff was beautiful and flowed nicely from one area to another. I did both sides, and my horde character's quest progress is still stuck where the NPC buddies went and bugged the fuck out on me, and I just skipped over to the next zone.
@danx Yea, the Iron Horde really don't feel like they're a massive threat to us, even with the invasion event at the portal. There was no lasting changes, and we -never- go back to old world to deal with the scouts and stuff that got past the blockade at the portal. UBRS is pretty much just the same as it used to be as far as anyone's story knowledge is concerned, since there's never anything that sends you back to deal with the enemies holed up there. This whole thing takes place where noone (as a PC) gives a shit what happens, because the threat is basically ended at the end of the intro quest area where the dorf (as alliance) blows up the portal. GG, we could have went home right then and there.
Flying had absolutely no bearing on why I quit WoW for most of this expansion. The main reason I quit, was because I honestly think there isn't a dev actually plays the Shaman class, especially Elemental.
The PTR before the expansion, there were justified complaints that the dps was low, coupled with the lack of movement. The devs reply and basically said those players just didn't realise how OP they were. Expansion hits, it soon becomes apparent that Elemental is severely behind. Other things as well, such as pointing out that the level 45 talent choice is garbage (yet do nothing about it and 6.2 is arriving soon?), how it generally isn't all that fun to play anymore; the bizarre 4 piece set bonus that was going to come (i.e. for a spec that is generally awful at lots of movement, why have a bonus that would require you to move?), the "nerf" to damage that is partly due to gear scaling in a patch that will see the old 4 piece tier go, which helps with the lack of movement let alone what it does to Shaman not in top gear.
Then other things, such as how everyone now sits in a garrison making the world seem the emptiest is has been, the disaster that is the pvp zone, the way devs communicate with players (I have seen zip since release about the issues shaman have).
I could go on and on, but once my subscription lapsed, I felt no need to renew it; maybe when the class sees an overhaul of some kind but I'm not holding my breath for such a thing in this expansion.
PSN Fleety2009
0
Options
AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
The devs reply and basically said those players just didn't realise how OP they were. Expansion hits, it soon becomes apparent that Elemental is severely behind.
You know a feature I'd love? Cross-character queues.
I'd love to queue for, say, raid finder on my main character and then switch to a alt to grind or quest while waiting a hour for something to pop because I queued DPS. And then have it give me the option to switch back automatically when it pops.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
+6
Options
SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
Woo, we finally took down Blackhand! Unfortunately I was dead for most of phase 3. We just barely pulled it off, but it felt good to finally kill him.
The main reason I quit, was because I honestly think there isn't a dev actually plays the Shaman class, especially Elemental.
\Oh my god, seriously you and all of the other people like you need to stop saying this bullshit
Devs who play "your class" are not some mythical champions of your class' downtrodden peasantry who wield sword and spear in internal company meetings to ensure that "their class" is always the best or is always fun or always whatever.
This is a fucking COMPANY where people have JOBS. It's not goddamn Reddit.
Woo, we finally took down Blackhand! Unfortunately I was dead for most of phase 3. We just barely pulled it off, but it felt good to finally kill him.
Awesome!
My guild also took down Heroic Blackhand last night. Took all night and we only got him on the last pull. Something about that last pull... focuses everyone's minds. Phase 2 was butter and I was shocked how many people were up after two smashes in Phase 3. Same last pull magic happened on Blast Furnace and Iron Maidens when those were an issue.
It does feel great. I really like that fight even if it is possibly too punishing.
The main reason I quit, was because I honestly think there isn't a dev actually plays the Shaman class, especially Elemental.
\Oh my god, seriously you and all of the other people like you need to stop saying this bullshit
Devs who play "your class" are not some mythical champions of your class' downtrodden peasantry who wield sword and spear in internal company meetings to ensure that "their class" is always the best or is always fun or always whatever.
This is a fucking COMPANY where people have JOBS. It's not goddamn Reddit.
For fuck's sake.
And designers playing one class/weapon/skill/build/whatever more to another to a degree that it affects balance is a thing, so maybe tone back the outrage there.
Well they did design an Arcane set bonus that ruins the conserve phase making it mana negative.
That's pretty bad.
0
Options
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
Well, playing something doesnt make you good at balancing it, so the point can still be bad.
Dude could play elemental for days and play with other bad players and see himself top all meters and think 'eh, its fine, others just dont GET it" and thats it.
But also seriously from what I see Ele is right in the middle and thats pretty well off? There are much worse classes mobility wise and Ele has always been immobile I think. Unless MOP was like the golden age for them.
0
Options
SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
Woo, we finally took down Blackhand! Unfortunately I was dead for most of phase 3. We just barely pulled it off, but it felt good to finally kill him.
Awesome!
My guild also took down Heroic Blackhand last night. Took all night and we only got him on the last pull. Something about that last pull... focuses everyone's minds. Phase 2 was butter and I was shocked how many people were up after two smashes in Phase 3. Same last pull magic happened on Blast Furnace and Iron Maidens when those were an issue.
It does feel great. I really like that fight even if it is possibly too punishing.
Yeah. I survived the first massive shattering smash, but then got hit with a slag mine. I ran to the left to make sure it dropped away from everyone, but didn't notice my health was pretty low and I died as soon as it detonated. Only about half the raid was alive by the time he died. According to DBM, it was our 31st attempt.
I guess we might start working on heroic BRF next week as we wait for 6.2.
Posts
Best top ever >.<
Official PA Forums FFXIV:ARR Free Company <GHOST> gitl.enjin.com Join us on Sargatanas!
This is basically exactly how I feel. I played WoW shortly after launch, and never got too far into it. When they added flying in BC, I got back into the game, and flying was cool as shit! Then they kept it through the next several expansions, and it was absolutely one of the main reasons I stuck with WoW, even after trying a ton of other MMOs. That feeling of freedom to fly all over the world (save those few weird zones that never got it), whether it was to do old quests, find some random areas I'd never been to, or just fly around for the fuck of it.
If it really never comes back, I seriously doubt I will either. I'm interested to see how FFXIV's flying pans out. If it's awesome, that'll be my new go-to MMO now that flying is dead in WoW.
This is incredibly untrue. Also flying isn't removing downtime, it is making it shorter/less annoying to the player. No one ever thinks, "Oh boy, I get to run 30 miles to get to the next quest." or, "Oh boy, I get to go back to town because my bags are full of crap I need to sell."
Relying on downtime to pad your game is a bad crutch.
If you want to put downtime in your game, you do it in a way that promotes social behavior and that players can partake in or skip as they feel the need.
SWG kind of had it right, with the dancers and whatnot providing buffs if you watched them, I can't recall if they were mandatory or not to restore your health bars (I'm not going to go into the other issues that game had).
And downtime is not a crutch, it's a required aspect of entertainment and in games it's needed to create a compelling game loop. The downtime needs to be proportional to the gameplay though, so too much can be bad as is can be too little.
Questing is practically "downtime" for me. How many quests are adrenaline fueled battles for my character's life? Not many. The basic gameplay loop of WoW is not very taxing. Even then quests have built in downtime in that you're probably reading the quest text before or on the way to the quest. Then there's just relaxing quests that punctuate other combat heavy quests. Clicking on flowers to collect them. Throwing bottles of apple ale at a Pandaren as he explains his fears that war will overtake his continent. There are more engaging ways to punctuate your game than forcing a player to jump on a mount and climb a mountain. Not to say travel doesn't have its place... but it is overused.
I agree though that flying speeds got too high. They kept using flying as a gold sink and slowing increasing their speed. I can't help but feel that speed difference created the situation today.
Of course I still remember the flying "poverty mounts" of BC. 160% flying speed felt like you were fighting the air just to move through it. Without some speed to soar with it doesn't really feel like flying! There had to be a happier medium.
I wouldn't have a problem with slower flying mounts, as long as the ability to fly remained. There is nothing wrong with having large play spaces though, they just didn't do anything interesting with them. I don't think anyone is fighting for the speeds to stay the same or they are quitting, just the fact they are removing flying in general.
They could have had more migration to their placements of mobs. Have animals move based on seasons or whatnot, have armies move between encampments. It also gives you more spaces to have events occur in.
except that pandaria is the best landmass they've ever made, and riding around on the ground while leveling never felt like "punishment", it felt like being in a real place
otoh, most of draenor is super cramped and feels very "game"-y.
like, is there even anywhere in shadowmoon that isn't a quest hub?
I don't understand how you can say Pandaria's ground mount experience wasn't terrible outside of maybe the Valley of Four Winds. Sometimes it's better to make a place feel less "real" if it means the gameplay is better and on the whole I think Draenor delievered on that (with some missteps, of course).
I absolutely loved Pandaria questing. The massive zones, the stories being told, the battles between the Alliance and Horde getting fleshed out over time. Plus there was a ton of space to just go and check out the landscape, to see the cool sights and stare in awe at the artwork of the zones. That continent felt truly EPIC when just wandering about.
WoD was great for leveling in, but.. it doesn't have that same feeling of being this huge place. SMV is basically small mini-zones that you go down into or up onto for a quest hub, and that's it. There's no little towns tucked away or events hidden back in some valley that you can really only find if you're off the road between two hubs. The exploration stuff with the toys and everything was neato, and a great addition, but there just wasn't enough space for it to really feel like I was exploring. I felt like I was just in a small sub zone, and anything outside of that little zone was part of a different quest series or whatnot and that I'd get there eventually. I wasn't worried that I'd miss something.
The only places in WoD that I felt were epic and crazy were the elemental areas of Nagrand and the city of Karabor. Being up on those tall plateaus with air, fire, water, and earth elementals all in a massive death match was amazing. Looking out over the gathering spot of the Furies, seeing the massive creatures in the distance, rumbling on with their quests for other adventurers while you were parked what felt like half a zone away in the middle of a warzone. Karabor was likewise amazing for me, just in the scope of the place. There's so many little spots to wander around in, look for neato hidden NPC interactions, or just spots that had an amazing view of the ocean and harbor. There's a couple spots like that in each of the zones, but they're very obvious in where you can find them because it's the one or two spots on your map that you didn't uncover when doing the quests for that zone.
R*SC: BladeCruiser
Check out my GTAV-PC custom race tracks inspired by real life racing circuits!
1st try, perfect, flawless roll phase.
Sometimes I don't fucking understand our raid.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Is it really a big deal? Seems like most people I've spoken to the reaction has been meh, blizz gonna blizz.
Pandaria's Ground experience was much better than Warlords. The quest flow was better and while it still had quest hubs they advanced the story in a much tighter way. It felt more engaging. The only zone that was complete crap on the ground was Dread Wastes but it gave good XP relatively speaking, the story was interesting and you didn't have to do that much of it without flying.
Draenor is crap. It starts of crap and rarely rises above it. As Pablo said it feels more gamey. The story is complete nonsense even for WoW. Even worse it's pointless. As a general in the alliance it feels like I had less of an impact on the story in WoD than in Mists where we were part of why it's all messed up. The other characters in the game quickly steal the players thunder and devalue your impact. The iron horde fall over despite having the time to prepare and ultimately had little to no impact on Azeroth. They're just there so they can justify revisiting the characters from the RTS from back in the day.
In retrospect they should have had the iron horde pour out the portal and actually have some impact instead of having them pour out the portal to get wrecked and go to draenor right away. All the way through the introduction to Warlords of Draenor I wasn't thinking "I'm a bad ass kicking these guys ass!" it was "These guys are f***ing chumps! Why I am bothering when this Khadgar guy could solo it?".
But then this never happened
I agree Draenor is crap I don't feel the threat of the Iron Horde they have guns pointed at my garrison that never fire. They have a huge base I walked into did really nothing to and walked away from.
Hm, I wonder if the Alliance side Jade Forest quests are handled better than the Horde side since on Horde you end up bouncing back and forth across the entire zone, had a godawful buggy mess of a questline involving reliving what your NPC friends went off and did without you, and a good deal of the quest areas up in the mountains only had one path so you ended up wandering around trying to find the right stairwell/bridge to get there.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
IIRC, alliance side Jade forest started in the southwest? and flowed east and then north/mid. I don't remember the exact starting locations or end locations, and I believe there were a number of off shoots that you could explore/ignore. I just have a vague memory of a burning town that you could run quests for or bypass depending on your level at the time. The other zones felt more linear but this was still when you HAD to move to a new zone when you reached certain levels because quest xp dipped dramatically at those breakout points.
Jade Forest as alliance felt great though. I remember the burning town, the various temples, some various subplots on the Jade Witch. It just felt huge and engaging. Following the core story was very fluid and, like i mentioned, there were little offshoots to pursue if you were leveling an alt and were bored with the main storyline.
XBOne | LyrKing
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Sorry, I was trying to be sarcastic and didn't come across very well. I was pointing out that it didn't happen with transmog, which I think was more likely than it would be with dyes.
I think they just do not want to put the effort into making them a part of the real world.
It is so ridiculously Best in Slot for Fire that the Normal version of this Trinket beats everything else on higher difficulties except for higher levels of itself.
Says the person that doesn't link the video!
In all honesty, I'll be fine once I do my research but last night was a cluster. "Melee kill the box at green, then move to the next one but don't kill it I mean kill it ok don't kill it I mean kill it NOW" Not to mention that the boxes won't go down nearly as fast on Mythic as you guys think they will.
It seems pretty big, as WoW controversies go. It's also exacerbated by the fact that many players were already on edge due to other issues with the expansion, so dropping this news on them didn't really help (apart from the people who legitimately want flight gone permanently).
There's supposed to be a 'WoW Q&A' with Watcher/Ion Hazzikostas in a week or two that will have him tackling 'tough questions' from the player community. If past history is any indication, it'll be thirty minutes of softball questions cherry-picked by the CM team so no new information will be given, but who knows? Maybe this time we'll see something interesting.
I didn't think he was going to test it!
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
This is an excellent observation. The Iron Horde just does not feel like much of a threat, unlike the Lich King or the Sha of Hey, Is That Really a Gray Hair Down There.
The start doesn't matter. He only has two possible roll paths for his first roll, and killing the 1st box in the pattern always forces him to roll south if he started by going west, or west if he started by going south, so that his third roll is always around the bottom to hoover up the box you just killed.
And the boxes always spawn 4 in the centre, 2 in each outer lane. The only change is a cosmetic one where a box might be slightly to the side of the lane rather than literally on the outside, which doesn't alter the kill or roll pattern.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
I was one of the ones who was very unhappy with with this expansion (first expansion I didn't buy at launch--got it a month later--and then I only played for a single month before unsubscribing and haven't been back since, which might be my longest gap of not playing). And really, Blizzard as a whole has kind of been going downhill in my eyes since around the time the NDA lifted on the Diablo 3 Alpha. Maybe I just had them on too high of a pedestal before.
But with WoW, they are really doing a good job about making my current break from the game a permanent one. The attitude of the devs since WoD has been grating, there have been a bunch of things implemented in recent years that I dislike or outright despise that they refuse to back down on (such as CRZ), and really, my game is at a great stopping point.
I'm level 100. I personally defeated Illidan and the Lich King and a couple of old gods. I stopped Deathwing from destroying the entire planet and then went an investigated an undiscovered continent which ultimately resulted in a truce between the Horde and the Alliance. All the threats are gone. So threats come in from another dimension and I beat the shit out of them, drive them back, destroy their way back to my world, set up various fortifications all around their world while taking out their strongholds and leaders, built an entire army, and essentially trained my own replacement to lead them.
So I can retire and not even feel bad about it. I know they wanted to try and emphasize that level 100 isn't the end, but I don't see any reason it can't be for me.
Yep, Alliance side Jade Forest stuff was beautiful and flowed nicely from one area to another. I did both sides, and my horde character's quest progress is still stuck where the NPC buddies went and bugged the fuck out on me, and I just skipped over to the next zone.
@danx Yea, the Iron Horde really don't feel like they're a massive threat to us, even with the invasion event at the portal. There was no lasting changes, and we -never- go back to old world to deal with the scouts and stuff that got past the blockade at the portal. UBRS is pretty much just the same as it used to be as far as anyone's story knowledge is concerned, since there's never anything that sends you back to deal with the enemies holed up there. This whole thing takes place where noone (as a PC) gives a shit what happens, because the threat is basically ended at the end of the intro quest area where the dorf (as alliance) blows up the portal. GG, we could have went home right then and there.
R*SC: BladeCruiser
Check out my GTAV-PC custom race tracks inspired by real life racing circuits!
The PTR before the expansion, there were justified complaints that the dps was low, coupled with the lack of movement. The devs reply and basically said those players just didn't realise how OP they were. Expansion hits, it soon becomes apparent that Elemental is severely behind. Other things as well, such as pointing out that the level 45 talent choice is garbage (yet do nothing about it and 6.2 is arriving soon?), how it generally isn't all that fun to play anymore; the bizarre 4 piece set bonus that was going to come (i.e. for a spec that is generally awful at lots of movement, why have a bonus that would require you to move?), the "nerf" to damage that is partly due to gear scaling in a patch that will see the old 4 piece tier go, which helps with the lack of movement let alone what it does to Shaman not in top gear.
Then other things, such as how everyone now sits in a garrison making the world seem the emptiest is has been, the disaster that is the pvp zone, the way devs communicate with players (I have seen zip since release about the issues shaman have).
I could go on and on, but once my subscription lapsed, I felt no need to renew it; maybe when the class sees an overhaul of some kind but I'm not holding my breath for such a thing in this expansion.
So Elemental was this tier's Windwalker Monks?
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
I'd love to queue for, say, raid finder on my main character and then switch to a alt to grind or quest while waiting a hour for something to pop because I queued DPS. And then have it give me the option to switch back automatically when it pops.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
My Backloggery
\Oh my god, seriously you and all of the other people like you need to stop saying this bullshit
Devs who play "your class" are not some mythical champions of your class' downtrodden peasantry who wield sword and spear in internal company meetings to ensure that "their class" is always the best or is always fun or always whatever.
This is a fucking COMPANY where people have JOBS. It's not goddamn Reddit.
For fuck's sake.
Awesome!
My guild also took down Heroic Blackhand last night. Took all night and we only got him on the last pull. Something about that last pull... focuses everyone's minds. Phase 2 was butter and I was shocked how many people were up after two smashes in Phase 3. Same last pull magic happened on Blast Furnace and Iron Maidens when those were an issue.
It does feel great. I really like that fight even if it is possibly too punishing.
And designers playing one class/weapon/skill/build/whatever more to another to a degree that it affects balance is a thing, so maybe tone back the outrage there.
That's pretty bad.
Dude could play elemental for days and play with other bad players and see himself top all meters and think 'eh, its fine, others just dont GET it" and thats it.
But also seriously from what I see Ele is right in the middle and thats pretty well off? There are much worse classes mobility wise and Ele has always been immobile I think. Unless MOP was like the golden age for them.
Yeah. I survived the first massive shattering smash, but then got hit with a slag mine. I ran to the left to make sure it dropped away from everyone, but didn't notice my health was pretty low and I died as soon as it detonated. Only about half the raid was alive by the time he died. According to DBM, it was our 31st attempt.
I guess we might start working on heroic BRF next week as we wait for 6.2.
My Backloggery