I think player housing is only really interesting in more sandbox-y games. You need a lot of space or else you need to have them instanced off, which kind of kills it for me.
Now, if you had a game where the world was much more dynamic and bigger than in WoW, and it was constantly evolving, then the housing thing becomes a lot more interesting.
What I always thought would be really cool would be a game that is sort of a RPG and RTS hybrid. Where the players are individuals but the enemies are kind of like RTS RTS computer/AIs. Like you'd have a town where the main NPC humans live, and some orcs or whatever on the outskirts that build a base and attack it. Might be really hard to design and manage that though and prevent abuse. Maybe if orc tribe A gets blown up the Goblin tribe B goes up in power or something, the world would have to be really vast to accomodate making it hard for players to manipulate things.
Then players could also cut down trees to build forts and stuff like that. And the mobs would attack it - inactive players would see their stuff getting burned down or whatever.
On August 26 2014 04:48 Requizen wrote: I have little to no nostalgia for Outlands. Nagrand was the only zone I really liked. Zangarmarsh is kinda pretty but the quest chains are boring/annoying and it's annoying to get places pre-flying. Hellfire is shitty, Netherstorm is all one boring palette, Blade's Edge were generic as generic can generic, and Terrokar had like, 2 good quest chains. Shadowmoon is alright I guess, but never jumped out at me other than the Gul'dan questline.
Hellfire, Nagrand, and Netherstorm alone are some of my favorite zones of all time. Zangarmarsh is alright, but the quest density is AMAZING and I love getting there just because of how fast the leveling gets for a while. Terrokar was forgettable. Shadowmoon and Blade's Edge were very unique aesthetically but I didn't love the questing in either. Also I just played a lot in TBC (last time I seriously raided too) and enjoyed the whole experience, so like I said, heavy nostalgia not strictly related to the continent itself.
Hellfire was great, did not like Zangmarsh though. It´s this whole dark-jungle setting I'm was not very comfortable with. Terrokar was pretty good in my opinion especially the quests where you had invade the bloodelves base and blow it up in the end. Nagrand was without a doubt the best zone, beatiful landscape and some funny quests. I remember collecting dung from some goat-like animals. Or killing this huge monster, his name was Durn. Or finding groups to beat the monsters in the arena... and get killed by some players from the alliance. Nagrand was awful... in almost every aspect. Didn't like Netherstorm either. Except for raiding Quel'thas I've never been there. Same goes for Shadowmoon, not as bad as the two mentioned before but the only reason to go there was because of the BT. And the dragons.
Overall BC's zones were still better than the ones in Wotlk/Cata/MoP. The best zone of all time still is (and will ever be) Winterspring! Felt in love with this part of the world at the first sight.
On August 26 2014 03:37 m4ini wrote: Not too sure about WoD though, might be the first expansion i pass on since vanilla. The WoD Beta-Forums literally have zero positive feedback on the pruning/castrating/neuting of the classes. Most commonly described as "awkward, clunky", and that goes for all classes. Sadly, especially for the classes i play (druid, warrior). People are actually wanting ghostcrawler back, since the new guy (Celestalon?) has no idea about what he's doing. He even admitted it ("never played hunter, but feels awesome after the changes" while literally everyone playing hunter in beta is gutted by how bullshit it apparently is now). All they get as feedback is "just wait, it'll be awesome, you'll love it". Yeah, right.
Confirmation bias/selection(sampling) bias/post hoc/etc...you sure your opinions are free of these fallacies? I've seen some some of the feedback on the forums as well, but mostly on class-specific ones like Altered-Time and HowToPriest, and the general feeling I gather is mixed to positive for the specs within those classes.
Of course, bias exists within those forums as well, including confirmation bias the other way, as well as probably some sunk cost rationalization (since these are all hardcore PvE-lifers). So, until you actually play the game yourself for both a reasonable amount of time and within an appropriate context -- i.e. if you enjoy PvE, evaluate your class within a normal raid setting -- I'd take everything with a grain of salt.
I assume most people quest to level in a new expansion, but how many people level via dungeons only?
I'm gonna be boosting a druid to 90 (I wasn't planning to, but I saw that boosting a lvl 60 also gives you max professions, couldn't pass that up). But, I won't have much healing experience, so I was thinking of lvling 90-100 in dungeons as resto.
On August 26 2014 05:29 TheFish7 wrote: I think player housing is only really interesting in more sandbox-y games. You need a lot of space or else you need to have them instanced off, which kind of kills it for me.
Now, if you had a game where the world was much more dynamic and bigger than in WoW, and it was constantly evolving, then the housing thing becomes a lot more interesting.
What I always thought would be really cool would be a game that is sort of a RPG and RTS hybrid. Where the players are individuals but the enemies are kind of like RTS RTS computer/AIs. Like you'd have a town where the main NPC humans live, and some orcs or whatever on the outskirts that build a base and attack it. Might be really hard to design and manage that though and prevent abuse. Maybe if orc tribe A gets blown up the Goblin tribe B goes up in power or something, the world would have to be really vast to accomodate making it hard for players to manipulate things.
Then players could also cut down trees to build forts and stuff like that. And the mobs would attack it - inactive players would see their stuff getting burned down or whatever.
As a side note, I think it's kind of sad how flat and un-interesting the actual world is in World of Warcraft.
Barely anything happens. Nothing changes. We barely see any story-related progression or change (Gnomeregan still not taken back, Dalaran still neutral, Gilneas still abandoned). There's little to no interaction between the players and the world. Players really can't change anything in it.
On August 26 2014 06:58 Popkiller wrote: I assume most people quest to level in a new expansion, but how many people level via dungeons only?
I'm gonna be boosting a druid to 90 (I wasn't planning to, but I saw that boosting a lvl 60 also gives you max professions, couldn't pass that up). But, I won't have much healing experience, so I was thinking of lvling 90-100 in dungeons as resto.
Anyone think that's a good/bad idea?
People do this pretty often in new expansions actually. Especially if you can find a group of friends and just run things over and over together.
In fact even from level 15 (as soon as dungeon finder turns on), dungeons are a really solid way of leveling, if you get bored of typical questing (in fact, with rested and/or the first time you do each one for the quests inside, it's probably the fastest way)
Need people who are interested in Challenge Mode golds on US Alliance. Just need to have 463+ gear, and patience for repeated wipes and roughly a few hours per Gold clear.
So far we have Micro, Munkies (Funtimez), and myself interested. I can either dps or heal, Micro is dps, and Funtimez can heal, tank, or dps, so any role can come. Add me on Quane#1223.
On August 26 2014 03:37 m4ini wrote: Not too sure about WoD though, might be the first expansion i pass on since vanilla. The WoD Beta-Forums literally have zero positive feedback on the pruning/castrating/neuting of the classes. Most commonly described as "awkward, clunky", and that goes for all classes. Sadly, especially for the classes i play (druid, warrior). People are actually wanting ghostcrawler back, since the new guy (Celestalon?) has no idea about what he's doing. He even admitted it ("never played hunter, but feels awesome after the changes" while literally everyone playing hunter in beta is gutted by how bullshit it apparently is now). All they get as feedback is "just wait, it'll be awesome, you'll love it". Yeah, right.
Confirmation bias/selection(sampling) bias/post hoc/etc...you sure your opinions are free of these fallacies? I've seen some some of the feedback on the forums as well, but mostly on class-specific ones like Altered-Time and HowToPriest, and the general feeling I gather is mixed to positive for the specs within those classes.
Of course, bias exists within those forums as well, including confirmation bias the other way, as well as probably some sunk cost rationalization (since these are all hardcore PvE-lifers). So, until you actually play the game yourself for both a reasonable amount of time and within an appropriate context -- i.e. if you enjoy PvE, evaluate your class within a normal raid setting -- I'd take everything with a grain of salt.
Don't take it personally, but this posting is quite a big pile.
There's four specs (not classes) that are content. Frostmages, ferals, discis and to some extent shadows (maybe rets as a fifth). The rest (luckily it's easy to read up upon, since the class forum has a thread for every single spec) is, to put it mildly, not happy. Sure you have the oddball every now and then who apparently doesn't understand what the math is giving you (easy example, 50-60% damage off whitehits only for hunters, compared to what, 12% live?). That's not confirmation bias. That's a simple fact. As well as the fact that hunters can play their rota backwards now, and almost lose no dps (i think it's roughly 3%, and no, it's not a joke - it's tested in raid-enviroments). Even worse for warriors, which don't have a rota anymore. They just press what's not on cooldown. It literally doesn't matter what they press when, as long as they press every 18 seconds the rend button (which is btw only a minor dps increase, again in the single digit percentage).
The problem is simply not in the numbers which are obviously tweakable, but in the fact that classes got gutted to the point of no return anymore. Ever seen an arms-warrior spam WW? Well guess what, it's the new main ragedump. It's beyond stupid. Not to mention the obvious problems in PvP, even though that doesn't matter to me that much (played glad S3 as disc and since then never really competetive again). Try tactical PvP if your teammate has an aoe as main damagesource.
DKs. FrostDW? Nope. Doesn't exist anymore. Why? God knows.
You can also check twitter, for the dreaded "we know better, you will love it!" posts.
There's so much idiocy in some of the changes, it honestly boggles my mind. Completely removing overpower for Arms is just the tip.
What tickles me most though, they take what was built up in almost a decade, and basically (quite literally) crush it down again to vanilla levels (and no, that's not an exaggeration, lead class designer literally said that that's what they wanted). They shove stupid bullshit down the throats of players who already called balanceproblems out (eleshamans earthquake comes to mind) - and even though on some changes not just the majority, but beta-players unisono say "nope, it simply doesn't work like this" (and we're talking, in case of eleshamis for example, of renown players which i honestly trust more than a lead designer who think it's "good" to have only one mobile ranged DD in the game, obviously no balance-issue).
To quote Celestalon here: "The goal is equal performance for everyone.". For me, alot of motivation goes down the drain if a monkey who is in the game for 10 minutes can already go 95% of my DPS. There's no reason anymore to show effort, since even if you don't, your DPS doesn't significantly suffer for alot of specs at the moment. Sure, you want to kill the boss as a team, but you only try to improve if you have something that's worth improving for. If bosses die with my current DPS, and there's no competetition between DDs, then there's no reason to achieve higher DPS at all. In the end, i want to shine because i know what buttons to press when. Not because i can burp the loudest in TS, since ingame you can't stand out anymore.
That's quite a huge rant, sorry for that. It's just that the "designphilosophy", if you want to call it that, just is a recipe for desaster. If every class and player goes the same DPS, the game will get boring incredibly fast. Especially with so many options to "refine" gone, biggest one obviously being reforging. Sockets being rare, no socketboni anymore, up to this point not clear if gem needs to match color of socket or if it's simply prismatic all the time. Same goes for the "new" attribute roll on gear, i don't mind in diablo farming for a better version of something i'm already wearing, in WoW/raids that will get obnoxious really fast (the random 3rd attribute).
I'd bet that this will push away quite alot of players, especially those who stuck with their classes for the decade now, just to see them taking out every single ounce of complexity. Balancedruids being the shining example (Boomkins are calling it Idiotkin already, since you don't need to watch your eclipse bar anymore etc).
Bleh.. Sorry again, had to be said though. -.-
edit:
To ad salt to injury..
We wanted to fix a few problems with Warriors. Prominently, we still weren't happy with Arms' rotation (and neither were many players), so we've made some more changes. The goal is to remove needless complexity while simultaneously adding more depth.
That's Celestalons vision. You know what that meant? Remove baseline abilities and procs without adding anything. Some numbertweaking, that's it. Directly under that statement you could read:
Enrage is no longer available to Arms Warriors. Overpower has been removed. Arms Warriors should now use Rend and Whirlwind instead. Slam has been removed. Arms Warriors should now use Rend and Whirlwind instead. Sudden Death has been removed. Unbridled Wrath has been removed.
Rend is a new ability for Arms Warriors. (not that i'd understand why somehow rend is a new ability now)
Rest is rage/damage adjustments.
I absolutely agree with removing needless complexity, this is simply a joke. Alot of depth added there.
On August 26 2014 10:32 Qaatar wrote: Need people who are interested in Challenge Mode golds on US Alliance. Just need to have 463+ gear, and patience for repeated wipes and roughly a few hours per Gold clear.
So far we have Micro, Munkies (Funtimez), and myself interested. I can either dps or heal, Micro is dps, and Funtimez can heal, tank, or dps, so any role can come. Add me on Quane#1223.
I dunno man, I'd be interested but I just hit a short while ago and just have some gear from Timeless Isle. Dunno if I would drag you down to much, but if you need someone to sit in a dps spot and not stand in fire I can do that.
Yeah, some of the rotations for certain classes are too simplified, and a few other mechanics changes, like snap-shot removal (which we talked about earlier) are disappointing.
I think Arms was hit the most, for some odd reason. I can't comprehend why they'd simplify an already easy spec, while Fury to my understanding is still mostly the same. Hunters, I can't comment on.
But yeah, overall, the changes do seem rather arbitrary and bizarre - you've certainly convinced me on that point.
On August 26 2014 10:32 Qaatar wrote: Need people who are interested in Challenge Mode golds on US Alliance. Just need to have 463+ gear, and patience for repeated wipes and roughly a few hours per Gold clear.
So far we have Micro, Munkies (Funtimez), and myself interested. I can either dps or heal, Micro is dps, and Funtimez can heal, tank, or dps, so any role can come. Add me on Quane#1223.
I dunno man, I'd be interested but I just hit a short while ago and just have some gear from Timeless Isle. Dunno if I would drag you down to much, but if you need someone to sit in a dps spot and not stand in fire I can do that.
Good enough for me. It's really all about learning the ins and outs of each pull, so gear has nothing to do with it. Add me on Quane#1223, and we'll figure out times of the week in which we're all able to play a few solid hours. As long as we can knock out a few per week, we'll be good. There's no rush.
For me the worst part of beta is Celestalon's answers to feedback. He comes of as such a condescending douchbag full of himself it makes me cringe. I don't even need to read his posts/tweets to know what is typed in them. The amount of bs changes is quite big, but I still remain mildly hopeful (stupid me).
I really don't think garrisons should be the typical player housing feature, more like a thing insipred by housing but built upon. More in line with the vision they created at blizzcon, rather than what we have currently, though I hope they release some detailed info on them really soon, do we can see fully what we're getting. My biggest fear is that they will lack any customization whatsoever except building placement (should my barracs be on plot 1 or plot 2?).
On August 26 2014 14:57 ViperPL wrote: For me the worst part of beta is Celestalon's answers to feedback. He comes of as such a condescending douchbag full of himself it makes me cringe. I don't even need to read his posts/tweets to know what is typed in them. The amount of bs changes is quite big, but I still remain mildly hopeful (stupid me).
I really don't think garrisons should be the typical player housing feature, more like a thing insipred by housing but built upon. More in line with the vision they created at blizzcon, rather than what we have currently, though I hope they release some detailed info on them really soon, do we can see fully what we're getting. My biggest fear is that they will lack any customization whatsoever except building placement (should my barracs be on plot 1 or plot 2?).
I'll chime in on Moonkins, since that's all I do these days. I believe I've been stating for a few months now that Moonkins are in terrible shape in WoD in that any skill required to play them has been outright removed. Currently (and previously) Moonkin was one of the hardest specs in the game to play well. While the level of depth was average, the mechanical challenge to playing one well was through the roof.
Now in WoD they have dumbed it down so much that the mechanical challenge is non-existent and the level of depth has dropped in half. This makes for a class that, well... for hardcore raiders it's boring as shit. Casuals will eat it up, though, as it's now completely brainless to do well as a Moonkin.
I'll let Cyous explain this part, since he's one of the smartest Moonkins out there;
Once you learn the basics of Moonkins, you've mastered the playstyle.
Starsurge is the answer to everything. Burst? Movement DPS? Gameplay with depth? The answer is always Starsurge. While this might seem okay, it really doesn't provide interesting gameplay. Consider this: You aren't quite sure how to handle a mechanic in a raid optimally? (Pssst! Starsurge.) You almost cannot go wrong with Starsurge.
This is basically the trend they have taken with every spec; instead of being easy to learn, hard to master they have switched to a format where specs are average to learn and completely brainless to master once you have the basics down (because there's no depth to anything). This lends to a better leveling experience and a better experience for casuals in general, but completely screws over anyone who raids because now the skill ceiling stops at non-heroic 5 mans.
Warriors have used WW before as a rage dump, hell, even now for fury WW is a single target increase with the glyph over WS. Even bladestorm is single target increase for both specs where fury uses it as a filler and arms inside CS. Spamming overpower is mindlessly boring and people didn't want that, that's why it's being removed. They've struggled with arms for so long that most people welcome the over haul once they get it right.
PVE balance was probably the best ever in MoP if you don't count affliction which they've already admitted being broken, classes have never been this close to others in dps and that's really what most raiders care about. Obviously I want to pull more dps than jimmy the sp who just started playing it and for most part I'll pull more. They've even stated not every class will be like feral currently and that's okay if all the specs are balanced. At the start of MoP SP sucked dick on single target literally and I don't want to start the expansion again with my alt because of that.
Fine tuning is yet to come and it's totally stupid to rip your pants while in beta when they've said repeatedly they'll fix arms. If month into raiding in WoD arms is doing most dps in def stance I'll lose my shit too.
Also I really don't get this mob mentality against who ever it's who posts in twitter, does someone still think it's literally just one guy doing what ever he thinks is right? First it was gc and now celestalon, wonder who'll get to drive the bus next.
As someone who has had the unenviable task of explaining facially unpopular policies made by committee to the internet, I feel his pain.
A lot of the awkward/clunkiness is due to haste and haste scaling. Apparently there's little to no haste on WoD gear and the scaling is broken, so everyone's sitting below 5% which would make any rotation awkward given they're designed to work at high haste levels.
Then again, I haven't had the chance to play it, so we'll see.
On August 26 2014 10:32 Qaatar wrote: Need people who are interested in Challenge Mode golds on US Alliance. Just need to have 463+ gear, and patience for repeated wipes and roughly a few hours per Gold clear.
So far we have Micro, Munkies (Funtimez), and myself interested. I can either dps or heal, Micro is dps, and Funtimez can heal, tank, or dps, so any role can come. Add me on Quane#1223.
Ok, so we have added Requizen, who will be another dps. One more person, and we can get this show on the road.
Cant wait for the expansion post wod though, it'll be interesting to see if aff gets even more faceroll.
So long as my demo lock stays enjoyable (Atm it's actually more complex on wod with the addition of demonbolt, though the removal of snapshotting might not agree with that) I'm content.
EPT
Nagrand was without a doubt the best zone, beatiful landscape and some funny quests. I remember collecting dung from some goat-like animals. Or killing this huge monster, his name was Durn. Or finding groups to beat the monsters in the arena... and get killed by some players from the alliance.
