raid-nerfs
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All current raids to be nerfed by 10% with Patch 5.2
Bashiok posted late last night on the US forums, highlighting a change in the recent patch 5.2 notes. The addition is as follows: Blizzard On Normal and Heroic mode, zone-wide auras have been activated in Mogu'shan Vaults, Heart of Fear, and Terrace of Endless Spring, reducing the health and damage of all enemies therein by 10%. A NPC near the entrance within each zone explains this, and offers to deactivate the buff for the benefit of brave/foolhardy adventurers. source Bashiok adds to his post, explaining how, in Mists, Blizzard is essentially trying to strike a happy medium between previous expansions' attitudes to gear progression. Cataclysm's gearing model devalued old content progression too quickly, allowing players to effectively jump straight into the current raids, while previous expansions had been criticized for their linearity. Mists retains an element of that linear nature, with Bashiok saying that new characters will have to go through Mogushan Vaults, Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring, but that drop rates will be increased and the content made easier. He does note, however, that this 10% nerf is currently slated as a one-time reduction, rather than step one of a set of progressive nerfs. What do you think of this? Hit the break for Bashiok's full post, explaining the philosophy behind the changes.
Breakfast Topic: How do you handle being lapped by updates and nerfs?
Despite the fact that Blizzard means for previous raid tiers to be puggably quick and easy and propel players into the most current content, plenty of slowbie guilds and players out there are moving through older content at their own dogged pace. It could be that they're part of a retro raiding group, or maybe they're trying to experience all the content in a reasonably level-appropriate fashion. Maybe they're simply new players learning the game without the benefit of leveling boosts. But there's more to the slowbie playstyle than alts making the occasional frolic through pre-Mists raids. Many players don't have the schedules, game knowledge, group coordination, or individual skill strength to push through an entire tier of raiding before it's nerfed. If you just opened your mouth to protest "But everybody can get through LFR or normal-mode raiding nowadays!", then you're in for a whole world of surprise. Many players find it more rewarding to play with friends and family than to progress without them, which can be challenging for groups with a bad group composition, scheduling snarls, or player weaknesses in key positions. The game is just as fun and rewarding for these players -- but it doesn't move very quickly. So if you're one of those happily playing along behind the curve, do you take advantage of the raid nerfs, or do you plug along without them? What about small-group or solo content and achievements that get the nerf bat before you can work your way through them -- how do you plan for and handle those? Are you even aware of the differences in the content as it was launched and as you're playing through it today, and do you care? What content are you playing through now, and do you foresee catching up to Mists in the near future?
Gamescom Raid Q&A with the Devs: Nerfs, the raid finder and more
You may have spotted Monday's post on how to design a raid, which was the first half of the Gamescom 2012 Raids and Dungeons round table with Ion Hazzikostas and John Lagrave. The second half of the Round Table was a Q&A session in which many interesting questions were asked, shedding light on some hot issues as well as simply providing a little more insight into the Blizzard Encounter Design Team's creative processes. Again, these aren't verbatim quotations from Ion and John, as I simply can't write that fast, but the overall statements are accurate representations of their responses. Are there any encounters Blizzard have had to alter or leave out due to technical constraints? There was a boss leading up to the Lich King who you had to heal (Valithria Dreamwalker), and that was a huge challenge for their existing technology. If you think about it, Ion explained, up to that point, every healing spell in the game was designed to be cast on a friendly target, that is to say, a player. So the devs were faced with the task of reworking every healing spell in the game. They didn't want players to only be able to use certain spells on her, as that would have been bad, so they redid every healing spell. The technical team changed the game's design so that the boss basically became a raid team member. Ion and John explained that it's all about working out creative ways to implement the designers' ideas.
Firelands raid changes incoming
With the upcoming release of patch 4.3 and the final fight with Deathwing, Blizzard is reevaluating encounter difficulty in all Firelands normal and heroic mode encounters. Over the next few weeks, Blizzard will be toning down the encounters in Ragnaros' home turf to allow more groups to clear and complete the content before the final raid. It appears that the cuts will be coming to both regular and heroic modes, with about the same effect as the 4.2 changes to the first tier of Cataclysm raiding. The difficulty of Firelands will begin to be hotfixed the week of Sept. 19. I think that the Icecrown Citadel approach, nerfing raiding content as the tier progresses, is an excellent move by Blizzard to keep raiders playing and trying encounters they may have fallen just short on progression. World firsts have already happened, and that race is long over. Now, groups that weren't working on the content as intensely now have their shot at checking out some of the great encounters in Firelands.
Raids rebalanced for Patch 3.0.2
As of last night's beta (and PTR) patch, players have been reporting that mob health throughout all of the Burning Crusade raid zones have been reduced by up to 30%. That struck me as really, really odd, so I decided to pop into Sunwell Plateau and Black Temple to take a look. It is, in fact, completely true. Every mob and boss that I could see in both zones (and I could see a lot- Mind Vision hopping through raids for the win) had their HP drastically reduced.My gut instinct was, "Ugh, why are they nerfing everything so badly? That's ridiculous. Just because it's the end of the expansion doesn't mean they need to make it easy mode for us." Then I actually thought (gasp!) about it for a little bit. Looking at the changes coming in Patch 3.0.2, this was a change they needed to make to let us still raid until Wrath. A lot of encounters probably became impossible to beat as they were with those changes, Sunwell Plateau especially. Sunwell was designed with all of the insanely OP stuff players were doing to win in mind. Stacking Shadow Priests for mana regen, stacking Shaman to chain-cast Heroism/Bloodlust, half the raid going Leatherworking for Drums, yadda yadda.
