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What will raiding be like in Warlords?
When discussing how the changes coming in Warlords of Draenor will affect raiding, we're of course looking at an incomplete picture. We don't know what new spells and abilities might come, we just know to an extent what won't be there - abilities like Skull Banner will be gone, as well many CC abilities, and healing will be greatly changed - casting on the move will also see a significant decrease. What we therefore need to consider is that raiding itself will have to change to embody these changing philosophies. It would be a disaster to alter class abilities and leave raids designed around the same high damage, high mobility kit we see in modern raiding. But what will raid design entail? Well, I'm not a raid designer. If I was, I'd be super busy designing some raids. What I am is a guy who raids a lot, so I can give you my perspective as a dude who has seen every fight in the game at this point. What are we in for in Warlords, based on what Blizzard has said is changing, and what they intend to try and do?
How to get started in LFR whether you're a new 90 or a boosted 90
If you've just gotten your first character -- or your second or third -- to level 90, you might be looking to check out the raiding game. Fortunately, the looking for raid (or LFR) tool makes it easier than ever to jump into raid content without a lot of complicated scheduling and planning... but that doesn't mean LFR is easy mode. It's true, LFR has simplified versions of boss fights compared to flex or heroic raids -- but when you're gathering up 25 random players who might not even speak the same language, simplifying things is a must if the group is going to progress. However, despite their relative ease, there's still some work to be done to do your best in LFR -- and in the process make the raiding experience easier on you and your group mates. We'll walk you through the game's LFRs and what you need to do to get there.
Exploring WildStar's endgame raids and dungeons
For those who like endgame PvE content, Carbine's upcoming MMO WildStar is hoping provide not just lots to consume but a variety of ways to consume it. I'm no longer the type of gamer who has to race to max level, and fortunately for me, WildStar plans to give us that "raid feeling" even while we're leveling via adventures and shiphand missions and world bosses and even public quests. But there's much more to PvE than that. At last week's press event, I sat down with Lead Combat Designer Chris Lynch and Lead Dungeons and Raids Designer Brett Scheinert to talk about endgame and PvE in the next big themepark.
Level 60 vanilla guild 5-mans Razorgore
Yes, we know -- level 90s can solo Blackwing Lair's first boss, Razorgore, with ease, but we still think it's an impressive feat for five at-level players. The guild Molten Core Veterans is focused on vanilla-era raiding, with no death knights or monks; no characters above level 60; and no gear or enchants over level 60, either. With the mechanics of the fight -- more about managing adds than damaging the boss -- Razorgore may be one of the only vanilla fights that can be done with such a small at-level group. The next boss, Vaelestraz, takes a lot more DPS to down -- and so a lot more players. As someone who fought through learning this fight during vanilla, I salute these guys. For all that vanilla raids have gotten easier over the years -- and power creep has even hit players trying their hardest to get the vanilla WoW experience -- the Razorgore fight isn't easy to master.
Why Proving Ground gating on queued heroics is a good thing
It's certainly been a controversial move. Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas took to the forums recently to clarify some hastily translated interviews he did with fansites during last week's press event. There are several key things in Watcher's post that it seems people are missing, so let's just sum it up here. Proving Ground Silver will be required for solo queue heroic dungeons Group queue heroic dungeons will have no Proving Ground requirement Proving Grounds will be updated to "further refine balance and mechanics" Let's begin at the end. Read that last point, and then read it again for good measure. Yes, Proving Grounds have some issues at the moment, as far as balance goes. A lot of those issues actually relate to how well classes downscale with gear, how dependent they are on certain levels of certain stats. For example, let's look at fire mages. Fire mages scale really well with gear, as do their Arcane brothers and sisters. Take a fire mage and scale it right down to 463, and you'll have a harder time doing a silver Proving Ground than a class that scales down really well. I did a little experiment as part of my research for this article. In an attempt to see how bad getting a Silver could be, I took a fire mage to the proving grounds. Not a new 90, but an unplayed one. My gear was woeful. I managed, with this gear, not at the hit cap, not even at ilvl 463 with downscaling, to reach wave 4 of Silver. Bronze took five tries.
World of Warcraft aims to restructure currencies in Warlords of Draenor
World of Warcraft has been running for a decade, and that means a lot of changes have taken place over the years. One of those changes was the addition of the special currencies like Justice and Valor points, designed to ensure that bad luck on raiding loot drops doesn't lock people out of getting upgrades. But according to lead encounter designer Ion Hazzikostas, this system may well be on the chopping block when Warlords of Draenor comes around. Hazzikostas explains that the bonus roll system can be expanded and refined to ensure that players wind up with appropriate loot from encounters, replacing the current currency system altogether. The developers are also hoping to simplify the game's PvP currencies, giving players fewer things to keep track of while providing a more organic system of rewards. While nothing has been finalized yet, it's a fair bet that by the time the expansion comes out, you'll have fewer currencies to track on your character sheet.
You're bad at WoW, and so am I
Blizzard Community Manager Lore recently posted a brief reply in an excellent thread, which brought up a topic I've wanted to address for some time: how it's OK to suck sometimes. While I'm not going to copy his two posts here, he talks about arenas, discussing how, when he and his team lose, he looks back and tries to work out where things went wrong, and what he could have done to help. He also discusses the merits of doing things like recording matches, to replay and examine what went wrong. While the option of recording your WoW play may not be open to everyone, self-examination is. And it's something we can all afford to do. None of us ever play perfectly, we are not robots. But the key to becoming better is to admit that, to see our failings, and to improve upon them. Sometimes it's you Sometimes it is. Sometimes you'll lose an arena or wipe in a raid because of someone else's error -- your tanks messed up the switching, or the person who had a debuff failed to perform correctly. Even in those situations, it's good to think back and wonder whether your performance was optimal. Sure, you weren't the reason why your team wiped or lost, but what more could you have done to perform well on your own personal scale?
Dungeons and Dragons Online allies with Ed Greenwood to revive Haunted Halls of Eveningstar
Along with the names Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, Ed Greenwood is a keystone figure in the Dungeons & Dragons franchise. It was from his mind that the Forgotten Realms and Elminster sprang, and it's to his mind that Turbine has turned to make DDO's next update something truly memorable. So to celebrate D&D's 40th anniversary, Turbine and Greenwood have collaborated to bring the players an online version of the classic Haunted Halls of Eveningstar module. Even if you've played Haunted Halls as a pen-and-paper adventurer, you'll be in for a new treat this time around. Turbine's created two versions of the dungeon, one that mimics the original module and an extended version that uses Greenwood's unpublished notes. Plus, for the first time in DDO, Greenwood himself will provide the narration and optional commentary as the module's DM. We sat down with Turbine to take a look at how Update 21: The Legendary Halls is shaping up and what players will be in for when the past of pen-and-paper meets the present of online gaming.
The Soapbox: The Raid Finder ruined raiding
I don't typically limit myself to ranting about only one game at a time, but I decided to make an exception this week and speak out against World of Warcraft's Raid Finder mechanic. I was running a small and modestly successful raiding guild when this system was introduced, and my team definitely felt the onslaught of this guild-destroying game mechanic first hand. Raid Finder, commonly dubbed LFR by the cool kids in Orgrimmar, is a system that demolishes the competency barrier that stands in the way of freshly level-capped characters and normal raiding content. The system allows players to join a random raiding group in order to tackle a nerfed version of a normal raid and exists mainly to maximise inclusion in the game's best PvE endgame content. LFR was quite popular among casual players that were usually passed up when it came to raiding group formation, but it didn't offer much progress to seasoned raiders. The gear gained had lower stats than its corresponding normal raid counterpart, but the LFR tier simply didn't need the co-ordination required of a group tackling regular raids. A void was created somewhere in between the casual masses who could benefit from the LFR mechanic and the hardcore raiders that simply did not need help with progression. My casual raiding guild was caught in the middle and ultimately met its demise at the hands of LFR, which simultaneously depleted the PUG pool and gave our members another way to see the endgame content they wanted without putting in virtual blood, sweat, and tears.
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV's Crystal Tower
Let me be up front with you, dear readers: The Crystal Tower in Final Fantasy XIV is one of the most well-designed dungeons I have had the pleasure of playing through, ever. Not just "in Final Fantasy XIV" but anywhere, ever. It's fun, it's clever, it's clean, it's engaging, it's freaking spectacular. If not for one minor wrinkle, it'd be a nearly unambiguously perfect bit of bliss. But I'll cover that part later; the important point is that right off the bat, this dungeons is something that I consider absolutely stellar. Longtime readers will also know that large group content is generally not my thing. I dislike a big raiding endgame, and I'm not a fan of the style of play, so the idea that my current favorite dungeon in the game is a 24-man rush through the tower probably seems a bit odd. So let's talk about boss strategies, progress through the tower, and the one blemish on what is otherwise unambiguously great.
Bosses in 5 seconds: Siege of Orgrimmar LFR wing four
While we've been busy, in my guild, trying to draw awesome stars in Paragons of the Klaxxi with Iyyokuk the Lucid's fire lines, I've apparently not been busy making a Bosses in 5 Seconds for the fourth wing of Siege of Orgrimmar. By way of apology to the many people who've been asking me where it is, I'm writing it right now. Sorry for the rather lengthy delay. You can see the rest of the guides here. As ever, these are minimal guides for LFR. If you use them for anything else, that's on you! Siegecrafter Blackfuse Don't stand in the bad. There will be rings of bad appearing, the first one to activate is the middle one. Don't stand in it, then do, after it's gone off. Kill the fixating crawler mines. Ranged are best at this. Ranged spread out for sawblades. Kite the laser away from the group Taunt at around 3 stacks of the debuff. Swap to tank the shredder. Tanks kill the shredder. Bad on the floor hurts it. Use DPS CDs once it's jumped, keep it 40 yds from the boss. On the belt, don't kill the Electromagnet, prioritize Crawler Mines*. (LFR usually skips the belt) *While it's not needed in the instructions, this merits explanation. The Electromagnet uses Magnetic Crush which removes the Sawblades from the area. These deal a good amount of damage to anyone who stands on or near them, so removing them will help your healers and keep the deaths low. Crawler mines require several players to switch DPS off the boss.
WoW Archivist: The curse of Karazhan
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Something has been afoot in Karazhan of late. First, dataminers noticed that Karazhan had been renamed Medivh's Big Birthday Bash on the PTR. In the rechristened raid, objects such as cobwebs and skeletons had disappeared. Then a later build renamed it Karazhan 2: Eclectic Boogaloo. Senior game designer Jonathan Craft tweeted that fellow designer Dave Maldonado was responsible. Maldonado later said that nothing is happening. It turned out to be a test to see if a phased quest could be set there, but sadly it didn't work. Many players would be excited to return to Karazhan, and it would make sense to do this in Warlords of Draenor. After all, Karazhan is from the same expansion that took us to the shattered remnants of Draenor back in 2007. Hopefully Blizzard will find a way to feature some Karazhan-based content during the next expansion. Karazhan remains one of Blizzard's most popular raid zones, and for good reason. But did it succeed too well for WoW's own good? Let's look back at what Karazhan offered us in its prime and how it impacted raid design in future expansions.
Aura Kingdom reveals guild towns, endgame
Aeria Games is sharing more information about Aura Kingdom's endgame as the fantasy free-to-play game inches closer to its Founders beta that starts on Monday, December 16th. High-level players who enjoy PvP can queue up for two different 5v5 experiences, either a battle to the death (available any time of day) or a capture point mode that utilizes vastly different terrain (available only at certain times). PvE-wise, players who want to collect the best battle companions, called Eidolons, will need to group up and raid the bosses in the high-level dungeons to collect rare key fragments. Additionally, guilds that level to a high enough rank can create their own towns that guild members can visit. Guild towns will spawn unique Eidolons that guild members must group up to defeat. Once defeated, those Eidolons can drop key fragments that, when combined, will allow players to summon that companion as his own. [Source: Aeria Games press release]
The Soapbox: Developers build MMOs backward
How many of you MMOs players have ever maxed out a character's combat level then stood around wondering, "What do I do now?" I would venture to guess that a vast majority of you at one time or another have done that, and I'd also guess that it's been recently. That's because developers have built your game backward. Far too many MMOs rely on the leveling process to be the primary content for the game, and everything after max level appears to be an afterthought tacked on to the game until the developers can come up with new stuff for you to do. I propose that if developers would start building a game's endgame first, we would be looking at a very different kind of game, a more enjoyable game. If a game is intended to be played for months, then developers should spend the most time on the content that players will spend the most time on. It's only logical to me. However, if you ask most developers they will likely tell you that the most expensive or time-consuming part of the game is the leveling process. Why is that?
Major raid changes coming in Warlords of Draenor
During the World of Warcraft - What's Next? panel, Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas unveiled the way raiding will be unveiled going forward. As you can see above, the term flexible raid is no longer used to describe a difficulty setting, and the flexible raid scaling system has been more widely implemented. Here's how it will basically work: First up, the raid finder (LFR) will still aim for a fixed group size of 25 players. However, if you're in an LFR group and players drop before the next boss, that boss will scale to the size of the current group - as an example, if a raid of 25 players is fighting Paragons, then four players drop on the way to Garrosh, Mr. Hellscream (if you're nasty) will scale down to a 21 player size. What we now call the Flexible difficulty will become Normal in patch 6.0 - it will scale just as it does now. What we now call Normal difficulty (10 and 25 man) will scale flexibly and will be called Heroic difficulty. It will scale just as normal does. Finally, Ion pointed out that scaling the most challenging encounters in terms of design requires a fixed raid size, and so, they've chosen that size to be 20 players. This difficulty, analogous to what we now call Heroic will be called Mythic difficulty. I find it interesting that they chose to lock the most difficult raiding at a 20 player cap - I've always felt that we should have gone 10/20 at Burning Crusade's launch instead of 10/25, but I wonder why they didn't do a 10/20 split on Mythic for the dedicated 10 man guilds. I didn't expect that, but otherwise, I totally called it and I'm definitely excited. (I know for my guild, 20 man Mythic will be a lot easier to adjust to, but for dedicated 10's it won't be as easy a transition.) Also, please forgive me a moment of smuggery, but I called it.
Raiders feel the love in Lineage II's Valiance expansion
Raiders have a lot to look forward to in Lineage II's next expansion, which is due to release later this year. Valiance is heavy on additions and updates to the raid systems, including the addition of nearly 80 new level 88-98 raid bosses, updated drop lists for Dragon Raid bosses, a new raid boss summoning system, and a new Adena distribution system for after the raids. The open field raid bosses have also gotten a revamp, as has the raid point ranking system. Did you miss Beleth, Darion, Lilith, and Anakim? Players will be able to once again face these four returning raid bosses. And on top of all that, The Seed of Destruction and Infinity hunting grounds in Gracia have been revamped and changed to instance zones. But wait, there's more! You can head into these new battles in style with a new hairstyle from the beauty shop. Then, when all your slaughtering is done, you can kick back in a new clan hall or relax with the revamped fishing system. Get a peek at all these changes in the gallery below. [Source: NCsoft press release]
Bosses in 5 seconds: Siege of Orgrimmar wing three
Wing three is upon us! It opened today on US servers, and will hit Europe tomorrow like a runaway dinosaur fixating on the Siberian tundra. We've already got the first wing done in our inimitable five second style, and the second one's up for your reading delectation as well. Now, though, it's starting to get serious with wing three. Actually, to be honest, this is a pretty easy wing. Wing four's going to be the clincher. As always, remember, these aren't in-depth guides for your heroic raid. They're arming you with just enough knowledge to get your group through the LFR version of the fight, mostly intact. Malkorok Healers, in phase 1, your heals won't heal. Instead there will be colored blobs on the raid frames. Keep them green. They're absorb shields, that you're building by healing. He'll do cone-shaped smashes that affect segments of the room. Don't stand in them. Also, after every three smashes, he'll re-explode the three areas he smashed. Don't stand in that. Soak purple swirls When he goes into Blood Rage, stack up. Run out with the debuff if your healers are struggling. Everything hurts more as the fight progresses.
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR's Dread War, part 1
When I freed the Dread Masters on the prison world of Belsavis, little did I know that a year and a half after the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, I would not only be fighting against these amazing foes but trying to destroy them. As I mentioned the last couple of weeks, the Empire and the Republic found the secret base of the Dread Masters on the planet Oricon, where they have been hiding and experimenting on the local fauna while amassing their subjugated army. Eventually, a strike team will have to invade the Dread Master's fortress, and in the two new operations of Update 2.4: The Dread War, you will get to do just that. Although I'm still not sure where this falls on the fun scale when compared to other SWTOR operations, I can tell you that it is challenging and exciting. I'll break it down for you, and if you hadn't guessed already, there will be spoilers. That said, I will limit the story-related ones.
Siege of Orgrimmar LFR Wing Two opens
Get ready for the LFR chaos to ramp still higher as wing two opens. This section includes Galakras, Iron Juggernaut, Kor'kron Dark Shaman and General Nazgrim, and we're really getting into the fun stuff now, after the relatively gentle introduction that was wing one. We'll be putting together a guide that details the bosses in five seconds strategy before too long, but in the meantime you can check out our full guides from our PTR testing of the bosses. Which are you most excited about? Which has got you worried? Personally I'm looking forward to Iron Juggernaut. Not because I think it's a particularly excellent fight or anything, but because it's a huge robot scorpion that shoots fire. Frankly I think that's reason enough to be excited about a fight, don't you? And the good news is that, despite the additional difficulty of this wing, we've got two weeks to deal with it and learn the strategies before the next wing of LFR opens on the 8th of October. That one is where it really starts to get crazy, with Malkorok, Spoils of Pandaria and Thok the Bloodthirsty, so get yourself ready for some LFR fun! And be good to each other. We're all new to this.
How bad is raiding for melee?
It's no secret, I raid as melee DPS right now. It's also no secret I tend to die a lot. Despite constantly rotating in Enraged Regeneration, Shield Wall, Die by the Sword and the draenei racial Gift of the Naaru, I tend to explode. I'm hardly unique in this, either. I see dead melee in pretty much every successful kill, but some fights are really bad. Fights like Kor'kron Dark Shaman especially seem designed and engineered to annihilate melee players, or keep them too busy running away to actually hit anything. I was talking to Joe "Lodur" Perez about the tendency of melee characters to die on Twitter the other day, and he made some good points about how healers are conditioned to let DPS die. It made sense but it left me wondering if it's more or less of a problem in a particular raid size, if it's universal, if some groups run heavy melee and love it or if it's always better to run high ranged and if so, what can/should be done about it. I don't have a lot of answers for it, but I do think it's a question worth asking. Do raid leaders stack ranged preferentially over melee? Do healers prefer to see a high ranged count in the roster? What are your experiences with the subject as players?
