RSS Ulduar Legendary Mace, Blue posts [Archive]

Azel

08/04/2009, 14:40

During the last 2 days you might have experienced a few downtimes with the site, this isn't a problem from MMO-Champion but from our hoster. Tons of people way smarter than me are working on the issue and it should be resolved as I write this news. Ulduar Legendary Mace - Val'anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings Another day, another article. The page for <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=855" target="_blank">Val'anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings</a> is now avalaible. This legendary mace will be dropped in Ulduar and is only available to healers according to the last information. <div align="center"><a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=855" target="_blank"><img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/april/valanyrsmall.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></div> Blue posts <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from Blizzard staff</div><div class="blizzquote">PvP - Arenas Burst Damage We think this was a bigger problem when season 5 started than it is now. We managed to address some of the worst burst (Bubbled Ret pallies, Arcane Barrage, Mutilate+stun+stealth, Explosive Shot, Impurity + Howling Blast, and now finally Shadowfrost Icy Touch). At the same time, being able to call upon your burst when needed (blowing cooldowns etc.) is pretty important for being able to finish someone off before they can escape or get a heal. We won't have a very fun Arena if everyone is always hitting for 2000 damage (they just can't be hitting for 20,000 either). We have seen many fights now that won't wind down because the healers can just keep going and going forever. While we don't want fights to last for 6 seconds, we also don't want to see the only way a fight can end to be through mana drains (the spell effect itself, or just slowly, painfully watching someone's blue bar exhaust itself). Ideally both situations would sometimes occur, but there would also be more fights somewhere in the middle. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/16137366298-six-things-ruining-this-game.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) [...] We definitely designed a few classes originally in a way where all they bring is big burst. We have realized now that this doesn’t work. It ends up being not fun for the burster or the burstee. We are trying to redirect Ret, Arcane, and PvP rogues of all types away from the proverbial “two shot” and more towards having different answers for different situations. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/16137366298-six-things-ruining-this-game.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Paladins and Death Knights too dominant We think DKs and Holy paladins are too dominant in Arenas. Beyond those two there are some imbalances, but you are going to find a lot of debate among the community about who it is, and I think that might come to dominate the rest of the thread. The "two-shotting" is a little exaggerated in most cases. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/16137366298-six-things-ruining-this-game.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Resilience You don't need 800-1000 resilience to survive a Shatter combo. The game is designed around the notion that you will escape or prevent CC. You aren't going to survive long CC'd with players beating on you no matter how high your resilience is. I think what we might do differently next time is make higher resilience values available earlier. You start to notice resilience having an effect at say 500 or so and you start living long enough to counter attacks at 800 or so. A lot of players going into the season with 100 or so resilience did get blown up. This felt particularly weird because: 1) For the last few seasons, their resilience had pretty much just gone up. Season 5 was a reset that had a lot more in common with Season 1. 2) In addition, this was complicated by the issue above -- that players were combining the weak resilience with very potent PvE weapons that they had already looted from KT. If the Arena season had started around the same time Naxx had opened (combined with slightly better tuning on Naxx) then there would not have been such a discrepancy. 3) Some classes had overly powerful built in resistances that made up for the lack of resilience. Specifically, DKs had a lot of cooldowns and passive defenses built in for tanking and paladins had their shields, which could be used offensively at the start of the season. To drag out a tired cliche, the combination of these 3 (low resilience, KT weapons and baked-in defenses) plus the high burst at the start of the season created a perfect storm for fast Arena deaths. Perhaps a better solution is to have relatively high resilience on the starter gear (like 500) but at the cost of offensive stats. We do want PvP gear to be a progression though. We don't want you to start the first season of an expansion with amazing resilience and offenses. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/16137366298-six-things-ruining-this-game.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Raids & Dungeons Converting Emblems of Heroism to Emblems of Valor We don't have any current plans to allow emblems of heroism to convert to emblems of valor. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/13393779860-trade-emblems-of-heroism-for-valor.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Progression Path We consider 10 and 25 separate progression paths. Here are different ways to raid: A) Heroic 5 player -> 10 player Naxx -> 10 player Ulduar -> 10 player Ulduar hard B) Heroic 5 player -> 25 player Naxx -> 25 player Ulduar -> 25 player Ulduar hard C) Hybrid. You focus on A but sometimes pug B, or focus on B but run A on off nights. The one possible exception could be that if you are just stuck on 25 Ulduar hard, you can get upgrades by running 10 Ulduar hard if you are up to the challenge. If we made a mistake in LK, it was that path B was too easy. That meant that A felt like a waste to some players because the loot was inferior. We think it will work better in Ulduar. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/14637425299-25-man-raids-more-difficult-false-assumption.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) 25-Player content difficulty We have positioned our 25-player content as more difficult and therefore capable of generating better rewards. Managing a group of that size requires a little more effort and we figured if the rewards were the same, we'd steer pretty much everyone towards 10-player raiding. At this point we don't want to do that. The confusing part is that the 25-player content in Lich King ended up being a little on the easy side compared to the 10-player content. Players viewed the 25s as puggable which then made the 10s seem optional since the rewards weren't as good. If anything we think the 10 version in Ulduar will end up a little easier and more puggable. We'll probably see 10 and 25 Ulduar pugged eventually, but it might not happen right away. Let me add that if you just love 10-player raiding and are up to a challenge that we do have 10-player hard modes and the loot available there is superior to 25-player normal. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/14637425299-25-man-raids-more-difficult-false-assumption.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) 25 Players vs. 10 Players raiding I understand your point on the 25 loot being of higher item level. However we explored this issue quite a bit and I still believe that some non-trivial number of players just prefer the larger raids. How can that be? -- They like the epic scale of it requiring an army of players to defeat a boss. -- They like the power mulitiplier. You generally do more damage and healing in 25 because you have more buffs. This feels cool. -- They like the encounters designed around larger groups. What I mean is that in a 25-player fight we can do things like just randomly kill players or isolate them in small groups. They like sometimes having to employ 4 tanks at once. It is hard to do these kinds of thing to 10-player fights. -- Their guilds were formed back in the day of exclusive 40 or 25 raiding, so that is the group of friends they have and how they have built their guild. They just think of the politicial nightmare if they have to split their guild in two. So for those reasons, and a few others, we think the smartest design is still just to let players decide if they prefer 10 player raiding or 25 player raiding. Some have a small group of friends and want to not have to put up with the weak links or undependables. They like the pressure it puts on every player to perform. Others have large, social guilds and like to assemble 25 players together. They may be more tolerant of being able to bring the 25th player along even if he isn't stellar. They may like all of the reasons I mentioned above. It's just a preference, just like Horde vs. Alliance is a preference. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/14637425299-25-man-raids-more-difficult-false-assumption.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) "Hardcore" elements of the game Our goal has always been to make the game as accessible to as many players as possible. Our game is influenced by what we've learned from both our successes and our mistakes. Some of the "hardcore" elements of the past that some players think they now miss weren't even necessarily intended to be "hardcore", but rather ended up that way because a better way wasn't yet available. Classes Changes postponed for the next patch I am not sure where you get your information, but do yourself a favor and cut them off. There weren't any class changes that didn't make it into this patch that are now being planned for the next patch. Class balance changes just don't work like that. If you're re...</div></div></div>

Fonte (http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=48383.0)