So I had the chance to mess around in ZA this weekend.
Before I get into that, about my group: the majority of the group was Karazhan/Gruul's Lair level gear; some on the low end of that, some only looking for 1-2 drops, with 1-2 higher-geared (a t5ish healer, and a shadowpriest with BT/Hyjal gear). I was on both days MT.
First off: Scripted events, nice. The boss voices are good, and I imagine if you were trying to keep up with the timers the effect would be neat.
Secondly: Blizzard will never, ever learn regarding trash. No one liked the supression room in BWL. No one liked the supression room I MEAN bug tunnel before Fankriss in AQ40. No one liked the supression room I MEAN hallway of grubs and bats in Naxxramas. So why the hell is there another gauntlet where shit spawns at you in ZA?
Similarly, the trash respawn time for Eagle is very short, something like 45 minutes, an hour tops. We managed to screw around with it to remove the gauntlet part of it (kill the tempest on the stairs, very doable if they spawn when you're about to do an attempt), and given that it's a very short clear (5ish 2-pulls) that makes it not so bad, but regardless - enough people have complained about "we hate having to clear trash over and over" that they shouldn't be doing that any more.
There's also a lot of repetition in the trash - several times you have the same or very similar pulls right in a row. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that if a group can handle a given encounter twice, the only purpose of trying to use that same encounter on them again is either to kill time or try to catch them with their pants down/making a mistake.
That said, the trash isn't horrible like some of the Karazhan trash was. Everything seems to be tauntable, there's a lot less aggro-drop lameness (though, a lot more multi-elite tanking), hell, most trash is even stunnable.
As for the rest:
-Boss design is interesting; doing the Eagle fight after reading it was quite different than I thought it'd be. That in particular was a fight I could not see happening without counting how long before big special ability uses you have. The bear was well done, though I'm *still* not sure how fond I am of fights hinging on one ability not being resisted. Lynx is BUGGER HARD on healing, and requires two competent tanks (well, one at a minimum, but he'll have to handle the add, not the boss). I've yet to try dragonhawk/warlock/captain planet (seriously - imagine each boss calling out their avatar, with Warlock holding up a bloody heart, and tell me that you can't see Zul'jin showing up saying "I AM CAPTAIN TROLL PLANET!").
-Loot seems generally good, though scanning the loot tables makes me think that DPS casters (particularly affliction warlocks) get the short end of the stick.
-Forest frog shenanigans are fun; why are the little trinket dealies rolled on if you had to roll on the sticks first and they're not BoP? Also, very easy to not get money from that.
-Nice, "easy" quests with decent rewards (well...you get a 20-slot bag, anyway). There seems to be some plot there but I'm only partway through.
More to come as I run it more...
Showing posts with label world of warcraft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label world of warcraft. Show all posts
Monday, November 19, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
State of the World (of Warcraft)
For those of us still on the World of Warcraft horse, today is, as you probably know, Patch Day.
Patch Day is a wondrous time where Blizzard giveth and Blizzard taketh away.
Nerfs will be handed out, and everyone's addons will break until they update them; this is the bulk of the taketh away. I can understand the former: balance, tuning fights to be more what they are supposed to be/less impossible/less of a pushover. I don't quite get the latter, aside from changes that really mess around with the LUA interface to the game. Fine, maybe they just want us to know we should look for updates; sometimes we can just blithely hit "Load Out-of-Date Addons" and be done with it, but for major patches I tend to find I have to go to WoWAce or whatever and redownload the crap that makes up my UI. A huge deal? Not really - it gives me something to do on patch day (or rather, it used to, when I didn't have Other Things to Do as well) when the servers are generally messed up to all bijimminy.
The bright side of this patch includes a new 10-man raid instance, Zul'Aman, which is full of trolls. I am generally in favor of 10-man raids; in my opinion, it's a small enough number that unless you are the Most Antisocial Player Ever or cannot be online for more than an hour at a time (and even then, an understanding group can get you to see the content), you should be able to experience the place and get some HAWT PURPALZ. Even better, this particular dungeon is intended to be finished in a couple of hours, *literally* - for each boss (or at least the first five), you have twenty minutes to get to them and possibly also kill them to get some extra treasure. Unless Blizzard totally messed up the balance on that, this means that appropriately geared groups (Karazhan gear, not BT gear) with good knowledge of the fight should be able to accomplish that. So yes, your first few weeks it'll likely take a few more hours (though even if you take twice that...it's *still* only as much of a time investment as Karazhan), but then it'll pick up pace. Oh, and the loot is by and large pretty good, filling a bunch of unfortunate gaps in various offspec gear sets. Plus you get Badges of Justice.
Speaking of those, G'eras, who at this point has probably thoroughly won the "most items on a vendor" award, has a whole bunch of new stuff for people to buy with their precious badges. Some of the itemization there makes me scratch my head - what's with all the DPS plate without crit? - but many items are quite solid (notably for warriors, a pair of pants not too far off from tier 6; it actually has better stamina potential, but...that is a debate for another post). While everyone's favorite badge farming spot - heroic Mechanar - was nerfed (the Key-keepers or whatever they are no longer drops badges, instead the Cache of the Legion drops one), the 10-mans now drop badges (with Karazhan apparently giving 15 or so for a full run), so I think on the whole they'll be not too hard to get, especially for people who run 10-mans but don't have the time to heroics very often.
Also, faster leveling for sub-60 characters. That's gold - I've been on and off building up a new character - a druid - and given that it's my fifth character that's made it past 30ish...I find most of the Azeroth content kind of "well let's get this done with eh (especially the sub-30 content)." I imagine this might be a little bad for people who are just getting into the game and want to see all the content, but...I can't help feeling those people are in the minority now. This doesn't mean that they should be alienated; maybe we should encourage alting more. Or maybe make the "XP lost for being too high level for this quest" penalty smaller.
In general, this seems like a pretty good patch. Raiders get candy (though the hardcore raiders, god bless the crazy fools, will need to wait till 2.4 for their new instance), and casuals - well, all but the most casual - also get candy.
On that note - I'm not entirely sure what should be done to make the game more attractive to those people (mostly, those who can't play for more than an hour or so at a time). To some degree "well this requires block time commitments" and tough noogies, but realistically that should not be the case. Daily quests were a step in the right directions - short quests that you can get done and get some rep for an overarching reputation goal, and get some money - but a) the rewards are too hit-and-miss re: class specialization, b) some of the rewards are...not that well itemized, and c) some of them are inferior to gear out of heroics/badge rewards (which someone could conceivably get even with only an hour to play at a time). Then again, this needs to be balanced against stat inflation...but at the same time WotLK is coming, and if TBC was any indication, the gear we have now will not matter at all at 80. So maybe...let them have their cake and eat it to, maybe.
And that's what I have to say about that. For now.
Patch Day is a wondrous time where Blizzard giveth and Blizzard taketh away.
Nerfs will be handed out, and everyone's addons will break until they update them; this is the bulk of the taketh away. I can understand the former: balance, tuning fights to be more what they are supposed to be/less impossible/less of a pushover. I don't quite get the latter, aside from changes that really mess around with the LUA interface to the game. Fine, maybe they just want us to know we should look for updates; sometimes we can just blithely hit "Load Out-of-Date Addons" and be done with it, but for major patches I tend to find I have to go to WoWAce or whatever and redownload the crap that makes up my UI. A huge deal? Not really - it gives me something to do on patch day (or rather, it used to, when I didn't have Other Things to Do as well) when the servers are generally messed up to all bijimminy.
The bright side of this patch includes a new 10-man raid instance, Zul'Aman, which is full of trolls. I am generally in favor of 10-man raids; in my opinion, it's a small enough number that unless you are the Most Antisocial Player Ever or cannot be online for more than an hour at a time (and even then, an understanding group can get you to see the content), you should be able to experience the place and get some HAWT PURPALZ. Even better, this particular dungeon is intended to be finished in a couple of hours, *literally* - for each boss (or at least the first five), you have twenty minutes to get to them and possibly also kill them to get some extra treasure. Unless Blizzard totally messed up the balance on that, this means that appropriately geared groups (Karazhan gear, not BT gear) with good knowledge of the fight should be able to accomplish that. So yes, your first few weeks it'll likely take a few more hours (though even if you take twice that...it's *still* only as much of a time investment as Karazhan), but then it'll pick up pace. Oh, and the loot is by and large pretty good, filling a bunch of unfortunate gaps in various offspec gear sets. Plus you get Badges of Justice.
Speaking of those, G'eras, who at this point has probably thoroughly won the "most items on a vendor" award, has a whole bunch of new stuff for people to buy with their precious badges. Some of the itemization there makes me scratch my head - what's with all the DPS plate without crit? - but many items are quite solid (notably for warriors, a pair of pants not too far off from tier 6; it actually has better stamina potential, but...that is a debate for another post). While everyone's favorite badge farming spot - heroic Mechanar - was nerfed (the Key-keepers or whatever they are no longer drops badges, instead the Cache of the Legion drops one), the 10-mans now drop badges (with Karazhan apparently giving 15 or so for a full run), so I think on the whole they'll be not too hard to get, especially for people who run 10-mans but don't have the time to heroics very often.
Also, faster leveling for sub-60 characters. That's gold - I've been on and off building up a new character - a druid - and given that it's my fifth character that's made it past 30ish...I find most of the Azeroth content kind of "well let's get this done with eh (especially the sub-30 content)." I imagine this might be a little bad for people who are just getting into the game and want to see all the content, but...I can't help feeling those people are in the minority now. This doesn't mean that they should be alienated; maybe we should encourage alting more. Or maybe make the "XP lost for being too high level for this quest" penalty smaller.
In general, this seems like a pretty good patch. Raiders get candy (though the hardcore raiders, god bless the crazy fools, will need to wait till 2.4 for their new instance), and casuals - well, all but the most casual - also get candy.
On that note - I'm not entirely sure what should be done to make the game more attractive to those people (mostly, those who can't play for more than an hour or so at a time). To some degree "well this requires block time commitments" and tough noogies, but realistically that should not be the case. Daily quests were a step in the right directions - short quests that you can get done and get some rep for an overarching reputation goal, and get some money - but a) the rewards are too hit-and-miss re: class specialization, b) some of the rewards are...not that well itemized, and c) some of them are inferior to gear out of heroics/badge rewards (which someone could conceivably get even with only an hour to play at a time). Then again, this needs to be balanced against stat inflation...but at the same time WotLK is coming, and if TBC was any indication, the gear we have now will not matter at all at 80. So maybe...let them have their cake and eat it to, maybe.
And that's what I have to say about that. For now.
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