Cataclysm

[Absentia]

Re: Cataclysm

Are people really this excited for Cataclysm?

I mean, its not Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Killzone 3, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Call of Duty Black ups and the like?

Maybe I've just lost my taste for MMORPGs, but I can't see why people would still be going on WoW after sooooo long and it being kinda stone dumb from top to bottom.

Can you not grasp that people may enjoy a game not on your personal radar?

Anyway, I think I'll take some time on my main to explore Azeroth and see how everything's changed. It'll be nice to actually fly around Azeroth this time around. Until then, I suppose it's going to be interesting getting some of my reputation grinds done and pray that I can get the Zulian Tiger from ZG before it's gone. D:

[DakAttack]

Re: Cataclysm

Yes, systems where hard-earned abilities and talents function dramatically different from PvP and PvE.

Someone will still come out ahead of all the rest just because of the way jobs grow.

We're not talking about some FPS here where everyone is given the same potential and you're only potentially dealing with up to 32 people at a time. We're talking about a game that lets people pick totally different profession.

Just look at Hunter in PvE - they've always been fucked at endgame and its not because the job is bad, its just that managing a pet AI and trapping don't seem to mix that well - iust like pet melee in a Bind/Sleep isn't practical for FFXI event.

We could strengthen bind and trapping further, but guess what? If you do that, you just turned PvE in big mana/ammburn in either game.

See what happens when you try too hard to balance? Poke one thing too much and something else comes undone. There are just some situations that will suck for one job, but fix it and everyone else gets left in the dust. Its why pet jobs are just an ongoing conundrum in MMORPGs. Everquest is still the only one that ever got close to getting it right and even then, Enchanters are almost too desireable for it.

They have powerful binding and charming abilities, they are the ultimate crowd controllers. They're also manabatteries, which is exactly what puts them over-the-top on the power scale. But who do you give it to? Druids? Wizards? About the only way to rectify it is to make Enchanter quite useless in actual combat.

And rangers, doesn't matter what MMO we're talking about. They start out as gods most of the time, they get power from their ammo, which means they get power from resources. And while such high-cost and material management should return great power - players who don't make the same investments will begin to complain. They'll say they "pay to play" their jobs even though the non-consumable jobs can't even come close to comparing.

WoW has opted to just give Hunter another kick to the nads. Now they don't have to purchase of craft ammo, so they can be just like everyone else on a melee level. Except it seems the "free ammo" doesn't scale with the Hunter's level like the old ammo did, so now are they only asked to give up a great deal of DPS from pets in raids, now they've lost some on guns and bows as well. This will push them even further into just being endgame trappers.

The problem is its an MMORPG, really. Take out all these large numbers of players and excess number of race/job combos and most of these problems will go away. Scale this down to something on the Diablo level and you don't have these vast issues.

I can't say I share your pessimism. Balance is entirely possible, but they need to reduce class bias within the team of individuals responsible for it. It would probably be best if a director was charged with coordinating the different team members according to his or her own vision of balance. That would probably bring them closer than they ever have been.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Cataclysm

Make two separate systems. One for PvP and another for PvE.

Yes, systems where hard-earned abilities and talents function dramatically different from PvP and PvE.

Someone will still come out ahead of all the rest just because of the way jobs grow.

We're not talking about some FPS here where everyone is given the same potential and you're only potentially dealing with up to 32 people at a time. We're talking about a game that lets people pick totally different profession.

Just look at Hunter in PvE - they've always been fucked at endgame and its not because the job is bad, its just that managing a pet AI and trapping don't seem to mix that well - iust like pet melee in a Bind/Sleep isn't practical for FFXI event.

We could strengthen bind and trapping further, but guess what? If you do that, you just turned PvE in big mana/ammburn in either game.

See what happens when you try too hard to balance? Poke one thing too much and something else comes undone. There are just some situations that will suck for one job, but fix it and everyone else gets left in the dust. Its why pet jobs are just an ongoing conundrum in MMORPGs. Everquest is still the only one that ever got close to getting it right and even then, Enchanters are almost too desireable for it.

They have powerful binding and charming abilities, they are the ultimate crowd controllers. They're also manabatteries, which is exactly what puts them over-the-top on the power scale. But who do you give it to? Druids? Wizards? About the only way to rectify it is to make Enchanter quite useless in actual combat.

And rangers, doesn't matter what MMO we're talking about. They start out as gods most of the time, they get power from their ammo, which means they get power from resources. And while such high-cost and material management should return great power - players who don't make the same investments will begin to complain. They'll say they "pay to play" their jobs even though the non-consumable jobs can't even come close to comparing.

WoW has opted to just give Hunter another kick to the nads. Now they don't have to purchase of craft ammo, so they can be just like everyone else on a melee level. Except it seems the "free ammo" doesn't scale with the Hunter's level like the old ammo did, so now are they only asked to give up a great deal of DPS from pets in raids, now they've lost some on guns and bows as well. This will push them even further into just being endgame trappers.

The problem is its an MMORPG, really. Take out all these large numbers of players and excess number of race/job combos and most of these problems will go away. Scale this down to something on the Diablo level and you don't have these vast issues.

[DakAttack]

Re: Cataclysm

I think they dumbed down a lot of the content for ease of passing through to WotLK. Unfortunately, they shot themselves in the foot with a lot of the content they released for those expansions, because most people are no longer seeing any bit of it. I hope they don't do the same thing with Cataclysm.

Now that I'm in Northrend again, I'm having a lot of fun with the quests they're offering. Borean Tundra just wouldn't end, but a lot of the quests were more than a little interesting. Plus, having a flying mount at 70 means I can skip over a lot of the trash fights and get to the objectives. I hope they remake Azeroth like this.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Cataclysm

Uh, no it doesn't. The only time you can "hit a button" to choose your talents is after you've learned how to dual spec. Then you can switch between two with ease, but it definitely does not assign them for you.

There is a lot of shit that is stupidly easy in WoW, some of which I appreciate (seriously, it's so nice to not have to meet some arbitrary requirement just to get on a zeppelin) and some of which I find idiotic, but if you're going to bitch about WoW being easy, at least get your shit right.

[Etra]

Re: Cataclysm

My point was with a game so vast, so largely populated and so dynamic it is impossible- repeat, IMPOSSIBLE - to keep both PvE and PvP balanced.

The only way to balance it at all is to do the one thing no one wants:

Make a level cap for PvP and force it on the players when engaging in PvP.

No one will want it, no one will support it but its the only answer because there is no way to balance PvP and PvE if both must exist.

Make two separate systems. One for PvP and another for PvE.

This would not be hard for Blizzard to do in its current state of "excellence." However, I guess this would be too difficult for the WoW player to grasp, 'cause, you know, Blizzard lets people hit a button and the game auto-distributes your talents for you so there's 0 thinking required.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Cataclysm

Soooo... Make skills have a PvE and PvP side like EQ2 or whatever? I'm sorry, but starting location and race has no bearing on how overpowered one class is compared to another in WoW. Blizzard uses the same exact mobs in all the starting areas, except they have different skins.

My point was with a game so vast, so largely populated and so dynamic it is impossible- repeat, IMPOSSIBLE - to keep both PvE and PvP balanced.

The only way to balance it at all is to do the one thing no one wants:

Make a level cap for PvP and force it on the players when engaging in PvP.

No one will want it, no one will support it but its the only answer because there is no way to balance PvP and PvE if both must exist.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Cataclysm

For the hell of it, I decided to start a new toon, an Orc Hunter. Basically not going to like rush to level it or anything, will probably log onto it a few times a week, run out the rested XP bonus, and then log back to my main. More of a "something to do when there's nothing to do on my main but I don't feel like logging out completely" toon.

[DakAttack]

Re: Cataclysm

My DK is now level 72, and I'm hoping I can boost him up to 80 and earn an heirloom item or two before Cataclysm, to make leveling a little easier.

[Takelli]

Re: Cataclysm

Healing in PvP in WoW is generally useless in general. It's a bit stupid really since Holy Priests need to acquire and carry two different sets of gear and shell out for the second spec if they want to be able to do a thing in PvP.

It's idiotic really because in every other game that has PvP, healers are not only potent but required to succeed. in Wow healers are only good for ressing people really.

Actually... A healer in WoW can turn the tide of a battle if done right. I could be almost dead when fighting another mage and a healer runs by me, drops a heal on me, and I kill the mage instead of me, and we get the flag. Or, thy can prevent a FC from dying in a couple hits as well. I've seen people with like 2 hp right as they where about to cap almost die, only to be healed by a healer and we win.

[Firewind]

Re: Cataclysm

Healing in PvP in WoW is generally useless in general. It's a bit stupid really since Holy Priests need to acquire and carry two different sets of gear and shell out for the second spec if they want to be able to do a thing in PvP.

It's idiotic really because in every other game that has PvP, healers are not only potent but required to succeed. in Wow healers are only good for ressing people really.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Cataclysm

Well since I've decided to (again) arbitrarily hijack this thread to talk about my own personal WoW experiences, this is going here. Also, we don't really have a "Random WoW discussion" thread so this just became that.

Did some random BGs today, now that was fun. BGs are always fun really if you take all the times you get slaughtered with a grain of salt, but tonight, I was actually being like, useful. And that was awesome. Hell, I did an EoTS today and didn't die once. That's never happened. I wouldn't say I'm actually good at PvP now, but I've definitely found a bit of a groove with it.

I've found that I do prefer shadow over holy in PvP, while heals are definitely useful I rarely am in range of anyone to actually cure them when they need it so I'd end up just running around and getting my ass beat because I really didn't have any good means of fighting back.

I'm really just super glad I'm getting my feel for the whole PvP thing. I'll probably spend the rest of this weekend doing random BGs now.

[Etra]

Re: Cataclysm

Nothing, but throwing a tantrum because you expect everything to meet your expectations with an interim, pre-expansion patch, on something that is rarely checked out on a test server (pre-cap pvp) is a little over the top. Not that I really expect anything else from the official forums.

I'm definitely looking forward to the expansion. Ready to see where they go with the lore, plus finally getting to visit a current era Mount Hyjal really has me excited.

We weren't talking about pre-expansion patches. Everyone knows they are absolutely chaos in WoW. We were talking about when the game is in a normal stasis.

[Takelli]

Re: Cataclysm

Grrr Kil'Jaeden went down and I can't get on my alt (which is on Anub'arak) either. Now what am I going to do with my bored self? :/

---------- Post added at 09:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:19 PM ----------

Oh, it's back up. Yay!

lol. I'm glad Moon guard is rarely ever down when I want to play. XD

[Aksannyi]

Re: Cataclysm

Grrr Kil'Jaeden went down and I can't get on my alt (which is on Anub'arak) either. Now what am I going to do with my bored self? :/

---------- Post added at 09:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:19 PM ----------

Oh, it's back up. Yay!