Patch 4.3 Content Preview

[Kaylia]

I think its painfully obvious, people are in extreme fanboi/girl, smoke in mirrors(ff14 is a great game at release denial) if they don't think a serious chunk of WoW's budget is gone(for now) and Blizzard didn't just go through the motions half assing an entire expansion cutting corners at every chance they got.

I see this comment all the time, but I don't remember getting a lot more content in 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 (unless you were including wrath). It was always a raid, a few dailies, one 5man, and one significant UI changes. It's close to what we get.


What changed the most is how you play the game (easier to get group and gear, no 10/25 raid lockout, same gear in both raid). I think that cataclysm was poorly handled in that sense, but it's doesnt feel cheaper than other expansion.

[Lordender]

I see this comment all the time, but I don't remember getting a lot more content in 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 (unless you were including wrath). It was always a raid, a few dailies, one 5man, and one significant UI changes. It's close to what we get.


What changed the most is how you play the game (easier to get group and gear, no 10/25 raid lockout, same gear in both raid). I think that cataclysm was poorly handled in that sense, but it's doesnt feel cheaper than other expansion.

Completely disagree, this was WoW's version of Wings of the Goddess, they scrapped Abyssal Maw and gave a really lame reason about how "the story was done in Throne of the Tides" who honestly believes that? Firelands gave 7 bosses, revamped two 5-mans and called it a patch. They even had to add stretch content in the Molten Front dailies to cover up the lack of content from a 7 boss raid.

Overall it took longer to release less content.

[Kaylia]

It's one thing to say that Blizzard should be designing more content, it's another to say that we are getting less than before. The latter require a valid comparison with before, especially if you want to talk about "significant cut in their budget""

Your point that Throne of Tides should have been in the game doesn't support your first statement at all. It's a shame that we didnt get it, and I really hope they will expand on this at some point, but just because its not in the game doesnt mean we get less.


[edit]
Naxx was rehashed raid content (almost nothing changed), and the other 3 raids only had 1 boss. Ulduar was great, and came with a decent 5man, then there was ToC which was very thin on content (and we arent talking about the dailies which were far worse than fireland). And finally, there was ICC+3dungeon, but that's what we are getting next update.

[Kaylia]

I'm not going to say that I had fun with fireland dailies (25-30days is too much), but it's retarded to pretend that you're forced to do the grind. Also, it's not worse than ogrila rep, Tol Barad or Argent Dawn. There is a few worthwhile pieces of gears, but if you're raiding, they barely matter, and it's not what will make or break your toon. You can also cut 10 days out of that grind if you stop after 1 vendor.

[aurik]

Huh? Ulduar didn't come with a 5-man. But people were extremely happy with 3.1, because the raid instance was magnificent. And people were very happy with 3.0 despite naxx being recycled, because an entire new continent + 12 or so instances was "enough" to keep people busy for a few months.

ToC was a terrible patch despite having a 5-man and a new daily hub, because the raid was terrible. And the patch didn't even have any redeeming value like 3.3 did with dungeon finder. It was just a big lump of awful.

Anyway, we are now 10 months into this expansion, we stand a few months ago from the final patch, and we have 3 medium size raids, 1 small raid, and a "VoA", 7? new instances, 4 recycled instances, 2 new battlegrounds, 5 new questing zones. At 10 months into Wrath, we had 13? new instances, 2 large raids (1 of them recycled), 1 medium raid, 2 small raids, and a "VoA", 2 new battlegrounds, and 7 new questing zones. Cata has definitely been a slimmer expansion pack.

The big problem with cata is that they devoted a significant amount of time to rebuilding the old world, which while definitely nice, doesn't really count into the "new content to explore at level cap" category, which is what most people care about.

[Katlan]

I agree it wasn't front page material, but I think people are overreacting. It's fine to complain about 4.3 as a whole if you believe it's lacking content, but I seriously doubt they are counting it as content.

What actual content have they mentioned aside a new raid that will prolly be 7-9 bosses and a not-really-daily-hub. I guarantee this patch will be less content then lolFirelands once you take away all the fluff additions.

Blizzards big thing about the Deathwing raid is that you fight him multiple times (yay?) and that its gonna involve fighting him on his back. I guarantee fighting him 3x will count as 3 bosses in the new raid. Inb4 Deathwing raid is 10 bosses but 3 of them are fighting deathwing

[Kaylia]

What actual content have they mentioned aside a new raid that will prolly be 7-9 bosses and a not-really-daily-hub. I guarantee this patch will be less content then lolFirelands once you take away all the fluff additions.

Blizzards big thing about the Deathwing raid is that you fight him multiple times (yay?) and that its gonna involve fighting him on his back. I guarantee fighting him 3x will count as 3 bosses in the new raid. Inb4 Deathwing raid is 10 bosses but 3 of them are fighting deathwing

3 dungeons, 1 raid (less than 13 bosses, but its still early to say 7), the mist island quest hub (I don't care if you say its not content, designing something like that still take time even if you get to do it once per year).

They are also adding the raid finder and transmography on top of it. You can downplay that, but you were not getting more than that before.

As for fighting Deathwing multiple time over the raid, you're just trying too hard. I've seen people bitch that "raid boss" don't help their lieutenant enough and just sit in their room. Having deathwing be more proactice throughout the raid is great storywise, and I'm sure it's gonna be as much more design wise to make these 3 encounters feel differents.

Not to mention that the patch isn't even on test server yet. There might be more change than what we were told.

[Katlan]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the dungeons.. I'm not dissing having to fight Deathwing multiple times, but I can forsee the raid being 7 bosses +3 deathwing encounters.

[FailureMidgard]

Huh? Ulduar didn't come with a 5-man. But people were extremely happy with 3.1, because the raid instance was magnificent. And people were very happy with 3.0 despite naxx being recycled, because an entire new continent + 12 or so instances was "enough" to keep people busy for a few months.

Everyone I knew/talked to thought 3.0 was awful. 4.0 was far far better than 3.0. Naxx, on top of being recycled, felt like they didn't even change the damage numbers between lvl 60 and 80. That was the running joke the entire time. "It's Naxx60 all over again, including how much dmg the abilities do, but we have 4x the HP!"

Anyway, we are now 10 months into this expansion, we stand a few months ago from the final patch, and we have 3 medium size raids, 1 small raid, and a "VoA", 7? new instances, 4 recycled instances, 2 new battlegrounds, 5 new questing zones. At 10 months into Wrath, we had 13? new instances, 2 large raids (1 of them recycled), 1 medium raid, 2 small raids, and a "VoA", 2 new battlegrounds, and 7 new questing zones. Cata has definitely been a slimmer expansion pack.

I know some people will disagree with what I'm about to say, but heroics do add something. 4.0 was actually 12 bosses + 12 recycled bosses. 4.2 is 7 bosses + 7 recycled bosses? Even if you want to apply the logic to 3.0, only Sarth even had a "hardmode" (and was arguably the beginning of the idea), while the rest were just dumb achievements that are no different than anything else today. I mean, part of why I say people disliked 3.0 was the fact that the entirety of 3.0 raid content was cleared the same day people were hitting 80. We got all of our server firsts, and we did Sarth with ~20 people, and slowly got more 80s as we were clearing through Naxx. 4.0 raiding at least took like 1-2 months before it was fully cleared. Far "meatier". I guess alternatively, you can say that each boss only counts once, and we count only heroics for hardcore players, and only normals for the casuals that more slowly clear it? But if that's the case, 3.0 had basically no content for "hardcore" players.

What actual content have they mentioned aside a new raid that will prolly be 7-9 bosses and a not-really-daily-hub. I guarantee this patch will be less content then lolFirelands once you take away all the fluff additions.

Blizzards big thing about the Deathwing raid is that you fight him multiple times (yay?) and that its gonna involve fighting him on his back. I guarantee fighting him 3x will count as 3 bosses in the new raid. Inb4 Deathwing raid is 10 bosses but 3 of them are fighting deathwing

I don't understand, how can you be this upset over fighting him 3 times? The way I see it, if they stick to the 3 different phases each give loot (and thus, if you wipe in P2, you start in P2 and don't get P1 again) sounds perfectly fine. As long as it counts as 3 different bosses, I think that's pretty cool. Even if you confront him, he flies off, then you have to fight through more of his minions (including other bosses), that seems cool to me. A lot more fluid than the current model. As long as the fights are different enough and don't feel like the same mechanics with 1 change, I think it's fine (and cool). On the other hand, if the difference is as different as the 3 drakes were in BWL, I'll be a bit irritated. But I think people bitching about Deathwing already are really just looking for a reason to bitch...

[aurik]

3.0 definitely lacked content for hardcore players. But there was a lot of questing content and 12 instances to master, plus a whole new class added to the game, so all in all a lot of content for the majority of their player base. Also, Naxx was actually "new" for most people; not many people did much t3 at 60.

As much as the naxx content was recycled, in my experience 3.0 lasted at least 3-4 months before people started griping about the raid content being old/tired/boring as opposed to too easy.

I don't tend to count normal/heroic as 2 different bosses, because 95% of the time heroic bosses are "ok now do the boss without fucking up any gimmicks and near-optimal DPS, oh and here's one new gimmick (maybe)".

edit: by my 2-weeks-per-boss metric, Firelands has about another month before it is "exhausted". Let's see if the metric holds true.

[Kaylia]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the dungeons.. I'm not dissing having to fight Deathwing multiple times, but I can forsee the raid being 7 bosses +3 deathwing encounters.

Like I said before, another 7 encounters raid would be underwhelming for a final raid, but it's not a very good argument until they announce exactly how many we will get.

As much as the naxx content was recycled, in my experience 3.0 lasted at least 3-4 months before people started griping about the raid content being old/tired/boring as opposed to too easy.

Are you arguing that Blizzard cut their budgets considerably, or that Cataclysm suffer from design issue?

Both ideas are very different.

I don't tend to count normal/heroic as 2 different bosses, because 95% of the time heroic bosses are "ok now do the boss without fucking up any gimmicks and near-optimal DPS, oh and here's one new gimmick (maybe)".

Just to be clear, do you consider Ulduar's HM to be two different fights, or it's the same as everything else?

[Katlan]

Like I said before, another 7 encounters raid would be underwhelming for a final raid, but it's not a very good argument until they announce exactly how many we will get.

It wouldn't be a 7 boss raid, it would be a 10 boss raid (7 bosses + 3 Deathwing). I'm calling it now. Since this is the first xpac where we don't know where the actual raid will be, I'm betting each Deathwing fight takes you to a new area/zone where the end boss of that section calls on deathwing for help.. which prompts you to fight him on dragons or something that spawns multiple zones.

I'm just guessing it's gonna be a few very small raids that are connected through a deathwing fight. Until you finally weaken him enough to fight him in a regular dragon boss encounter type of thing

[aurik]

Final raid probably in deepholm.

Are you arguing that Blizzard cut their budgets considerably, or that Cataclysm suffer from design issue?

Both ideas are very different.

Neither, I'm disputing your claim that we are NOT getting less content than before. 10 months in, there is less content in Cata in pretty much every way.

[Kaylia]

Final raid probably in deepholm.



Neither, I'm disputing your claim that we are NOT getting less content than before. 10 months in, there is less content in Cata in pretty much every way.

Let me rephrase my question then. How do you define content? Is it the amount of stuff you have to do, or the work blizzard put in the game?

Final raid probably in deepholm.

His hideout could be anywhere, but the Volcano on Lost island near kezan seem to be an appropriate place for him to hide after the fight against Alexstrasza. The area is badass, mostly unused, and we could finish him off above the Maelstrom.

There is also some Old God lore linked too goblin's island that might work out with Deathwing's backstory.

Deepholm isnt outside the realm of possibilities, but we already solved the pillar issue, and saving Azeroth outside Azeroth would be anticlimatic in a way.

[Guitarman]

After Patch 4.3, and the world event, the team is going to focus on keeping players entertained and enjoying the game.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2433-Patch-4.3-Interviews-Blue-Posts-Diablo-III-Beta-Art-Gallery-Update?page=3#comments

they weren't doing this already? LMAO.

[vrumpt]

They realize some people quit because they made the content more accessible to everyone and it no longer felt elite.

Raids are significantly harder than they were in WotLK, but the rewards are not much better than heroic five man rewards. This causes a lack of motivation to raid.

People quit because raids were easy.

People quit because raids are too hard.

/facepalm


If they brought back naxx difficulty raids that can be pugged without thinking I think that would be the best thing for this game right now, and keep heroic modes the way they are now.

[Meresgi]

If you add up all of the Deathwing encounter stages, it will be the longest fight in the game.
Each stage of the fight will take place in a different location and offer some loot.

So to anyone else does that sound like the next raid will probably have like 3 original bosses and then 5 fights with Deathwing?

His hideout could be anywhere, but the Volcano on Lost island near kezan seem to be an appropriate place for him to hide after the fight against Alexstrasza. The area is badass, mostly unused, and we could finish him off above the Maelstrom.

Where would we access it though? I mean it might be an interesting event if we were to board ships the first time and set out for the island, fighting along the way...but I highly doubt it will happen and most likely would be a teleport crystal or something.

If they brought back naxx difficulty raids that can be pugged without thinking I think that would be the best thing for this game right now, and keep heroic modes the way they are now.

Jesus christ no, I'm not in an amazing guild but we're pretty decent at heroics but suffering a lot of bleedout recently, that being said we have to go do normals now because we cant field the IQs to deal with heroics...which makes me not want to even log the fuck in as normals are already very easy, making them even easier would make me fall asleep. Also I really hate the heroic modes and access to everyone mentality WoW has now. I liked when boss fights were hard, and raiding was challenging and NOT for everyone. Back when there was other shit for people to do so no one bitched too much about not raiding if they couldn't, though it wasn't hard to find a good 40man raid guild to apply to since so many people raiding mean more spots opened.

I would be fine with them dissolving 25s, making only 10s and make 10s drop the same amount of loot just so more guilds popped up, while at the same time making the raids actually hard.

After Patch 4.3, and the world event, the team is going to focus on keeping players entertained and enjoying the game.

This fucking quote takes the cake..."Sorry guys we werent making the VIDEO GAME fun during this entire expansion we PROMISE to do it afterwards, and we ALWAYS fulfill our promises. Shit, let me preoder already, im so giddy.

They believe that each spec plays like a separate class, making the game feel as if there are 30 classes.

Do they even play their game? aka they want to homogenize more because it "feels" like there are 30 classes? Most buffs are shared by 3-5 classes, and most classes play exactly the same except with a different bar.

[Katlan]

People quit because raids were easy.

People quit because raids are too hard.

/facepalm


If they brought back naxx difficulty raids that can be pugged without thinking I think that would be the best thing for this game right now, and keep heroic modes the way they are now.

people are quitting because its slower content / less content, and ppl don't like the HM model as much as they did the Ulduar/Naxx HM model. anybody who says Cata has had content at the same / or faster pace then other xpac's is living under a fanboy rock.

Blizz is really scared about the future of their mmo to be talking about stuff after cata before blizzcon. Did they honestly just say they are going to talk toe homogenization out of each class? Because there sure as hell isn't 30 classes in the game when all tanks basically play the same and so many other classes do also

[Boyiee]

I would be fine with them dissolving 25s, making only 10s and make 10s drop the same amount of loot just so more guilds popped up, while at the same time making the raids actually hard.

I'd actually perfer 15's over 25's or 10's. It is really annoying getting the buffs I want in my 10man group while playing with friends and giving them the option of playing a class they like. At the same time, it is a bitch to field a 25man from scratch.

I used to love 25s in tbc/wrath, but I can't stand all the fucktards that come in and you have to sort through any more.

[Eaglestrike]

Do they even play their game? aka they want to homogenize more because it "feels" like there are 30 classes? Most buffs are shared by 3-5 classes, and most classes play exactly the same except with a different bar.

So FFXI has around 5 jobs?