How To Improve WoW

[GothmogII]

More action based combat? No subscripton fee? Both of them may be impossible, but they're my two biggest complaints.

Agreed.

Also, have XP be awarded with EVERY kill you make, regardless of level! Even if you're level 18 and this enemy is level 2, give something like 2 XP or something like that. That's the reason I quit.

Very, very bad idea. The only result of that would be highbies going to low-level areas and mercilessly AoE'ing everything in sight. It's bad enough as a low-level player trying to get gathering skills up in an area with higher level players farming ores and ingredients, there's no need to give them an incentive to make questing/grinding more of a drudge then it already is for people.

Then again, maybe that's an over-reaction. You'd get what, 200xp for 100 enemies killed? At higher levels you need XP in the tens of thousands, who's going to want to stick to the small stuff? (Not to mention waiting for re-spawns)

 

[Talshere]

I have to call bullshit on your "Make the game hard again" complaint.

That would make WoW shitty. A game should be accessible to everyone, not just the guys spending all their freetime playing it.

I played WoW since Vanilla and I do have to say it has gotten relatively easier (in terms of how long we spend on a raid and who we can just carry through). Back then we actually needed guilds and to be ready to play for a while. Now we just clear ToC in 30 mins and gear up any scrub we can find.

This causes scrubs calling other scrubs scrubs. While it was humorous, it was also quite spam-ful and depressing.

The reason I quit was because of achievement-whoring and gearscore. Those two things suddenly made the game not fun.

Excuse my language everyone, but fuck achievements. I don't need someone telling me when I achieved something. And it just seems like a bunch of horse shit; just to keep everyone playing the game doing things they don't care for just to get an achievement. My achievement is having fun. Do they have an achievement for smiling? Or laughing? Or enjoying yourself? Didn't think so.

No, but they do have achievements for getting a haircut, getting a non-combat pet, throwing a snowball at Magni Bronzebeard, hugging a dead horde/alliance player, dressing up as a clown and getting drunk then start to dance in Dalaran, and shooting rogues with a turkey gun. As you can see, they're the most difficult achivements in WoW.

That achivment has been one of the GREATEST additions to wow in its entire HISTORY XD

For a whole WEEK there were ZERO rogues in Dalaran and they spend most of their time in stealth trying to avoid being shot XD

The whole think culminated for me when I was in a BG, I started firing my turkey gun at this rogue I was fight and he KICKED my turkey gun. Like LOL! They hated it SO MUCH he was willing to risk losing by kicking my turkey gun so as not to get hit by it XD

 

[John Funk]

Sorry, I have to wholeheartedly disagree with you in two places: First of all, they had to give Paladins and Shamans to the other faction. Before, they were essentially making two separate PvE games, just because even the differences in abilities between two different classes made it very unbalanced. Do you remember how the Alliance had a cakewalk through the extremely threat-sensitive BWL just because of Blessing of Salvation? Or how Horde had easymode against Viscidus in AQ40 because of Poison Cleanse Totem? But other than that, how Paladins were ridiculous in any fight that involved any debuff of any kind besides curses, thanks to Cleanse?

Blizzard had two options, or else they were going to be dealing with a game that was inherently imbalanced against half of its population: Make Paladins and Shamans effectively the same class, taking out any flavor; or... give them to both factions.

I will also disagree that the game is "easier." I think if you look at it on a mechanics basis, the fights are more complex in end-game raiding than they've ever been. Any of the bosses in ICC (maybe not Marrowgar) could have been a final boss in any of the Classic WoW raids pre-AQ40.

They seem easier for a few reasons. First, players have so many more tools available to them than ever before, both in-game and out-of-game. Remember when we had to all wait for five Sunder Armors before DPSing? Now, just Misdirect to the tank, hunters. We have Wild Growth, Chain Heal, Prayer of Mending; all of which are extremely useful for keeping people alive. We have 20 more talent points than we did at level 60. Player characters are more powerful.

Plus, we know more about the game, and we have more resources. We know that every tank needs to have (X) defense to be Crit capped - a lot of people didn't know that in Classic. We have KTM and Omen threat meters (would have been really nice in BWL!), we have Deadly Boss Mods, we have forums like Elitist Jerks where theorycrafters can work out the maximum potential dps spec (I remember just changing specs because I felt like it as a mage). More to the point, we've seen these tricks before. "Oh, this is a Living Bomb fight, run away from everyone else guys, don't stand in the fire."

The hardest part of raiding pre-BC was getting 40 people, let alone 40 people who were halfway competent. I like everyone being able to see the content.

 

[Barry93]

Regarding the make it hard again... you done all the hardmodes? Because..... Well they're hard. All Blizzard have done with regard to how easy the game is is make it so everyone can access all the content and hardmodes are there for those who want the challenge, or to compete with other progression guilds be it on their server in their region or world wide.

Heroic modes are only harder for the healers. Tanks still do the exact same thing they would normally do in normal mode, and the same goes for dps. The only difference is bosses and trash have more health and hit harder; there's really nothing challening about heroic mode. If a guild can beat ToGC 25 normal, than the only thing stopping them from rofl-stomping Anub'arak on heroic is gear; which can be easily farmed provided the guild did not beat Anub'arak the first time on normal mode via divine intervention. Instead of just pumping the bosses full of steroids for heroic mode, I don't see why Blizzard couldn't add another twist to the fight. For Anub'arak on heroic mode, how about more nerubians come to his aid instead of just 4, or the boss burrows underground more often and then chases players around the room faster with his spikes, or just add an entirely new phase altogether. That would be a hard/heroic mode; adjusting the stats isn't good enough.

Alternatively, they can just make Anub'arak availible only on heroic mode like they did with Algalon.

 

[Tedious Involvements]

... After this can we discuss how best to improve crack, or any other addictive substance? Face it; if WoW was perfect, the human race would die off. It's the flaws that keep us aliiiiive.

 

[zenoaugustus]

To be fair there have been very few tank and spank bosses outside of naxx. And even that only had 1 or 2. I think atm to many people confuse tank and spank with a boss being trivialized due to gear. A good example of this I think might be mirimon in ulduar.

Ill briefly describe it to you incase you haven't done it. Skip the next 4 paragraphs if you know it.

Phase 1 you tank in the middle of a circular room, he drops mines at a range of 10 yards from him every 15 seconds or so. He does a flame blast on the floor at a ranged opponent, a laser on the tank doing high spike damage and occasionally an AoE that the melee and tank must run away from avoiding the mines, and be picked up afterwards, still avoiding the mines, so that he doesnt move from the middle or this phase becomes a lot harder.

Phase 2 is a stationary gun turret. Mines all vanish. He can be tank rather simply (I think he has agro but he might not). but all dps and heals must group and spread around the room as he will randomy target a party member and shoot it, anyone within X of the beam takes the same damage so poor grouping leads to a lot of raid damage. He does a massive charge up laser that rotates 180 degree round the room and WILL kill anyone caught in it inc the tank but is easy to avoid, and he shoots a missile up that will target a random party member, create a small circle on the floor which you have about 2 seconds to move out of or you take a truck load of damage and die.

Phase 3 the boss is airborne and should be tanked by a ranged dps. Shadow priests or frost mages are good due to generic X reduction in damage and healing based on dps. One healer can keep the dps up. He drops bombs which a tank has to pick up and kite away or be killed before they reach a randomly targeted party member, because while the damage isnt instant death territory for everyone, it will on some people and will cause the healers hell. In the mean time you have to dps down some big robots who you can loot for an item that when placed under the boss will incapacitate him for 10 seconds, drop him to the group into melee range and increase damage by like 200%. Each item is 1 use.

Phase 4 all of the previous 3 phases combine and simply put you must deal with them all together minus the big laser of death from phase 2. All 3 parts much die within 20 seconds of each other or they are resed on 20% health. The flying boss from phase 3 has no adds and cant be brought into melee range but has less health.


In full ICC gear raid, I imagine this fight boils down to.

Phase 1 tank and spank. AoE damage completely healable, as is the flame blast and the single target spike on the tank he just ignores.

Phase 2, tank and spank, aoe damage ignorable. rockets dont 1 shot so can be ignored. Or at least it doesnt matter if you screw up and get hit. Only the big laser still matters and you could prob survive 1 or 2 seconds of it at a push.

Phase 3, Shadow priest may be dealing enough dps to heal himself through the bosses damage. All ranged on head at all times, melee to kill the adds and drop the boss if they feel like it but its not required to kill him and you could ignore the bombs he drops as they cant 1 shot anyone. Effectively tank and spank.

Phase 4 really would be a tank and spank assuming you correctly distributed your dps, but other than making sure it all dies within 20 seconds all the aoe is ignorable requiring no raid movement.



Also, I agreed with the reduction of 40 man to 25 man. Trying to get and keep 40 people online was a HELL of a chore. If you were on like 4 horsemen and for 30 seconds one of your healers sufferes a minor lag spike that could end that attempt. Or if you had 2 dps disconnect for 2 mins you fell just short of the enrage time and fail. There are too many random variable that you just couldnt counter for in 40 man. I saw 40 man raid's where everyone one did every thing perfect and for that one slight moment when Thadius change polarity 1 gay lagged. Raid wipe cos he killed a healer and 3 dps.

If the internet were perfect. I would say 40 mans are awesome. Certainly they felt more epic. But its not. And as such 25 was the right way to go.

I appreciate you explaining that fight, considering I haven't played the game in over two and a half years. I quit well before the Sunwell patch came out. But yeah, I liked the interesting fights like that, fights that have a few variables and aren't set in stone, or need perhaps a little improv depending on how it goes. It sounds fun, I just need to find a new server and figure out what faction I want to play as.

 

[zenoaugustus]

Sorry, I have to wholeheartedly disagree with you in two places: First of all, they had to give Paladins and Shamans to the other faction. Before, they were essentially making two separate PvE games, just because even the differences in abilities between two different classes made it very unbalanced. Do you remember how the Alliance had a cakewalk through the extremely threat-sensitive BWL just because of Blessing of Salvation? Or how Horde had easymode against Viscidus in AQ40 because of Poison Cleanse Totem? But other than that, how Paladins were ridiculous in any fight that involved any debuff of any kind besides curses, thanks to Cleanse?

Blizzard had two options, or else they were going to be dealing with a game that was inherently imbalanced against half of its population: Make Paladins and Shamans effectively the same class, taking out any flavor; or... give them to both factions.

Again, I will have to reiterate my original post with an edit, I feel like each faction should have access to Paladins and Shamans, but the last time I checked, Paladins are powered by the Holy Light. Again, I know the Blood Elfs were stealing the power from a Naaru (which is the opposite of holy) and now the Sunwell is purified or whatever the case may be. But I just would have liked it a hell of a lot more if they had been named Blood Knights as a class. I know it sounds silly, but I just can't view them as Paladins. The same goes for Tauren Paladins. I know it would be ridiculous to make a "new" class that in reality is just a renamed version of another class with different background lore, but I just like that more than saying that Tauren are true Paladins.

I will also disagree that the game is "easier." I think if you look at it on a mechanics basis, the fights are more complex in end-game raiding than they've ever been. Any of the bosses in ICC (maybe not Marrowgar) could have been a final boss in any of the Classic WoW raids pre-AQ40.

They seem easier for a few reasons. First, players have so many more tools available to them than ever before, both in-game and out-of-game. Remember when we had to all wait for five Sunder Armors before DPSing? Now, just Misdirect to the tank, hunters. We have Wild Growth, Chain Heal, Prayer of Mending; all of which are extremely useful for keeping people alive. We have 20 more talent points than we did at level 60. Player characters are more powerful.

Perhaps you are right here. Again, I have been away from the game for 2 and a half years, and I am going on what I have heard from others. To me, I feel like the game has lost its "aura." I'm not saying opening the content to everyone is bad; it's great, I just feel like a final boss may not be quite as mystical to come into contact with.

The hardest part of raiding pre-BC was getting 40 people, let alone 40 people who were halfway competent.

That was always a pain in the ass.

 

[Jaeke]

Just because you hear people saying wow pvp is useless doesn't mean its true. But anyway nothing should be changed in WoW...has no one else realized the more they change the game the less fun it seems to be and if it is as awful as everyone whines about wtf does it have 14 million people.

 

[Talshere]

Sorry, I have to wholeheartedly disagree with you in two places: First of all, they had to give Paladins and Shamans to the other faction. Before, they were essentially making two separate PvE games, just because even the differences in abilities between two different classes made it very unbalanced. Do you remember how the Alliance had a cakewalk through the extremely threat-sensitive BWL just because of Blessing of Salvation? Or how Horde had easymode against Viscidus in AQ40 because of Poison Cleanse Totem? But other than that, how Paladins were ridiculous in any fight that involved any debuff of any kind besides curses, thanks to Cleanse?

Blizzard had two options, or else they were going to be dealing with a game that was inherently imbalanced against half of its population: Make Paladins and Shamans effectively the same class, taking out any flavor; or... give them to both factions.

I will also disagree that the game is "easier." I think if you look at it on a mechanics basis, the fights are more complex in end-game raiding than they've ever been. Any of the bosses in ICC (maybe not Marrowgar) could have been a final boss in any of the Classic WoW raids pre-AQ40.

They seem easier for a few reasons. First, players have so many more tools available to them than ever before, both in-game and out-of-game. Remember when we had to all wait for five Sunder Armors before DPSing? Now, just Misdirect to the tank, hunters. We have Wild Growth, Chain Heal, Prayer of Mending; all of which are extremely useful for keeping people alive. We have 20 more talent points than we did at level 60. Player characters are more powerful.

Plus, we know more about the game, and we have more resources. We know that every tank needs to have (X) defense to be Crit capped - a lot of people didn't know that in Classic. We have KTM and Omen threat meters (would have been really nice in BWL!), we have Deadly Boss Mods, we have forums like Elitist Jerks where theorycrafters can work out the maximum potential dps spec (I remember just changing specs because I felt like it as a mage). More to the point, we've seen these tricks before. "Oh, this is a Living Bomb fight, run away from everyone else guys, don't stand in the fire."

The hardest part of raiding pre-BC was getting 40 people, let alone 40 people who were halfway competent. I like everyone being able to see the content.

In fairness Blizz have done a fair job of making those 2 particular addons somewhat redundant even if they didnt means too. Its so hard to pull agro these days if your tank has even half a clue. I used Omen for the first time literally months because we had a tank die on 10 man deathwisper with the minus threat debuff. Our remaining tank still managed to taunt tank her for the next 2 mins because when a ranged pulled agro he would wait till just before she got to them then taunt her back and be back on top of threat.

Im surprised you didnt mention Tankspot tbh. As a tool to make raiding easier that has to the THE crown jewel.

While the bosses do have some interesting strats attached to them like deathwisper for example, I think that for the most part the issue is the gear. In a 10 man raid everyone has 25k+ health and its worse in 25 man content, healers have infinite mana as do dps. It doesnt matter if you take AoE by accident. The healers can cope with ease. Back in Vanilla if you were stood where you weren't supposed to be and took AoE, the strain on the healers could end your attempt right there, and whether you downed the boss or not the GM and/or officers would put you straight then and there with all 38 other members of the raid looking on.

I agree that generally the wow population has grown better as a whole. I know there was a discusion about a month back that if you took someone from an average 2k arena team now. Sent them back to S3, gave them a week or 2 to practice on that patch and it was argued that they would win blizcon just because tactics that we all use now and thing nothing of, noone had though of back then. But if the skills of the community as a whole are increasing and our toon stronger, then surely the content should raise the bar with them. Not get easier. While I am all for allowing everyone to see the content. And I accept that there are hardmodes for those who like a bigger challenge. 2 days and pretty much every server in the world had downed the lich king. I couldnt help but feel this was amazingly anticlimactic for one of the most powerful beings Azeroth has ever seen.

Even back per patch sunwell, with everyone full well knowing the tactics, less than 0.5% I believe it was of the guilds worldwide had cleared it, I know on my sever only some 2 guilds managed it. While that might be too harsh the normal content should provide SOME challenge the the average guild.

I Puged the first 4 bosses for gods sake. No vent, half of us didn't know the tactics, we were under geared, and the only reason we stopped was because the tank had to leave.

 

[jebus4you]

Don't fix what isn't broken.

12 million people back you up

 

[Sanguinius- The Angel]

...Also, I hate the concept of Dual Specs. Why not just give all three then? What's the point? We are supposed to have specialized in one field (or become a hybrid of some form)...

They did this so that players could be more flexible. What, the raid has full healers? That's fine, I'll switch to Shadow spec and DPS instead of not being able to go at all.

I fail to see what I wrong here.

 

[zenoaugustus]

...Also, I hate the concept of Dual Specs. Why not just give all three then? What's the point? We are supposed to have specialized in one field (or become a hybrid of some form)...

They did this so that players could be more flexible. What, the raid has full healers? That's fine, I'll switch to Shadow spec and DPS instead of not being able to go at all.

I fail to see what I wrong here.

I understand the flexibility part and it makes everyone's lives easier and all. I just don't like it because we are supposed to be SPECIALIZED. It just ruins the concept of specialization for me.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

They are making an effort here but i hate the fact that i have no impact on the game world in the slightest regardless of what i do. The war against the scourge wasnt at all assisted by my efforts, all i did was grind 10 more creatures, the story was pointless. I think an actual realm wide objective would be nice where your effort would actually help against a true goal. Let them send waves of 100 elites every hour and have so many brave defenders there to meet them. You are rewarded for your efforts in the defence and the city is won or lost by the players. The battle would be dynamic, fail too badly and the outer ring would be taken, win and you would drive the enemy back to their camp.

 

[zenoaugustus]

No, but they do have achievements for getting a haircut, getting a non-combat pet, throwing a snowball at Magni Bronzebeard, hugging a dead horde/alliance player, dressing up as a clown and getting drunk then start to dance in Dalaran, and shooting rogues with a turkey gun. As you can see, they're the most difficult achivements in WoW.

Do they have achievements for turning the game on? Or reaching level 2? Or completing your first quest? How about an achievement for clicking the attack button?

 

[zenoaugustus]

They are making an effort here but i hate the fact that i have no impact on the game world in the slightest regardless of what i do. The war against the scourge wasnt at all assisted by my efforts, all i did was grind 10 more creatures, the story was pointless. I think an actual realm wide objective would be nice where your effort would actually help against a true goal. Let them send waves of 100 elites every hour and have so many brave defenders there to meet them. You are rewarded for your efforts in the defence and the city is won or lost by the players. The battle would be dynamic, fail too badly and the outer ring would be taken, win and you would drive the enemy back to their camp.

Exactly. Right there. That'd be fun.

 

[zenoaugustus]

Don't fix what isn't broken.

12 million people back you up

But how many other people would be playing if something was fixed? Sometimes, something isn't broken, but could be improved anyways. Sometimes the risk is worth the reward. RIght?

 

[Barry93]

No, but they do have achievements for getting a haircut, getting a non-combat pet, throwing a snowball at Magni Bronzebeard, hugging a dead horde/alliance player, dressing up as a clown and getting drunk then start to dance in Dalaran, and shooting rogues with a turkey gun. As you can see, they're the most difficult achivements in WoW.

Do they have achievements for turning the game on? Or reaching level 2? Or completing your first quest? How about an achievement for clicking the attack button?

Not quite, there's one for reaching level 10, and completing 50 quests. There'a also one for getting your first mount, looting 100 gold from dead enemies, becoming a journeyman in a profession, putting drunk goggles on and killing level 5 pink elephants and capturing little rabbits. Oh, and how could I forget throwing beer mugs at dark iron dwarves.

 

[Discrodia]

Blizzard needs to take all that goddamn money they're getting from WoW (Which is roughly 175million + per month) and use it to develop some new IP, since chances are good every new thing added to WoW will piss off a bunch of veteran players, while the newbies will still pour in at floodgate speed.

Ergo, if they just kept the game mostly the same, with a few minor patches and the like every so often, they could use those boatloads of money, people, and money to make something interesting and inovative and cool. (Like, say, Magic Space Ninjas versus The Elemental Horde of Rave Party Lights)

WoW, on the other hand, is overhyped and basically strangling the MMO market to the point that new MMO's can't even get a foothold unless they've done drastic steps to ensure they get a good initial subscriber base and make sure they're just weird enough not to be comparable to WoW. Sure, it's a money printing machine, but even if they let it alone it will take years and years before people stop playing it.

Also, making WoW better is not something I would propose (sneaky little fringe-MMO player that I am) mainly because WoW is one of the things out there that seems to always be the center-stage of MMO talk, and they again have that monopoly on people new to internet MMOs. So... my best advice for World of Warcraft is to stop evolving and put all that money somewhere else.

 

[zenoaugustus]

No, but they do have achievements for getting a haircut, getting a non-combat pet, throwing a snowball at Magni Bronzebeard, hugging a dead horde/alliance player, dressing up as a clown and getting drunk then start to dance in Dalaran, and shooting rogues with a turkey gun. As you can see, they're the most difficult achivements in WoW.

Do they have achievements for turning the game on? Or reaching level 2? Or completing your first quest? How about an achievement for clicking the attack button?

Not quite, there's one for reaching level 10, and completing 50 quests. There'a also one for getting your first mount, looting 100 gold from dead enemies, becoming a journeyman in a profession, putting drunk goggles on and killing level 5 pink elephants and capturing little rabbits. Oh, and how could I forget throwing beer mugs at dark iron dwarves.

What about the achievement for going AFK? How about an achievement for moving the character? Or opening the map? Are these out there?