Do you think the probable new patch of T3.5 gears is a wise update?

[Sleeplust]

20man MC is basicly the same as 40 man due to flexraid thingy, mobs become weaker as mancount drops upto 20 people.

TWOW implemented flexible raid instensity?? I haven't known that before.

[Venaven]

Part of the problem is that Turtle had a reputation for always carefully and sensitively heeding the ecosystem of Vanilla Wow's itemization; they understood that it was a balancing act because the spirit of how Vanilla Wow's itemization was designed needed to be preserved in order to keep the spirit of Vanilla in general.

What I mean by this specifically is that, regardless of the blizzard team's original intention, the consequence of Vanilla Wow's itemization was such that there were tons of 'sidegrades' and different item choices available for different situations, instead of all 'higher tier' gear trivializing previous pieces of gear based on the tier of content--in other words, character progression was made less linear. This has a ton of great effects, from encouraging build diversity and situational, creative itemization to allowing for players to approach the game from a more casual perspective or a non-obligated perspective while still being able to viably compete and cooperate with others.

So, previously, Turtle was always careful to maintain this nature so as to avoid creating the same linear progression curve present in every other version of Wow beyond Vanilla, i.e. the non-linearity is understood as one of the things which makes Vanilla unique and appealing. But now, by pushing development even farther than Naxx, things become concerning.

See, people have always had issues with some pieces of Naxx gear precisely because it undermines all of this, to some extent (i.e. might of Menethil being superior to every 2h in the game unconditionally). I'm very weary about gear which will probably be even better than the already problematic Naxx gear... if the devs are going to insist on this style of progression, either the lower-end content's gear will need some buffs, or they should really continue their tradition of respecting the itemization design of Vanilla, by ensuring that the new gear is not strictly superior to everything else and is more like 'alternatives which are on par with Naxx gear'. However, I fear that what we'll see is TBC style improvements and then all of the earlier raid content's gear will be trivialized.

This would be against the spirit of Vanilla even from a PvE and casual perspective, and from a more serious perspective, it would also ruin PvP.

[Jc473]

Part of the problem is that Turtle had a reputation for always carefully and sensitively heeding the ecosystem of Vanilla Wow's itemization; they understood that it was a balancing act because the spirit of how Vanilla Wow's itemization was designed needed to be preserved in order to keep the spirit of Vanilla in general.

What I mean by this specifically is that, regardless of the blizzard team's original intention, the consequence of Vanilla Wow's itemization was such that there were tons of 'sidegrades' and different item choices available for different situations, instead of all 'higher tier' gear trivializing previous pieces of gear based on the tier of content--in other words, character progression was made less linear. This has a ton of great effects, from encouraging build diversity and situational, creative itemization to allowing for players to approach the game from a more casual perspective or a non-obligated perspective while still being able to viably compete and cooperate with others.

So, previously, Turtle was always careful to maintain this nature so as to avoid creating the same linear progression curve present in every other version of Wow beyond Vanilla, i.e. the non-linearity is understood as one of the things which makes Vanilla unique and appealing. But now, by pushing development even farther than Naxx, things become concerning.

See, people have always had issues with some pieces of Naxx gear precisely because it undermines all of this, to some extent (i.e. might of Menethil being superior to every 2h in the game unconditionally). I'm very weary about gear which will probably be even better than the already problematic Naxx gear... if the devs are going to insist on this style of progression, either the lower-end content's gear will need some buffs, or they should really continue their tradition of respecting the itemization design of Vanilla, by ensuring that the new gear is not strictly superior to everything else and is more like 'alternatives which are on par with Naxx gear'. However, I fear that what we'll see is TBC style improvements and then all of the earlier raid content's gear will be trivialized.

This would be against the spirit of Vanilla even from a PvE and casual perspective, and from a more serious perspective, it would also ruin PvP.

I agree with you 100%.

Regarding your fear of the T3.5/4 raids potentially triviliasing previous raid tiers, here's a comment from Akalix today:

""T3.5 and t4 will upgrade over Naxx, though not every piece of gear from their raids will be a direct upgrade—similar to how some BIS is found in MC, BWL, AQ40, etc""

Source - TWoW discord, theorycrafting channel -https://discord.com/channels/4666224558 ... 8099963954

[Venaven]

I agree with you 100%.

Regarding your fear of the T3.5/4 raids potentially triviliasing previous raid tiers, here's a comment from Akalix today:

""T3.5 and t4 will upgrade over Naxx, though not every piece of gear from their raids will be a direct upgrade—similar to how some BIS is found in MC, BWL, AQ40, etc""

Source - TWoW discord, theorycrafting channel -https://discord.com/channels/4666224558 ... 8099963954

Thanks. While it's nice to see that they are at least somewhat conscious of this, it still feels as though they're somehow not appreciating the significance of the potential ramifications enough. This is surprising to me, because for a long time they were always very sensitive with respect towards itemization. My concern here is that, in them confirming that there will indeed be at least a decent amount of upgrades, we will be power-creeping towards TBC style progression and itemization, which is not in the spirit of Vanilla. Also, one other point I forgot to bring up in explicit/direct terms is that building content around this aspect of the playerbase is a little alienating since most players, even the ones who are exclusively interested in PvE, have not cleared Naxx on this server yet. It would make more sense IMO to make more content on par with tier 3, rather than content which is designed to be 'greater than' tier 3.

[Xudo]

most players, even the ones who are exclusively interested in PvE, have not cleared Naxx on this server yet. It would make more sense IMO to make more content on par with tier 3, rather than content which is designed to be 'greater than' tier 3.

I think it is invalid argument. If people still haven't cleared naxx, then they probably are not interested in this type of activity at all.

[Venaven]

most players, even the ones who are exclusively interested in PvE, have not cleared Naxx on this server yet. It would make more sense IMO to make more content on par with tier 3, rather than content which is designed to be 'greater than' tier 3.

I think it is invalid argument. If people still haven't cleared naxx, then they probably are not interested in this type of activity at all.

My point is that this makes the gear disparity between those who are more progressed, and those who aren't, that much more apparent, whereas prior to adding tier 4 etc. people can still feel like their power level is relevant compared to most others' because lower tier content is more viable for gearing. The more of a gulf you create by distancing linear power out of reach, the less this will be the case. I mean, I can't really say anything here that I haven't already said in my original, larger post. Also, I know people have a grudge against the concept of PvP on this server, but adding something like TBC tier 4 will not help revive that scene, it will just ensure that it remains even more dead.
Also, I don't agree with your logic here. There are plenty of PVE only players who are aspirational in their endeavors but haven't yet reached that stage of content. The more extreme the gear disparities become, due to stuff which is even better than naxx, the more gatekept the lower echelons of the playerbase will be, and thus, the more difficult it will be for them to get into anything, let alone tier 3+ which they'd probably eventually want to do.

[Likaleo]

Dwarven city of Wildhammers are more difficult raids than Molten Core - lair of powerful elemental who caused giantic explosion which dramatically changed the appearance and climate of the Burning Steppes or Searing Gorge.

What the fuck?

Dworfs of grim batol got alexstraza captured who is queen of red dragons who got her powers from titans.
Do you think there is not enough material to make raid difficulty relevant??

[Sylveria]

Dwarven city of Wildhammers are more difficult raids than Molten Core - lair of powerful elemental who caused giantic explosion which dramatically changed the appearance and climate of the Burning Steppes or Searing Gorge.

What the fuck?

Dworfs of grim batol got alexstraza captured who is queen of red dragons who got her powers from titans.
Do you think there is not enough material to make raid difficulty relevant??

Not the dwarfs of Grim Batol captured Alexstrasza, but the Orcs of the Dragonmaw Clan. And only with the help of a little relic called the "Dragonsoul" aka the "Demonsoul". (Book: "Day of the Dragon" - Pre-TBC-Era)

[Invokersama]

if we speaking of raids power level -_- shouldn't c'thun be the strongest Npc in the game based on lore even more then illdan and Lich King themself

[Likaleo]

Dwarven city of Wildhammers are more difficult raids than Molten Core - lair of powerful elemental who caused giantic explosion which dramatically changed the appearance and climate of the Burning Steppes or Searing Gorge.

What the fuck?

Dworfs of grim batol got alexstraza captured who is queen of red dragons who got her powers from titans.
Do you think there is not enough material to make raid difficulty relevant??

Not the dwarfs of Grim Batol captured Alexstrasza, but the Orcs of the Dragonmaw Clan. And only with the help of a little relic called the "Dragonsoul" aka the "Demonsoul". (Book: "Day of the Dragon" - Pre-TBC-Era)

Can you tell others there is enought material to make grim batol cool and lorefriendly raid?

[Likaleo]

Number-wise yes but downscaling raids is a huge nerf to raid difficulty.
Vanilla raids have some gear requirement of course but their main difficulty is finding enough people and making sure noone makes anything really stupid.

So you think thats good way to make raids difficult? Make attunement so hard that people have hard time complete it and then raid is hard to form because lack of players?

Would it be better to make raid encounters harder?
I dont realy understand "main difficulty needs to be finding players"