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Blue Posts, IgroMir
 
Nov 20
15:07

IgroMir


Blizzard attended IgroMir recently, and finally put up an official recap.
  • Rated battlegrounds will be an alternative way to get Arena points. Each week, there will be a featured battleground, helping concentrate queues and keeping the rated battleground experience exciting and different from week to week.
  • If you win a game in a rated battleground you will gain rating, however your mileage may vary depending on the BG. Each victory in a rated BG will also give you Arena points.
  • Among the possible rewards, the most exciting will be the return of the classic honor titles like Grand Marshal or Knight Lieutenant. Players will also be able to earn epic ground mounts and vanity items such as tabards and pets in addition to helping their guild acquire levels and achievements.
  • The faction that wins the battle in Tol Barad will not only get Tol Barad marks of honor, but also will get access to bonus daily quests and special bosses.
  • Players earn guild experience in a variety of ways, for instance by gaining levels, reputation ranks, boss kills, rated battleground or Arena wins, or profession ranks.
  • To give fair opportunities to both big and small guilds, only the top 20 earners per day in each guild will contribute to guild experience points.
  • Guild experience will be converted into a special guild currency, which can be used to buy a variety of rewards such as profession plans, recipes and reagents; vanity items (mounts, tabards, etc.), and guild talent respecs.
  • Guild items require less reagents, which can be bought with guild currency.
  • To do so, at least 75% of guild members (for the moment) will need to complete an achievement to make it appear in the guild achievement tab.
  • Guild banks will receive a percentage of gold looted from a boss when guild members make boss kills.
  • Also, it will be possible to invite other guilds to various events such as weekly battlegrounds.


Blue Posts


Set bonus more trouble than they are worth
I think gear might get really boring if you didn't have set bonuses (and perhaps trinkets) to look forward to.

Somewhat boring gear is okay... to a point... in PvP, where you need to strike a balance between skill and gear. Players want to enter PvP thinking they have a relatively level playing field, but we still use the gear reward as an incentive to participate.

PvE gear is already relatively inflexible on primary stats. If anything I wish there was more variability from tier to tier. Players have become pretty intolerant though of gear that doesn't feel like an unambiguous upgrade. That's not intended as an insult to anyone. It's just the state of a five year old game. :)


Increasing stats ... To what End?
They're just numbers. We don't think it starts getting scary until the human mind literally has trouble processing the digits. If your new staff has 152,420 spell power, well, yeah that's a mouthful. But if your new staff has 4000 spell power, the only thing that can really be freaking you out is that 4000 is just a really big number compared to the 100 spell power you might be used to. Automobiles used to cost hundreds of dollars instead of tens of thousands of dollars too.... :)

When players say we had scaling problems in Lich King, what they mean (or at least what they *should* mean) is that we picked the end numbers we wanted for percentages such as crit and dodge and then picked ratings that would get us there. When we inflated the item levels to account for hard modes (with a little help from things like glyphs too) then the percentages ended up higher than we intended. That doesn't mean that exponential scaling on gear is bad. It just means that we misjudged our endpoints.

Gear inflation is just part of MMOs, or at least the kind of MMO that we make. Players are going to freak when they see the Cataclysm gear (because believe me, we did), but it's also exciting too. :)


Blizzard, please stop making gear worthless
There is still a lot of gear from Trial of the Crusade that cannot be obtained with Emblems of Triumph alone. Heroic gear and set pieces purchased with Trophies of the Crusade will still separate players conquering the biggest challenges Trial of the Crusade has to offer from those who will be farming emblems after patch 3.3. In addition, there will be scores of new items available in the Icecrown Citadel raid. The average raider will need to gear up a good deal while progressing through this raid dungeon if they wish to eventually defeat the Lich King.

Wrath of the Lich King really advances one of the most popular story lines in the Warcraft universe like never before. Players have been watching the saga unfold since Warcraft III and are not far off from finally attempting to end the Lich King's reign. We want as many players taking part in this adventure as possible, and 3.3 will provide smaller or less-experienced guilds the opportunity to gear up and advance through Icecrown Citadel. We've been putting a ton of work into this final dungeon and want players enthused about taking their shot at killing one of the most infamous characters in Warcraft history. Make no mistake though, this raid will be very hard. If you think that, by allowing players to farm Emblems of Triumph, we're completely nullifying any gear gap and giving the average player an easy stab at clearing Icecrown Citadel and besting the Lich King, you misunderstand the evolution of this game and make too many assumptions about how the 3.3 changes will affect it.

Clout, if you're going to be one of the first players at the Frozen Throne ready to tank the Lich King when the opportunity comes, I trust he'll show you how he feels about you saying this game is being "dumbed down." So sure, everyone go farm for ilevel 245, non-set gear after the 3.3 content update. Go prepare yourselves as best as possible to enter Icecrown Citadel. Just know that it's not a park, and you ain't just walkin' through it. ;)


Soul shard resource system implementation
I can't answer Q&As like this all the time or even very often. I probably won't be able to keep coming back to this thread to answer follow up questions. Understand that when I do answer some questions and it drives expectations that everyone is entitled to have *their* questions answers, things get complicated. Sorry for all of the caveats, but I've kind of learned what to expect.

Q u o t e:
1. Will it be implemented in Cataclsysm or faded in through patches considering the seemingly huge gap in content?


Cataclysm.

Q u o t e:
2. Even with the new system will warlocks be given a secondary defense to fall back on, on a long CD should fear become useless?


You mean like Demonic Circle? :)

Q u o t e:
3. Are there plans to link the system to a warlock pet? I know fel domination is one of them, but popping soul shards for more power for the pet are being considered? Example- Refreshing CD's?


Sure. We don't have a lot of details we can share yet.

Q u o t e:
4. What is going to happen to those spells that required soul shards?


They won't. Some of them may change though. Perhaps the un-enhanced version will be weaker than the current shard version. Stuff like summoning (people and demons) just won't cost shards.

Q u o t e:
5. Are there plans to change hellfire to an AoE knockback snare like a secondary defense warlocks can fall back on or will it be outright removed?


No, there are no plans.

Q u o t e:
6. Are there plans to extend Inferno's duration similar to before where we have to enslave him, but with no capping prohibitions?


As I opined recently, IN-FER-NO probably just needs a different mechanic. The trade-off for getting the demon can just be the cooldown.

Q u o t e:
7. Are there plans to reduce slot problems with curses? Like CoT and CoEx being merged?


Yes to the general question, no to the specific example.

Q u o t e:
8. Are there plans to add dispel resistance to curses through talents?


Probably not. We'd rather tone down the potency of dispels in general, not require everyone to stack more defenses for them.

Q u o t e:
9. Will CoD be modified to be castable on players? If so will you modify the damage/duration/CD on it or will it remain the same?


We haven't talked about it.

Q u o t e:
10. Do you plan on fixing the debuff problems to pets. The fact the duration on debuffs remain the same until the pet is out on the field while buffs continue their duration course regardless of the pet being summoned or not?


This isn't really a soul shard question is it? That is more of a technical limitation and not a design goal. The answer has more to do with prioritization than intent.

Q u o t e:
11. Will soul link be removed from the demon should it despawn/dimiss?


Don't know yet.

Q u o t e:
12. What are the plans for drain soul in the new shard system?


Don't know yet. One idea is an emergency backup system for long fights or situations where you screw up. Ideally we don't need this though so we haven't resolved it.

Q u o t e:
13. Are there plans to make enslave demon a little more viable for PvP and example is the doomguard and inferno?


If you're talking about warlocks stealing each other's demons, I'm not sure that will lead to those demons getting more use. It might make you giggle when you steal one though.

Q u o t e:
11) Will the soul shard system allow you to empower our primary nukes chaos bolt/soul fire for increased damage on a short cd?


Yes. The example we used at Blizzcon was some kind of duration-limited or "your next spell" limitation. We haven't set this in stone yet.

Q u o t e:
12) What will happen to soul fire? Will it still require a shard to use? Could it find more acceptance in our normal rotation considering its potentially our most powerful nuke


It won't require a shard. It might require a shard to make it something you want to cast though (imagine a PoM - Pyro).

Q u o t e:
13) How will the soul shard change work in regards to different trees?


No idea yet. The talent trees aren't done. One thing we threw out at Blizzcon was maybe Demo gets an extra shard, but that's just hand-waving at this point.

Written by Michael 'chaud'
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