Warlords of Draenor - General Discussion

Zinkle Figgins wrote:I need you guys' opinion: why are so many people complaining about Mythic being able to 20-man raids only? I think they're not taking in consideration a two important points:

1) Encounters tuned for 20-man only will be easier to create (and thus released quicker) and most importantly more difficult, since they won't have to be tuned for 10-man raids as well
2) When Warlords of Draenor will come out connected realms will (hopefully) be a reality, so there won't be problems recruiting people, especially on low pop servers

Zinkle Figgins wrote:(Alphel stop fucking with my brain, I'm so confused right now)

DEFINITELY NOT Zinkle Figgins wrote:Thus putting it at a new 20 just doesn't make sense.

Zinkle Figgins wrote:Muzjhath you're right, 25 instead of 20 would have made more sense, I haven't thought 25-man raiding guilds would have been affected as well; unless they form a second 20-man raid, 5 people will be left out. As for 10-man raiding guilds, if connected realms work out fine I still think they won't have problems recruiting people to switch to 20-man.

I'm also still convinced having to tune encounters for one type of raid only will be better on the long run; just think of the mechanics they couldn't implement because of the shortage of classes/specs in 10-man as opposed to 25-man.

I haven't been raiding seriously since WOTLK but I might start again with WoD, I really like what they're doing with Flexible raiding.

(Alphel stop fucking with my brain, I'm so confused right now)

In Patch 5.4, we’re looking to address this with a new feature called Connected Realms. Building on our existing cross-realm technology, a Connected Realm is a set of two or more standard realms that have been permanently and seamless “linked.” These linked realms will behave as if they were one cohesive realm, meaning you’ll be able to join the same guilds, access a single Auction House, run the same Raids and Dungeons, and join other adventurers to complete quests.

Q. How many realms will make up a Connected Realm?
A. We don’t know how many realms will make up a Connected Realm yet, and it’s likely to differ from Connected Realm to Connected Realm. Our goal is to create a vibrant and fun online experience where you can join guilds, access an active Auction House, and band together to take on group content.

Draenor should feel scary, similar to the experience with Fel Reavers in Outland. There are giant Gron walking around, making the world a more dangerous place. Flying mount access will be delayed as long as possible, maybe even past Level 100 until Patch 6.1. (Keep in mind this is just an idea being tossed around)

Thelos wrote:Moving from 20 to 25 should be nothing compared to moving from 40 to 25 and 10.

The Burning Crusade - now there's your unmigitated disaster for raiding guilds. I would be very suprised if they end up making the same mistake twice.

■New account-wide collections similar to mounts and pets: heirlooms, toys, and possibly tabards.
■The toy box puts all of your fun vanity items in a spellbook type interface. They will no longer take up bag slots!
■You can set favorites in your toy box (as well as your mounts) to help sort them, and there will be a new button to "summon a random favorite" mount.
■Bags will be sortable without any external addons.
■Other new bag features include the highlighting of recently looted items, a gold piece icon on items which are safe to vendor, and colored borders around icons based on rarity (blue, purple, etc.)
■Quest items will no longer take up bag space. They will just be activated from the quest tracker.
■Crafting can be done using materials in your bank and the stack size of many materials is being increased to 100.

Lin'ith wrote:If theirs anything I have against this expansion it's the damn Doctor Who fans making time traveling puns, IT'S A TERRIBLE SHOW AND PEOPLE SHOULD HATE IT AS MUCH AS I DO!1!

I heard the " free 90 " will only be given to returning players as well?

We recognize that, for some guilds, the transition from 10-player Heroic raiding to 20-player Mythic raiding is going to be something of a challenge. This wasn’t a decision we made lightly. Ultimately, we feel that the long-term benefits for everyone, such as better-tuned raid encounters, a faster encounter design process, and more variety in raid mechanics, are worth the short-term consequences – even for players in guilds facing this transition.

That said, I think there are several key factors worth bringing up that will help make the transition less frightening overall. For example:

1) This change is coming with an expansion. Historically, an expansion release has always been a volatile time for guild rosters – and a great time for recruitment. When everyone’s gear is suddenly equalized, the pool of potential recruits swells dramatically. It's also a time in which a lot of former players, friends, and guildmates return to the game. Sure, maybe not all of the above will be of the caliber you’re looking for as a Mythic-minded raiding guild, but you only need 10.

2) On a similar note, we’re continuing to roll out the Connected Realms feature. As more realms are connected, the potential recruitment pool on those realms will grow.

3) While 10-player guilds who want to do Mythic will need to pick up an extra 10 people, current 25-player guilds will need to shed some. That’s yet another thing that will lead into a higher pool of potential recruits.

4) Flexible scaling for Heroic (or Mists of Pandaria's "Normal") difficulty will allow many guilds to "ease in" to a 20-player raid size. Granted, if you’re planning on zoning into Mythic the first day it’s available, this won’t help you much, but for the guild that will spend a few weeks or months on Heroic (MoP Normal) difficulty before eventually clearing it and starting on Mythic, you’ll have plenty of time to expand your roster. What’s more, those new recruits won’t be expected to just warm the bench while they wait.

I think that’s an easy one to forget about. It’s easy to make a mental comparison between a Warlords of Draenor 10-player guild trying to recruit up to 20 for Mythic, and a Mists of Pandaria 10-player guild trying to recruit up to 25. But that comparison doesn’t really work, because the absolute biggest challenge that the MoP guild in this example faces is finding people who are willing to wait around and possibly not even raid as the guild expands its roster. That’s not a problem in Warlords – while you’re still working through and gearing up in Heroic, player 11, 12, 13, and so on will be able to join you. It’s much easier to keep recruits around when they’re actually getting to play.

Seeing a lot of debate about the number 20. Let me take a stab at clearing up a few things:

We chose to put Mythic at 20 largely for the function of raid design. One of the biggest issues we're currently facing with 10-player Heroic raiding is that of raid composition. It's impossible for every group to have every class, and often that means they're lacking in certain tools, which in turn means that we can't design encounters around those tools (or if we do, it becomes extremely frustrating for the 10-player Heroic guild that suddenly needs a Paladin for Hand of Protection).

We want to be able to use those sorts of mechanics again. Those of you who have been with us for a while might remember things like Mage tanks on High King Maulgar, or Priests using Mind Control on Instructor Razuvious. We want it to be okay when, say, the Paladin can use Hand of Protection to clear a dangerous debuff, because we can reasonably assume that most guilds will have at least one Paladin in their raid. We like it when someone gets to feel awesome and have a special task on a fight because of class abilities that otherwise wouldn't get much use.

We can't do that when we're designing with a 10-player raid size in mind. We don't think we'd be able to get away with it at 15 either. At 20, it becomes a lot more acceptable for us to say "you should probably bring a Mage to Spellsteal this." And honestly, that's just one example of the sort of encounter mechanics we can start to utilize in a larger group size.

I'd also call into question the statement of "It's easier to drop people than it is to recruit them." It's technically true, yes -- finding new raiders is harder than just not inviting the ones you have -- but totally ignores the fact that cutting people from your roster often means losing people you like. Which feels better: making new friends, or telling your current ones that they don't get to play with you any more? We're already asking a lot of many 25-player Heroic groups to cut 5 people.

As I mentioned before, this was not a decision we came to lightly. It's definitely going to be a very scary transition for a lot of people. We knew that when we made the decision. We just also feel quite strongly that, when the dust settles, we'll be able to provide a better raiding experience for everyone.