Posted by Spooner | 12 Comments
Battered Hilt and Epic Drop Rate Changes
I don’t exactly know where I stand on this subject. On the one hand I like the fact that such an amazing item lore-wise is not going to be inaccessible. On the other hand I worry about the exact uniqueness of the item specifically since it’s already BOE and going for unbelievable amounts in the Auction house. We want our lore to be accessible but at the same time we want it to be unique and carry a certain notoriety with it and those two don’t seem to be fundamentally compatible without some sacrifice. I guess simply put, some people just want it all regardless.
The days when somebody got a rare epic and that in itself being something amazing are gone. It’s just part of the game growing up past the toddler years. Now Blizzard seems to be favoring extremely rare and unique mounts and titles as well as legendary weapons to be a player’s main claim to eFame. Personally, I’m down for an increased drop rate. What do you all think?
Based on feedback we’ve been provided by players, we’d like to make you aware of a couple of changes we are applying to Icecrown Citadel: The Frozen Halls via in-game fixes. Firstly, we are increasing the drop rate of the Battered Hilt in all three wings of this Heroic five-player dungeon. We have seen a great deal of discussion about this item’s chance of dropping since the release of patch 3.3.0 and agree that it is currently too low. As a result, players should find greater accessibility to this item while running these dungeons, or while trading with other players who have it.
In light of this change, we are also removing the chance for the Battered Hilt or any other epic item to drop from the Skeletal Slaves in the Pit of Saron. The need to ‘farm’ these creatures for the Battered Hilt should be reduced by our first in-game fix and will no longer result in a chance for epic loot or Battered Hilts.
You’re welcome to discuss these changes in this thread and provide us with any additional feedback you may have. Please refrain from creating additional threads about these in-game fixes at this time.
“It’s just part of the game growing up past the toddler years.”
I disagree, its Blizzard continuing in their line of making the game easy and accessible for everyone, and its in line with everythig theyve done in WotLK. That not called growing up, its called going mainstream.
Nowadays WoW is like an amusement park, everyone gets to go on all the rides and kill all the bosses with ease. Not even those titles and mounts are hard to get, any guild geared in toc25 gear can walk blindfolded though msot of the ulduar HM encounters and get both drakes.
I don’t think that’s entirely fair or accurate. WoW itself has been pretty mainstream for a while now, hell since day one I believe when they shattered every record for video game sale right out of the gate. Even pushing 5 million is downright insane and was simply impossible by standards 5 years ago. But I digress.
The fact that WoW is a mainstream MMO doesn’t equate that it’s a bad game or a game for casuals, it just means a lot of people like it. A lot of people like to drink soda so by flawed logic of most hardcore gamers, soda is for casuals and main-streamers and not for the hardcore? That’s up there with indy-hipster pussies going off about how awesome their music is that nobody has fucking heard of and how anything on the radio is garbage (when most times, it’s really alright)
The game getting easier? Yes the obsolete content is getting easier. Is getting gear easier? Of course it is and that’s a good thing.
If WoW is an Amusement park where you get to go on all the rides, where do I sign up? You know the worst part about Disney or the county fair or Universal? The lines. The fucking horrible 2+ hours in the hot as fuck Florida sun lines.
Icecrown is fun and challenging and awesome, so are most all hardmode or heroic mode raids and other content. I NEED gear to even be able to step inside. So it seems a little counterproductive to make me spend months (instead of weeks) to get the gear that allows me to experience the content, and even then I need to muster up a group of players that aren’t complete retards. As it stands now dude, if I were to LIVE online and just GRIND through heroics to get full T9 (10man normal) Id’ get it in a week. If I play like a normal person, it’s going to be a while and even then it doesn’t mean I’m going to cakewalk through Icecrown.
Long rant I know but here’s the TLDR version: WoW from classic to current has built up an inflation of gear as it was the only way to progress, forcing players to go through the equivalent 5 years of gear progression so they can see the current end game is fucking retarded. That’s like saying you’re not allowed to buy and drive a 2009 car until you’ve driven every single model of car from the 1900’s and THEN you’re allowed to play with today’s incarnation. The more needless brainless grind that Blizzard removes, the better.
The real issue is do players want the game harder or do they just want a wider separation between themselves and the rest of the pack?
I like the direction the game is going, it is easier to get into raiding and experience the content, and normal content is much easier letting the majority of people clear it, rather than the minority.
As far as rare items epics, there are still items hidden on bosses than out perform what mainstream players have access to, even months after the original was in game. The best eg i can think of it hard mode thorim trinkets from the 10man, even with the newer arpen procing trinket having higher iLvl the way they proc makes the hard mode one still slightly better, but it closes the gap 6 months later for everyone who could not get the other one.
A good pair of rings and trinkets is usually the easiest the best way to see how much someone has achieved on that toon.
On making the content easier, like i said its good that more people get to see it for blizz and for the people seeing it, and for those that find it mind numbingly easy, like ICC seems to be so far, hard modes and achievements are just as challenging as older content. I would also add that is seems like the hard modes have been designed first with the ICC fights, and then gutted to make the easier fights, so it is not (hopefully) just the same fight with more damage, some fire, and an enrage timer which was a big complaint with some ulduar hard modes.
WoW allows you to play their game, have a job, have a social life, and still kind of feel like a badass. I think the people who complain about WoW being too easy are the ones who don’t play the game to play the game, but the people who play the game show dominance over everyone people (in saying this, I am not trying to insult anyone because there was a point in vanilla WoW where I spent a shit ton of time getting my T1 and T2). Post vanilla WoW lets me take what little free time I have and enjoy it by doing something that feels productive. And I think that’s all that matters.
Spending 8 hours in MC 4 days a week did give a sense of accomplishment, but at what cost?
Agreed. The moment you start thinking it’s a bad thing when content is less elite and more easily accessible is the moment you should realize you’re playing this game too much.
Everyone that plays this game as, you know, just another game, will be glad.
It’s the people that play this game every day, all day long, that get upset.
I can see the point of folks wanting to have certain gear and status to be unique and to translate as a trophy you know? Like showing off this amazing new mount or what have you so other players can see “wow that’s awesome I want to be that guy” and that’s healthy for an MMO it really is. Hell I remember when I first saw the Scions of destiny guild on Eredar put up Onyxia’s head in Stormwind and we all got the buff and it was fucking epic. I said to myself holy shit that’s awesome!
But we have to consider that the game is 5 years old, that’s 5 years of accomplishments and practice and learning for a lot of players, but its nothing to a new account.
When Gruul first came out he was insanely hard. A few months later with better gear and some nerfs he was laughable. Was I mad? Not at all, of course he should be easy he’s no longer the cutting edge.
Did I say mainstream was a bad thing? All it means is that it appeals to a lot of people, but again, to reiterate my point, do not confuse “growing up” with “going mainstream”. Even in tbc, with a wow population of around 10 mill, there were tough raid isntances and bossfights, and kills required for progression that were definitely not mainstream.
I dont give a shit about gear, achievements and all that other bullshit, or lording it over other players; gear is just a means to an end and purples lost all meaning since tbc. All I care for is challenging and engaging content. When, on the first night of patch 3.3 I can faceroll my way through 25man ICC in a few hours, I do not consider that either challenging, engaging or fun. I call it going through the motions.
I raided in tbc the same amount I raided in wotlk, 3 nigths a week, I guess that means I have no life? Calling people who enjoy a challenging fight “nolifers” is the most asinine argument I have heard to date. Am I also a nolifer becasue I enjoy playing FPS games on a hard difficulty level? Either way, the end result of Bliz “mainstreaming” the game is that kills in tbc were much more tightly tuned and satisfying than they were in wotlk. Call me crazy, but I enjoy wipe nights and progressing on a tough fight, and downing a tough boss gives me more of a sense of accomlplishment than facerolling my way through content and having to wait months before I can kill the same content on a harder difficulty setting.
I’m glad the current wow works for so many people, clearly its what bliz intended by making it easy for everyone, but for me, without the challenge, its just not fun anymore, the last time I truly had fun in a raid instance in Wow was Black Temple. But those days are long gone, and with my account cancelled, so am I.
Dran, I do agree with you in some areas. While I don’t miss spending two weeks wiping on the same boss “pioneering” the new raid, it was a little anticlimactic when we rolled Nax 10 man our first time there (with many of the raiders never even being to Nax in any form). I remember when Nax 40 was fucking hard as shit!
I think there is a happy median between difficulty and accessibility. And while I can’t really comment on the new raids because I haven’t raided since before Ulduar, it seems that Blizzard is trying/needs to find that happy median.
Yeah as I said, I totally understand their want to make everything easy enough for everyone to enjoy, but along the way killing a boss no longer means what it used to, nor do you get the sense of acomplishment from it you used to. I guess Im a sucker for abuse, but I remeber getting Kael down after weeks, almsot a month of tries on him, was a huge achievement (without the need of a fucking achievement ding) and we got a huge sense of accomplishment at having dome something really hard as a team – thats the reason I raided.
The closest thing in wotlk has been Yogg, we wiped 2 nigths on him and then he died. Big whoop.
I think Bliz “middle ground” attempt is the hard modes, and bosses like Algalon, the one boss I actually did enjoy in wotlk (along with Firefighter Mimiron), but again, it takes away the meaning of a “good kill” in hard mode, when youve done it 20 times before in normal mode and 10mans for practise.
Algalon is the only thing they’ve done right, IMO. I wish they could have not just one hardcore boss, but a whole host of them, unlockable through an epic questline or hardmode boss encounters, maybe to unlock a tough secret wing of a dungeon, something where you can face really tough encounters you cant just faceroll your way though, or practise on easymode, but I guess that goes agasint the current prime directive of making all content easily accessible to rais of any skill and any size. Ohwell, maybe someday.
Drop rate has been increased? Cheers for that, i need a weapon upgrade, lol. In regards to the other topic that we are talking about, yes i too feel that the challenges have gotten easier, but we have to look at it realistically. As much as we enjoy the game and relish the time we play, when it comes to the bottom line, this is a business in which Bliz has to make money. I started playing when BC came out, and i can remember the challenge that was Grull’s and Magtheridan, i truthfully never got too far beyond that, and i can relate to the sense of accomplishment when our small guild finally downed them, but looking at it from a business perspective, if there is a large amount of content that Bliz spends a great deal of money creating, but that only a small percentage of players ever get to see, that’s not really optimal. You, meaning Bliz, would want more people to have access to it so that they can get exited about it and want more. The larger base of people that are excited about the content and the game, the more people will continue to play or invite others to play, consequently more profits and staying power for blizz. Obviously there has to be a balance, you don’t want to alienate your hard core, cutting edge players, but to be honest with you, i think they have done a great job so far. There are some things that need to be tweaked, but when you are dealing with a player base numbering in the millions, the old adage that you cannot please everyone becomes very much a reality. Just my two cents on the subject.
Firefighter, 1 (or even 0 if your super into it) light, and Algalon were all the right amount of challenge, and i have no doubt there will be more fights like it in ICC, you will just have to wait. Although I agree releasing it slowly and having such easy fights for a month in what should be such an epic place is the suck. Thats more an issue of Blizz dragging this instance out so they can finish Cata. than ICC being bad though.
look at it this way. WoW is the only MMO to treat its players like if they were playing a regular single player game. if you stick to it, you can beat it.
As a guy that has been playing and quitting MMO’s since they first came out (UO), WoW is the best of the lot, if only because you actually accomplish something.
That, and the fact you aren’t punished for almost anything. Think about it, only MMO’s punish you for dying. In halo, if you die you start at the previous checkpoint. Most games have quick-saves. Only old games and every other MMO have any kind of punishment for failing. (start from the beginning/lose hours of xp gaining) Games are like that now because developers realized something important: if the player is happy they keep playing and buying.
WoW wouldn’t be anywhere near where it is right now if it weren’t for the concessions to the casual gamer, and i can surmise that most of us wouldn’t have it enjoyed it as much in any stage of its development were it not for the very same features.
Besides, you want a hard game, you play something else. WoW is for fun, not accomplishment.