PST - Episode 90

This week:
0:42 - Will the timing of the release of raid finder force me to run it to clear normal modes?
5:32 - What is the reasoning behind the 2-hour respawn timer on trash mobs?
12:59 - With the delayed release of T14 raids, what kind of timeline can we expect for nerfs?
18:29 - Could we ever see something similar to the Silithyst Geyser mechanic re-implemented?
22:21 - Now that the current Symbiosis design looks like it may be final, how do you feel about the implementation?
28:12 - Are MoP's world bosses supposed to replace the BH/VoA style bosses we've had in the past?
33:08 - Is Blizzard changing their focus to a younger audience with MoP?
38:12 - Could we see a raiding community focused on progressing through content at 0% with MoP's raid design?

Lore, I have industrial noise induced hearing loss as a result of a job I had in my youth. Annoyingly the damage mostly knocks out human voices.

I struggle to have conversations in the office with the back ground noise of regular PC/printer cooling fans blotting out speech but...

I had absolutely no problem with the sound quality of your videos.

I don't know who complained about your audio quality but I think the problem is with their equipment and not yours. Your voice sounded crystal clear with my midrange sound card and speakers even at low volume levels versus my gaming rigs fans.

Don't think you need the mic in shot.

I really like a lot of things they are doing for Mists, be it raids, or everything else. (Balance aside of course. Balancing game is sooooooooooooooooooooooo hard >.<)


I think they learned a lot from Cata, with the massive subscription loss.
While you can argue that it was lost because of the game's age, I think that some decisions that Blizz made for the expansion was 'iffy'.

You can only truly learn and better yourself when you lose something, be it subscribers, games, loved ones, etc.

Me and my raid members are extremely excited for the first tier for MoP and I hope Blizz can keep it up for the consequent content patches.

Just registered to suggest http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/raid_checklist, with it you can easily see which raid buffs/debuffs are missing, and have also a hunter specific setting that only shows pet buffs/debuffs.

Also, tbh can't notice any difference in sound quality.

I noticed a difference immediately :P spent too long doing this to not catch tiny differences

going to try something slightly different again next time

also don't think the mic being in the shot is a big deal

Makes you look like a real, honest to gods, radio guy dude type. :P

Is it just me who hears some kind of noise all through this episode?
As if the mic is close to a CD Drive or hard disk?

Maybe it is just my flash player, but it only occurs while the epsiode runs...

The evidence suggests staggered nerfs.

Look at the nerfs, there are 3 seperate nerfs that can be altered individually, they are going to start the mogu nerfs when Heart of fear enters.

Yes this creates a bit of a ramp, but it says, here farm this to get ready for this.

I also heard a faint noise this time throughout the episode, kinda like crickets tbh.

About "a nerfed raid offering equal ilevel gear to an un-nerfed raid":
Well, not every piece of your BiS will come from just Vaults, right? However, my gm/raid leader told us that heart of fear will have slightly higher ilvl than what is from Vaults, and also that none of the tier set tokens drop in Vaults, just in Heart of Fear and Endless Springs.

Usually doing something like fishing or some dailies while listening anyway, so doesn't matter what the shot looks like. The video is superfluous to me.

I kinda like the complexity of symbiosis and was somewhat saddened when I returned to Cataclysm by the streamlining (could also be called homogenization) of the buffs/debuffs per class. It does better enable a more pure environment for competition but I would prefer a bit more fuzzy math in the game.

Being a longterm veteran of everquest and knowing what 'world bosses' truly mean unlike the vast majority of WoW players I am still really apprehensive about the implementation. I play on a PVE server with effectively no competition from the other faction for a reason so pvp ganking is not an issue, but I do worry about spawn rates and availability which were once a huge (in fact dominant) aspect of the PVE game. I hated the VOA/BH style bosses purely from availability but switching servers really fixed that issue - I hope new issues of being unable to access world bosses because of other guilds/trolls griefing would be a worse.

I think for a 0% debuff subcommunity to be viable, Blizzard would have to add more tracking than just the Cutting Edge feats. As it stands, almost everyone who gets Cutting Edge is going to do so after they've completed all the content with the debuff, and wowprogress/guildox won't be able to distinguish that from a guild which progresses without the debuff on at all. More resolution is needed to detect "cheating" (killing any boss with the debuff turned on) within the raid tier.

(You could argue that even attempting a boss with the debuff on is cheating, since it allows more practice time in the later phases. But that's probably going overboard, and it would be very weird to have achievements to track simply attempting a boss.)

Checking the original, I think the cricket noise was actually just crickets, lol. There's a subtle popping sound every so often also, going to try a different technique next time for recording the audio

Minor note about the spreadsheet and Hunter buffs. As a main Hunter, there is a cool little Addon (I know everyone doesn't use them, but a good chunk of people who raid do) called Raidchecklist. It gives 3 different sections for buffs/debuffs/dispells/misc

It was just a little thing I guess I should reference, since the whole spreadsheet concept made me scratch my head to no end.

Good episode, really got a lot of info out of it. I guess I was a little more interested in the raid questions for tier 14 than most others haha

I really wanna know if you bet your wife that you could stick 50 shades of gray in to your show this week? Yup I'm married and my wife has read it too! I like you mic btw it looks like and old announcer mic you see in the movies!

I think Symbiosis may sound too complex at the moment, but it won't take long to memorize the spell trades.

I like the variety so you can swap per fight to optimize your play (like a talent or glyph). If it gets too simple it would be just another dull Dark Intent type spell you're supposed to have on Class X>Y>Z and if you don't, you're doing it wrong.

There aren't many things in-game right now that are so complex it makes you tab out during play. In most cases it can be solved by asking a friend who plays the class, help from an addon, or just some more time to memorize. And it's reasonable to expect a minimal amount of research and practice before someone knows all the quirks of a class they're new to.

All that being said... I don't know how possible this would be but one idea I have specifically for Symbiosis: if you're a resto druid and you target a DK, then the tooltip shows you the spells traded Rdruid<>DK; target a priest and the tooltip changes to show Rdruid<>priest. That could help solve the 'tabbing out' issue for Symbiosis.

Futar

As for the BH/VoA raid boss model, I agree with you it was poor. But suppose they made 1 simple change to it; no PVE drops. Then it would actually be a "raid for PVPers". Basically a sample and if they enjoy it they can cross over into PVE raids.

And they can come up with something else entirely to encourage PVEers to PVP in a non-abnoxious way :).

Futar

I do not mind seeing the mic in the shot, Lore. I think it actually looks pretty cool.

BTW where can I get that T-Shirt...me wants it.

I 100% agree with your suggestion to Symbiosis. It took you just a few minutes to come up with something far better than what the Blizzard team could do.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by futar

As for the BH/VoA raid boss model, I agree with you it was poor. But suppose they made 1 simple change to it; no PVE drops. Then it would actually be a "raid for PVPers". Basically a sample and if they enjoy it they can cross over into PVE raids.

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I'm fine with the VOA/BH model. I will grant that Tol Barad was terribly designed both at onset and after adjustments, but I actually enjoyed Wintergrasp with all its different ways to participate. For better or worse, the battle and the puggable raid bosses are really the last of server-only community events still in the game. As for forcing raiders to PVP, I'm not convinced. The queues were usually filled with enough folks who wanted to be there, during peak times anyway. I suspect TB battles are intimate affairs now.

As for the raid bosses, the loot lotto format was not my favorite. My guild had horrible luck this expansion, but I always just considered BH runs as warmups with some extra valor instead of a source of gear.

I associate world bosses with griefing and camping, so I can't say I have much interest in that. I'm curious to see if they make changes to how they'll be implemented in MOP.