Cata Quest Design Post Mortem

[Theotherone]

Interesting discussion, seems the quest design team understands where they did well and where they went wrong in the quest design.

I think the most telling is the discussion at the beginning where he talks about the amount of work redesigning the old work took - I think what this implies is that development time got taken away from Cata the expansion to re-build the old world. Mists should not suffer from this issue.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/448...2_28_2012#blog

[leethaxor]

I took a few things from this post

1) The first few posts openly admit they over extended themselves with cataclysm and maybe I'm looking for one but it sounds like blizzard is almost apologizing for the content of cataclysm and their failings with questing and content.

2) The posts about legendaries makes me feel like either we here at tankspot are off in some far flung insurgent camp that is planning the down fall of the legendary loving community or they are still out of touch with there fan base.

[Ion]

I took a few things from this post

1) The first few posts openly admit they over extended themselves with cataclysm and maybe I'm looking for one but it sounds like blizzard is almost apologizing for the content of cataclysm and their failings with questing and content.

2) The posts about legendaries makes me feel like either we here at tankspot are off in some far flung insurgent camp that is planning the down fall of the legendary loving community or they are still out of touch with there fan base.

That was pretty much my take away from it as well. Particularly #2.

The quote

Q: The Cataclysm patches also saw the debut of some legendary weapons: Dragonwrath and the Fangs of the Father. Will future legendaries be this, uh, legendary?
<snip>
The feedback from players (and from our own team) has been overwhelmingly positive.

In particular was confusing...since I've seen NOTHING positive about either legendary. Dragonwrath was universally despised as either unbelievably trivial to get (in 25 mans) or basically worthlessly difficult to get (in 10 mans) and caused untold amounts of aggravation in either case.

Fangs of the Father was just a TERRIBLE idea...it's entirely possible that a 10 man (which, as we can see from the discussion around the latest marmot, is what MOST RAIDERS DO) wouldn't even HAVE a rogue and if you do you're now feeling obligated to have him in every fight, even if there are good reasons not to (like "melee blows"). Sure the quests around them are cool, but just because you made a cool quest for a thing doesn't mean having a legendary weapon as the result is a good idea.

Why is the Quel'delar quest chain just dismissed when it's INFINITELY less awful than this endless tedious grind for orange pixels that ONLY unbalance things? A cool "legendary" quest chain to get a potentially-best-in-slot item is interesting. Is having it be SO best in slot that it unbalances things so significantly that they have to change WHOLE GAME MECHANICS (20% AP buff) in an attempt to make up for it is somehow BETTER than just having that quest chain give a 397 (or 416) purple with good stats? Perhaps a cool proc even is fine...but more like Gurthalak and less like Dragonwrath.

[leethaxor]

Is having it be SO best in slot that it unbalances things so significantly that they have to change WHOLE GAME MECHANICS (20% AP buff) in an attempt to make up for it is somehow BETTER than just having that quest chain give a 397 (or 416) purple with good stats? Perhaps a cool proc even is fine...but more like Gurthalak and less like Dragonwrath.

In my opinion dragonwrath should have the stats it has, be orange, no proc, but turns you into a dragon. People would still dissolve their whole guild over getting.

[Theotherone]

I like the one continent idea and I like that they realize that their stories in Cata just didn't tie together smoothly and that questing was too linear. I think MoP will be better; as long as they learn from the past.

[Bovinity]

Legendaries are still as bad an idea as they were the last time the topic came up. The entire concept should just be scrapped.

If anything, have it so that Raid bosses don't drop a lot of weapons but there's Quel'delar style quest chain(s) that give a variety of tier-appropriate, lore-related weapons or something.

[Aggathon]

I think the reason why the WotLK and Cata legendaries are so wonky and imba is back to tiered progression again. In TBC the legendaries were rewards for the very end content (though sunwell ended up coming out after illidan, but then thor'dal was the end item). You had to work to get up there to even have the chance to get a legendary. When you eliminate tiered progression and make whatever the current patch is the only content that matters, legendaries get way more out of wack than in TBC.

[swelt]

From the 'Quest Designer' perspective, I think the legendaries in this expansion have been really good. The rogue legendary quest chain is really rogue-ish, the caster staff one had lots of cool stuff in too. I think that's a separate question to whether legendary items in raids are a good or bad thing.

I wonder if there will be a 'raids and dungeons retrospective' like this one, or a 'class design' one - that's where I'd expect the real question over the ongoing place of legendary items to sit.

[Ion]

Fair enough. And I don't disagree that the rogue ones (the only ones I did...though not all of them, since my rogue is just a crappy alt) are pretty good (and rogueish). Doesn't invalidate my point that Quel'delar is a better (and more accessible) idea than Dragonwrath/Fangs of the Father, though.

I like Bov's idea too, actually...just make weapons (since they ARE such a big deal) not be drops, but quests...at least once or twice.

[Aggathon]

I REALLY loved class epic weapons in EQ. If they did that in WoW I would re-up my sub for MoP. But they won't

[Theotherone]

I wonder if there will be a 'raids and dungeons retrospective'

I hope they do this - I'd love to know what the they were thinking as they did each raid. I'd also like to see them give us more raids or more bosses. They were cheap with the bosses and raids in this expansion - wonder if the budget was blown with the old world redesign.

[Aggathon]

I hope they do this - I'd love to know what the they were thinking as they did each raid. I'd also like to see them give us more raids or more bosses. They were cheap with the bosses and raids in this expansion - wonder if the budget was blown with the old world redesign.

BUT DRAGON SOUL HAD 24 BOSSES!!! WHAT MORE COULD YOU ASK FOR?!?!!?

*vomits*

[Theotherone]

BUT DRAGON SOUL HAD 24 BOSSES!!! WHAT MORE COULD YOU ASK FOR?!?!!?

*vomits*

25

[Aggathon]

8x3=24, where's the 25th boss? Oh... BH? That's not dragon soul though, that's just 4.3. My statement is still correct!

[Theotherone]

8x3=24, where's the 25th boss? Oh... BH? That's not dragon soul though, that's just 4.3. My statement is still correct!

No, it was an attempt at humor, when you asked "24 bosses what more could you ask for?" I said - "25."

You math types are so literal.

[Libellus]

their failings with questing and content.

I really don't see much for Blizzard to apologise for on the questing front, as I found the quest content to be a huge improvement over that of WotLK. The structure of the zones and the story which developed as you went through them worked very well, especially with phasing, and made for a better experience. Something other MMOs *cough* swtor *cough* are sadly lacking.

The main change Blizz needed to make to the questing was a stronger story arc that tied the different zones together or, make much clearer that the stories are designed to stand-a-lone and lead to a specific conclusion. i,e, Twilight Highlands story ultimately led to BoT, although then the story kind of sputtered out as we're not really sure what defeating Cho'Gall achieved. Mount Hyjal did it better with Firelands.

Blizz neglected to pursue the Vash'Jir story any further. I really was expecting a raid there and I'm annoyed on hasn't materialised. That was easily my favourite quest content of Cata.

And then we have Uldum. Hmmm. I suppose TotFW was supposed to be the conclusion of that storyline but it didn't really work. Shame.

[Theotherone]

The biggest problem with Twilight Highlands was you tended to ding 85 right around Maw of Madness, at least I did on 7 of my toons. Only 2 of mine saw the Alexstraxza/Deathwing fight and of those one actually advanced into the Bastion of Twilight and got so far as the quests in the mine. So the story that ties to the first raid in kind of buried and you have want to keep questing after dinging to see the story to the end.

[leethaxor]

I really don't see much for Blizzard to apologise for on the questing front,

...

The main change Blizz needed to make to the questing was a stronger story arc that tied the different zones together or, make much clearer that the stories are designed to stand-a-lone and lead to a specific conclusion...

I used the AND content. Since they kept saying how ludicrous the work load was I figured part of it got taken out on dungeons and raids since this xpack as been well complete and total feces for raiding.

So WoW's story line isn't prefect and leaves something to be desired. So is Lord of the Rings. I could drone on for hours about plot holes between the Hobbit and LotR:FR. Yet they are still good books. Same thing with questing. I think this quest postmortem is just them getting even more out of touch with there fanbase.

People didn't like the linear progression of questing (well those with friends, I loved it). Did the story line completely destroy the experience of playing WoW and cause wow to lose 1.3 million subs? No your fails in the dungeon and raids department did so why don't we get a postmortem about those?

[Theotherone]

So WoW's story line isn't prefect and leaves something to be desired. So is Lord of the Rings. I could drone on for hours about plot holes between the Hobbit and LotR:FR. Yet they are still good books. Same thing with questing. I think this quest postmortem is just them getting even more out of touch with there fanbase.

Hey, don't go diss'in on Tolkien - I got an A in that course in college. It was great, a course based on books I had read 4 times by the time I took it. SWEEET.

[leethaxor]

Hey, don't go diss'in on Tolkien - I got an A in that course in college. It was great, a course based on books I had read 4 times by the time I took it. SWEEET.

And I am fluent in quenya. But that doesn't dismiss the fact that the holes exist or that they make the story any less enjoyable. I.E.: In WoWLK did the relation between Yogg-Saron and the LK make the game any less enjoyable? In the same light did the difference in time it took the company of dwarves vs. frodo to reach rivendale make any of the slightest difference in your overall enjoyment of the product?