Tuesday, March 26, 2013

5.3 Makes Me Wonder

Has blizzard went overboard?  5.2 is barely starting.  The vast majority of players have not even touched base on everything that 5.2 offers.  I know I haven't and I play a lot, or at least I used to believe so.  Now looking at all there is to do and not having enough time to even do half of it, I am starting to think I don't play enough to keep pace.   When you are a completest like me that can be rather unsettling at times.

Now we have announcements of a 5.3 PTR and data is coming out about what is being added there.  Don't get me wrong, I love things being added, but I am feeling a bit overwhelmed.

There are new pets out that I have not even gotten yet.  My alts have just started their gearing process because I had not done them earlier thanks to that, beyond retarded, reputation wall.  So I was so far behind to begin with.  I still have my paladin, warrior, monk and warlock to get to 90 on my main server not to mention a few other 85s on other servers and my slew of hunters all over the place.  Not to mention an inactive second account with some 85s I would love to start up again one day but don't see me ever having the time to do that when blizzard is releasing content at a break neck pace.

My guild, and it seems all but two guilds on my server, have barely even stepped into the new raid and downed a boss.  Never the less made any progress in it yet.  The two guilds that are further than one boss in aren't really on any earth shattering pace either to be finishing it on normal any time soon so what about a lesser guild like mine? With the 5.3 stuff pouring out it makes me have a feeling we are so behind when we really aren't.  For arguments sake, most guilds that had not done heroics last tier have not even started this tier yet.  They have had no time.

Too many other things to do and they want to shove more out?

I think they are pushing too hard and too fast and they are going to burn themselves out.  Or burn me out trying to keep up with everything.  That is where the problem lies.

Their self imposed burn out will come from pushing things too fast.  Like adding the new raiding with leashes II achievement for raid pet drops in BC raids.  Why so soon?  Sure I will get them, sure I can solo all of them, but is it really needed.  Why not make that content for next expansion?  Why rush it out now?  Why burn out all the possible additions of the new pet battle system to the game so soon?  They could extend the content and make it last.  Make BC raid pets next expansion, wrath raid pets the one after, you get the idea.  No need to throw everything under the sun at us as soon as possible.  They are going to burn themselves out and leave no room for more to be added later.

If tri-spec is coming I will be one happy camper.  But I feel for the druids of the world.  They will be the only class that will actually still have a need for respec.  Otherwise there is no need to ever visit a trainer again for all other classes.  Makes me wonder what classes I would really like tri-spec on and what others I would not even bother buying it with. 

For my hunter I would get it of course.  Besides the fact he is my main I have often switched back and forth, even in the days when MM seemed all but useless, because despite what people said, MM did have its places sometimes and I like the spec.  At least now I can go MM and survival and still have beast mastery for pet purposes.

For some other classes I do not think a tri-spec will even be used by me.  My DK, while it did dabble in unholy for a tiny bit in wrath, has been blood and blood only and that is all it ever wanted to be.  I only just played with frost because I did not want to tank the LFR and blood, as much as I love it, is not the DPS spec it used to be back when it could be one.  So would I need three for my DK?  Nope.  I need one, blood.  I only need a second to "fake" DPS for the LFR.  Even when I DPS with my DK, I am still a tank.  I am just a tank that won't tank for strangers so I do my best DPSing in mostly tank gear.  Sad part is that is still better than half the people in there can do.  Sad, isn't it?

Same goes for other classes.  I never needed a third spec for my mage.  I only play two.  But I could see me making a third just for the sake of having it.  My rogue would be the one I think I need it on the least, outside of my DK.  I've never played subtlety, never even had the desire to attempt it.  Not sure why.

For some classes I think it would be a huge addition.  Think priests.  They need shadow to quest now, so if they are like me, they have it even if it is not their main spec.  I play shadow in my healing gear, which is why I actually like it sometimes, no need to change gear.  But that ruins a lot of people that used to be disc/holy and changed based on the fight in raids.  Now that they had to have a shadow spec they could only be one or have to respec before each raid and then again before they went out to quest.  So a third spec is a dream for them and long over due.

This tri-spec thing is a nice addition, something that will be welcomed by everyone.  Can't really see anyone complaining, except druids of course.  But it makes you think, will they add new specs for some other classes now that there is a tri-spec, so we would all be like druids and have something we would choose to not take?  Like I said, without a forth spec, trainers are basically useless in game.  Some classes need a forth spec.  Mages need a healing spec and rogues, locks and hunters need a tanking spec.  No more pure DPS specs.

I have yet to ever do even one PvP pet battle.  I knew I would, if I could ever find time with all the content they are throwing at us at discount prices like it were a going out of business sale.  So I never had the time to get into the PvP achievements for pet battles and that turns out to be a good thing, a very good thing, from the achievement standpoint at least. 

They are adding achievements for doing them with a full level 25 team.  So now I can do them with all 25s and get double credit for achievements, the level 25 ones and the any level ones, both at the same time.  But that leaves me feeling bad for the people that worked their butts off to grind out the 5000 win achievement from PvP sooner, now they need to do it all over again?  Bad move blizzard. 

If I were one of those people that worked my ass off and then you added an achievement I basically already did but now I need to do it again I would be really pissed and I completely and 100% back up anyone who has the 5000 PvP battle achievements if they are pissed they have to do another 5000 because undoubtedly blizzard did not keep records of your previous ones to see if they were with all level 25 teams.  I feel your pain and I share your rage even if it not my rage.

In the end it makes me wonder if 5.3 coming, or at least the information coming, is way to soon.  Could this be a huge mistake pushing things too quickly?  Even if them pressing is not a bad idea and 5.3 being moved along is not a big deal as it is not a raid patch, it sure has shown some bad decisions already.  The pet battle achievement thing for one, the adding BC raid pets when they are not needed and could serve as content for next expansion being another, things like that are just bad ideas.  All because they are trying to push as much content as fast as possible. 

The way I look at it is this.  I play a lot, a lot more then I should even, and if I am not completely up to date on everything, it is too soon.  I play more than almost everyone I know, and if I can't get it all done, what makes them think others are?  They went from leaving us with complete boredom in cataclysm to overload in mists.  Someone at blizzard really needs to balance things.  Not push everything too fast or too slow.

5.3 makes me wonder, is this blizzards last hooray?  I love all this new content and I do think it is a fantastic and bold move that is great for the game, but they can not keep up this pace or they will crash and burn really fast.  They need to pick and choose what they add, not just add for the sake of adding and it is starting to feel as if that is what they are doing.

So do you think that 5.3 is adding stuff just for the sake of adding it or do you think that blizzard can really keep up this break the speed of light pace of patch releases?

25 comments:

  1. 5.3 can't come soon enough for me due to its PVP changes. They REALLY surprised me and many others with them. The changes look very, very, very, very, VERY good. Best stuff ever.

    Now, sure, even if the announced changes will work as good as we think they will, there will still be more stuff to fix in PVP, but the game will be miles better, and probably the best wrt PVP it ever was.

    So. I am excited!

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    1. When I saw the PvP changes I thought of a few of the conversations you and I have had here and I knew it would be something that was right up your alley.

      I am not a PvPer so do not take my word for anything at all concerning it, but to me it seems like a step in the right direction to getting people like me more involved.

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  2. I think this is a week long April Fool's joke. I had the same feeling as you Grumpy

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    1. Then again why go through all the trouble to mess with their subscriber base?

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    2. I don't think it is an april fools joke. Perhaps the tri-spec only, but the other stuff all makes sense and some of it has been talked up before. I doubt they would go the "long con" for a joke and it it really were a joke it was a horrible one because none of it is even remotely funny and lots of it makes real sense in game.

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  3. trainers? outside of seeing one at level 2, I haven't been to a trainer to learn anything since, gosh, it has been a while. And that was a joke. Everything is thrown at us when we make levels that gets something. Way too much. Maybe more buttons need to be combined into fewer buttons with this 5.3? Think console controller WOW! :D

    Not so sure about the light speed of patch releases, but how about fixing the pieces that are broken before more larger patches?

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    1. I go to a trainer, albeit rarely, to respec. That is about it now, ever since we started getting our spells automatically.

      I agree that there is a lot that needs work and I would prefer they work on that some. I love faster updates, but now with as fast as they are coming it is okay to let us wait two more weeks and get bugs fixed. It is coming out so fast 2 weeks won't matter. It was when there were 9 months between patches that two weeks seemed like a lot.

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  4. 5.3 won't be out for months, this is just Blizzard starting to communicate things earlier in the process for those who are interested. 5.3 also doesn't look like it's going to have a ton of new content... mostly just tweaks. Even if it did hit next week I don't see it really impacting anyone's play time much.

    As for three specs (if it's actually implemented, I'd like to see it but won't be assuming anything), I'm assuming Blizz is trying to give everyone who wants it the ability to have the holy grail spec trifecta - the raiding spec, the soloing/questing spec and the PvP spec. Since I don't PvP I'll either go tank/dps/heal, heal/heal/dps, heal/dps/dps or dps/dps/dps depending on the toon. While changing talents and glyphs isn't DIFFICULT right now when dealing with multiple dps configurations of the same spec, I look forward to the convenience of having separate single-target and AoE builds (Thrill of the Hunt is a prime hunter talent for an AoE-specific build, for instance) for certain classes to make it a lot easier to shift from one to the other between fights or for specific bosses. I burn through tomes pretty quickly right now on some toons, that should be mostly alleviated with a 3rd spec being available.

    Looks to me like Blizzard is committed to a 3 month patch schedule, more or less, with alternating minor (5.1, 5.3) and major (5.2) patches... 6 months between majors with minors in the middle. Even with a 2 year expansion release schedule (which as of Wrath and Cat was Too Damned Long according to most people I heard from), that's only 3 major patches per expansion... 2 major patches for an 18 month expansion schedule. Seems perfectly reasonable to me and I'm pretty sure it's what most of us were ASKING for. I hate generalizing on what "everyone" wants but faster content pleas seemed pretty ubiquitous back in the ICC and DS days especially.

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    1. I like the new idea of smaller flavor patches and the move toward 3 man scenarios over 5 man heroics as the filler group content.

      I mostly am not questing the timing so to speak, I think I like it. I am questing the timing of sharing that information so soon and the stuff that is in it. Like will they burn out pet content by doing the BC raids already? Things like that.

      I'm all for sharing information and all but with 5.2 just released, as in it is so new not even hardcores have finished it, do we really need to be hearing about something else to distract us from what we have not even started yet, nonetheless finished?

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    2. But weren't you saying not even 2 (or 3) months ago that to do 3 man scenarios takes longer than a LFR encounter and it actually harder for less rewards?

      No, really trying to remember here.

      -roo

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    3. No, I said some of them took longer than a heroic and offered less gear.

      Now they will be offering LFR level gear, most likely still at a lower rate, but now they might be worth running.

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    4. Understood, I'm just not sure what the downside is for releasing the info earlier. Maybe they're seeing a trend of people resubbing for patches for a month and then disappearing again until the next patch and they're looking to increase retention during the life of a patch. Besides, the PTR patch-reading crowd is a VERY small sub-section of WoW players... the vast majority of the players won't know anything is coming until it hits them.

      Having said that, after posting my original comment it sounds like the PTR might already be active, so that explains why the info came out when it did. Perhaps they felt they needed a longer PTR period for this patch for some reason and started it earlier.

      I'm just jazzed about the rumour of larger stables... I had to get rid of a few old friends to make room for some new dinos, it'll nice to be able to get the originals back again.

      (they'll be exactly the same pet, of course, I just released them back to the wild temporarily until I could properly care for them, or something like that...)

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  5. short answer no.

    long answer 5.3 will not be out for a long while and you'll be ready for it then.

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    1. 5.3 will be out in roughly 11 weeks give or take. Not exactly what I call a long time.

      I like their new release schedule, I am just questioning them releasing all this information so soon after a new major patch was released. Let us sink our teeth into what we have before you start giving us more.

      If they started this promotion, say, 5 weeks from now, so 5.2 was out for 2 months, and told us 5.3 we coming in a month, it would be fine.

      But starting it when 5.2 is not even a month old, even with the same time frame, just does not feel like it is sitting well.

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    2. 11 weeks is roughly 3 months, That IS a long time thats 1/3 of a pregnancy thats a quarter of a year /boggle thats 11,000 valor (the dark princes quest line was for 6k valor)

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    3. We just differ how we see time, nothing wrong with either of us having our opinion on how we perceive 11 weeks. 11 weeks is not a long time, not for me at least.

      As I said, I have no problem with it being released in 11 weeks, I just think it is way to soon to be pushing it when they just released a raid patch.

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  6. Feeling the same, and frankly if you look at how buggy some of the released features are (CRZ, bracket scaling) and the random bugs that crop up a lot now (Quest Items that you can't collect, random DC's etc.) it does seem quality control is slipping.

    Call me a mean little man if you must, but personally I wouldn't be too suprised if this is going to end like it did with EQ, perhaps not as spectacular (in short, EQ released an Expansion tuned for an increased level cap they forgot to actually include in that Expansion) , or perhaps 'only WoW can kill WoW' will somehow come to pass.

    Glad that they're non planning to increase base Resi to 65% below level 85 (imo 90 would be better but ok), the more because it indicates they are not taking actual entry PvP completely for granted like they explicetly did in Cata.

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    1. I agree, as someone else said before, it would be nice if they spent a little of that time fixing the broken stuff.

      I think low level PvP needs a lot of work and this is coming from someone who basically only plays hunters and disc priest in low level PvP which are both OP currently. And I still think it needs work.

      But that fits their MO really, only cap level matters. At least they are starting to support that idea by continued release of new stuff for cap level players to do. Give them some credit there. This expansion is making cata look worse, and I did not think that was possible as bad as I thought it was to begin with.

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  7. Either your bytch'n has been heard or others share your same mis-fortune - lookie here -

    5.3 patch notes -
    Raids◦"Bonus Roll Protection" for bad luck streaks have been added to bonus rolls. Each bonus roll that does not provide loot has a progressively better chance to award loot to the player.

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    1. Now if only we could get that with the normal drops in the raid finder as well. Although I am currently sitting about 20% on the new LFRs if you take all my characters into account, which is more average, so I can not complain about it right now at least. :P

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  8. a) wasn't 5.1 similar in timing?
    b) with this PvP changes you HAD to bring it out ASAP. To prepare everyone, to get feedback, and to test it.

    Rauxis, chosen of CAT

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    1. Yes, 5.1 was similar in timing, but they did not start pushing the information as soon as they did this time around. That is what feels off about it to me. Not the timing of the patch, but the timing of building up anticipation of the patch.

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  9. Heh. The raiding pet one for BC is the one I just complained to my raid leader about yesterday. I still miss a pet from Naxx for the current raid one, I haven't even looked up the new fish pets and I so want to do these things. It's about a week ago I discovered there's 3 pets dropping in ToT - I'm so gonna have to beg my guildies to let me have them if we ever see them drop.
    BTW. I think current raid pets should have a higher chance to drop. I mean we're defo not getting one for each raider this patch and it's not like it's some massive feat of strength to defeat horridon, ji-kun and dark animus.

    This info is like the laser eye beam at Durumu. You know it's coming at one point and it's real slow and you know you should have enough time to move out, but you get all jittery and start to run into the clouds afraid of it not catching up. And I only have 7 secrets of the Empire!! /panic over
    I'm just gonna stop reading the info / nod.

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    1. I had to buy one of the pets from the old one. I could have kept going for it, but I had so much else I needed to do.

      Same with the fishing pets, I do not even have one of them yet. Tried a couple of times to get one but with so much going on I have no time to get them.

      The new raid pets can also drop in the LFR, so basically you have twice as many chances to get it each week, if that helps any. Two guild mates have got the sand one already. Me, none.

      lol. I've had so many raid experiences like that, you expect something, you know it is coming, it keeps you on edge, and then when it comes you are not ready for it despite the fact it was all you were thinking about to begin with.

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    2. raid pets... thats the ones like that phoenix hatchling, right?

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