Oct 142010
 

Rumor has it (Ok, it’s only a rumor with me) that the quakes you’ve been seeing in-game are the result of Mage crits with their spells. Another mountain being destroyed or crater being created. Probably the main reason for the upcoming Cataclysm is the damage the spell casters are causing.

You thought your warrior was tough? Here, eat this 100k crit.

From MMO-CHampion:

We made many changes yesterday. A lot of these were bug fixes, and many bug fixes will affect damage one way or the other. So just because you don’t see a specific change referenced below, doesn’t mean it didn’t change.

With that said, here are the specific changes we made in reference to my previous post:

1) We buffed the base points and coefficients of many warrior dps abilities. We didn’t do as much to tanking abilities.

We buffed the base points and coefficients of many Ret abilities.

We buffed the base points and coefficients of many Feral cat abilities.

2) We lowered the base points and coefficients of many mage abilities, but lowered Fire more than the other two.

3) We nerfed Shadow Word: Death, but it is possible we didn’t nerf it enough. It should not be Shadow’s biggest spell.

4) We returned Searing Pain’s damage to its 3.3.5 levels.

5) We increased the benefit of resilience by 50% for players level 80 and below. The tooltips will probably not reflect this change.

We don’t have any other changes to announce at this time. I am reluctant to mention additional classes or specs that we are looking at currently for fear of instilling excitement or panic.

I heard rumors that long time players (one or two, anyway) were quitting over the 4.0 changes. I don’t get it. Those are the players, more than anyone, who should know what happens after patches.Yeah, I know that players leave for any numbers of reasons, including boredom, it just seems that giving a reason like “the patch broke my game!” is silly. But, what do I know?

  2 Responses to “They Go Up and They Go Down and They Go…”

  1. Leaving because of 4.0.1 numbers being low makes zero sense as level 85 and December are both different worlds.

    Although leaving because Blizzard could and should have had quality testing on PTR and Beta that things don’t need a patch in 36 hours is a rational reason for me. It speaks to how Cata is going to go.

    I am more sympathetic to the people leaving. I saw a number of people in chat saying “if I have to learn a new game, why not go try a different game”? That is always a problem with customers with change, especially significant change. Apple made some market share gains when people with XP saw W7 as different enough, why not go try Mac if they were going to have to learn something new?

    And there is a certain history: I really enjoyed healing with my pally. I am not saying the new system is bad; just that it is different enough, I would keep being annoyed. I don’t pay $15 to be annoyed from my entertainment. Whether someone who has never played WoW would enjoy a healadin does not affect whether someone who has would. It is why drastic changes in DKs, when people had only been playing them a couple of months, is not as disruptive as the same change to a character you have played for years. Are you old enough to remember New Coke? Coke spent hundreds of millions of dollars on market research on a cola that tasted better in blind tastings than their existing product. They released it. The outcry was enormous and Coca Cola eventually cancelled it and went back to the original

    Luckily, I have alternatives in WoW. Resto shamans aren’t that much worse in Cata; mages are quite different, but to me they still feel like they are within what I expect for a mage.Most holy pallies were proud of being the most mana efficient healers in the game, and now worrying about holy power is for many an unpleasant change. Whereas , [almost] all locks disliked soul shards so I don’t think there will be many objections to soul chards and ammo leaving.

    Millions will start and millions will stop playing WoW next year. Certainly the changes will increase the latter and perhaps the former.

  2. Having played in several other MMOs I would have to stay that Bliz’s QC is head and shoulders above the rest. For most of us 4.0 is stable and playable. Good luck with that in the other games. Not that it’s perfect, but Bliz clearly pays attention to these issues. My point was that the older players, especially, should know what there will be a sorting out period after big patches and just ride with it. They should know that in about three days a lot of the issues will be fixed/changed. Kinda like, Oh… gee, your friend of several years just farted and now you’re no longer friends? Now if he undergoes a personality transplant, that’s another story.

    You make a good point about the game changing though. If the game changes to the point where it just doesn’t work for you anymore then that’s cool. I can understand that. People get tired and move on. There are plenty of other games out there.

    Heck, give Aion a try, if you haven’t already. Beautiful game and some pretty nice ideas and mechanics. Then the grind starts and PvP under level 50+ is a pain, since it’s just ganking, but it’s a refreshing change. It also has the, unfortunately rare, virtue that it works and it worked from the start. Not too many MMOs can say that. But see if you’re still playing after a month. WoW is a lot deeper and Bliz has a certain something which is why it has 5x the subs of the next game.

    But you know, I get it, if any given set of changes don’t work for you. I just don’t get the QQing from people who should know better, that’s all

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