Friday, June 12, 2009

More Hot Fixes: 6/11/09

If your a raider then you've probably already heard about the changes that were Hot fixed into Ulduar on Thursday. If you haven't, they are:
  • The Yogg-Saron encounter has received the following changes: Death Ray no longer hits players who are under the effect of Malady of the Mind, Guardians of Yogg-Saron no longer use Dominate Mind, the spawn rate of Guardians of Yogg-Saron is more forgiving, and these Guardians will no longer spawn if a player that is protected by Hodir’s Flash Freeze hits an Ominous Cloud.
  • In the opening sequence of Ulduar you can now see Liquid Pyrite from farther away.
  • The Flame Leviathan encounter has received the following changes: the bonus health Flame Leviathan receives per tower has been reduced, the ejection height from Flame Leviathan has been reduced, the snare effect of the Tower of Frost has been removed, and the cannons on Demolishers and Siege Enginers should now break Flash Frozen vehicles in 1 shot.
  • The XT-002 Deconstructor encounter has received the following changes: the health of the heart has been slightly reduced in heroic difficulty and the rate at which Gravity Lapse and Searing Light are cast has been reduced.
To be completely honest I've debated writing on this topic. Just like some readers think I am sexist after this post, there is the potential that I will come off as an elitist a-hole to some in this one. That is not my intention, but as a whole these changes disappoint me in a couple of ways.

First and foremost, LoE hasn't attempted the FL or XT hard mode. So they've been nerfed before I had a chance to know if we were up to the challenge, and that bugs me. If the encounter was really to hard then I agree with the nerfs, but I don't think it was. Plenty of guild have done it and I think most people haven't because they want to spend more time on the Keepers so they can get to Algalon. I just wonder if I've missed an opportunity.

The second reason I'm disappointed is I don't think all of these changes are necessary. Take the Yogg changes for example. The trick to phase one is killing all the Guardians on Sara before you get over run with adds. It's a big part of why this fight is tough. Therefore the more "forgiving" spawn rate, and adds not spawning if your protected by Hodir might make phase one to simple.

I don't have a problem with the Death Ray/Malady of the Mind change. Random deaths are stupid. I also go back and forth on removing the MC. It could really screw your raid, but it only really became an issue when you started to fall behind. That said however, I worry that by nerfing phase 1 so much they've really taken the soul out of the fight.

I may catch some heat for this, but I will admit that part of the reason I don't like them is because it will make it easier for other guilds to kill Yogg for the first time. I think for a lot of raiders, raiding is a competition. You want to see who can get there first. Therefore a nerf is a little like providing a short cut for the people behind you.

I'm really proud of my guild. If you look on GuildOx or WowProgress we are ranked 4th on out server, but we raid only 9 hours a week. All of the guilds around us raid 16 to 20 hours a week. So I love that we have similar or better progress with less time spent raiding. Therefore I want to maintain that ranking and nerfs make that a little more difficult.

The final reason I dislike these nerfs is that I think there are bigger fish to fry. WoWRiot recently had an interview with two of Ensidia's Guild Leaders, and one of the questions they asked was which Ulduar Hard Mode do they like best. Both said Mimiron. In fact, both said that Mimiron hard mode was harder than Algalon the Tear Muncher.

I don't have any experience with Mimiron Hard mode on 25man but my guild has been working on the 10man version for a couple of weeks and it is hard. We've rolled through the other hard modes with out much effort and this one is much harder. I'm not saying they should nerf it, but if any fight need it then Mimiron is it.

Anyway, I'm sure some of you disagree with me. Let me know what you think in the comments.

14 comments:

Unknown said...

One of the common complaints on the hard modes has been the lack of linear progression. Before Ulduar came out most people were assuming, logically, that the first couple hard modes in the dungeon would be the easiest. However that has turned out to not be the case, the first two hard modes are actually quite a bit harder than the hard modes that follow and a lot of people have voiced their opinion that this makes little sense. Especially given the secondary problem, which you mention, that a lot of people are skipping these hard modes in order to work on the watchers. We can't have it both ways. We can't complain about lack of linear progression and at the same time not let them nerf the hard modes early in the dungeon.

Keeva said...

I find the Yogg nerfs very disappointing. I didn't get a chance to kill him before my guild died, and now he is going to be nerfed, blah.

I know that the normal modes are meant for "everyone", and the hard modes are to keep the hardcore raiders happy.. but I think this was unnecessary. Nerfing the normal modes to the point of being a cake walk makes me feel very disappointed.

I think a lot of guilds will struggle to stay together because hard modes are essentially the same content + gimmicks. I'm not sure most people want to do the same content over and over with little gimmicks added in.. but this is a side issue :P

I'm disappointed with the Yogg nerfs because I really think they were unwarranted. If you spawned a cloud in flash freeze for example, you were either too close to a cloud in the first place, or you don't have a cancel aura macro (which isn't hard). C'mon.

I don't like to dribble on about "catering to the casuals" but more and more it seems that is what they are doing.. allowing every man and his dog to "experience the content" which giving "raiders" gimmicks to keep them happy.

/endrant!

Kulat/Kriyet said...

My immediate reaction when I saw these nerfs was disappointment. My guild is uber-casual raiding - we progress like turtles, though we thoroughly enjoy it. We are still whacking at Maly between almost-farm runs of Naxx.

But in the back of our minds is a target, a goal, a purpose - to move onward into higher - and harder - end-game content.

But with new nerfs to Ulduar coming out every week, what's the point? Should we even bother to progress? I mean, we can run around Azeroth killing various vermin, and farming Molten Core, getting achievements and just wait til they nerf Ulduar enough for 70s to run it.

Hard is there for a reason - it's something to shoot for. When Blizz issues weekly nerfs, it takes away motivation and excitement, not just from people running that content, but from other players who are still reaching to get there. I think this new nerf-tactic from Blizz is running a real risk of disenchanting everyone from the game.

Kai said...

Being from a guild that progresses fairly well, we have only General and Yagg left in 25 man, my first reaction is slight disappointment as well. I think a guild should really have to work and and earn a boss kill. But if after a time bliz looks at a boss fight and says 'this is unfolding harder then we wanted' then I can understand the change. At that point its not a nerf but a correction. Lets face it, today's age, we are the "ginny pigs", beta testing is far too short, so the first established encounter isn't always what "the minds eye" of the dev team had intended.

So if its a nerf to give a hand out then BOO!!! If its an oops & fix so be it.

Kayeri said...

I understand how you feel, Gray, even if I havent been even close to Yogg yet. But back in BC when we were learning ZA and we had just downed Hex Lord for the first time and starting to feel we could get 4 timed chests... and then it was nerfed...

Well, we'll never know how we would have fared with it in its original configuration... I was never really worried about having a bear for myself ( I actually think they're kinda ugly ) but I was looking forward to the testing of our skill... and that was taken away. We downed Zul'jin immediately after the nerfing... not in a one-shot, but the same night and while we were happy, we knew it wasn't the same ZA we had been in up to that point.

So, I can understand how you are feeling. You'll never get to test your skills against it, and that is a disappointment that won't ever quite go away.

MLW said...

I'm not a fan of competitive PvE raiding, but the post does sounds like it really took the life out of the Yogg-Saron fight.

Having said that though, the difficulty did not match the rest of the zone and some kind of nerf was probably inevitable.

motsognir said...

This is why I quit. Blizzard removes a large percentage of the difficulty of raiding after what? a month and a half of the content being out? not to mention guilds were killing yogg within first week, maybe two of release. Thats bullsh*t. Blizzard is just nerfing everything so far down that the guilds that couldn't even kill magtheridon after last content of BC nerf patch are clearing content and feeling strong. Its a fiscal desicion I know, theres alot more of them than there are of us, but I know alot of players got their raiding urges by being lowbies and seeing all the badasses in their t2 and t3 wandering around IF or UC. Now everyone has the shiny stuff, it removes the pride and sense of accomplishment of proving you are a better player than most of the server. But then, I freely admit I'm an elitist.

Ryuujin said...

I definitely believe some of the nerfs on FL hard and Yogg-Saron were largely unneeded. I may see the side of Yogg-Saron slightly as they want more casuals seeing the whole instance, especially for the easy mode. But nerfing FL hard when the hard mode should be hard was dumb. FL hard as it stands now is a joke. A loss of 100million health with 4 towers and no more 20% slowing effect makes for a silly fight. The ability to see the Pyrite farther away and not flying as high when launched off of FL were fine though.

Ryuujin said...

Oh and a side note, my guild started working on FL hard 2 days before the nerf. We QQ'd that we weren't able to get it down before they nerfed it. The day we came back to FL hard with the nerf in place, we one shot it easy.

Diermaker said...

I thought the 1st phase of Yogg was the only hard part. As I told my guild going into it. This is the last guy he is suppose to be hard.

Kae said...

P1 Yogg is boring now :( I liked it better with the mind controls, lol.

Raysa said...

in summary i agree with the guys above me.
but i have a new point for this discussion:
what was blizz intention to ulduar?
if blizzard wanted an ulduar on the level of now, then i have to wonder if blizzard isn't a company of apes, facerolling their keyboards. if this is the level ulduar should be on, what did blizzard think ulduar was, when they released it. did they realy think that it was "casual" ?
even with einsteins quote "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." i cant believe in that.
MY logical conclusion is that blizzard is getting us hooked on sth. They are giving us a shiny, fresh and new, challenging drug and from week to week they put some more flour to our drug.
they are trying to keep us to a level where we aren't leaving WoW but bear the casual-world...

and why do they do this?
cause they can!!! we are those "stupid addicts" that have put plenty of time into their chars and are always on the run to get some new challenge.
the next thing is, that hardmodes are stupid! everybody wants to have the best gear, no matter if he's a pro or a casual. and if he casuals have finished ulduar they will cry for hardmode items. and they will get them.....

if u have the whole life of WoW in view u see that in vanilla wow the casuals/non-hardcore-raider could only get some blue equip from 5mans, 10mans and perhaps some low 40mans.
with BC they could get their first full epic equipment, just from hero 5mans!
later in BC they got their near-T5-badge-equip for nothing.
now they can easily clear naxx10 with randomgrps having 20 epics in the raid.
the problem (of blizzard) is, that they have no more tricks to let those casuals think they are "progressing" AND not to kick the pros asses tooooo hard.

overall conclusion:
blizzard is a money-grubbing ape-company.
and i am an addict...

nin said...

I really think blizzard is moving in the right direction most of the time. The FL nerf I thought maybe was a little unnecessary, it really makes that hard mode a whole lot easier. It being the first hard mode, and basically a gimmick fight though makes it less of a big deal for me. I can understand if people haven't done it they feel a bit bummed, but that will pretty much always be the case for some.

The XT hardmode I think is ok. Luckily we're ahead of the curve, so things get nerfed after we've done them, but XT was fairly hard for it's place in Ulduar. Harder than both Thorim and Hodir imo.

Yogg...yeah. I have no idea why. I guess it felt like a random element and it warranted removal. That can make sense I guess, but it's normal mode so not that big a deal. It's not a huge element in the mastery of that fight, just a random little bit.

Fulvi said...

I'm torn on the nerfs. Frankly my guild (10 man) got to yogg for the first time last week... and since we generally go without a priest OR shaman... it was nice to know we weren't going to be screwed by MCs. We did 2 tower FL for the first time this week, and it was cake. We went from spending 2-3 raid nights working to and getting on mimiron, to one downing everything but general, IC, razor, ignis & yogg in the first night. It is disheartening because we don't know if we got any better, or the game just got that much easier