Discussion about changing MC Raidtuning

[Testosterown]

Discussion about changing MC Bosses (Raidtuning)

First let me say that i want to give a great shout out and merry christmas to the Kronos team and the community. And also a thank you for the new news and the hugh efforts from the devolopers.

Now to the topic: The planned "Raidtuning" for MC:

From the news - Raidtuning, specifically concerning Molten Core, where we covered some interesting ideas for making bosses more challenging without simply tuning their stats, while leaving the fight mechanic as close to the original as possible. We will continue to develop these ideas but would only consider moving forward with this after overall positive feedback from the community

What do you think about that?



As you might have seen in the forums I am not a hugh fan of making to big changes, but that sounds quite interesting to me. MC is REALLY easy and can be cleared with 25 people easily, without even having to good gear. But I only would support such an idea if the following points came with it:
-the realese date of Kronos is not delayed because of developement with such things
-the original boss mechanics really not changing anyhow at all
-the tunings are not making the bosses unbelievable difficult and hard


sorry for my bad english and have a nice day with your families!

 

[Rerun]

Agreed, mostly on:

"-the realese date of Kronos is not delayed because of developement with such things"

 

[jorim]

I don't see why a starting raid guild would not be allowed to get far in the first 40 man raid instance if they only have 30 people.

I personally think it would be very hard to balance, and what changes can you make in abilities without messing up bigwigs boss addon? Will you need to buff all other raids too to avoid MC being only slightly easier than say blackwing lair?

Gear in Molten Core is not that amazing (besides ragnaros) and with no ZG and AQ 20 at launch, needing to gear up fire tanks and needing to do some quests before you can dowse the runes I don't think MC will easily be cleared on the first night.

Can someone tell me if Molten Core will be that easy with people dressed in blues and greens?

I can understand people want a little more challenge, but we need to accept that we have much more knowledge about the game mechanics, boss mechanics and addons than we did 10 years ago.

I want to play MC as it used to be, unless the changes are subtle. I'm very curious what the 'interesting ideas' were that they discussed in the meeting

 

[lelebron]

Can someone tell me if Molten Core will be that easy with people dressed in blues and greens?

Yes unless everybody you going with is going there for the first time.

 

[Drevil]

I don't see why a starting raid guild would not be allowed to get far in the first 40 man raid instance if they only have 30 people.

30 NORMAL people would do it just fine.

I personally think it would be very hard to balance, and what changes can you make in abilities without messing up bigwigs boss addon?

Good point actually. I don't think this would lead into adding custom abilities or any other nonsense. But the well-known encounter must be buffed absolutely. I'm sure staff workers will figure out how to deal with it.

Will you need to buff all other raids too to avoid MC being only slightly easier than say blackwing lair?

ABSOLUTELY. Every 40 people raid must be buffed. While most of us here hate Feenix for thousands of reasons, they had a right IDEA (unfortunately, with bad implementation) about tuning raid encounters. You are playing 10 years old game, there is no challenge to be found in "100% blizzlike" setting. (Unless you never played this game before and you don't know what you're talking about)

Gear in Molten Core is not that amazing (besides ragnaros)

SAY AGAIN? Exactly. T1 gear is not-so-great for few classes (i never said "useless"). while majority of T1 sets are great start into gearing your raiders. Not to mention things like QSR, MIC, azuresong and other.

and with no ZG and AQ 20 at launch, needing to gear up fire tanks and needing to do some quests before you can dowse the runes I don't think MC will easily be cleared on the first night.

you always need fire resist gear on ragnaros, even in your precious T3(well, maybe with 10k hp you dont, and you have will to make healers cry). Unlike someone stated on forum (about tanking ragnaros in T2), I hope you know what it really requires to beat him.

Can someone tell me if Molten Core will be that easy with people dressed in blues and greens?

YES. With (!)PEOPLE(!) it is so damn easy.

I can understand people want a little more challenge, but we need to accept that we have much more knowledge about the game mechanics, boss mechanics and addons than we did 10 years ago.

I want to play MC as it used to be, unless the changes are subtle. I'm very curious what the 'interesting ideas' were that they discussed in the meeting

This entire section follows no logic whatsoever. Let me help you with making correct sentence.

[QQ]I want to play MC as it used to be, but I can understand people want a little more challenge. We need to accept that we have much more knowledge about the game mechanics, boss mechanics and addons than we did 10 years ago.
[/QQ]

Still a bit wrong. Even if you claim that you want to play MC as it "used to be" - in reality you DON'T want to experience that. This is just a psychology matter. You can say "i want blizzlike" and don't even know what do you want.

WARNING: Next section will be boring and can hurt your "feelings".

Spoiler

All people claiming here, that they want 100% Blizzlike in reality don't even know what exactly they want. They can say you something like "I want to see it as i experienced it back in retail". Even if they really want to see it like it was 10 years back - they don't understand one simple thing:

TEN
F*CKING
YEARS
have passed since the game was released. You will never experience Hillsbrad massive PvP able to crush your server. You will never be able to find 40 keyturning ****ts to see something like MC as challenge AGAIN (Well on this point you can prove me that I'm wrong. If someone would try to find 40 absolutely skill-less players and go raid with them - I'll just applaud to you). The majority of players cleaned content multiple times, know all the strategy, know their class, (KNOW EVERY FUCKING QUEST IN THE WORLD, but you still mindlessly voted for x1 [/rageoff])
So what exactly you're looking for here? Quality scripts? maybe. Social life? i have a bad news for you. Nostalgia? ABSOLUTELY correct answer. But here comes the problem you can see in 3 words above (font size = 7). People know how to play in majority. That means: you wouldn't get that voice-chat screams on first kill with full blizzlike content. IT WOULD NOT BE A CHALLENGE FOR YOU. Even if this level of psychology is too far for you, trust me: you need these 50 wipes on first kill. THIS will be your fucking reward for all the time you spend in game. The harder challenge - the more satisfaction you'll get upon beating it. (Again, thanks to Feenix for tuning 4 horsemans 4 times agaist normal. Server First kill was awesome emotional burst for whole server, not only 1 guild.). And after that you're free to get Ragnaros hammer with a thought "HA! I want to see how everyone else will try to beat boss THAT HARD". This also gives you feeling of BIG self-importance (Hard to achieve on PRIVATE server, but still possible).

Don't ask for blizzlike if you don't know what exactly it means. Most of you don't know what EXACTLY they are asking for.

P.S. I hate you all.
P.P.S. Why you voted for x1? Try re-thinking THIS your action after reading this wall of text and finding REAL reason why you wanted it.

 

[Hagson]

I personally think it would be very hard to balance, and what changes can you make in abilities without messing up bigwigs boss addon?

I don't see why this is an issue.
Should we really limit the balancing to keeping a single mod accurate?

 

[jorim]

you always need fire resist gear on ragnaros, even in your precious T3(well, maybe with 10k hp you dont, and you have will to make healers cry). Unlike someone stated on forum (about tanking ragnaros in T2), I hope you know what it really requires to beat him.

Yes I know what it takes to kill ragnaros, that's why I said you need fire resistance gear first. I think you misread that somehow.

Also with saying I want MC as I remember, I don't mean I want exactly the same. That's why i deliberately didn't use the word blizzlike (I hate the word myself). I don't mind that all raids are made harder, a lot of people play on a x1 vanilla server because they like the challenge. My point is that I don't want people to be the bomb when killing lucifron and that garr will suddenly submerge after 3 minutes.

Stuff that could be implemented for example: - wasn't ragnaros supposed to be killed withing 2 hours after killing Major Homo? - boss dmg and hp buffs - increased respawn timers on trash - More random fire at magmadar

Just little details that don't really change the boss mechanic, don't make it sound as if you are a fun server with custom instances.

And I wouldn't really praise the way feenix buffs bosses, they do it because they can't properly implement the boss mechanics. Also having basic mechanics like pathfinding and mind control not working properly caused some things to get a lot harder. The lack of a 16 debuff slot and buffs stacking that shouldn't stack also made raid dps higher. We wiped so much on skeram in AQ40 because it started flying in the air, oneshotted healers with earth shock and people getting kicked by anticheat when Skeram mind controlled them. Good thing feenix allows you to enter instance while there is combat in progress so you could corpserun between the phases. Don't get me started on the rest of the instance.

 

[dzonibegood]

Drevil on that "spoiler" I don't agree with you. Just because YOU have the knowledge and skills and did all vanilla raids 20 and 40 million times doesn't mean EVERYONE has done it. Doesn't mean EVERYONE was in such a good guild to be able to roflstomp it with even 25 people. Stop being such an elitist jerk.
You're totally wrong about this "you don't want full vanilla experience again"... Yes i FUCKING want. I don't want modified changes to make it harder i want to experience it as it was. whether it be hard easy dumb or smart. That also includes having 1x xp gain.

 

[Aieris]

I personaly think that they will chose way of buffing MC through Zone-wide debuff for players, that will, for example, decrase HP by 5%, healing recieved by 15%, block/dodge/parry by 3% and so on.. With such debuff, it's easy to precisely "adjust" difficulty of raid without changing game mechanics.

 

[Drevil]

first blood )

 

[Qiyn]

I can understand people want a little more challenge, but we need to accept that we have much more knowledge about the game mechanics, boss mechanics and addons than we did 10 years ago.

Actually, you are repeating a fallacy a lot of Kronos forumgoers love to repeat. You look at the players ten years ago as if they were cavemen, and we are cyborgs. But let us really examine this fallacy. Is the reason why Molten Core is going to fall very quickly because we have ten more years of experience?

Sure, the average gamer is a lot better at raiding Molten Core now than ten years ago. But Ragnaros was not waiting for the average game to kill him. He was waiting for the elite. The same elite that had years of experience raiding in Everquest, a more hardcore game by its own nature.

So, why did Ragnaros take a long time to beat? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First off, raids were limited to how many times they could face him per week. I think he despawned after two hours of attempts (for at least the day, perhaps the week). Second, he was somewhat overtuned for the raiders of the time. No talent tree overhauls, old tier 1/tier 2 gear (that was hellbent on improving every spec for each class), fewer and weaker Thorium Brotherhood recipes all combine for a harder fight overall.

I want to play MC as it used to be, unless the changes are subtle.

Well, this is an oxymoron. You can either raid a 1.12 Molten Core and steamroll thru the instance for a very non-vanilla-like experience OR you can make some drastic changes to the raid and have a closer-to-vanilla-like experience. Which one do you want?

I propose changing Molten Core in three ways. First off, put Ragnaros on a timer, just like he was on retail. Keep this timer for at least until the release of BWL. Second, increase the damage and health of the bosses/trash. Some of the difficulty of the encounter is directly related to the length of said encounter. Third, increase the potency of boss/trash abilities. Baron Geddon used to living bomb one target? Now, he living bombs three.

If you want to keep experience rates at 1x (i am in this boat), then you are pretty much obligated to siding with changing Molten Core (and BWL/AQ40). Sorry for the wall of text, but right now, the raids figuring out to be horseshit is the only thing keeping me from playing on this server.

 

[jorim2]

Yes I agree on making things harder, but I don't want to change the basic mechanic of the fights. Don't make bosses have extra adds or new abilities, just make them stronger and make them use certain abilities more often. Multiple bombs on geddon for example would make it more challenging and fun for me.

I disagree on a instancewide debuff, it looks weird. Change the boss stats not the player stats. Afaik changing boss hp and dmg is not that hard to adjust.

 

[Breda]

I want to make a suggestion for boss difficulty. What about reducing the cooldown of boss spells? this could really make it harder.

1 example:
Lucifron -> more curses, more magic debuff = has to despell faster or make priority to who to dispell or whatever, i guess the tactic even has to be changed so that some should go shhhh around the corner to not get debuffs.

So i wanted to make this example and i guess with redeucing cooldowns you have to change your tactic at some bosses which probably wont look like molten core in 2004-06. But i guess the gameplay in MC has changed after the changes with gear? If this is right then maybe this is a good suggestion.

Not sure how its gonna look like with all the other bosses in MC.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
I want to disagree with the change of HP/DMG on players and trash and bosses because all you have to do is heal heal heal heal, that is not difficult for me, the bossfight just takes a little bit longer and thats the only thing that changes and its not difficult.

i also disagree making changes to boss spells like making 3 living bombs. I like the the idea for a new dungeon but MC should not be known for 3 living bombs at Baron, this is to much customization for my eye, while reducing the cooldown for that living bomb doesnt hurt that eye really, because it will be only 1 living bomb that occurs more often and i dont think everyone will even get that there is a customizition.

 

[dagid4]

Just be blizzlike, no need for this.

 

[banezilla]

I personally think it would be very hard to balance, and what changes can you make in abilities without messing up bigwigs boss addon?

I think breaking big wigs and dbm temporarily by changing ability cool downs or names would be the best case scenario. That could possibly add another degree of difficulty.

 

[Breda]

I think breaking big wigs and dbm temporarily by changing ability cool downs or names would be the best case scenario. That could possibly add another degree of difficulty.

Yes, i wanted to add this to my text but i forgot it, this is true, another difficulty where people has to figure out a strategy/tactic for the boss.

 

[Qiyn]

Breda, your argument is somewhat silly.

Imagine the extremes. A boss with 1 hp and a boss with 1 million hp. Exact same mechanics for both bosses. Of course, the one with 1 million hp is harder to kill. The point of hp is to prolong the fight to the point where certain mechanics cannot be ignored. That mechanic may be Ragnaros' second phase, or Patchwerk's enrage, or having to deal with multiple Twin Emp swaps, or even the limited mana pool of healers. The same could be said about damage.

You also refer to Molten Core of 2004-06 as something special. That is like me referring to the Naxx of 2006-08 as something special. Naxx40 and Naxx25 are two entirely different raids (with the same boss abilities). MC'04 and MC'06 are two entirely different raids (with the same boss abilities).

In order to best recreate MC'04, you really only have two choices. You can return the classes/items/encounters back to patch 1.2/1.3 level. This is definitely the harder of the two choices. Or, you can tune the encounters to best suit a patch 1.12 talented and itemized raid. This is the choice i am in favor of (and you should be in favor of, too).

A third thing that TwinStar could do, and unfortunately is an idea somewhat popular on these forums, is to leave the fights alone. Beating this Molten Core and claiming 'blizzlike' experience is equivalent to beating Naxx25 and claiming a vanilla experience. It is downright preposterous.

You suggest changing the cooldowns of boss abilities. This is hard to balance. You reduce the cooldown too little, and effectively have not increased the difficulty of the boss at all. You change it too much and you change the boss entirely. That sweet spot is incredibly hard to find.

Here is a better suggestion. Let us have a discussion on Molten Core (and other dungeons/raids eventually) that is purely qualitative. What was so lasting about the feel of the instance? What are the themes of the encounters that need to be recreated? Yes, purely qualitative. No numbers. Anyone who argues that Gehennas' Rain of Fire lasting exactly 6 seconds is extremely important to him is full of horseshit.

 

[Terefinz]

Buffing all raids sounds like a great idea. I'm sure many people did not come here to cruise through content mindlessly to get epic items (which would really not be that valuable because the content is so easy). It would be cool to spend a solid few weeks trying to clear a raid.

 

[zarquon]

Baron Geddon used to living bomb one target? Now, he living bombs three.

This is actually something that came up during the meeting, however we felt it would change the encounter too drastically as each player afflicted by the bomb would have to coordinate and reach a different spot to explode to avoid almost certain death. In our opinion this would change the mechanic of the boss, whereas more frequent casts of Ignite Mana and Living Bomb would leave the existing mechanic intact while increasing difficulty. However, increasing frequency of Ignite Mana casts would further disadvantage the faction that is already at a PVE disadvantage to begin with.

Either way, we will work these ideas out and present them to you and any decision will depend on community feedback. Currently we are leaning towards releasing with Molten Core as was in 1.12.1 as the race for server first Ragnaros will be interesting even with an untuned raid, as getting your hands of those Quintessences within a single lockout will require at least some amount of coordination and dedication.

A Merry Christmas to you all.

 

[Qiyn]

It is a relief to hear that the team is dedicated in bringing the players a great vanilla raiding experience as well. It is also a relief that input from the community drives your decisions. Hopefully, the Kronos community can come together and decide on a plan to make Molten Core and the other vanilla raids a truly rewarding experience.

 

[nimeralos]

I think that such a feature would scare some people, so I worry about the consequences for Kronos online. But I personally have nothing against a wise raid tuning, since I doubt that Kronos devs would act carelessly.

 

[cento]

Im all for difficuly, and i trust the kronos staff to make the difficulty a reality :winkiss:
happy holidays :innocent:

 

[costy]

I think you put too much pressure on Chero&co's shoulders. Balancing a fight it is way more harder than you think. May be possible for Blizzard who has a big team but not for 2 maybe 3 developers. It is not only about finding the right numbers, you need to get realistic results from real raids, you need to monitor them so you get the wanted effect. For only 3 programmers it is like shooting in the dark.
But you need to know that many did MC on retail even on patch 1.12. We did a fresh guild and we raided the "old" content again. It was nice and i can say hard-ish.
Don't be surprised that there will be "elite" guilds on the server. They started recruiting 2 months ago, maybe more. But other guilds will be formed of players that never played vanilla. They could somehow taste a slice of blizzlike classic WoW. They want to see the world as it was back then. Just because you want a harder content does not justify asking to buff Mc. And after that what? Buff Onyxia, Kazzak, Azuregos, first 6 bosses in BWL right?
Vanilla was this way. TBC introduced heroics dungeons for the top elite players. WoTLK had heroics raids.
MC and BWL are "entry level" raids. Look at the attunement they require. Compare it to initial Black Temple atunement.
Don't get me wrong , i like a little bit of challenge but you can't do that with MC at 1.12.
I would actually ask Twinstar to focus on finishing this project (Naxx release) rather then spending their time/resources just to satisfy the will of a 5-10 % of the players. Players that think it is boring to run MC in its original state.

 

[Aieris]

Costy - I couldn't agree more.

 

[Qiyn]

I would actually ask Twinstar to focus on finishing this project (Naxx release) rather then spending their time/resources just to satisfy the will of a 5-10 % of the players. Players that think it is boring to run MC in its original state.

I am totally with you here. I would like TwinStar to focus on finishing this project, including releasing Molten Core in a state as close to original. I am just a little surprised you actually think that patch 1.12 Molten Core is anything like its original state.