Raid tuning

[Intra]

How are patches prior to 1.12? I believe something like this has no chance of happening and I apologize for my lack of knowledge, since I have no idea how vanilla evolved in terms of patches. But what would it look like? If the server started on an earlier patch? Where encounters werent really nerfed yet, how would that look? I am realy curious

It's possible to backport the current 1.12.1 core to earlier patches. The classic version of MaNGOS is backported from the TBC version (2.4.3) of MaNGOS. The only problem is that there's so many patches throughout vanilla which brought tons of changes along with them so I don't think it's feasible considering all the effort that would have been needed for each major patch.

Also, while I can't speak for any developer I can say for certain that a lot of the internal client data used for communication between server and client has been either changed or scrambled between most patches, so there's also a lot of detective work involved in obtaining this type of data which would be necessary for the network part between the WoW client and Kronos' server.

 

[SeeQ]

I see.. the idea just popped into my head, like a server which would start on an early patch and get to 1.12.1 later on, like actual raw vanilla progress. In my eyes, that would be so cool and unique, holy shit

/Too bad, did a bit of googling but there doesnt seem to be a single server pre-1.12. It kinda fascinates me, the true early vanilla and how it looked.

 

[Breda]

Ok cool i didnt know about that, so my suggestion would be for 2 things:

Shredder Unit in Alterac Valley. (Repeatable, cant use 2 at same time)

This Shredder Unit can be spawned by an Item which you get by returning some Mining(Bars) stuff and a few Gems of the same sort at a NPC. This Shredder Unit is supposed to be strong and i dont know how it would look like when more people have it, because i think it has a huge control range. For example you stay at Vanndar and use the item and spawn the Shredder, you can probably walk to Drekthar. Maybe if this gets accepted, it should be temporarly to test it out, if it has to much influence to the Gameplay i guess its not acceptable then.
It has a 3 days cooldown until you lose the item and once you use it, it has like 45 Minutes cooldown or something, so i dont know how it might look ingame It is supposed to be strong, not that someone could complain about its damage and health ^^

Spoiler

http://www.wowhead.com/item=17410
https://cata-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?npc=13416
https://cata-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?npc=13378

Player Chracter(PC) Kill Quests in Alterac Valley. (Repeatable)

My opinion: This is cool because of Roleplay, since you get more meaning of a Race when you kill it and loot a part of his body. And by turning in those items you get a little Repuation for a specific Faction. like Kill Tauren get rep for Gnomeregan i think, you can check them out. If this gets accepted i will help get all of the information if needed.
(This is also a cool way of farming Reputation and seeing perhaps people writing in the raidchat "I need Taurens, i want a robot mount! Leave the Taurens to me!!!)

Spoiler

PC Killing Quests

Tauren Hooves, Orc Teeth, Forsaken Hearts, and Darkspear Mojo have been removed from the game. They were previously used for faction turn ins, but had no effect on the battleground itself.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Alterac_Valley_Alliance_quests

 

[Lharts]

Kronos tries to give you the closest to retail server and you ask them to customize the content. Makes sense.

 

[Intra]

[CR][/CR]

Kronos tries to give you the closest to retail server and you ask them to customize the content. Makes sense.

That's not really true, and the fact that they will limit available raids to only Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair in the beginning goes against your logic. Obviously, they are limiting available content to resemble an earlier version of the game and all that's being asked is providing more of the content as it was at an earlier point(just like the raids).

 

[Lharts]

If you would really want to have the content the same way it was on release then you'd also have to change stats on items and undo all the talent tree revamps.

 

[costy]

Well we all understand your need for a more challenging content but you need to understand that you will have only UBRS/Dire Maul gear. No more T0.5. Also i think flasks won't be so many since Black Lotus spawns here like on retail, the only problem imo is the high number of normal herbs spawned on a map. I have no doubt that MC will be cleared in the first month from release but still you will need some FR tanks and that takes time or some very dedicated players.
From my experience i can tell you that you fill feel the content very different if you have a low experienced guild. Till AQ you may find the raids piece of cake or the contrary.
I remember we played on retail on 1.10 patch with lot of effort to clear MC. Next month we rerolled on another server , made new guild, we did not wipe at least once on next raid lockout after first Nefarian kill.
Bottom line is that you should not ask for a harder content just because you think you'll get bored till AQ opens.
Let's wait and see what will happen.

 

[Intra]

If you would really want to have the content the same way it was on release then you'd also have to change stats on items and undo all the talent tree revamps.

Indeed. Which isn't a realistic scenario to see implemented(for the latter at least), so it's all about finding out if there's an acceptable compromise. Some features aren't technically feasible to implement, but on the other hand maybe there are some which actually are.

Bottom line is that you should not ask for a harder content just because you think you'll get bored till AQ opens.
Let's wait and see what will happen.

We have already seen what will happen on other blizzlike vanilla servers and we are trying to prevent the same problem from happening here, although Kronos can be better than the previous servers the problem will still persist.

There's no such thing as "let's wait and see what will happen" because once it have happened it's already too late to do anything about it.

 

[Lharts]

Well I am not completely against giving bosses a slightly increased damage or may even a little more HP. It doesn't make the content harder though. Just put in more RNG and gear requirement. Not sure if thats what you really want.

I give you one example where raising the HP makes an encounter not harder, but rediculous.
Lashlayer for horde is already a lot harder then for alliance. Increase his HP and he will be bane.

 

[ffaxu]

The eruptions from the lava in Ragnaros's Lair will now always happen while Ragnaros is in combat. However, these lava eruptions occur less frequently, do less damage, and the damage they inflict is now resistible.

Will you be un-nerfing things like that?

...we will be holding content such as Cenarion Hold/Twilight Camps/Silithids or the D2 chain back until the appropriate time.

This made me super happy. Does this include faction rewards that didn't get added until later stages like Argent Dawn's Armaments of the Dawn (added 1.11) and Cenarion Circle's +15 fire and nature resist enchants (1.9)?

Garubashi Arena was added after the first Ragnaros kill, what about things like that?

 

[Maltx]

No server has attempted to revert the values of dungeon gear and I assume it's for a very good reason that the data either doesn't exist or would take a considerable amount of time/effort to do. Which is a shame because I really wish dungeon 1 and tier 1 gear was actually considered good (because it looks awesome). That is the kind of gear people actually used in vanilla, not a full pre-raid best-in-slot set with 30 attack/spell power + 1% crit/hit on every single piece.

I think the easiest solution to compensate for the increased output of every class is to just flat increase the health of everything in raids (bosses/adds/trash) by an amount that is equal to how much more the raid does in 1.12.

If gear didn't have much spell damage on it in 1.0, compare the dps of a mage/warlock with 50 spell power to one with 250 for example and don't forget that non-caster dps also had their gear buffed too. This also effects healers because the fight lasts longer so it's more taxing on their mana. Since enrage timers in vanilla are a non-factor the "enrage timer" is basically your healers total mana pool.

This would at least bring skill output closer to how it was in the original release version of the raids.

As for actually providing a challenge in 2014 and making progression raiding in classic a thing again, instead of "clear new raid in 1 lockout and guild raids 2 nights a week for free epics"; I think some boss abilities could occur slightly more often and/or do a little more damage.

Maybe Onyxia casts deep breath more often, maybe the lava in the floor in phase 3 does more damage. Magmadar could drop fire on the ground more often, Shazzrah's teleport could have a slightly lower CD, living bomb's duration could be halved, Firemaw's flame buffet could do more damage, the lava spew in Rag's Lair could be reverted to pre-nerf & more living sons spawn after submerge. I could compile a large list of adjustments that could be made for each boss if you like this idea. These are just small numerical adjustments that don't make the encounters considered custom but bosses that are actually considered a threat.

You are meant to wipe in vanilla and take that 3 minute corpse run, have to re-pot 10 times because you died that many times. It's supposed to be hardcore, that's why the leveling takes so long and why it takes so long to get to R14. Why should end-game raiding be casual when the road to get there and all the rest of the content in vanilla takes a significant amount of time/effort. That's what classic is all about.

Now I'm not saying it should be so hard that only the best guild on each faction can kill anything, I want every guild to be able to clear most of the content, but not in 1 or 2 weeks. You should have to work for your gear, if you are in a fresh guild you have more content to do essentially, because each fight takes more attempts to complete. The most fun I've had in WoW is progressing through raids. I've had more fun in bad guilds that take weeks to kill a single boss than decent guilds that only do farm raids, there's nothing to look forward to or strive for.

 

[Psojed]

Since enrage timers in vanilla are a non-factor the "enrage timer" is basically your healers total mana pool.

Hakkar would disagree with you. Especially Hakkar with extra HP.

This would at least bring skill output closer to how it was in the original release version of the raids.

As for actually providing a challenge in 2014 and making progression raiding in classic a thing again, instead of "clear new raid in 1 lockout and guild raids 2 nights a week for free epics"; I think some boss abilities could occur slightly more often and/or do a little more damage.

Personally I believe the only change this will bring about is that major mana potion will become a MUST-HAVE instead of insurance.

If you want "hardcore" raiding experience, forget all you know about default boss tactics and create a NEW one completely on your own. Because that's precisely what made you wipe several times in a row before finally making it through. First you figured out how to do it, then you figured out how to make 40 people play against that boss, and then came success.
Today, you don't figure out anything, everybody simply ASKS for best gear and best way to kill the boss, or READS a guide. Then he determines WHAT SHOULD I DO, all before the raid even starts. When everyone does that before the raid starts, it's super easy. No increasing of health or damage will help that, so unless you want custom-made bosses, deal with it.

 

[Intra]

No server has attempted to revert the values of dungeon gear and I assume it's for a very good reason that the data either doesn't exist or would take a considerable amount of time/effort to do. Which is a shame because I really wish dungeon 1 and tier 1 gear was actually considered good (because it looks awesome). That is the kind of gear people actually used in vanilla, not a full pre-raid best-in-slot set with 30 attack/spell power + 1% crit/hit on every single piece.

There is a strategy book from patch 1.0 with all the old item stats available in it, so it should be possible.

I think the easiest solution to compensate for the increased output of every class is to just flat increase the health of everything in raids (bosses/adds/trash) by an amount that is equal to how much more the raid does in 1.12.

It's also possible to raise armor and resistances to some degree, I'm not sure if resistance template values has been properly implemented on Kronos yet though.

Maybe Onyxia casts deep breath more often, maybe the lava in the floor in phase 3 does more damage. Magmadar could drop fire on the ground more often, Shazzrah's teleport could have a slightly lower CD, living bomb's duration could be halved, Firemaw's flame buffet could do more damage, the lava spew in Rag's Lair could be reverted to pre-nerf & more living sons spawn after submerge. I could compile a large list of adjustments that could be made for each boss if you like this idea. These are just small numerical adjustments that don't make the encounters considered custom but bosses that are actually considered a threat.

It's important to keep the encounters blizzlike, so therefore I don't think tuning the timers is a very good idea. What you can do (quite easily) is to adjust the damage output from the spells, and this could potentially be done by slightly increasing the damage of penalty type spells which tactics are in place to avoid in the first place. This will give a higher incentive for players(and guilds) to perfect their execution of already existing tactics. Essentially, making less room for fuck-up.

Of course, reverting existing changes noted in the patch-notes is also an idea.

If you want "hardcore" raiding experience, forget all you know about default boss tactics and create a NEW one completely on your own. Because that's precisely what made you wipe several times in a row before finally making it through. First you figured out how to do it, then you figured out how to make 40 people play against that boss, and then came success.
Today, you don't figure out anything, everybody simply ASKS for best gear and best way to kill the boss, or READS a guide. Then he determines WHAT SHOULD I DO, all before the raid even starts. When everyone does that before the raid starts, it's super easy. No increasing of health or damage will help that, so unless you want custom-made bosses, deal with it.

This really isn't true, and I think a lot of those who raided extensively during vanilla can confirm that. The bosses in vanilla didn't work in a way that made for a lot of combinatory choices for how you could execute tactics, encounter design was minimalistic in comparison to Burning Crusade and onwards(except for last part of AQ40 and Naxxramas).

Vanilla in general didn't rely very much on fancy / hard tactics though, even tank and spank type bosses could offer a great challenge, it was all about the performance of the raid and how certain roles in the raid group would execute certain tactics. However, those tactics were rarely variable and could easily be figured out.

Also, let's stop using the term "custom-made bosses", all we want to do is to experience the bosses the way they were designed. And we have learnt from experience that we can't experience that in a pure 1.12 environment. So instead of arguing how all the proposed ideas are silly etc, can't we instead have a great discussion about what we possibly could do to go about this in a smart manner that will not compromise how the encounters were originally designed or meant to be played?

 

[Aieris]

This video from another thread shows it perfectly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br1hXGXJ7Tg
And also comment says the truth :wink:

I realy don't want tank and spank ragnaros, where you only hope, that your DPS is good enough to bring him down before healers run out of mana.

 

[Vesc]

Screw it, I'm going to necro this one.

Patches, content being a decade old and everyone being a MUCH better and knowledgable player happened, guys.

Blizzlike / Vanillalike experience aint gonna happen without some form of minimalistic (at least) adjustments. If you think longer than 10 seconds about it, you would realize this. If you guys want your Vanilla-fix, as we all are nothing short of nostalgia junkies - I'd suggest rethinking this topic. To me, if the struggle aint real, it aint close to how it felt back then.

You cannot change that this stuff is a decade old. You cannot change the increase in overall playerskill and knowledge about Vanilla, consumables etc.

At the very least a small hotfix on HP would be desireable due to the increased damage thanks to the better available gear to us. I for one would like to experience the game / raids as they were intended when designed, as that is not exactly possible precisely because of the better gear, increased player knowledge etc. the next logical step would be to at least fix the damage issue if you cannot roll back the gear until it is appropriate progression wise.

You release raid tiers that way, hand in hand with the gear available in those, naturally. Might as well be thorough with it and do the same for other available equipment. If not, simply adjust accordingly. Beyond me how this could hurt the server or its philosophy.

This might be a long shot, and I might be completely wrong, but I believe in the end, if we really think about it, we would love nothing more than to come as close to the way we FELT back then. This means factoring more things in besides just bringing vanilla into 2014/15. With leaving everything as is while taking pride in delivering a 1.12.1 clone that actually (according to you) works as intended, will not deliver the closest vanilla experience as it could be, due to the mentioned things that changed.

In the end, how it feels, the experience you have playing, completely outweighs a slight tweak to raid values. By a far margin. Having a boss use its mechanics a tad more frequent is considered by some as BLIZZLIKE!111 blasphemy. Without them knowing it would most certainly enhance their playing experience and making them come a bit closer to the vanillafix they (we) seek. But as it apparently is that big of a whoopdifucking deal to some, at least slightly tweak the base values.

My opinion.

 

[Lharts]

With the introduction of the scaling system on kronos its should be fairly easy to increase life and damage output of a boss if he really is too easy.
Lets just wait and see.

 

[Hagson]

With the introduction of the scaling system on kronos

Please elaborate.

ts should be fairly easy to increase life and damage output of a boss if he really is too easy.
Lets just wait and see.

That's the wrong way to go about it, it's way better to start of with it being to hard and then nerf, than starting with it being to easy and then buff.

 

[Lharts]

-> Its a 5 minute job to increase HP, damage or w/e on an encounter.

That's the wrong way to go about it, it's way better to start of with it being to hard and then nerf, than starting with it being to easy and then buff.

You guys fail to see what specs and gear actually do to raid content.
Bosses don't get easier or harder with the availability of better gear. You just get to raid them earlier.

A small example:
pre-buff specc and gear:
Farm pre-raid content for 4 months
Start with MC

1.12.1 spec and gear:
You farm pre-raid content for 3-4 weeks
Start with MC


The thing it does is you need to farm the previous content for less time to enter the next tier. Try running MC in greens if it is "too easy" for you. After a while it will be cake either way.

If you want to make content harder then you would need to add spells or change the mechanics of an encounter. Raising HP and damage only increases the gear requirement.

 

[Hagson]

-> Its a 5 minute job to increase HP, damage or w/e on an encounter.

Hotfixes have always been easy to apply, what is the "scaling system on kronos"?

rest of the post

I said that it's better to start hard and then go easy, rather than starting easy and then going hard. You said that increasing the health wont make it harder. How does that relate at all?

 

[banezilla]

Releasing difficult almost impossible raids and then nerfing the encounter at a later time is 100% blizzlike.

 

[Lharts]

You mix up "hard" with "gear dependent".
Hard is when skill is required to do a certain action. Like kicking an ability in time and properly dispelling harmful spells.
Gear dependent is if the mob deals to much damage for your healers to counter or if your party runs oom because the fight takes too long and so on.

Increasing HP and damage will not increase the difficulty of a fight, it will just make it more gear dependent.

Scaling:
Scaling in WoW is how mobs adjust to their current level. Some mobs are stronger, some are weaker.
Lets say a lvl 10 mob has 500 mana and dead 50. Then a level 11 mob of the same kind has 550 mana and deals 55 fireballs. The mobs deal different amount of damage even though the rank of their spell is the same.

As I understood it from Cheros explanation. On regular mangos server you would have to change multiple database entries per mob to increase damage or hp. On Kronos you only need to change a modifier for the level of the mobs and every mob of that kind scales differently. Change 1 number and Ragnaros adds not only deal more damage, but also have more hp -> 5 minute job if its really necessary.

 

[Hagson]

So a 7 minute job becomes a 5 minute job? With less accuracy? Doesnt seem worthwhile to me.

Doing as some suggested and slightly modifying, for example, the timers on some abilties would make the fight harder, not more gear dependant. Increasing, for example, the damage of lucifrons dot, would also make it harder since a lot of guilds just soak the damange at higher levels. And those are just a few examples of the top of my head.

 

[Aieris]

But changing the timers will mess up raid addons. I can imagine that outrage on bug reports - This ability is used too often, it's not blizzlike, it's sh*t.

And increased HP and damage - What i have heared, on failnix, four horsemen had increased HP pool to delay their death, yet still they died quickly. It does not increased their difficulty, it just have checked raid gear.

 

[Vesc]

What I believe to be the case, is that most of us long for the FEELING of vanilla, the way we FELT when we played it back then. That is not be achieved, as it cant be.

However, by bringing encounters in line with the fact that this is a decade old content and players are just worlds better than back in the day, this would only increase the nostalgia.

"Wait what, wut did he say, dat be very contradicting" - No, it aint. Back then, we certainly struggled more than we do with the same content today, thats just how it is. Bringing the content at least minimalistic more in line, only adds to YOUR gaming experience. That is all.

Nobody, when thinking at least a couple of seconds about it, would prefer a 1:1 clone over something that is not only a clone, but one that makes you FEEL a LOT MORE how you felt back then.

Just imagine it, the rewarding sensation you once had when downing a encounter - coming back, more than ever before. How many countless people always bring this point up when they talk about how they went to school, in the snow, uphill etc.? Almost all of them (You).

In the end, its about the way the game makes us feel when we play it. The experience we have, the ones we make. What good does knowing it is - a somewhat more accurate than others before it - clone of 1.12, if it could actually make you feel reliving it a lot more by simply tweaking some things.

I'd prefer a good "high" that makes it feel more like that one time we all remember so dearly, personally. (Yes, I really went there, lol)

Just look at what they did to the Mob AI. That sure aint blizzlike, yet it is a huge improvement that adds a lot to the playing experience. Why is nobody drawing the line there, huh? Yeah, thought so.

 

[Aieris]

What is shown in videos with mob AI is Blizzlike.. If you dig through forum, you will find proofs.

About the content - you still feel an achivement in raids above MC. Buffing MC will only result in frustration like "OMFG, so easy boss, he do only two things, but he have so much HP so the healers run out of mana before we can down him, lets go farm preraid BIS and then kill him" .. It's not how it felt back then.