Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #312 - For Azeroth!: “Notable Occurrences”

Transcript

#312 - For Azeroth!: “Notable Occurrences” · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:01
Hey guys, unfortunately there's been some technical difficulties
0:04
with this episode. Cleaned up the audio as best I
0:07
could, but did eat up some of the time.
0:09
So it's a shorter episode and of course a little bit of audio
0:14
issues. Bear with us, we'll be back
0:16
again next week. Victory for the Forsaken.
0:19
For Lauderon for the Karen tour. For.
0:24
Pandaria for calendar. To the burning region.
0:31
For Gilnaeus or has not died, for the Lich King, for the
0:38
Sindori, for the Alliance, for the Horde, for Azeroth.
0:47
Hello and welcome back to another episode of For Azeroth.
0:52
I am one of your hosts, the true villain Manny, and back again
0:57
are the other parts of the Triumphant.
0:59
I know they've been away for a little bit, but they are back,
1:02
starting with Lex. Lex, how are you?
1:05
How's the World of Warcraft been treating you?
1:06
It's. Been treating me well.
1:08
I still can't really sit at my computer because my Velcro dog
1:11
will lose her entire mind if I'm not snuggling with her.
1:14
But I did forget that I had pre-ordered the book Voices of
1:18
Azeroth until this week when I got a weird package and I was
1:23
like, what is this? Is this a cool present?
1:26
And it was a cool present from Blizzard.
1:28
So I have been reading Voices of Azeroth and I like it a whole
1:31
lot. What is Voices of Azeroth remind
1:34
me? I'm blanking.
1:35
That's the short story collection from like so usually
1:39
they'll do a novel in the beginning of like midway through
1:42
ish the X pack. And for this for, How did I lose
1:47
the name of this expansion? For the war within for.
1:51
The war within. Recently muted on Twitter.
1:54
Yes, exactly. We they did a short story
1:59
collection instead, and we've gotten a couple of those already
2:02
posted online. So we talked about them, the
2:03
hilarious short story and the Andrew Wynn short story and
2:06
maybe others. Those are the only two that I
2:08
remember being posted, but they might have had others had
2:11
already been posted. But they were also part of this
2:13
short story collection called The Voices Within Got.
2:16
It OK, I'd love to know as you read through that, if it gives
2:21
you some more context to to everything we'll we might swing
2:26
it back around to that as we get to one of our stories for today.
2:29
But before we dive to into it, sorry, before we dive too deeply
2:35
into it, let us of course, introduce the final member of
2:38
the triumphant Mr. Sensational, Sean.
2:41
Hello, Sean. How are you doing?
2:43
I'm good Manny, I'm good. I did not get any weird packages
2:45
today or this week on like Lex other than my usual weird
2:50
package that is here all the time, but I've also been having
2:53
a great time since we were here last.
2:57
I'm unsure how to respond to that.
2:59
I'm glad that you're safe Lex. Let's start with that and we
3:07
will do our best not to dox you as apparently you don't know how
3:12
to handle weird packages. That said, World of Warcraft is
3:19
in the middle of 11 point O .7. I would actually say the tail
3:24
end of things. Now we have stuff on the PTR and
3:29
we got a bit of news to talk about, so let's get right into
3:32
it. First thing is that we are in
3:34
the middle of Plunderstorm and I know some people would be diving
3:40
into it deep. I know some people like me have
3:43
been like, I'm gonna get around to it.
3:45
I swear I'll get around to it. I just need the time or like the
3:50
right time because I I've heard some people who are loving it.
3:55
I've heard some people who are saying, Oh my goodness, all the
3:59
try hards are like 10 times worse because they've got the
4:01
they've got the knowledge from before and it's just like
4:04
slaughter fest. Lex, have you made an attempt?
4:10
Are you like me? Are you waiting on the
4:11
sidelines? Being like I, I, I swear I'm
4:13
going to jump in. I at our last episode, I was
4:17
like, and I'm totally going to do plunderstorm this week.
4:20
And I spent this entire week being like, and I'm totally
4:24
going to do plunderstorm too, including this morning.
4:26
I was like, and you know, this week I'll do plunderstorm for
4:28
the episode. I don't know when I thought I
4:30
was going to. So no, I have not.
4:33
And it's not out of lack of desire.
4:35
It is out of the fact that I wake up at 6:30 in the morning
4:38
and then it's puppy, puppy, puppy puppy puppy and then I go
4:41
to bed at 10. But I really want to.
4:44
I'm so sorry. This is just becoming world of
4:46
puppy. Everything for me is just puppy.
4:49
You can't have a conversation with me without me turning it
4:51
into a puppy conversation. It's I'm going to be less boring
4:54
one day, I swear to God. OK, well, we'll we'll hope for
4:58
that day. No, no, I I like I don't have a
5:03
puppy excuse. I haven't jumped into plunder
5:05
storm. I've been doing a number of
5:07
other things that came with 11 point O .7, like the meta
5:11
achievement stuff. Some of it's on wear timers, but
5:15
I have been watching streamers play Plunderstorm and getting
5:20
some info from then, including, of course, Sean who's been
5:23
streaming recently. So Sean, you're going to have to
5:25
give us the low down because you are the only informed opinion on
5:29
this podcast right now. Yeah, Plunderstorm I'm, I don't
5:32
know how great of a like, I definitely do not represent the
5:35
vast majority of the player base in Plunderstorm.
5:37
I play it my way and I enjoy it my way.
5:42
I really enjoyed it on NA. I felt like the game mode was
5:47
everybody felt like they were like more comfortable.
5:49
I didn't get the sense of people are more aggressively chasing
5:52
you down. Playing on NA and I definitely
5:54
didn't feel like people were better because they had all the
5:56
strats figured out. I finished getting all of the
6:00
loot over there, all the rewards.
6:02
I probably won't log back in on North America.
6:04
I just missed trios going live this week which is unfortunate
6:09
but I am still tracking down some of the rewards on EU and I
6:12
have had a different experience on the EU servers where over
6:16
there it does feel like people are more Terminator coded than
6:21
they were in North America. And it's like I'm going to run
6:25
you down and fight you no matter what level we are, be it one or
6:28
ten, because I must conquer. German efficiency.
6:33
Yeah, yeah. So outside of the British
6:38
expansionism I've been facing on the EU servers, I've been really
6:42
enjoying it. I, I don't know, I'm, it's I, to
6:45
be honest, it's I, so I was hard in for like 2 days all over the
6:49
moon for it. And now it's sort of losing its
6:51
luster. And where I already have the
6:53
rewards on NA and EU is like sort of my secondary account.
6:57
So I'm not super like concerned. I am fully expecting at some
7:00
point within the next two expansions we're going to get
7:04
cross region and then I'll be able to merge my accounts
7:06
anyway. But I'm like, I don't really
7:09
need to find this out twice for now so I may dip back in here
7:14
and there over the course of the next.
7:17
What is it just shy of a month? I think it ends on February
7:20
18th. But the good thing is we know
7:22
now the model is hey, here's the rewards for plunder storm.
7:26
But if I don't get them all, when it comes back around, I
7:29
theoretically should be able to buy the ones I was missing
7:32
because you're able to this time.
7:33
And I really like that, that mentality of, hey, I don't have
7:36
to do all of this now. Speaking of dogs that have one
7:38
in my lap, I don't have to do all of this now because it'll
7:43
come back at some point. I'll be able to do it then.
7:45
And that's sort of relieves some of the pressure.
7:46
But it's been a lot of fun. And they are doing patching to
7:49
it. There's one new beam or one new
7:50
power called the celestial barrage, like a giant beam of
7:52
light that I'm pretty sure has like a 700 yard range.
7:55
And they've made some nerves to that.
7:57
It's pretty intense. I know.
7:58
I don't have anything. I love you, though.
8:00
It's pretty, pretty intense. Yeah.
8:04
But they're still working on it and people seem to be enjoying
8:06
it. I think the key is people are
8:08
able to get what they want faster than they were in the
8:10
first plunder storm. And that's that's making a
8:13
recipe for success. OK, so then I got to ask, with
8:18
the Terminator code in and everything that you're seeing,
8:24
is it now that you've got these rewards, do you feel that the
8:29
rewards came too fast and you kind of ran out of what you were
8:34
playing for? Do you feel that there wasn't
8:37
enough variation? And what came before, Like
8:40
obviously Celestial Barage being a new ability, they've tuned
8:44
other abilities. Do you think they changed it up
8:45
enough, or do you feel like part of the reason that you've
8:48
dropped off so quickly is because it hasn't changed up
8:52
enough? I think it was perfect.
8:55
I didn't play the first Plunder Storm beyond getting all the
8:58
rewards either. I think I did maybe maybe a
9:02
dozen maps after getting all the rewards and and some of those
9:05
are with Anjali I think. Now this is not an opinion you
9:11
will hear from many content creators, but I think being able
9:15
to get all the rewards in a six hour session, it was 1-6 hour
9:18
section, maybe 6 1/2 hour session that I did for NA
9:21
because I had the season 1 rewards.
9:23
So I had already firmed all of Season 1 or PS1 as the kids are
9:25
calling it, and now I'm into Plunderstorm 2 or PS2 as the
9:30
kids are calling it and I have firmed all those and it took 6
9:33
1/2 hours. I think that's perfect because I
9:36
literally just play Warcraft all day, right?
9:39
So it's OK that for people like me whose only job is to play
9:44
World of Warcraft and who do it, you know, 8 to 14 hours a day,
9:49
it's OK if you're done in a day. Because what people like me need
9:53
to realize is there are people who are not like us who only get
9:58
a chance to play one to two hours a week.
10:01
And if they want to be able to get all of Plunderstorm in while
10:04
also doing the content they're doing your Siren Isles, your
10:07
rating, your mythic, plus whatever their goals are working
10:10
on the meta achievements, I think it's better and more
10:13
reasonable to allow for those people to be able to get the
10:15
rewards at a pace that matters to them.
10:20
I think if you drag it out, if you make it longer, they
10:23
definitely left the buffs, the plunder buffs in from the end of
10:26
PS1, as the kids are calling it. And that's good because like, if
10:33
you're listening to this show, you probably play a lot of
10:35
Warcraft, maybe more than the average person.
10:37
I would say if you're listening to a podcast about Warcraft, but
10:40
if you get a lot of your news from people whose only thing
10:43
they do all day long is play Warcraft, you're probably
10:45
hearing a lot of oh, this was too fast, this was too fast,
10:47
this was too fast. Those people aren't realizing
10:50
that despite the fact that all of their friends also only play
10:53
Warcraft or play at an exorbitant amount of time.
10:55
There are lots and lots of people, millions probably, who
10:58
don't play that way. And I think it's good for them.
11:03
You know, it's good for for Joe Schmo.
11:08
Is that a phrase we're allowed to use now?
11:10
That's a nickname we used to. I remember my mom saying Joe
11:12
Schmo when I was a kid is. That problematic I.
11:14
Don't know. I don't.
11:16
Joe Schmo, The average Joe. Like the average, the average
11:19
Joe, that's what I'm trying to say.
11:21
Yeah. Yeah.
11:21
So I don't know if that were, I don't know.
11:22
I just know a lot of times things that I don't know who.
11:26
That was Joe, just in case. Just in case, yeah, we're going
11:29
to play it safe. Just an average Joe comes in
11:31
he's like, hey, I didn't get everything from PS1 as his kids
11:33
are calling it. I didn't get everything from
11:35
PS1. There's still some rewards I
11:36
want to get and there's still there's rewards of PS2 I want to
11:39
get. You know, it's nice that I get
11:41
this this speed up where it feels like I can achieve some of
11:44
those goals. So yeah, I think it's I'm, I'm,
11:45
I'm happy with it, but I'm notoriously somebody who is pro
11:50
speed gearing. So keep that in mind.
11:54
I do just want to point out I just googled Joe Schmo
11:56
problematic and nothing came up so I saw.
11:58
Her, yes, I think all right, OK. It's just probably just phased
12:01
out as kids stopped saying. That Yeah, yeah, cuz I haven't
12:04
heard it since I was a kid. So I'm like, I wonder why we
12:06
stopped hearing that. No, no.
12:08
It's a good because. You grew up, Sean.
12:10
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, OK, all.
12:12
Right, OK, All right, that, that seems pretty understandable.
12:17
I, I don't know what the listeners of fast could do to
12:22
like force me to like finally jump in there.
12:26
I think 1 streamer I was listening to was doing a really
12:31
good job of once they died, they spectated and they actually
12:35
casted what they were seeing to keep it going.
12:39
That was actually that was Liffey.
12:40
So Liffey, they just cast and I guess it was just practice for
12:45
them, but that made it really cool to watch that Afterwards on
12:50
your stream, a bunch of people were saying like, yeah, it's
12:52
because of the times that you play.
12:54
If you're playing during the day versus like on the weekend or in
12:57
the evenings, you're going to get different mentalities and.
13:02
I do feel, I say this as somebody who does not like who
13:07
plays plunderstorm Pve. I do feel like we should say
13:11
that the point of a battle Royale is to kill each other.
13:15
Like I don't I don't think you can call them grief or like I
13:18
don't think you can get mad at people for killing you.
13:20
Like I get it. I also prefer plunderstorm when
13:23
people let me go farm on the sides.
13:25
But like they're not people are in try hards because they kill
13:28
you in a battle Royale. They're just playing a battle
13:31
Royale the way a battle Royale is meant to be played.
13:34
Yeah, I equate myself to the birds that that live in
13:37
alligators mouths and eat like the meat between their teeth.
13:40
They don't have to go see alligator dentists.
13:42
I'm one of those birds. I'm going to go and collect all
13:45
the plunder for you. And I'll bring it to you at the
13:46
end of the mat and you're going to beat me.
13:48
I couldn't beat you if I wanted to.
13:49
And I'm just going to stand here and let you kill me.
13:51
But I've brought all this plunder to you.
13:52
I've. I've brought it to you.
13:54
I am your alligator tooth bird keeping you from alligator
13:57
dentists. You're welcome.
13:59
I say hi. Well I I am not.
14:01
I play a lot of Fortnite recently, I've got friends into
14:07
it. So I I am definitely about those
14:08
battle royales. I am, I am one of those people
14:11
who'll be like, OK, let's let's do this.
14:13
Let me see if I can get that escape.
14:14
Let me see if I can get that kill sort of thing.
14:16
So this should be up my alley. It's just for some reason I just
14:23
have not taken the plunge. But like, I think people need to
14:27
understand that like not every part of World of Warcraft is
14:31
going to be for them. And we had this conversation the
14:34
last time Plunderstorm came around and all those
14:36
conversations about FOMO and stuff.
14:39
And like you were saying, it's going to come back around again.
14:43
And it's seems that it's much faster this iteration.
14:46
So if you're scared off last time, maybe dip a toe in it.
14:49
I will try and wrangle Lex and Sean and maybe we'll do a FAZ
14:53
trio. We'll have to figure it out, see
14:56
when Sean's streaming when you're not wrapped up with a
14:59
puppy. And yeah, we could, we could try
15:01
and do that, but let's move on from that.
15:04
John. You were just talking about all
15:06
the other things that can take up your time if you're unlimited
15:09
for time. One of the things that is coming
15:11
to an end right now is of course the Siren Isles that it has had
15:15
its swan song this week has been the last time Gate unlocked so
15:22
that you can now fully upgrade your ring using those raw
15:27
Citroen and you can get that ring up to 658, which I believe
15:33
is the highest item level currently available in the game.
15:37
Yes. And since they did that hot fix
15:40
way back in week 1, all of the different powers are unlocked.
15:47
It hasn't been without controversy because we had, I
15:51
believe it was last week or two weeks ago, some teams are
15:54
running into raids, 0 healers because the ring healing was so
15:58
powerful that they just said, sorry priest, you're on the
16:01
bench. Sorry, rest of shaman, you got
16:04
an elemental spec and Blizzard had to come in and nerf that.
16:08
But all of that hopefully is in the past.
16:12
They've made the adjustments to that, to that.
16:16
I haven't seen any new abuses. Are you guys aware of any new?
16:19
Abuses so first of all, Manny, I just want to say great middle
16:22
finger to a shadow priest love that love that so much No I.
16:30
Not priests are not represented. Come on, all for you.
16:33
Send in the hate letters. We love the shadow priest.
16:38
You all are doing God's work well.
16:41
No, no. No, no, shadow priest don't do
16:43
God's work. You can do the other two
16:44
priests. Yeah, even you aren't
16:46
representing shadow priests. How can you How can you have
16:50
good if you don't have evil to struggle against right you?
16:53
Just go Demon Hunter. Well, yeah, then then then you
16:56
struggle against your own, you know, angstiness, right, Your
16:59
own desire to the. Demons within.
17:02
The demons within. Exactly.
17:03
Yeah. Like you're sitting there and
17:04
you're like, I, I could sit here and listen politely to my raid
17:08
leader or, or I could run the entire arena around this raid
17:13
bus and I could see how close I can get before pulling him or
17:18
getting kicked out of the raid group.
17:21
But your point was? I I actually thought when I was
17:26
seeing that everyone was going in no healers to raids, I
17:28
thought they were just like flex and how cool they were.
17:30
DPSI didn't realize that was the that was the ring.
17:34
So first of all, just take off your rings and do it anyway.
17:36
Babes be be actual try hards. Mess them up.
17:41
Rather, just like I'd rather just get higher and M plus kill
17:44
the bosses faster because we could just DPS to get to get the
17:48
thing, you know, every advantage.
17:50
Sorry, exploit early, exploit often, and this one is fair
17:55
game. I'm not even going to say.
17:57
Get rid of them no more, just buy healers.
18:00
Switchers to DPS spec until you get to something that needs it.
18:03
You don't know, just switch them on to DPS permanently.
18:06
No more healers. I, I, I'm saying erase the
18:09
entire class, the the, the all, all healer classes, They're
18:12
gone. We're done with them.
18:14
We can't do that anymore though. But like, do you think that this
18:16
was really bad? I think it's OK.
18:19
You're allowed to have fun in video games.
18:21
I think you're allowed to do dumb, silly things if you're
18:23
playing a video game, I think that's good.
18:25
I think that's the point of a video game.
18:27
That's my time. Good.
18:28
Good. Yeah, I'm with Lex.
18:31
You, you. They made the ring.
18:32
They made the stuff in it like teams were going no healers for
18:36
olive heroic, and let's be honest, you could almost do that
18:39
anyway without the ring at this point in the expansion if the
18:42
team was high enough geared. And then they were doing first
18:44
form mythic without healers. And again, it's a game.
18:47
It's supposed to be fun. It's a meme ring.
18:49
The end. It's the end of the tier.
18:50
You can pug those first four bosses.
18:52
Let people have their fun with it.
18:53
Nobody was going to be killing Queen Anne Serek with no healers
18:56
with that ring. Nobody was going to be killing
18:58
Silken Core with no healers. Nobody was going to be killing
19:01
overnax. Like that wasn't going to be the
19:03
difference, but Blizzard heard some vocal members of the
19:07
community or maybe the internally Blizzard was like,
19:09
we're not OK with this. They they nerfed it.
19:12
I will. I will stand to say that
19:15
Blizzards was right to nerf it. I am fine with people going and
19:18
running their four out of eight mythic and stuff and see how far
19:21
they could get get away with it as long as they could get away
19:24
with it. And I don't think any level of
19:27
punishment should be involved with this entire entire thing.
19:30
It was, it was purely unexpected game mechanics that they used to
19:39
the fullest. I don't even call it
19:40
exploitation of game mechanics. It was just there they did the
19:44
math and said, you know what, this is how we're going to do
19:46
it. So.
19:48
But I also think that, yeah, in terms of the overall health of
19:52
the game, such a power should not exist for long.
19:58
So it came in at the right time that it did not disrupt
20:00
anything. If this had come in at the
20:02
beginning of the tier, I would be like, get rid of it
20:04
immediately. Oh yeah, right.
20:06
So yeah, I think it just played out like a OK, it happened, we
20:09
all had our fun and we move on. Yeah.
20:14
Now for the island itself. I generally felt that this was a
20:24
fun experience for maybe 3-4 weeks.
20:29
I think as the you went through that rotation, you're like, oh
20:32
cool, here's a new, new enemy and some of the stories and do
20:36
the secrets. It was fun uncovering the story
20:40
in this way. I'm not sure if it was because
20:43
of the voice actor strike or if they were just like filtering it
20:48
in anyways and it just came out this way and it was an
20:52
interesting way, but I think it was kind of cool to sort of
20:56
discover the story by look at finding letters in the cabin and
21:00
reading stone tablets and stuff. My only problem is that it
21:03
didn't go anywhere. I was expecting some sort of
21:06
conclusion. Now we're at Week 6 and it's
21:09
like everything you could have done, it was all in Week 1 and
21:14
that was that was it. And it doesn't seem to go
21:16
anywhere. Well, what about you guys?
21:19
What are you thinking about story wise?
21:22
Yeah, I I agree this uncovering the story in that first week was
21:28
fun seeing it on the tablets, going through it.
21:31
And then if you really enjoyed it the and you want to get deep
21:34
dive more, you can. There's a really amazing video
21:37
by Discordian Kitty on YouTube. I don't know if we're allowed to
21:39
plug people on here but I'm plugging Discordian Kitty right
21:41
now where she talks about. Most of my other show, the
21:45
person that I helped, that I helped discuss this entire
21:48
thing, it's it's indirectly benefiting me.
21:50
Yeah. No, no, we're not going to allow
21:52
that to happen. Keep going.
21:53
But she does a really good breakdown of possibly did Cersei
21:56
make a deal similar to a genre And there's a YouTube video you
21:59
can get. I definitely recommend checking
22:01
that out on her YouTube. It's fantastic.
22:04
But yeah, so I enjoyed uncovering that story.
22:05
But yeah, you're right. Like there was I think the ring
22:09
should have been maxed after one cycle, so one of each because
22:13
the second go around the first time through it was like, OK,
22:17
they're telling the story. Each time is a different group
22:19
attacking. There's a little bit, you know,
22:21
a couple of different stay while and listens.
22:22
We uncovering it and you don't want to just dump it all on us
22:25
at once. I get that after that first time
22:28
through the sick, the 2nd loop back through, that's when it was
22:31
like OK, this is and it even felt like you had to do quests
22:37
to unlock the ring power. The third one you had to
22:42
complete the fill the bar request for the island to get
22:44
it, much like Anduin felt like the end of septic or the 1st
22:47
ones that fill the bar request and then you unlock the last,
22:51
you know, the next power. That felt like, OK, I've build
22:54
the bar for the last time. I've done all three of these
22:56
phases. This feels like it should be the
22:59
end. And then it wasn't.
23:01
There was three more weeks of it and the the events you had to do
23:05
for the weeks afterwards felt so dialed in.
23:07
One of them was hit a turnip for three minutes until your power.
23:12
Maxed out, that was just the most efficient way of doing it.
23:15
Hit a turnip for three minutes until your power is maxed out.
23:19
The next one was kill these three spies and the next one was
23:22
ride my blimp until it's done and I'm pretty sure I haven't
23:27
done it. I will test it tomorrow.
23:29
I'm pretty sure because it's like push left, push right, push
23:32
forward. I think it just finishes.
23:35
I don't think you have to push anything.
23:37
I think you just have to wait for it to cycle and end.
23:40
I'm going to test it tomorrow. I'm going to try doing none of
23:43
the commands. Please do so because like I did
23:46
it and I obviously did the commands.
23:48
Yeah. Even.
23:49
If we do the commands, it still takes 2 1/2 minutes for the last
23:52
three weeks felt sort of phoned in.
23:54
It felt needless. I think 11 cycle of each of the
23:59
things would have been great to have the ring power end on.
24:02
And I really, really wish they. Blizzard, thank you so much.
24:05
You gave us a you've really been really good at with catch up
24:07
mechanics and skip mechanics like hey, I've done this.
24:10
I don't want to do it again. For the most part in the war
24:13
within and even a dragon flight to a lesser extent.
24:16
But with specifically with sirens Isle, you get to the
24:19
island and if you're a new, if you're an alt, you could say,
24:21
hey, I've done this, get in my ring and my upgrade and they
24:24
they give you your ring and they give you your first upgrade, but
24:26
they don't give you your other upgrades.
24:28
Now you can get them by either doing the quests or by killing
24:31
mobs on the island and getting the upgrade to drop randomly.
24:36
That ring when I get to the island on an alt and I talked to
24:41
that earth and I say I've done this before give me a thing.
24:43
If I do it today I get the ring and I get one upgrade and I'm
24:46
still not maxed out. And the flight on the island is
24:49
tied to the upgrades of the ring, not to the time completed
24:53
in the island. So until your alts get their
24:56
ring maxed out, which they have to do by running around the
24:59
island killing mobs or do redoing the quests, hit your
25:02
turnip for three minutes, fly your balloon, then they are
25:07
stuck not being able to fly. So that the bonus when when you
25:11
say skip me ahead, it should skip you to whatever level your
25:13
main ring is at. You should get all of those
25:16
upgrades. I think that's how I would feel
25:18
good about it. I, I disagree specifically
25:24
because I, I maybe I'm just not an old friendly guy.
25:28
I I just feel that like getting to a certain point just by being
25:33
like, I've done this before, OK, sure, here's a base level.
25:36
This will get you, get you into it, right.
25:40
And then I run around the island and kill the caves for a little
25:44
bit to get them to draw because those are the best chance of
25:46
them dropping. Seems like such a low level of
25:49
commitment that that like, I don't think it's that necessary.
25:53
And if it if that feels like too much of A commitment for you, I
25:58
am not sure what you're doing with your alt because everything
26:00
else that you would do with your alt would require at least that
26:04
much time, if not more. And I don't think that the most
26:09
the highest item level currently available in the game should be
26:14
I press dialogue option. Thank you.
26:16
That but I've already done it once right I've done it yes why
26:20
do I have to do it again like my alts are already 636 so I'm
26:23
going to get this ring because I need the ring to do mythic plus
26:27
at a high level and if I don't get the ring then I'm not going
26:31
to be able to do the content as high as I want to do the content
26:33
I. Think Manny's point is that like
26:35
to get like, it's not that when you made an alt, they were just
26:38
like, oh, here's your 636 gear because you've already done it
26:41
right? Like you're expected to grind
26:42
your gear up through the vault. I, I think I think having flying
26:46
not tied to the like that, that should be unlocking
26:50
automatically. I do actually think I was going
26:52
to be 100% on your side, Sean. But I think I do think I kind of
26:55
agree with Manny that like, yeah, if you if, if it's an item
26:58
level increase, by and large, that should be labour.
27:02
There should be some labour. And the fact they're letting you
27:04
skip the quests makes sense to me personally as someone who has
27:09
definitely done the Siren island.
27:13
I I do enjoy that if somebody has been away all this time, had
27:20
not touched the Siren Isles the entire time, wherever they may
27:22
be, wherever they may be, that they could just talk to talk to
27:29
the guy in the main place. Be like go over to the Zeppelin,
27:31
come in and be like, OK, I'm going to, I'm going to do this.
27:37
I do like that somebody who's done all that before can be
27:41
like, skip me, skip me part of the way through.
27:44
I'll just either do these quests, which are incredibly
27:48
quick quests to do. They do not take a lot of time,
27:51
especially if you hit a turnip. Unless you fill your bar while
27:57
doing while killing things to get the gem upgrades.
28:00
If you fill your bar before you get the third gem upgrade, that
28:04
quest won't pop because you need to have done the other two
28:07
quests for that quest to pop to get that third gem upgrade.
28:10
Sure, but you can also run it on the turnip if you really are
28:17
trying wait, sorry. No, no, the third, the third
28:20
one. For the third quest to appear,
28:22
you have to do the fill the bar on the island and then the quest
28:25
appears. So if I, if I don't get that, if
28:30
I, if I filled my bar accidentally while farming out
28:33
my first two things, then I don't even have the option to do
28:37
those quests. I have to wait a week or a day.
28:39
I don't know. I don't know how long the the
28:41
bar thing resets. I never go back after the first
28:42
day. Yeah.
28:44
So what you would, what you would do is collect the three
28:46
treasures on the first one. The dipping a toe is the three
28:49
treasures doesn't require you to kill anything.
28:51
You don't have to do that one that the dipping the toe is the
28:53
one that skips. That's the one that skips.
28:55
OK then the week 3 is juicing up and storming out.
29:01
That's the going into the storm and using the using the booms.
29:09
But you can't do that until you've done the base island.
29:12
Fill the bar. Correct so that would
29:15
immediately cut you off there and you would have to just farm
29:19
rares, wouldn't you yeah so like it's not even a it's not even a
29:24
this might happen This is if you were trying to do all the quests
29:27
you are going to have to wait for a reset, which could be like
29:31
I did this on Monday and Tuesday so reset or it could be I did
29:34
this on Tuesday and I've got to wait an entire entire week but
29:38
if this is you doing on an alt and you're.
29:42
I'm just saying if you're going to be old friendly, be old
29:45
friendly. Don't have it's like doing cross
29:47
faction. If we're going to cross faction,
29:49
let's do cross faction. Blizz don't make me have a full
29:51
group. You cross faction.
29:53
I, I, I understand the cross faction thing.
29:56
I think that there's this question about alt friendly
30:01
where there is reward my alt accordingly, reward my work
30:06
accordingly and don't make me do something a second time.
30:10
And I think those get equated far too often.
30:13
And this is, I think that's where we're having this argument
30:15
where it's like, Hey, like, you know what, I put this work in my
30:19
alt and it got this ring and I got to speed along to it because
30:21
the drop rate they can boost really quickly.
30:24
They, they can make give me a ability to skip it.
30:28
How much of it can can they skip?
30:31
And me still feeling like I was rewarded this instead of just
30:34
gifted it instead of just buying it from a vendor.
30:37
Because at a certain point it becomes Blizzard.
30:39
Why did I have to go out to the island?
30:42
Couldn't you just put it in a vendor in Dornagall so I could
30:44
save the loading screens? Cuz some of us got older
30:46
computers and loading screens are crappy.
30:49
It could be. It could.
30:50
Be they let us buy the gems that go in it, how is that different?
30:54
We don't have to reframe the gems, we can buy those, and we
30:57
get those by killing the rares in the caves that we have to
31:00
kill to get the upgrades. So are you trying to get me to
31:02
argue that that's too far? Because I, I, I, I'm saying.
31:06
I'm saying pick a lane, I want them if they're going to do one,
31:09
do it all. Don't, don't give me this half.
31:11
Ass no, no, no, that's that's that's a false dichotomy.
31:15
Obviously they could do in between.
31:17
Obviously some development in there.
31:19
I think that increasing the item level of your ring is a gradual
31:25
step reward, and therefore putting in some effort to get
31:29
each gradual step makes each step worth something.
31:32
Whereas I can't use this ring because like they set up week
31:36
one, it's below item level without these particular powers,
31:39
right? Makes it feel punished,
31:42
punishing that I have that. I can't even use this ring until
31:45
let's say 2 weeks, 3 weeks in because of the crush it goes
31:49
through. And I can understand that in a
31:51
catch up sense where it's like, OK, I want to jump in.
31:54
I will get these these powers on the ring.
31:57
I'll get it up to like a item level that is above what the
32:02
what I hit at level 80. I can go to the island and get
32:05
the base level gear that I think is equivalent to what you get
32:07
out of LFR. It's 584 veteran gear.
32:12
Yeah, I'm. Not sure what.
32:13
LFR is though it's my. Yeah, I don't, I don't know.
32:15
It's. Yeah, I think it's.
32:17
Has anybody in here ever done LFR instead of the first week?
32:21
Right. Yeah, so it's like OK, so now
32:23
with that I can now run LFR and get like Bis items or just farm
32:33
valor from killing bosses. I can start running into Dun
32:37
dungeons there and get because I think heroic actually might be I
32:45
I know time walking is is trash. Time walking is like time.
32:50
Walking 567, yeah, yeah, I think heroic is 580 something if I
32:55
remember correctly. Okay.
32:56
Actually, heroic might have been 593.
32:59
It doesn't matter it. Doesn't matter what your
33:01
computers. Want my ring?
33:02
Easy, that's all. Yeah, okay.
33:07
I think the aisle jumps you to a really good point in terms of
33:10
where we're at. And if we go into the next
33:13
season and you just go, let me walk over to the aisle, get
33:16
this, get this ring. Grinders for an hour till it's
33:19
Max level. Purchase all the gear
33:21
immediately and then I just have to put in an hour to get to get
33:26
the gear up. I think that's not that big of
33:29
an ask, but the flying I will say is so odd that it is bound
33:35
behind the item level of the ring.
33:37
Especially since once you get the ring fully upgraded, why the
33:42
hell are you going back? Because it's 93,000 fire infused
33:48
iron to buy all of the transmog on the island.
33:53
I do have one of my friends who's working really hard on
33:55
getting fire and Isle completed. Yeah, that's not even
33:59
exaggeration. Marty did the math.
34:00
It's 93,800 and some fire infused and you get like 1400 a
34:06
day. That's why they're going back,
34:09
because they're crazy. I am glad transvlog is not my
34:14
thing. Thank you.
34:17
That's I think if you do the quest you got a good bump.
34:20
That's a bump your daily average. 1400 a day.
34:24
I mean, but like the initial quest give you a bump on that
34:26
don't. They I think that's the that's
34:28
the 1400. You get that for the weekly like
34:32
doing that in the weekly and then in the day you have to like
34:34
farm rares. Wow, It's not for me.
34:40
It's. It's not.
34:41
It's not for me. Lex, is this for you?
34:43
Oh certainly I I haven't ground any.
34:45
I once tried to grind like 1 mount and I I ran a dungeon like
34:50
a very old dungeon like 4 times and I was like you know what I
34:55
can just ride a different mount. OK, Lex is Lex is not prey to
35:01
the FOMO. All right, all right.
35:03
Well, if you go. On Lex though, for real, you
35:06
need to go get that ring and upgrade it because it's going to
35:08
be your best ring for most of Heroic next next season.
35:11
Yeah, I really do. OK, I'll.
35:13
Do it, don't worry to God it'll be fun.
35:15
I think it'll really be fun. I just have to remember what day
35:20
of the week it is. Ever like and and once once I
35:25
am, I am capable of approaching the world with the mindset that
35:28
like, I'm a human who is engaging in human activities on
35:31
human time, doing human things. I'll be flying high.
35:36
OK, we we will. We will discuss more about that
35:40
in the after show. But when you are wanting to
35:44
support good humans like Lex, great people like Sean and I
35:49
happen to skim some money off of that, you can become one of our
35:52
patrons. This week we'd like to thank
35:56
Gregory, who is our newest patron.
35:59
Fast will always be free, but if you enjoy the content we
36:01
produce, consider pledging at our Patreon at patreon.com/faz.
36:08
With that said, let's talk about Season 2 of Mythic Plus of
36:14
Keystone. This is being kind of a
36:17
contention in the creator space. Season 1 has had definitely it's
36:24
rough points. And John, you were talking about
36:27
the participation in rating. Mythic Plus has been dealing
36:34
with a lot of struggles and yeah, Blizzard sat down and
36:42
like, agreed. Even has ghosts disagreed that
36:44
yes, people are not finding the fun as much as they used to.
36:48
Lex, I know you've you've stepped out of Mythic Plus.
36:52
I took forever to get what would normally take me two weeks and
36:58
then I it took me months. So it's been, it's been slow
37:04
process for many people. Sean, you have been killing it.
37:08
I believe I recently saw an announcement of you and your
37:12
team Valerain hitting 3K score. Yeah, yeah, without any of the
37:18
exploits that people are using to time eighteens, nineteens and
37:20
20s. So that's pretty good.
37:22
Really. Yeah, No, no Paladin at all of
37:25
Paladin take. Well, we do have a Rep paladin,
37:27
but by exploits I mean actual exploits like going into a
37:29
follower dungeon and leaving before the debuffs drop off of
37:32
you so that you can gain buffs you don't aren't supposed to
37:35
have in the dungeon. Or using mistletoe from the
37:37
Christmas event from the Wintervale event and using the
37:39
buff from that to help you also be stronger in the dungeons.
37:43
We're not doing any of those things that are running rampant
37:45
right now and driving the score for title up through the roof.
37:50
And that's not disheartening at all to people who are in title
37:53
range. I'm not a Title Ranger.
37:54
Bri K is nowhere near it, but I have a lot of friends who are
37:57
and they're not discouraged at all by the fact that there is
37:59
rampant exploitation happening in Mythic Plus this season.
38:02
I got it. I got to think because all these
38:06
logs would include would include the buffs that were on it
38:12
because you can find that that out Mistletoe 1 is so easy to
38:16
like act upon. Yeah, nothing's been done.
38:19
The external buffs though. Well, if you don't have a.
38:23
Druid. And you have Mark of the Wild.
38:25
That's kind of a giveaway. No, no, but like.
38:28
Oh, you don't have a mage and you have arcane intellect?
38:31
That's kind of a giveaway. See, but like, here's my issue
38:34
is that if Blizzard acts upon that, I could see griefers be
38:40
like, I'm going to just take my priest and I'm going to like put
38:43
a buff on you and you better watch for that, that power word
38:48
or you're gonna get or that run is gonna get screwed.
38:51
Like I would hate for that to happen.
38:53
And that's a very weird thing 'cause technically you could
38:56
have people outside of your team throw buffs on you.
39:02
There's nothing stopping a random priest from walking by
39:04
and be like, I'm going to throw Fortitude on these guys.
39:06
And I, I've seen it back in the year old days of World of
39:10
Warcraft, you'd come across some travel on the road and you'd be
39:12
like, hey there weary traveller, I'm a shaman, I can't give you
39:15
crap, but here's water walking, don't get hit and then return.
39:19
They would give me an actual worthwhile buff and I would, I
39:22
could take that into a dungeon. Taking that off.
39:26
I think what they would need to do is when the key starts it
39:33
would have to like intelligently whitelist only the buffs you
39:38
should have. Sure, and they they delete
39:40
health stones. If you don't have a warlock,
39:41
it's easy. Well, I mean what like they I
39:44
mean, I maybe I'm because I guess you could just have people
39:47
like outside selling buffs, but like, why not just make it so
39:50
follow like follower dungeon buffs disappear when you leave
39:53
the. So they do for though the way
39:56
it's supposed to work is you go into a follower dungeon, you get
39:59
a buff on you, you leave the follower dungeon, the buff is
40:01
removed. But if you go in and leave
40:03
immediately, it doesn't trigger the removal.
40:06
You have to like it's not an accident.
40:08
You have to intentionally. I'm getting in and getting out
40:11
to keep. The buff, OK, so it's not just a
40:14
silly little funky, it's like people are very.
40:16
Obviously trying it's, yeah, it's, it's intentional and and
40:19
could not, could not possibly be done accidentally, Yeah.
40:23
The chance that it was done accidentally would be incredibly
40:26
small. I feel like you could also just
40:28
track people based on that, like if you're joining and leaving
40:31
follower dungeons. Yeah, rapidly.
40:35
Because I mean, yeah, like, obviously we've all had.
40:37
I think I was even watching one of your streams strongly
40:39
accidentally. Well, you joined a real dungeon
40:41
you're running meant to do a follow our dungeon.
40:42
Don't worry, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to drag you publicly.
40:44
Well. Like flex trying to get me
40:46
banned here. Exactly.
40:47
Yeah. But like, people lift, click,
40:48
it's not the end of the world. But if it's I, I assume if it's
40:53
that fast, that's not a thing that happens.
40:55
Yeah. Commonly, but yeah, anyway,
40:59
that's not important. That's Blizzard is very busy
41:01
right now. They have a lot going on.
41:03
If they're going to deal with it, they could always, this is
41:05
something they could always address at the end of the
41:07
season. There's no like as long as it's
41:09
done before title is type of like the title score is is is
41:13
delivered and people are granted title then that's when it would
41:16
matter. You know what, I think it would
41:18
be hilarious if they waited till the last week and then dial the
41:20
back. That would be great.
41:21
I would love that. Oh no, even better.
41:23
They say nothing and they give the people who did that just the
41:28
title of like dirty cheater and the people who actually did it,
41:31
the actual title and people just logging, they're like, Oh no, I
41:35
don't. Know.
41:37
They don't have to wear the title, They don't get the actual
41:39
title. And frankly, I feel like some
41:43
people would actually see that as a flex.
41:45
Like there would be some people who'd be like, oh, this is so
41:47
cute and fun. I got this fun, sexy little
41:49
title that nobody else has. Any any of you report it,
41:53
they'll be like, OK, we're not giving you The Dirty.
41:55
Here. I don't know that would that to
41:59
me would be would actually send a message where Eve people
42:05
wouldn't even wait for Blizzard to like put out a we're acting
42:09
upon this. They'd be like, maybe I don't
42:11
want to if Blizzard just was like what?
42:15
We didn't say anything. You did what you did.
42:17
You know you did what you did. Don't worry.
42:20
You don't have to show the title if you don't want to, but people
42:23
can go look it up in the API. So congratulations.
42:28
Yeah, yeah. OK, all that to say, clearly
42:33
Mythic plus season one has some warts on it.
42:36
But you have been on the PTR testing up a storm.
42:41
We have had one week where it's been the new dungeon, the
42:45
Operation Floodgate this past week with a new build coming in
42:51
soon. We have been testing the
42:54
second-half, the back half of the WAR within dungeons that
42:59
were in the preseason, and this upcoming week we are getting the
43:04
three legacy returning dungeons that will be coming up.
43:09
But Blizzard has been saying that they've been making
43:13
adjustments to these dungeons, that they are going to change
43:17
things. And yes, but then also no.
43:23
It's been a little bit of a roller coaster, especially after
43:26
getting off of that first week, feeling super high and then
43:29
getting into this weekend. Sean, what happened?
43:34
I want to put a pin in this. I want to do the testing this
43:37
week with the new dungeons and we will have seen all of season
43:39
2 dungeons and revisit it next week.
43:42
Also, we're right at the deadline for when Lex needs to
43:44
go to bed, so fine. I'm an adult.
43:46
I I I can I can survive a little bit past 9.
43:50
This won't be a little bit this. One this one is not this is not
43:53
a little. Bit conversation.
43:55
Blizzard has said what they intend.
43:58
I'll leave it at this till next week.
43:59
I do want to I do want to leave it till next week though.
44:01
Blizzard has said what they intend.
44:03
They said that they are hearing us.
44:06
They have said these, you know, they've given us indication of
44:09
some changes they're making. I look forward to seeing the
44:14
follow through and then matching the comments in interviews and
44:20
blue posts with actual dungeon design and tuning.
44:26
We don't see it yet, not entirely.
44:30
Not entirely. Well, unfortunately.
44:34
Guys, we're going to have to leave you with that cliffhanger.
44:37
We will be back again soon. There is going to be a third
44:41
part to the housing series. I will be sitting down with
44:46
another craft personality to talk about Guild Wars 2 housing
44:51
and how that can give us some lessons.
44:54
But until next time, may all your hits be quits.