Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #359 - For Azeroth!: “It's Rough”

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#359 - For Azeroth!: “It's Rough” · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

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You're, you're essentially going to have to relearn how to play
0:03
this game because you have however many years you've been
0:07
playing using a custom UI that you set up yourself that is
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visually designed for you and your brain to process the
0:16
information in the best way possible for you.
0:19
And now Blizzard is saying, here's one of three different
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raid frame options you have, figure out which one is closest
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to being best for you and that's what you'll use.
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Now we may get add-ons that adjust raid frames down the
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road, but we don't have those today.
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And and the goal isn't for players to have to install an
0:37
add on to be able to play the game.
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Victory for the Forsaken. For Lauderon.
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For the Karen tour. For.
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Pandaria. For Calendar to the burning
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region for Gilnaeus, but has not died for the Lich King for the.
1:00
Sindori for the alliance for. The Horde for Azeroth.
1:10
Hello and welcome back to another episode of For Azeroth.
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I am of course one of your hosts, the Truvilla Manny or
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just Manny and I am joined coming from we were gonna say
1:22
this time the heart of Texas, it is Lex Rance.
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How y'all doing? We're we're doing great.
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I was thinking Texas. I was gonna make a like, oh,
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like literally popped into my head.
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Then you said heart of Texas. So we're we're connected.
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I'm doing great. Manny, I started a remix
1:41
character today because my Guild is doing things tomorrow and I
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wanna see if I can get high enough that they can carry me
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through. So yeah, we'll see how it goes.
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It is more fun than I thought it was going to be.
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I'm going to be. Honest that's I am glad that now
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all three of us have tried it and the two people who were like
2:02
least about it have found that it is more enjoyable Sean is
2:07
joining us again as well how is World of Warcraft doing for you
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are you playing remix or what's happening for you I.
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Actually fell out of love with remix pretty hard.
2:19
There's a lot of changes in the way gearing works from Mop Remix
2:23
to Legion Remix. I will never Pooh Pooh Blizzard
2:27
for trying something new and they tried something new, so
2:31
thank you for trying something new.
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I much prefer the gearing in Mop remix to Legion remix, but I am
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almost done so it doesn't really matter.
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I almost have everything bought that I want.
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I'll probably go through and do the class fall amounts for ones
2:45
that I'm missing just because it's so much faster to do them
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in remix than it is to do them on live, but other than that the
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games were treated me fine. OK, how, how did they change the
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gearing in in remix? Like what's what's worse about
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in your mind? So in Mop Remix, you would get a
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piece of equipment and you would spend bronze to upgrade that
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equipment. I think it was 16 tracks it had
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to upgrade to Max, I want to say.
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And so you could just upgrade whatever pieces you wanted in
3:15
whatever order you wanted using bronze.
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The big complaint that came from that from a lot of people was
3:21
that it felt bad to them that the that the currency used to
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upgrade the gear was the same currency that you used to
3:31
purchase the things. So people, that was the big
3:35
feedback that people gave for Mop.
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Now if you had just taken the time to Max out your gear with
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bronze, it became infinitely faster to farm more bronze.
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Like if if no upgraded gear meant you could farm all of the
3:49
bronze in a week, making these numbers up, upgrading your gear
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to Max, and then going to farm the bronze, you would have it
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done in a day and a half. Like that was that much faster.
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But people saw that it was the same currency and so they
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immediately thought, I can't take from this to upgrade my
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gear because I can't. I want that bronze to buy things
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so they didn't invest in themselves to get stronger to
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them from the bronze faster and better.
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Sounds like people don't like meaningful choice.
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Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
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I mean, it wasn't a meaningful choice.
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The choice. There was no choice at all.
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Upgrade your gear from the bronze faster, save, save the
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bronze, save the world. But it in in Legion Remix, they
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changed it. So they said, hey, we hear you.
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We know you don't like that, so we're going to change the way
4:35
this works. You now do not upgrade your
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gear. You get a random drop off of
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bosses or out of the treasure chests from things that you
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kill. And that random drop will go up
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in item level slowly based on your in bag item level for each
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item that drops. But you can't target specific
4:55
pieces. So your item level, your in bag
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item level is going to be limited by whatever your lowest
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item level pieces. And in a lot of cases you could
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go multiple days without getting an upgrade to that lowest item
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level piece. So the gearing is significantly
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slower. There's no cost associated with
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it. The bronze is just for
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purchasing cosmetics and mounts and toys.
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So it's you're purely at the the whim of RNG and it takes a lot
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longer to Max out. And the downside is especially
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now into phase 3 is that if you're not, if you're somebody
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who's not already 740 item level, you're going to have a
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significantly harder time getting into the other raids
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like Aunt Taurus and Tuma Sargaris, because people are at
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the point where those are harder than than the phase one raids.
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So people are just inviting people that are 740.
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You know, you open up the queue and it, it, it's 60% people that
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are 740. Well, if I have the option to
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take somebody who's already Max level gear and then therefore
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gaining versatility on top of that, which is the real power,
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I'm going to take that person as opposed to this person who's 537
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or even 739. Because if you're 739, your
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versatility is still lower than somebody who's 7:40.
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So it's, it's not great. It's not great and it's the the
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RNG is not good. I think if they were to do
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another remix, they should meet it in the middle and have the
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gear be upgradable again, but maybe drop a separate currency
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for upgrading or just go right back to Mop.
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I I loved the bronze way, but I know a lot of people didn't.
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So I'm trying to like, I don't normally try to find out what
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people want to do or try to think like other people.
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I really like just thinking and speaking for myself.
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But I think 1/3 or a second currency where where you can
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upgrade specific pieces would feel a bit better.
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And then on top of that in Mop remix, there's two major things
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in Mop remix. Your artifact power, So your
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cloak power carried over to alts.
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So whatever power level you were at on your main, your alts are
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at that same power level. That's completely gone in Legion
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remix. So if you make an alt, you reset
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back to 0 power on your artifact, but you keep your
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infinite knowledge, which is the modifier that determines how
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quickly you gain knowledge. So you will gain power faster
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than you did on your main, but you go back to zero and your
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gear goes back to what it was. So your gear is going up slower
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and you're already resetting your like, I don't know anybody
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who's playing alts and enjoying it or even really even playing
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alts because it's it's, it's a very alt unfriendly experience.
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Whereas Mop remix was super friendly for alts because you
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started out with all of that power carrying over.
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So a couple of misses in my opinion, but yeah.
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I know I have some friends who have like multiple alts already
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through it. I am not one of them.
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My character, I've played all of two days through the two
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sessions, through the entirety of a Legion remix or Lee Limix,
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as we're calling it. But now we're at Argus, so this
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is one of the final chapters. This is all the content.
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It's now released. So as of November 18th in NA,
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November 19th in EU, we are now at Argus Eternal.
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So that includes all of the stuff with Argus that was opened
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up at the end of Tomb of Sargaris, the seat of the
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Triumphant, and the on Taurus, the Burning Throne raid.
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I saw a couple of people who were trying to solo it to get
8:32
their friendship burbs and it is possible.
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And so people are happy about that and I'm glad that people
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are doing that. The next update, of course is
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again in two weeks. So November rather December 9th,
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the catch up opportunities will open up.
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Maybe that's when I'll be able to get actually to level cap.
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There will be Remix content updates and more rewards as
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well. So maybe that will be when more
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people TuneIn, when it is a little bit faster, maybe they
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unlock things that make those alts better.
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But at this point, if you're enjoying Remix, you've got more
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content and I hope that's good for everybody.
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With that said, let's get into stuff that I guess more of us
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are playing, which includes stuff on the beta because today
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was the first day of raid testing.
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There has been a new build that came up and that included a
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number of great things, including a level 90 realm that
9:34
is specifically to test the end game.
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That is Zalitaf's end game. You will have the profession
9:41
vendors and trainers, the class set vendors.
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So you can check out your class sets, PvP gear vendors, trinket
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vendors, and all of that. But the environment is locked
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for the Max level template only. You're not able to copy over
9:57
your character and boost that to 90.
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You're not able to go and access the midnight outdoor content
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because it is specifically for instance, content.
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With that said, we got to play through some of these raids,
10:13
some Mythic Plus, and we'll be talking about that, But we got a
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number of changes. Something that we talked about
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last week that we're seeing in this this week's build is that
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melee ultimate, sorry, the melee auto attack damage being pumped
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up on particular classes. So you're seeing death nights of
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all varieties getting their melee increased, shamans and and
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so forth. Well, enhancement shaman
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particularly and so forth. These are huge jumps in damage.
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You're seeing in some cases quadruple auto attack damage or
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triple auto attack damage for tanks.
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I've seen like 150 on some. So you're seeing a lot of that
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white damage being improved. I guess it helps for uptime and
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with less abilities. I guess it what do you, what do
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you think about this? Because I'm, I'm sort of
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scratching my head on it. I don't think that white damage
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should actually be an important part of the damage other than to
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like get procs that you need and generate resources.
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But John, what do you think? Well, you removed a lot of
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abilities that dealt damage and a lot of modifiers to simplify
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it. So it's not so complex.
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And maybe you want to bring that damage back to a certain level.
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So the best way to do that is to increase white damage.
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I don't, I don't, I'm not sure what the reasoning is.
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I think that in the post they were like, we feel like melee
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attacks, melee cat melee specs should have a significant
11:54
portion of melee damage or white damage be be part of their
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damage breakdown. We're not doing this for
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casters, right? It's not like casters are
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suddenly wandering again. So I don't know I, I, I don't
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know, I, I think it's, it's just a change.
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I don't know that I have a feeling on it.
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Lex, you actually play melee DPS.
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So how do you feel about the fact that you can do less and
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get more now? Well.
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So I'm just, OK, so first of all, I'm going to have to be a
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little bit of an idiot for a second.
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So you don't do like if if I'm meleeing and I'm casting my
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abilities, I'm not doing auto attacks on top of that, correct?
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Or is there like damage that's that's ticking in the
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background? In some abilities, but like
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there are some abilities that will stop your auto attack
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damage. So anything that has a cast you
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won't do. So when you're doing an i-beam
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as a as a Demon Hunter, you're not doing auto attacks during
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that time. But if you're doing some, if
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you're doing many of your other abilities, you're also getting
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your auto attacks in on on top of that.
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OK, I guess I also I'm just perplexed.
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I don't personally, I've never been like, you know, what I
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really want in my video game is I want not doing anything to be
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really beneficial. Not really beneficial.
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Obviously, it's not like I'm sure it's not actually like a
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significant amount of my purses. I guess I I feel like I I like,
13:16
I don't necessarily have a strong opinion on it because
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again, it's not me. It's just the fact that I
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clicked on the boss. I guess I I'm also kind of
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having trouble wrapping my head around it because it just feels
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like such a OK I sure I'll have bigger numbers because I clicked
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on the boss. It kind of Harkins back to
13:40
classic right? I feel like man, I don't this is
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like a a dozen episodes a show ago.
13:47
I made an offhanded snarky comment that it feels like they
13:50
brought somebody back who was around with the game in Classic
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and they're trying to push everything back to the way that
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it was in Classic to make it better.
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But this feels like, you know, it wasn't like white damage was
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a more significant portion of your auto attack, like your auto
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attacks were more significant part of your damage in Classic
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to the point that you would like macro attack start into some of
14:10
your abilities in order to make sure you're getting those.
14:13
So I don't know, I mean, maybe stop letting the person who was
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there when the game was made in 2004 make these decisions for us
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'cause it's 2025. I get it.
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He he's a great storyteller, But obviously these are jokes.
14:25
I don't think that. Listen I I was hard pressed to
14:28
remember the last time you made a snarky comment so like this is
14:31
refreshing and new for me. Yeah, refreshing and new.
14:35
Yeah, I don't know. I I'm yeah, I don't really have
14:40
a feeling on it. It's, it's just a something that
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everybody's going to get. It's not like, oh, this is gonna
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make players who aren't very good do better because they're
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getting more white damage 'cause everybody's gonna get that
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bonus. So I don't know, I guess the.
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Only thing I can think of is like if they just want bosses to
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fall over a little faster right 'cause.
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I think or hit on something that could that could be where it
15:03
changes the floor a little bit because if a greater portion of
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your damage is just I'm by I'm sticking with the boss and not
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I'm pressing the right buttons in the right order.
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Exactly. Then the floor of damage for all
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these melee classes is, is raised a bit, right?
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You're not going to be doing like, I mean, it just definitely
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stresses up time a little bit more, but because these things
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always generated your resources for most melee classes, like
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warriors don't take don't get rage off of taking damage as
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much as they used to. It's all about them actually
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dealing damage. Maelstrom weapon, the stacks and
15:46
so forth. Uptime always felt like
15:49
important, like I don't know why, but just, you know,
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sticking by the boss is going to give you a certain level of
15:59
damage and that's been raised. So I guess there's that.
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And I, yeah, I'm a little lost on this.
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I wish they kind of explained a bit more why they felt that
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white damage or auto attack damage was so important.
16:18
But there are some other changes in there.
16:20
There are dev notes on various classes so people can check
16:23
that. But along with all of this, they
16:27
they decided to add in or enable the damage meters.
16:32
They enabled a couple of things that they were talking about
16:37
before, especially Ian in in his blog post and an interview that
16:41
he had with PC Gamer. And so we've actually been able
16:45
to test a little bit of these before we go into like the ray
16:48
testing itself. I did want to take a little bit
16:52
of time to talk about these things that have been added
16:57
specifically for me. I'm looking at the damage meters
17:03
and what what it is right now. And in general it's a basic
17:09
damage meter. It is not able to drill down to
17:13
the level of detail that other other damage meters were able to
17:17
do. But I also found that when I
17:25
needed that, I was more likely to be looking at logs than than
17:29
looking at the damage meter. I just think that some of it's
17:34
really unintuitive, like how many times when I was talking
17:39
with somebody, they didn't know that they could get a damage
17:42
breakdown by right clicking. And the the time that I
17:45
discovered it myself was just accidentally.
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I was just sort of like, OK, let me Scroll down and I actually
17:50
hit the wrong. But I was like, oh, that's where
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that is. It's also incredibly annoying
17:59
that when you leave the instance, it auto clears.
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I don't want that. It really should be clear when I
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asked for it. Go ahead, John.
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There's a drop down menu that has past encounters.
18:12
It's the circle next to the cog wheel.
18:14
I think. I, I, I can't confirm this, but
18:17
I'm pretty sure if you click that, you can go back to
18:19
previous, OK, previous ones. Because I know a lot of people
18:23
were saying that it was auto clearing, but I'm pretty sure
18:25
that little cog it, it looks like a circle, which is a circle
18:27
in the right next to the the gear that will give you your
18:30
previous ones. So that's another, but again,
18:33
unintuitive that it automatically does that.
18:36
Yeah. Yeah, I think Blizzard needs to
18:42
put out a tutorial video on their official site or, you
18:46
know, work with the content creator.
18:47
They've done several times where they've worked with different
18:49
content creators. Do a tutorial video, blast it
18:52
out there so people know how how this thing works.
18:56
Yeah, there's still notably some issues with it.
18:59
There's no death recap, so there's no way to know from
19:02
details what killed you. So you can't find out until you
19:06
check the logs. And then like you can look at
19:09
you can click recap on the center of your screen it gives
19:12
you, but like it won't, there's no details death.
19:15
So you have to check the logs for that, which is awful, which
19:18
you can't see until the the combat has ended, which is
19:20
awful. And it's the part that's
19:25
unfortunate is that it has bugs in it that were fixed in WAD.
19:30
So monk stagger damage counts as damage done for monks for
19:35
brewmaster monks. So their stagger is showing as
19:38
damage that they've done, inflating their damage on the
19:42
meters. The augmentation evokers have no
19:45
hooks at all, so any damage. So it's just like when Ogg
19:49
launched day one how on details they were below the healers and
19:52
below the tanks. That's how they look in the
19:54
Blizzard in game meters, because they're not accounting for any
19:57
damage that Ogg is boosting of their allies the way the details
20:00
had rectified to fix. To give an approximation.
20:05
So those issues and there's some other issues with like things
20:07
that are like long channeled heels and stuff, things that
20:09
aren't damaged aren't it was damaged.
20:11
That's the stuff that concerns me a little bit more is that
20:15
like we're, we're excited for this because it's server side
20:18
validation, but it's, it doesn't seem like it was properly built.
20:26
I again, I don't want to say they're probably built because
20:29
it's still very much a work in progress.
20:33
But like I will say that the oversights, considering how
20:38
glaring they are and how notable they are, it feels poor that
20:43
they weren't at least documented and saying this is something we
20:47
are aware of and we're we're looking to put that in in a
20:50
future version. Like I think a lot of these
20:56
add-ons, a lot of the, well, I don't want to call them add-ons
21:00
because they're integrated. A lot of the integrated options.
21:04
I think that the team would be best served if they said, here's
21:13
what you're going to see in this one, Here's what we're working
21:16
on in the in the next edition and here's stuff that's future
21:21
that's like future promises that you'll see down the line, right?
21:25
Especially if they said, here's the stuff that we are going to
21:28
guarantee that we're going to get in by launch.
21:31
That would stop a lot of a lot of complaints.
21:34
And it would also alert people if they saw something that
21:39
wasn't on that list to to give that feedback.
21:42
It's just, I think it's a little bit more of proactive
21:46
communication needs to be done with the setups in a similar
21:51
way, the raid frames that were put out as Adpsi don't
22:00
particularly need those rate frames to be like as functional
22:04
as healers or tanks. But I think this is a, this one
22:08
was a weak point for me. This was a, this was in terms of
22:13
sizing. Like I get that you can size the
22:18
panels, but I need those icons to be sized.
22:21
I need to not have like the raid buff that I put out.
22:27
So I'm I'm putting out sky fury. I don't need that to take up
22:30
everybody's bar right That that's stupid.
22:34
If I'm a if I am a tank or not a tank, I don't want it to be.
22:42
I either see it and this take it up the whole bar and even then
22:46
like it. Sometimes it might be a bit of a
22:47
stress to see it or I don't see it at all.
22:50
There might be a point where I, you know, I can throw an off
22:53
heal or I'm in a mythic plus and I can, I can like help the
22:59
healer with with a cleanse spirit.
23:02
And right now it feels very, it doesn't feel like it can be
23:10
customized enough. I I just, I would like them to
23:14
add that same slider that says take the take this bar and go
23:18
from like 100% to 150% or 70% and put that on the icons too.
23:23
I just want major buff icons, outside buff icons, buffs and so
23:28
forth to have that sort of filter on top.
23:31
Sorry, that sort of change in size on top of the filters that
23:35
they say are going to be coming soon And from the rating, the
23:39
little bit of rating that I did, healers really want those
23:42
filters. Blizzard get to that fast.
23:47
Yeah, Lex looked like she wanted to say something about damage
23:51
meters, and I'm really excited to hear it 'cause I haven't had
23:53
snarky Lex for a week. Oh, I, I so I to be completely
23:59
honest, damage meters are one of the ones that I'm watching the
24:01
least closely because like what I have done is I've plugged in
24:04
like on on my actual game. I have details and it just,
24:08
it's, I sometimes look at kicks when I need to yell at my reign
24:13
team and be like, Hey guys, I can see that you're not kicking.
24:19
So this has always like for me, this is fine if it's clunky.
24:26
Personally, I, I, I understand that it is not for other people
24:29
and I'm not, you know, not everything.
24:31
My, my opinion is not the most important in the world, but
24:34
overwhelmingly if I'm doing a granular deep dive, I'm going to
24:38
go into logs anyway. So the, the damage meters are
24:42
not really something that I'm overly concerned about
24:46
personally. And admittedly, now that I'm not
24:51
a healer, grave frames aren't really either, right?
24:54
Like that's also something that I, I, I, I want it good because
24:58
I want, I, I, I really do feel like the healers are the ones
25:02
who've kind of gotten like core gameplay taken or not gameplay,
25:06
but like ways that multiple people were playing, like click
25:09
casting, things like that have just been taken away from them
25:12
with like you, you simply cannot play by the way that you were
25:14
playing before, which isn't really true for any other group
25:17
of people. So at the very least the ways
25:20
that we can kind of ameliorate that.
25:22
And to be fair, also, I'm a mouse over macro girly.
25:25
So even if I was healing, I was not using click casting.
25:28
I wasn't using voodoo or anything fancy.
25:30
So like, again, it really doesn't affect me, but I, I, I
25:33
do just feel like the healers have kind of gotten shafted the
25:37
most and if nothing else, I want them to have nice rate frames.
25:43
I yeah, I definitely want the nicer rate frames that present
25:46
that information, but I do want to push back against the voodoo,
25:50
not necessarily for my own sake, but because I think this is
25:53
something that like, it is one of those functionality things
25:58
that Blizzard is just not going to do.
26:01
And so I think that they that they need to, of course, design
26:05
the mechanics accordingly so that you don't need to be that
26:10
fast to remove a debuff poison or whatever or whatever it is
26:15
that they are highlighted well enough so that you know that
26:21
it's on on there through either the rate frames or through like
26:25
in game notification. I I do feel that the name plates
26:36
themselves one big thing that John and I were saying a little
26:39
bit before we got started, threat, the default threat
26:45
indication is incredibly lacking and I think might need to be
26:52
just generally reworked in a tank mode.
26:56
Maybe that like that version might be OK for somebody who is
27:04
in a role where they're where like, hey, it's big and red and
27:08
such. And so like, Oh my goodness,
27:09
I've got I've got threat only on the ones that are that are at
27:16
me. Sure.
27:18
But like I have seen some nightmare scenarios.
27:23
I have also had just tanks that I have run with on.
27:28
Well, I did a little bit testing earlier that did not we're not
27:33
easily able to know something was in combat with them because
27:41
in many of the add-ons, they will prevent the bars from
27:46
leaving your screen. It will like you can actually
27:48
like set it to so so it doesn't go so far on your screen.
27:51
But Blizzard hasn't put that consideration in.
27:54
And so if something is way out of your your screen and in
28:00
combat with you, like let's say a caster that's picking off your
28:03
healer from the fringes of the arena, you do not know.
28:09
And that seems incredibly painful.
28:14
In fact, a friend of the show, Chrisette, had spoken about how
28:20
she felt somewhat blind because of the UI changes, that she just
28:25
did not feel like she knew what was going on.
28:29
And then from like reviewing videos from, from my own
28:33
experience, it's because there is a gap in information that is
28:39
that is still not being properly communicated with the base
28:43
Blizzard features right now. One thing that I actually,
28:46
because I feel like I've been really mean about Final Fantasy
28:48
recently, one thing that I think Blizzard could pull from Final
28:51
Fantasy that could be really beneficial is in Final Fantasy,
28:55
there is on the side of your screen, everything that you're
28:59
in combat with is listed and has a little threat icon.
29:02
So it's three different colors. There's like, you know, full
29:05
thread is red. It's like a red shape.
29:08
So it's all sued off of our color blindness because it, you
29:10
know, it's different shapes and there's a yellow circle, I
29:13
think, and then a green square. And that's really helpful
29:16
because you can immediately, first of all, you can
29:17
immediately see. I don't, I don't know if you
29:20
can. I, I'm trying to remember if you
29:21
can like click on it to target. I don't think you can, but that
29:23
would be great, right? If there is like, oh Jesus, this
29:25
one is, you know, red and I'm tank or like green or whatever.
29:29
I, I can't remember anything. But like, I, I, I need to target
29:32
that one specifically. But if nothing else, it means
29:34
that you can just at a glance say, do I have all threat?
29:37
And am I at risk of losing threat without needing to look
29:40
around and, and figure out what's going on and even know
29:42
exactly where things are. You just know I'm good to go or
29:46
I'm not good to go and I got to go figure out who's getting
29:48
whaled on right now. I like that it's there's a lot
29:53
of places that could go to get information to learn.
29:58
I think I have. So I have a quote from a very
30:02
skilled healer who was in the rate testing with us and I asked
30:04
them how they felt about the rate frames because I from a
30:06
tank perspective was not overly happy with them.
30:10
The only way to see the stacks. So I have a positive and a
30:13
negative. So the negative is the only way
30:15
to see the stacks that your other your Co tank has is by
30:18
looking at the raid frames. And you can set them as main
30:21
tanks. So then they pop out of the raid
30:23
frames, but they're still locks to the top and left corner of
30:26
the raid frames. So wherever you're, you can't
30:28
set it to grow from the right. So your tanks are always going
30:31
to be on the left hand side, which is on the on on as far
30:33
away from your eye line as possible.
30:36
As a tank, you can't change that.
30:38
That's really unfortunate. You could.
30:40
Move the entire that's a negative to the right side.
30:44
Move. The entire and then it would
30:46
grow out to you, I guess. Yeah, and then it would grow.
30:48
Yeah, into the wall. So that's not ideal.
30:51
It's it's not I I, I frankly don't like it.
30:55
I like having a separate box that I can put somewhere near
30:57
the center of my screen that tells me what my code tanks
30:59
health is and what's what they have for debuffs.
31:02
Someone suggested using a focus, using my focus target for that,
31:05
but I use my focus target for kicks, so I don't know.
31:08
We'll have to. We'll adjust anyway, I wasn't
31:10
happy with the ray transfer. I reached out to one of the
31:12
Raiders, one of the healers in our raid group with us.
31:14
It was testing because they were all pretty vocal about the raid
31:17
frames. I said, can I get a quote for
31:18
the show tonight on the state of the raid frames?
31:20
And the quote that she gave me was, it's rough, man.
31:25
That's rough, buddy, That's rough.
31:27
Yeah. And then so that was first boss,
31:30
2 bosses in, she came back and said hope is slightly renewed or
31:36
hope is renewed. I've adjusted.
31:38
I think I adjusted because that boss felt infinitely better.
31:41
And the the take away here is oh, I forgot to say the good
31:45
thing. So the bad thing was that I have
31:46
to look at the red frames for my tank thing.
31:48
The good thing is all of the bosses except for Nexus King,
31:51
which was sorry, Fallen King, Saladar, the so the three bosses
31:55
we tested up to that point, it didn't matter what he had for
31:58
Stax, my coat tank, because I could tell I knew when to taunt
32:02
based on what mechanic the boss had just done.
32:04
So I didn't have to look and see what stacks he had because it's
32:06
all taunt on one very exciting gameplay.
32:08
Taunt on one, but I don't have to overly on the raid frames for
32:12
us that's good. So that was the good thing.
32:13
That was a positive. They did make it very clear
32:16
Nexus King complete opposite Nexus king.
32:18
You have to taunt on like you have to watch and see how many
32:20
stacks they have and it builds up very fast.
32:21
It's very fast. I spent most of that fight
32:23
looking at raid frames as a tank.
32:24
Not ideal, but what So what I'm trying to say with the raid
32:27
frames is a lot of healers and tanks and a lot of players, and
32:32
I think this is something that we may have mentioned on the
32:34
show. You're, you're essentially going
32:36
to have to relearn how to play this game because you have
32:41
however many years you've been playing using a custom UI that
32:45
you set up yourself that is visually designed for you and
32:49
your brain to process the information in the best way
32:52
possible for you. And now Blizzard is saying,
32:56
here's one of three different raid frame options you have,
32:59
figure out which one is closest to being best for you and that's
33:02
what you'll use. Now we may get add-ons that
33:04
adjust raid frames down the road, but we don't have those
33:07
today. And and the goal isn't for
33:11
players to have to install an add on to be able to play the
33:13
game. So we need we need more in game
33:19
options to edit things and make them better.
33:21
Let us move what buffs are where.
33:23
Let us decide what buffs we want to track.
33:25
Let us. I don't know it's.
33:29
I do. Another quote they gave me was
33:31
they need to talk to a healer, any healer, just somebody who's
33:34
healed this game in the last five years.
33:35
Please talk to one of them was the other quote I got from
33:37
somebody else, which is a bit extreme, but if you look at
33:43
Twitter, it's not any brighter for.
33:46
You, I'm sorry, I, I will, I will assume that that that that
33:52
person hasn't gone through and interviewed every employee to
33:56
determine that they're not healers and that they have not
33:59
healed in five years. No, no, no, they didn't even say
34:02
they had to heal. They just said talk to.
34:04
Talk to heal. OK, I but I'm going to do 1
34:07
better and assume that there are people who heal within the
34:10
Blizzard staff that talk to devs.
34:12
Yeah, of course. Yeah, regardless.
34:15
People were frustrated. Today I think is the is the take
34:17
away. But I, I think that you've
34:19
actually hit on something that I do want to, I do want to cover.
34:22
But you know what, Lex, let me give you the floor for this.
34:26
I was gonna be, I was gonna be a little bit of a jerk.
34:28
I was gonna say, this is great news for little scrubs like me.
34:30
With our Frankenstein UI. We don't have to relearn
34:33
anything. I've got no changes.
34:35
Mine already looks like the base UI.
34:36
This is gonna be sick. I'm gonna be top of the DPF
34:39
charge while you all figure out how to replay your game.
34:42
I'm sorry. Your white damage is increased.
34:43
You will be Oh. Hell yeah.
34:47
But actually my comment lines with Lexus, I think that what
34:53
you're going to find is that there is going to be an
34:56
adjustment period. It's going to be very rough.
35:01
In fact, that might be the name of the of this show.
35:05
Whenever you get onto the beta or whenever the pre patch comes
35:09
and changes everything, you lose your your UI stuff and you have
35:13
to reset up with the base UI. It's going to be not only the
35:16
adjustment of that and the loss of information that you're so
35:21
used to knowing exactly where to look because you've lined it up
35:24
with your your natural instincts, but on top of that,
35:28
it's going to be relearning your class because a lot of these
35:31
classes have been significantly pruned.
35:33
It's going to be new encounters and and so forth.
35:37
So while I expected today to be the most culture shock that that
35:47
we're going to see, I expect a lot of people just logged in for
35:50
ray testing and being like, OK, cool with maybe some testing on
35:55
the dummies ahead of this. I don't think that it is that
36:00
you should take what we're saying today and expect that it
36:04
is all doom and gloom. I I think that one, the UI is
36:08
going to improve. How much remains to be seen, but
36:13
also players are going to adjust.
36:16
We are a resilient bunch for the most of us, and others of us are
36:21
just going to immediately roll with the punches.
36:23
Some of us are doing this full time, and by the time the rest
36:28
of us get to level 90, they will have cleared through the week's
36:32
worth of dungeons and already know all the skips and such and
36:36
have already hit their stride. So I no.
36:41
He's talking about me, Sean. Yeah, no, sorry talking.
36:43
About one of us. Yeah, like it, it is reflected
36:48
in this show as well. It is going to be the, the, the
36:51
growing pains of how much you customized your UI, Sean and how
36:56
quickly you put in the repetition to like adjust to the
37:00
changes. It is going to be how much I've
37:04
customized my UI and how long it takes me to make those
37:08
adjustments. It is going to be the exact same
37:10
thing for Lex, and the truth of the matter is that the UI has
37:18
become such a personal thing that I cannot tell anybody how
37:23
good or bad it is for them, only that it will not be the tailored
37:28
glove that you're used to. I think a lot about the first
37:33
time that I ever played with my gaming mouse and within like 5
37:37
minutes of playing with it. I was like, I have wasted like
37:41
money. This is dumb, this is terrible
37:42
and I was like literally like because I have a like a 12 key
37:46
like a my entire gaming is my thumb and I remember sitting
37:49
there like literally craning my neck to look at what numbers
37:52
were where to figure it out and I was like this, this is
37:56
impossible. I don't understand how I don't
37:57
understand why I bought this stupid little piece of junk.
38:00
I don't understand how anyone ever plays with this.
38:03
And right now if you took away my gaming mouse and told me to
38:05
do it all with key binds with my keyboard only I would not be
38:08
able to play anymore. I so, so I, I do, I do worry
38:11
about accessibility that, and again, it's not something that I
38:13
can speak to directly, but I do, I am, I have concerns.
38:17
I worry, I think healers are getting the biggest or have the
38:20
biggest risk of shifts, right? I don't think anyone else has
38:22
had their core way they have played this game taken away,
38:25
right? There's little things that, you
38:26
know, the way that you're used to your UI being set up is going
38:29
to be jarring. I, I think that healers are the
38:31
only people who are going to be like, oh, wait, like this is a
38:34
whole new game from what I've been doing.
38:37
And I also understand that I am at a pretty casual level.
38:41
So the harm to me is always going to feel different.
38:44
But I do overall think you're probably right, Manny.
38:47
I think that humans have very elastic brains and we're good
38:51
at, especially as gamers, we're really good at kind of plugging
38:54
ourselves in and, and having a rough time and figuring it out.
38:57
I will say, and you guys can tell me if you disagree with
39:00
this take. This is to fast dev directly.
39:03
This is a tier to tune down right, make it easy, make it a
39:06
bunch of sludge fists, make it like very straightforward, like
39:10
everything is like just kind of teaching you make it so that
39:12
everyone's getting to AOT. You're expecting people to get
39:15
to AOTC early, like obviously don't make it like babies first,
39:17
but like tuned down, right? Because yeah, we are re learning
39:20
how to play and we are going to be struggling.
39:22
And if we're doing that with like highly complicated bosses
39:24
and highly complicated raids and and dungeons, that put seeing
39:29
much higher risk of people hitting frustration walls.
39:33
Yeah. OK, I.
39:35
Have good news for you Lex. When we talk about RAID testing,
39:37
I have good news for you. I think that's a good segue as
39:40
we're ever going to get. So Sean, take it away.
39:44
We did raid testing today. This was day one of beta raid
39:47
testing. We tested the only boss in the
39:50
dream Rift Awakens raid or whatever it's called.
39:55
Probably the worst boss model I've ever seen.
39:56
I did not like the way that it looked.
39:58
Then we tested. I just it's, it's like a weird
40:01
chimera. So it's like like a moose's tail
40:04
and a wolf's face and. Skin or it's arm is like the the
40:08
femur bone is, is like actually, I like the details.
40:11
I was actually staring at the details being like, wow, there's
40:13
a lot of work put in that that thing.
40:15
No details is gone man. They turned that off and then we
40:19
did the first 3 bosses of the Void Spire, which was the first
40:24
boss who everybody from this point forward will just call tic
40:27
tac toe, the second boss who is a weird 4 armed Taros, and then
40:32
the third boss was Fallen King Saladar and Lex.
40:38
I think you're going to get your wish.
40:39
We were able to kill three of the four of them.
40:42
This was heroic bosses and we were wearing gear that was the
40:46
same item level from heroic dungeons.
40:50
So not mythic 0, not LFR heroic level dungeons.
40:53
We were killing heroic raid bosses.
40:55
Obviously tuning will change that.
40:58
Let's do the good, the bad and then one thing I would like to
41:01
see different. So the good all four of the
41:06
bosses were easy. They sorry easy.
41:12
As I mentioned the tank to. Kill or Easy to understand?
41:18
Both. Both.
41:19
With the exception of the four armed terrace one, the they were
41:25
all it was very easy to see a mechanic, see what happened when
41:30
that mechanic played out and through that and reading the
41:33
dungeon journal understand what to do.
41:35
Especially so for the first boss, the the chimera boss from
41:38
the dream rift, the first boss in the void Spire and Nexus King
41:42
Saladar. So all of those were it was easy
41:45
to understand what to do. You could blind progbies Lex
41:48
Timbermont Tavern could blind progbies very successfully.
41:52
I think the the four armed boss not not easy to figure out.
41:56
I still now after talking to multiple Raiders in top 50 world
42:03
ranked guilds do not understand how we were supposed to do that
42:06
tank mechanic and one of those guilds wasn't even they just
42:13
decided to rotate immunities. They're like we're just going to
42:16
have DPS immune soak this and not make it a tank mechanic.
42:20
So I don't I don't know what the solution is there.
42:23
That boss was the one that was the only one that frustrated me
42:28
because we it was just was not clear what to do with that
42:30
mechanic. It's it's a debuff that goes on
42:32
you when he does this ability that he does multiple times
42:36
before the debuff expires. So it's like, I don't know what
42:40
we're supposed to do here. It wasn't clear whether the
42:42
dungeon journal testing different things didn't seem to
42:44
work. That was very frustrating the.
42:46
I I do want to I do want to ask. Yeah.
42:51
Multiple buffs going on you not sure what to do, but like it
42:55
wasn't it wasn't that you weren't sure what to do and you
42:59
needed a you feel like it needed a week or like when we were
43:01
testing the last raid, we there were specific bosses.
43:07
We were like that's a week or a boss.
43:09
Did any of these seem like that needed that would be like solved
43:12
with a week or? No, no, this I just.
43:16
This is just poorly designed or poorly explained or poorly
43:21
Telegraph. Like it's a he he does it's two
43:25
he does 2 he he does 2 smashes with his big hands.
43:28
Each smash puts a 2 minute long debuff on you that increases
43:31
your damage taken, your physical damage taken by 150%.
43:35
And then after he does two big smashes with the debuff, he does
43:39
4 smashes with his small hands, which are still significant
43:42
damage but don't apply the debuff.
43:44
But the debuff lasts for two minutes.
43:47
If you were the tank who takes the first big hand smash, your
43:51
debuff has not fallen off by the time the next first big hand
43:55
smash comes around. So you can't just trade off big
43:59
hand smashes. So what some groups were doing
44:03
on the testing was having one tank soak both of the first two
44:08
big hand smashes and then the off tank soak all of the small
44:11
stand smashes. And then when it cycled back
44:14
around again, they switched. But the damage from the small
44:18
hand smashes multiple in a row back-to-back was still a lot
44:22
more than like you, you run our defensives as the as the tank
44:25
taking the smallest matches, unless you're a brewmaster monk
44:27
who are completely broken right now.
44:29
And we're able to take both of the big hand smashes and all
44:32
four of the small hand smashes and one more big hand smash.
44:37
And not only because the stagger keeps you going, but sometimes
44:40
you dodge it and therefore don't get the debuff that wasn't.
44:45
So it's just a very there's no, the dungeon journal doesn't
44:48
explain it. Well, you can normally tell by
44:50
how long a debuff is and how long until the next time that
44:53
mechanic comes around what you're supposed to do.
44:55
It was just not we weren't able to figure it out.
44:57
Nobody was. And like I said, one Guild just
44:59
said, Hey, you are DPS and somebody has to be in the soak
45:02
to in order in order kills everybody.
45:03
So they were just saying DPS, you turtle, you bubble, you go
45:06
in that you're this one. And the tanks were never dealing
45:08
with it it. Did the group soak it?
45:10
Could you like it, didn't it? Was not a group soak.
45:13
No, it was just a solo soak. Yeah.
45:14
So that's that was the only frustrating part.
45:16
But the boss is easy to understand outside of that.
45:18
And yeah, they were easy to fight.
45:20
Like we killed them and we our our gear was like I said, tuned
45:24
very low for what it should be for heroic rating.
45:27
So that was fine. And the bad the visuals on some
45:34
of the bosses could use some work.
45:36
So the first the the Chimera boss does a strafing run across
45:40
the platform during his intermission and it's a Gray,
45:43
it's just a Gray bar. It's like a, a Gray, opaque
45:46
dusty bar that cuts across the platform.
45:49
That is, if you're on the edge of it, you can see because the
45:52
borders are slightly darker Gray.
45:55
But if you're in the middle of it, you can't tell which way to
45:57
go because it's you don't even know you're in it sometimes
46:00
because it's just Gray. So that needs a better visual
46:03
and obviously raid frames and everything like that was an
46:07
issue there. There was nothing that felt like
46:10
people kept making exclamation and statements like, Oh, I can't
46:13
believe I don't need weak cores. You know, this is I can figure
46:15
this out. The tic tac toe boss.
46:17
You can't let him have his ads create straight line, you know,
46:21
so you have to using mechanics break things to to stop from
46:24
being a straight line. And people were like, oh, this
46:27
is great. I don't need weak cores.
46:28
They're like, well, of course you don't.
46:29
It's nine boxes. We only have the option for 9.
46:30
Like even if weak cores existed, you wouldn't need a weak.
46:34
Car for this? Yeah, but if.
46:35
We go design boxes. The question is, are they
46:39
designing where weak cores would not be needed?
46:42
And yes, with only a three by three grid, you're not really
46:47
going to need a weak weak or for it.
46:50
No. Could they have designed
46:52
something where you would have needed a weak or?
46:53
Yes, of course, right? Would this have been trivialized
46:57
with a weak or? I don't think so.
47:00
This just seems like so basic that it would be almost harder
47:04
to look at a weak or whereas you've got a grid.
47:10
But it's, it was, it was a fine bot.
47:11
And the, and the thing I would, I, I think I would do
47:14
differently. Like I'm really struggling.
47:17
And it might be a case of the fact that the UI is different,
47:20
or it might be the environments, but I'm really struggling to
47:22
visually parse any of the information to the point that I
47:25
actually started to worry that I might have like a, a visual
47:28
learning problem. But like I was really struggling
47:31
to the, the, the Blizzard timer bar basically didn't exist.
47:36
Like I was like, I couldn't even see it, it, it basically didn't
47:38
exist to me. And it's right next to my
47:39
screen. But because I was so focused on
47:42
everything else, it didn't seem to exist to me.
47:45
And I, I was just, I don't know if it was maybe the zones
47:49
weren't overly interesting. It was a lot of purple on
47:51
purple, a lot of Koresh themed stuff in the Void Spire.
47:57
And none of these bosses, like none of them stood out to me.
48:00
Whereas in testing last year, even in that first day, there
48:04
was like Forge Weaver. We did Forge Weaver on that
48:06
first day. And afterwards I was like, this
48:08
is going to be one of the best bosses ever.
48:10
But from testing today, like none of these bosses to me are
48:13
memorable in any way. I even though you said it was
48:18
the boss that was hardest to understand, I really feel that
48:22
the giant forehand forehand boss forearm boss is was like pretty
48:27
visually stunning, especially that like laser breath that he
48:31
puts across the arena. That that to me was fairly epic.
48:36
I mean, like it is, it is again, one of those like a mobile
48:40
bosses that stands at the edge of the Cliff and is like, oh,
48:43
I'm going to attack you. And so the animations that they
48:47
do are kind of cool. The, the radiating circles, the
48:51
crystalline walls and everything.
48:53
I felt that like that was a pretty visually impactful boss.
48:57
I think I don't even see any of that.
48:59
Are you ranged or melee? I'm melee.
49:02
I don't even I don't even see any of that.
49:05
Like his his what? I'm looking at his chest
49:08
essentially and I play at Max camera zoom like all I can see
49:12
is the 1st 2 feet of that wall. I don't even know what the ads
49:15
looked like. I didn't see a single ad so I
49:19
don't. Maybe it is me, maybe there is
49:20
something wrong with my eyes. I'm gonna go back and watch my
49:22
VOD, but I don't even that beam. I I remember a very like a blue
49:27
glow from his mouth, but I couldn't tell you that there was
49:29
like an epic beam shooting across the platform.
49:31
Like most of the platform, 'cause you have you have to go
49:33
to the left or the right to, like, avoid it.
49:35
OK, yeah, maybe, maybe it is your perspective, but that
49:39
doesn't doesn't negate your point because you were fighting
49:42
these other bosses and still with the same perspective.
49:45
You found them just more visually engaging.
49:49
Yeah, I like, I, I think this in general from the fights that I I
49:55
got to see and I, I did have to step away in the middle of it.
49:59
So I did not get to test as much as you, Sean.
50:03
I think that there is like there's some more that they
50:06
could do, especially that wind tunnel where the boss is in the
50:10
intermission needs something to be better defined.
50:15
When I was doing Mythic plus, I also found that like some of the
50:22
visuals do still need that touch that they started adding in
50:25
dragon fight that we were lauding.
50:29
It's it's funny because we have one of the oldest dungeons to
50:34
ever grace mythic plus returning with the pit of Saron and I
50:38
thought that this would be like an absolute like nightmare for
50:44
visuals, but they they did a decent job.
50:48
Some of the models are dated because they're like Wrath of
50:52
the Lich King models, but most of the models actually got
50:55
replaced with Shadowlands counterparts.
50:59
And I didn't even know I didn't even notice at first.
51:01
I was like, oh wait, that's that's from Shadowlands.
51:03
That's why that looks so good, which is really good.
51:07
It's. Just the jailer.
51:08
They're all just the jailer. Oh God, they are a lot of models
51:12
from Maldraxis. There are a lot of models from
51:15
Maldraxis and then of course they just use like updated death
51:20
knight armor for for others of them.
51:24
But the the visuals are pretty good other than because it's
51:32
shadow on that dark blue sort of things sometimes.
51:35
Like again, I was talking about the caster picking off from the
51:38
side. Sometimes the caster will be
51:39
picking picking you off from the side and you won't see the
51:42
actual bolt that they're using at you because unlike Mel Draxus
51:46
where they're like bright green and stuff, so you could see
51:49
them. These are shadow magic over dark
51:51
Grays and you'll just see your health being chunked.
51:53
So there's a lot of things that I think that they need to do
51:57
visual clarification that that they should make another pass
52:01
with on that, especially when they are were no longer supposed
52:06
to be relying on the UI primarily to solve these things
52:12
for us. But yeah, that I guess that's a
52:15
segue for Mythic Plus here, unless you have something
52:18
further to talk about RAID. Yeah, so I, I did some testing
52:21
of Mythic Plus in general, the biggest thing that I want to
52:25
talk about is the Zealotath affixes because we are now in
52:32
we're we're past the war within. We are now looking at midnight
52:36
and it's the same suite of affixes.
52:40
I I don't have any other way to describe this other than lazy.
52:46
Like, no, you could have Zealotath back and she's got a
52:50
new bag of tricks and I'd be and I would have been cool with
52:54
that. I would have preferred that they
52:56
had done something else, but whatever.
52:59
But the exact same affixes with this little bit of tuning seems
53:04
just lazy. I don't know, Sean, you mostly
53:09
played at the first week to get to your to get to your 10's and
53:14
then push to twelves. So you probably had the least
53:18
amount of time with the with the affixes, but I feel like even
53:21
you would have gotten bored of them over the course of three
53:24
tears. Yeah, I hate all ethics very
53:29
anti ethics so I I don't know that I would have gotten bored
53:33
with them I I'm a very strange creature I liked when the
53:39
dungeons never changed. I lament the days of being able
53:44
to farm the blood scale three tears in a row because I like
53:51
that it's comfortable right? It's like a hoodie that I or my
53:54
my slippers that I've had for four years like I know how they
53:57
feel. I know what to expect.
53:59
I know how to pull them. I know what the creatures do and
54:01
what the mobs do and I know what loot I'm farming.
54:04
So I liked that familiarity, that sameness.
54:07
I'm. Sorry, but if you're looking for
54:10
loot in your slippers, 4 years is too long to have those.
54:15
No man, what slippers are great. I have glare UPS.
54:17
They're fantastic. They're a marine wool with a
54:19
leather sole anyway, I know. So I, I mean, I met, have gotten
54:22
bored with them. I don't like affixes though.
54:24
So I, I, I, I would have liked to seen change just for the sake
54:30
of change. But there's, there's got to be
54:32
people who live in those affix ranges who are tired of them,
54:36
you know, even just for the fact that it's a different expansion
54:41
like what we, although we, we carried affixes over, I guess
54:44
from, from Legion forward. So with very little change to
54:48
them. So I don't know I'm I'm a bad
54:50
person to ask ask. I'm anti affix but I'm also
54:52
super comfy when things don't change.
54:55
OK, Lex, from your your point of view, I know that like season 1
55:00
you gave it a shot, Season 2 you're staying away.
55:03
I don't know your season 3 journey off the top of my head,
55:06
but where do you sit with the Zaltath affixes?
55:09
So I did extremely few mythic plus.
55:12
So I don't like on the one hand, it's not repetitive to me.
55:16
I do and this obviously at a very different level.
55:18
I feel like this is kind of potentially the same issue we
55:21
had with them. Just like randomly deciding that
55:24
actually they were going to have one delve companion for an
55:27
entire expansion, which is if you're like, oh, this is
55:30
actually like the the people like it right now.
55:33
So I guess you don't have to change it.
55:36
You kind of forgot that when you when people don't get changed,
55:39
it gets boring. And also I again, as I, I'm not
55:43
a mythic plus player, so like, who really cares what I think?
55:46
I do think it's kind of sad. I do think like the, you know,
55:49
special expansion effects is always like from my mythic plus
55:54
time. I always think it's kind of cool
55:55
that there's something that's expansion specific.
55:57
So I think it's I, I just, I think it's, I think it's sad.
56:02
And frankly, to your lazy point, I haven't said this for a while,
56:08
it makes me worry about how much they're taking on if they're
56:11
deciding like, you know, this one thing that we've done a
56:14
special affix ever expansion. What if we just didn't do that?
56:17
Like do you think they care a little concerning?
56:19
Maybe they won't notice. Maybe they won't notice.
56:21
It's so it's. Just it's.
56:23
So it's the World Soul trilogy. In fairness, they did change
56:27
them. We now have two extra seconds to
56:30
deal with Devour. We have four extra seconds to
56:34
deal with Oblivion so there was changes made.
56:38
It's not like they just cut and pasted.
56:42
I've been snarky twice this. Episode and what what I've what
56:44
I've always been saying is on new expansions, they should
56:47
basically just like release basic patch notes like why not
56:50
just do another .7 right? It's changes.
56:54
They made changes. Manny doesn't get to say they're
56:57
lazy and I I get to be snarky. That's other words.
57:04
Well, that works. Yeah.
57:05
It's, I mean, it's not a good luck, but we, I don't know.
57:08
Yeah, I, I when I look at the Xalataf affixes and I look at
57:18
what's come before, before this, when we were in Dragonflight, it
57:23
was the the end of seasonal affixes.
57:26
They got rid of those and they said, hey, we're just going to
57:28
have the affixes that we will change change each season.
57:34
And then we had Zealotath and it was staying for the expansion.
57:37
But I was like, that's fine. This is what ties it together.
57:40
You don't have to relearn the affixes, but you do have to deal
57:44
with new dungeons and the revamped versions of the
57:47
dungeons when they come back. And then they did Season 3 and
57:51
people voted for the same stupid dungeons and we had to deal with
57:53
that. And maybe that helped to line up
57:58
with like how I got bored of it because it was again repeating
58:02
those dungeons as well as the affixes.
58:05
So it wasn't as much change up, I guess.
58:11
I guess I don't want to put more work on them, so I'll leave it
58:16
alone for this one just so that I don't make Lex cry.
58:23
But I think that in terms of the dungeons, if I had to make one
58:30
wish, Blizzard, just one wish for Christmas break, mythic from
58:36
Mythic plus. I don't want the mythic dungeons
58:39
rotating with the mythic plus season.
58:43
Like that's it. Like I I understand it was to
58:45
line up and give a starting point, but now that the Zalitaf
58:50
affix doesn't even come into play at at a certain point that
58:55
time doesn't come in that like losing lifes doesn't come into a
58:58
certain point. You've kind of already made that
59:01
that on ramp going through and the Mythic 0 can just stay as
59:06
the like dungeons that are actually relevant to the
59:09
expansion throughout. Because there are many dungeons
59:14
that came in at the beginning of the war then that we just never
59:17
saw again after season 1. And I feel that that's a little
59:19
sad. Good done they were good
59:22
dungeons. Stone vault good dungeon has a
59:25
mount. If you didn't get it in season
59:27
1, you have to wait till midnight to try and get.
59:30
It right that that too for my for my mount collecting Sean
59:34
standing up for us non players. Thank you.
59:36
Thank you. Listen, I got you.
59:38
I'm going to be a mount collector.
59:39
I, I, I'm close. We're almost there.
59:42
We are we're like one more raid test day away for me becoming a
59:45
mount full time mount collector and housing Maine because.
59:48
As we know Manny, you can't raid and also do mount collecting so
59:52
he has to drop. If he's going to collect
59:54
mountains he has to drop out of raid you.
59:56
Can only do one. I deserve that.
1:00:02
No, no, John's sticking up for the mound collector, so we'll
1:00:05
leave him alone this time. That's right, trying to help.
1:00:08
With the little people. So the other part that was a
1:00:13
little bit of bad news for us is that while we wanted to play
1:00:17
with the Blues, while I wanted to finally prove to Sean that
1:00:20
Blizzard devs actually do play this game, it appears that Sean
1:00:24
is right and they cancelled play with the Blues this week.
1:00:29
Sean, go ahead. Never.
1:00:30
Questioned that publicly yeah, we were supposed to do the
1:00:35
testing of the midnight pre patch event but server issues
1:00:40
happened it's beta beta's going to beta.
1:00:41
So we we didn't get a chance to the rescheduling it for another
1:00:47
time. Manny I wanted to ask you
1:00:48
because I haven't done dungeons yet, how did I don't know how
1:00:51
many you did? How did the interrupts field?
1:00:55
How many casters per pack have we gotten the vaunted limited
1:00:58
number of casters per pack the Blizzard promised us or is it
1:01:01
still you know, and when I say per pack, I mean you're
1:01:05
obviously pulling two or three packs at a time.
1:01:07
So in that two or three pack pull, is it how many kicks are
1:01:10
recording? It is so hit and miss It like
1:01:14
pack pit of Saron. Then like maybe they need to
1:01:21
change the way that it's pulling.
1:01:23
So you're pulling on the casters, but like there's not
1:01:28
much line of sight to like get to pull the casters into a
1:01:32
certain point. It is, I think, the scenario
1:01:35
that would make you hate it, hate it the most.
1:01:38
But there are other dungeons where they are far better or
1:01:42
better done. I think actually dungeons that
1:01:44
they've made for For Midnight are better.
1:01:48
So like Algathar Academy? They've like completely not
1:01:51
Algathar Academy. What's the one from BCI?
1:01:56
Can't remember the name of it from BC.
1:02:00
BC Magister's Terrace. OK, so that wasn't Magister's
1:02:10
Terrace that wasn't open for Mythic Plus testing, but it was
1:02:14
open, but it was something that you were able to to test through
1:02:18
and between like the fact that it's a bunch of hallways.
1:02:21
So it's it's pretty easy to to line a sight between the fact
1:02:23
that like the casters are like maybe one or two in a in a pack.
1:02:29
So like the DPS can can generally handle the interrupts.
1:02:34
I was also with the paladin on that one.
1:02:36
That shield does some good work. I ran that on normal and the
1:02:42
cast it was it's it's all casters every pack is like 3 and
1:02:46
4. Casters like in the library, but
1:02:48
when you're in the courtyard, when you're in the the the
1:02:51
pathway in between, like remember you like get from the
1:02:54
library, go into the courtyard, go to the I.
1:02:55
Can't. I can't skip the library when I
1:02:58
run it on mythic class. I'm still gonna have to go prove
1:03:00
that you. Can, but you can.
1:03:03
But like, generally, like the library was where the casters
1:03:07
were and that was a significant jump in the casters that's
1:03:10
different from the rest of the dungeon.
1:03:11
So like a bad. All right, that's fair.
1:03:13
Yeah. Yeah.
1:03:14
All right, I'm checking. Yeah, you.
1:03:17
Call me out. Plus that is that is something
1:03:19
that was before they made changes, they decided to make
1:03:23
these changes, right. So hopefully that's a pinpoint
1:03:26
point. They they if there's interviews
1:03:30
where they have said that Operation Floodgate and Ecodome
1:03:34
Aldani are great examples of the level of casters they want to
1:03:39
see in dungeons and Ecodo Maldani is literally all every
1:03:43
single mob their cats. Like Floodgate?
1:03:46
Is no man. Seems fine in my in my.
1:03:50
Yeah, floodgate's fine. I agree, Floodgate's fine.
1:03:52
There are a lot of packed with casters.
1:03:53
Seems such a wide for. Most of the kicks you can just
1:03:55
ignore. Yeah, it's it's, yeah.
1:03:59
It's really weird that it's so different from what they said.
1:04:07
Skyreach I found wasn't bad but that's because like the first
1:04:12
half circle you, you're basically line of sight pulling
1:04:15
into a big group and then they're together.
1:04:19
When you get past the first boss it's like 1 big pull before
1:04:23
getting into the second boss. The birds aren't casters.
1:04:27
The and then going to the last boss it's like 2 stops on the
1:04:32
way. And that big Amatron isn't a
1:04:35
caster period. So that one just seems kind of
1:04:37
designed in with this in mind already.
1:04:41
Yeah. I just, yeah, my concern is that
1:04:47
there. There are, there are definitely
1:04:49
pain points by my admission and by your, your memory, there are
1:04:52
definitely pain points and they need to address them.
1:04:55
But that's what we were saying last episode where it's like
1:04:57
it's now on them. Yeah, yeah.
1:05:01
I just at this point in the War within beta cycle, I was so
1:05:08
excited. The raid looked like it was
1:05:11
going to be good. Like at that point it was the
1:05:15
first raid, so it was Nurbar Palace, which was a great raid.
1:05:18
The classes felt great, the the world felt amazing.
1:05:22
I was just, everything was positive.
1:05:25
I was very excited. And at the same time point now
1:05:31
in this beta cycle, I'm like considering just taking three
1:05:35
weeks to play Breath of the Wild and wait and see what happens,
1:05:38
like. We got to, we got to like record
1:05:40
that, that as a separate. I love this.
1:05:43
I love In the Wild. Yeah, That's a Patreon bonus
1:05:46
episode where I tell everyone how it's the most perfect game.
1:05:49
Yeah, I just, I'm, I have a lot more concerns.
1:05:51
I'm really, genuinely nervous for the first time since I can
1:05:56
remember. Yeah.
1:05:59
And for the first time since I came back to the game at 8.2.
1:06:02
Like Nya Latha was the first rate that I had done.
1:06:04
I did. I after I scratched it all, I
1:06:06
took a break until Nya Latha and as soon as I did Nialatha once
1:06:10
on heroic, I immediately went to find a mythic rating Guild and
1:06:13
never looked back. And this is the first time since
1:06:15
then that I'm genuinely considering that maybe it's time
1:06:20
to just take a step back from rating entirely.
1:06:22
And that because if it's not like it, whether or not the UI
1:06:26
can be customized or you know, the, the challenge or any of
1:06:30
that, if it's, if I'm not having fun, if it's just not fun.
1:06:32
And like I said, none of those bosses today stood out to me as
1:06:36
hey, this is I can't wait to pull this on live.
1:06:40
None of them did. And even the last PTR cycle, the
1:06:44
going into midnight or going into the season 3 Forge Reaver
1:06:48
Araz felt like an all time great boss right on the first day of
1:06:50
testing. Plexus Sentinel was fun as a
1:06:53
first boss. And even now today still, I
1:06:55
enjoy pulling after killing him, you know, 16/17/18 times.
1:07:01
And even like Lumothar and Soulbinder, well, they weren't
1:07:04
like, hey, these are amazing bosses.
1:07:06
They're not. They're there's stuff to do.
1:07:09
They're, they engaged me. And I did not feel that at all
1:07:12
today. I just, and maybe it's because I
1:07:13
was trying to adjust to the UII just felt like most of today was
1:07:17
just me being sort of lost in the sauce of what was going on.
1:07:21
I didn't know the boss mechanic names.
1:07:22
I didn't really know what was going on.
1:07:24
None of it mattered to me. I don't know.
1:07:27
I'm just, I'm really worried and I don't want to be worried
1:07:29
because I love this game and I really want to go to BlizzCon
1:07:33
and hug a dev and thank them and please let that happen.
1:07:38
Otherwise I'm going to buy an Overwatch and she's this new
1:07:40
Overwatch hero. She looks amazing.
1:07:42
Vendetta. I'm in.
1:07:46
Anyway, I've definitely had worries.
1:07:48
They haven't been so focused on such fundamentals before.
1:07:52
And I think that's that's a scary thing.
1:07:56
Like I, I remember about this time in, in the war within, I
1:08:00
was just like, I don't know what they're doing with Totemic.
1:08:02
They they're they're not thinking about this.
1:08:04
And that landed very poorly at first.
1:08:07
So I'm hoping that this is not the same thing, but we will see,
1:08:13
I actually think. You being worried makes me more
1:08:16
worried 'cause you're like the rock, You're like the Blizzard
1:08:18
rock. You know, you're like, no,
1:08:20
listen, guys, like you're like, you're just the, you're the,
1:08:23
you're the Blizzard rock. But now you're like, tonight
1:08:26
you're like, no, I'm kind of worried.
1:08:27
Here's some things that I, I, I didn't like that that I saw and
1:08:29
I'm a little worried about this. And I'm like, Manny's never
1:08:31
worried. Manny's usually admonishing us
1:08:32
for being so alarming. I admonish you for being
1:08:36
alarmist before we get actual things things there.
1:08:41
I, I, I admonish you for being like, oh, the devs are lying to
1:08:44
us and they're blowing smoke out of our butts.
1:08:46
And it's like, OK, well, I guess at that point, why are we even
1:08:49
having this conversation? But when there's like.
1:08:51
You, man, it's fun. It's fun to be snarky and it's
1:08:56
fun to be like a little bit doomer sometimes.
1:08:59
And then maybe that's the thing You should have admitted.
1:09:01
I shouldn't have admitted on air.
1:09:06
But we do have more ray testing. There is still time to test more
1:09:10
dungeons. This week for dungeons, the test
1:09:15
for Mythic plus R for Pit of Saron, which I mentioned,
1:09:18
Skyreach, which I mentioned the seat of the Triumphant and
1:09:23
Algathar Academy. That's why that was in my head.
1:09:25
I didn't get to test that myself, but that that's also
1:09:27
available for testing. So those are the returning
1:09:29
dungeons that they would need to adjust.
1:09:32
So I'm glad that they are putting those through.
1:09:37
And then of course, we've got more ray testing starting
1:09:41
tomorrow. We will be having another couple
1:09:46
of bosses tested and we will of course report back to you about
1:09:49
that next week. But for those who are wondering
1:09:53
when we are going to get the midnight a pre pre launch event,
1:09:58
they have rescheduled that for Friday.
1:10:01
So make sure you are ready. That's going to be Friday,
1:10:05
November 21st at 11 PST. That's 2:00 PM EST, or if you
1:10:11
are over in jolly old England, that's going to be 7:00 PM for
1:10:15
you those. Freaking jerks.
1:10:18
They schedule it for the one phone call I have at work.
1:10:22
Fast dub fix this. Not that I'd ever play World of
1:10:26
Warcraft on work hours. Yeah, like Lex would just be
1:10:30
watching watching videos while diligently working.
1:10:34
Anyways, again, they did have to cancel this before.
1:10:40
Hopefully this will work this time.
1:10:41
All testing is scheduled to change, as we now know for sure.
1:10:46
But I'm looking forward to this. I'm hoping that it's going to be
1:10:52
something more in the vein of the successes like the legion
1:10:57
pre launch event where we got a good amount of story as well as
1:10:59
some really cool little events that we got to run around and do
1:11:03
and less like the well I guess. The shadow lands pre launch
1:11:09
event was actually pretty decent.
1:11:11
Just running around 1 area, kill off all the rears to get some
1:11:14
stuff that was like like a nice Easter egg hunt and not like too
1:11:20
too much of a headache. And also really good on the
1:11:22
experience for alts, people who wanted to level up their alts.
1:11:25
So I'll give that 1A win. What's a bad one I feel?
1:11:29
Like the War Within One was bad only because it became the like,
1:11:33
rinse and repeat. They did that exact same event
1:11:35
like 10 times. Like the first time I thought I
1:11:39
was like, Oh yeah, that's actually kind of cool.
1:11:40
And then we're at like the anniversary event and they were
1:11:42
pulling the same thing out. And I'm like, oh, OK, well, I'm
1:11:45
kind of. Over it, yeah, yeah, like, and
1:11:47
the Dragonflight one was basically the same thing except
1:11:50
like a pallet swap so that we can have the like what were the
1:11:53
bad shamans called? The Primalist.
1:11:55
We could have the Primalist instead yeah.
1:11:57
So they've they've kind of gone to that.
1:11:58
Well, no more of that again, Blizzard.
1:12:02
What is it called? The bad Shaman's Manny?
1:12:05
What is a good? Shaman.
1:12:07
Exactly. And he's.
1:12:08
A good shaman? They just called the good
1:12:09
shaman's Manny. There you go.
1:12:11
There you go. I mean like good in terms of
1:12:13
like being a true a true hero, not good in terms of gameplay.
1:12:16
At that point, I'm a bad shaman. I'm go good with that.
1:12:20
Hey, you beat that augmentation Booker today.
1:12:26
I have a wish it's not going to happen but I have a dream.
1:12:29
I actually don't even remember if this is a pre patch or just
1:12:31
like a fun little event. I want another like stupid
1:12:34
annoying immersive thing like when we're all turning into
1:12:36
zombies. I want like a like in world.
1:12:39
Everyone hates it except it's actually super fun and it's
1:12:42
insane and nothing makes sense. I want them to break the game.
1:12:47
I would be. They are, yeah.
1:12:51
Yeah, it's a it's a new zombie virus that just screws with your
1:12:55
UI. But until next time guys, may
1:12:58
all your hits regrets.