Could the secret to unlocking World of Warcraft's full potential lie in understanding the intricacies of its game mechanics and community feedback? Join us in this episode of Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth, where we dissect the latest updates in WoW's Season of Discovery, honing in on Phase 4 currently in PTR testing. We'll navigate through the community's grievances about repeated Stranglethorn Vale events and daily quests, and the technical reasons why full flex raiding remains a dream. Along the way, we provide our own insights and counterpoints, delving into the debate on whether increasing XP gains is a boon or a bane for the game.
Ever wondered why the grind for honor ranks in classic WoW requires nearly a full-time job dedication? Our next segment tackles the monumental task of gaining honor ranks and Blizzard's relentless efforts to balance rune mechanics. Speculate with us on the tantalizing possibilities of future content, including a potential Scarlet Monastery raid and legendary items like Ashbringer.
Are discipline priests and restoration shamans doomed to their stereotypical roles, or can they break free for a more dynamic gameplay experience? We challenge these class stereotypes by exploring how disc priests should adapt to atonement healing and how resto shamans need to deal damage to regain mana in the Cataclysm expansion. Through thoughtful analysis and a touch of humor, we push players to embrace these changes for a more rewarding experience.
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Could the secret to unlocking World of Warcraft's full potential lie in understanding the intricacies of its game mechanics and community feedback? Join us in this episode of Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth, where we dissect the latest updates in WoW's Season of Discovery, honing in on Phase 4 currently in PTR testing. We'll navigate through the community's grievances about repeated Stranglethorn Vale events and daily quests, and the technical reasons why full flex raiding remains a dream. Along the way, we provide our own insights and counterpoints, delving into the debate on whether increasing XP gains is a boon or a bane for the game.
Ever wondered why the grind for honor ranks in classic WoW requires nearly a full-time job dedication? Our next segment tackles the monumental task of gaining honor ranks and Blizzard's relentless efforts to balance rune mechanics. Speculate with us on the tantalizing possibilities of future content, including a potential Scarlet Monastery raid and legendary items like Ashbringer.
Are discipline priests and restoration shamans doomed to their stereotypical roles, or can they break free for a more dynamic gameplay experience? We challenge these class stereotypes by exploring how disc priests should adapt to atonement healing and how resto shamans need to deal damage to regain mana in the Cataclysm expansion. Through thoughtful analysis and a touch of humor, we push players to embrace these changes for a more rewarding experience.
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Music. Thank you, hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, I go for a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft like a bottle or a pint. Sit back and enjoy this midweek episode. We'll be looking at Season of Discovery actually, and since Phase 4 is on the PTR testing right now, this is what we're going to be looking at. We're going to be looking at the forums and essentially what people are complaining about what they like about the PTR, but it's mostly complaining, let's face it. Everyone wants to complain about the ptr, but it's mostly complaining, let's face it. Everyone wants to complain about the game and you never hear anything positive about it, or very rarely, which is, um, not great, not great, um. But this first one is, uh, phase four, ptr no words. Right, here's no words for this, although he has no words for this, although he has written big paragraph, okay, blizzard, well done on mage runes, well done on nerfing shamans, and if it's minor, the rest I don't know. I've lost hope. Why can't you just do a full flex from 10 man up to four and be done with this split community? Don't argue about it, just implement it. Firstly, they can't implement it because the way that they, when they did the flex raiding that was in Legion and Legion is on a completely different sort of coding to Classic. So it's impossible to do without the game essentially breaking, if I'm not mistaken. Also, the mobs in like classic just aren't coded for that sort of flexibility. Um, in terms of like, oh, if you go into a, into a, you know, 10 man raid, the mobs have 100k health. You go into 25, they have 250k health. They aren't coded for that. They don't scale up. It's probably a very simple thing to do, I'm not gonna lie. But again, it's on legion, I want to say it's legion, um, sort of servers and coding where 10 man or you Raid Flex became a thing. So it's just not plausible to do it.
Speaker 1:
Second point another Stranglethorn Vale round. Really, like we didn't have enough of it Might as well create a portal from main capital to Stranglethorn Vale to participate in this nonsense. It was fun. It isn't anymore. The rewards are so lame, aren't the rewards like? Rewards like pretty decent, to be honest, and you can constantly farm it for like mounts, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1:
Um, I personally don't know if there is another stranglethorn veil event. I know that there was obviously the first one, which is the blood moon, in phase two. I know that there was the blood moon again in phase three, but I don't think that there was going to be one in phase four, or if it was, I didn't think it was going to be Stranglethorn Vale, but I guess that's what's happening. So if it is, then it is kind of shitty. I'm not going to lie, I would have to concede to that point. It isn't great.
Speaker 1:
But at the same time, they are focusing on a lot of different things. Such the same time, they are focusing on a lot of different things, such as different raid, uh like mechanics, uh, different tier sets, different, you know, runes, obviously scaling the bosses and making sure that they are raid ready, or at least it you know, to some degree. Uh, challenging for the community. Uh, number three you'll really keep as dailies. Haha, those who can, those who know, can see how this will become more problematic, more and more, more annoying and more boring. Just remove it, okay. Well, it's a fundamental part of what phase three was. It might not be great, but it's something that they can look back on and essentially be like oh okay, well, we can learn from this and the player base didn't enjoy this as much, so we'll try this like alteration to it next time. Um, there literally serves no point in removing it, the point of keeping it there.
Speaker 1:
If people want to do incursions, they're more than welcome to. They are there if people want to. People don't need to do these at all, but they're in the game and it's just stupid to remove them now, isn't it? Because it's not going to break the game. If you really want to level normally, you don't have to do incursions. If you want to level with incursions, you can do so. It's that simple. It's not game breaking, nothing of the sort. You know. It's just daily quests or repeatable quests that you can do on a character. If you prefer, not running around, uh, going to like tanaris and then on goro crater and to darn asses to hand in one or two quests. You know it's to bridge that gap of oh, I'm level 45, so I may as well do a few incursion quests, get to level 46, 46, and then I can go back out into Un'Goro Crater and do some quests there or Tanaris. You know that's what it's used for and honestly, it's not that big of a deal, in my honest opinion.
Speaker 1:
Number four increase the XP gains. I don't care what you think, it's seasonal, it shall be way more rapid. That is the way that he has put that. Um, xp gains, I kind of understand for the lower levels, for the ones that want to go from level 50 to 60, those want, those who want to do it, um, in the natural way, like the classic leveling way, where it's a bit slower. They are allowed to do so for the first few weeks or something, and then they do the catch-up mechanic, which is the joyous journeys or whatever it is. It gives them a small xp buff while questing, killing mobs, you know all of that bits and bobs. So there is xp gains, but after a few weeks I would imagine again um, this isn't really make or break. Again, people want classic, but they want a different version of classic, which means that the leveling side of classic is really good. The leveling side of classic is what classic was that you don't change the leveling. To some extent, obviously, versions have changed it, um, but you don't, you know, change it in terms of how much xp is needed, how much you have to grind for, but you don't change it in terms of how much XP is needed, how much you have to grind for it. You know bits and bobs like that. Yeah, I don't think this is a point that needs to be argued in my honest opinion.
Speaker 1:
Number five all old runes should be purchasable with gold on an alt. One gold a pop, I don't care. I'm kind of not against that idea. If you have unlocked it, then you should be able to purchase it. If you have not unlocked it, then you're not allowed to purchase it. It should be that simple, and I think you would go for a little bit more, maybe like 10 gold or 5 to 10 gold, something along them lines. That way you'd have to farm the gold on your main, send it over to alts and stuff like that. So there's still a little bit of a locked window behind these runes and you still have to earn them to some degree. One gold is very, very cheap in my honest opinion, but I am not against this idea. In all honesty, I think that the older runes should be available for purchase when you hit a certain level threshold. So when you get to level 25, you can purchase runes that were for the phase one of Season of Discovery, for phase two, when you get to level 40, you can purchase all the ones that were for level 40 or go that kind of thing. Um, you can still go out in the world and get them. But if you want to just be lazy and wait, you can wait until that level threshold and then just buy them with gold. That one kind of makes sense. Um, number six on a rank 10 isn't enough. Should it be 13? I know it isn't enough because people will be done with it in 1.5 weeks and then we're going to complain again.
Speaker 1:
I'm not too sure what the changes to the honour mode were. I don't know if there are any, but what I want to do is specify how the honor system worked in classic. So in classic there are 14 ranks, um, you know, marshal, ranging from at the very top field marshal, marshal, all the way down to private. Um, all of these 14 ranks that you got to honor during the week and the amount of honor that you got was compiled in a pool of players and compared to what everyone else got that week. So if you got 100 honor and you had the most out of your entire server, the, then you would go up the most in that ranking. So say you were rank let's say rank 10 out of 14 yeah, in classic, and you were the one who was going to get to most honor that week. What was going to happen is you would go up probably an entire rank.
Speaker 1:
Okay, just one rank, that's it, and you got the most honor. You got the most honour. You got like 60 or 600,000 honour. That one week. Now that's a lot, bearing in mind a kill would have net you, I think it was something like. I feel like it was 60 honour or 140. I can't remember. It was a decent amount, but it did take hours upon hours of just doing battlegrounds and nothing else. It's absolutely crazy how long it took. Um, people cannot be done with this in 1.5 weeks. If this is the classic version of the rankings, it is physically impossible. It would still take people a month at the bare minimum and that's really no-lifing. It for 18 hours a day for that month is kind of what I'm thinking. That's how long it would take if they wanted to do it in that time period. Now for 1.5 weeks. I would imagine that they've changed the ranking system because he says that on a rank, 10 isn't enough. I'm guessing that they've shortened it to rank 10, which being the max. So he wants 13. Um, I really can't comment it on this, but I would imagine people take more than 1.5 weeks to do this. That's my honest opinion and my guess, uh to, so to speak, but I don't think it would be that bad.
Speaker 1:
Number seven there isn't enough reworked or removed runes. It's possibly, it's probably around 40 to 50 rooms across all specs and classes that are never used. Take a fat look at those now during ptr. It's easy to track that. You that for you, I know it and you know it very well, blizz. Firstly, they have been looking at that. They have literally looked at some of the runes and removed some. They've altered some of them. They have done this with probably teens of runes already on the ptr and I would imagine they still do a few of these runes on the ptr, like before the release of it phase four. So they have actually been looking at them and they already have been changing and cutting some of them.
Speaker 1:
Um, I would imagine this makes room for more or altered versions of these runes and, uh, you know, we just have to wait and see with that. But some people might complain about it and be like oh my god, there's a lack of runes now for hunters or something like I used to use this rune all the time. Now I can't. Well, that's kind of shit. It it really is. I think just keep the shitty runes, maybe update them or make them a bit better, but at the same time you can obviously put in new runes. Um, for the older slot pieces you could have done, but it is what it is. I think that it's going to be very harsh to say that you know you should be looking at your runes when they legitimately are looking at them already and changing them and cutting them. It is ridiculous. Then he goes on to say I'm losing my mind. Absolute nothing that is hype about this phase four overview Threw a throw molten core and all the old stuff into the bin.
Speaker 1:
Where is SM raid, scarlet Monastery raid, crips, furbolg Azhara raid. This guy's on something. He is on something wanting a Furbol gajara raid. Now the crypts. They never said it was going to be the final like raid. They did say that they were going to alter the current raids that are within the classic experience, but they are looking into other raids and the karazhan crypts being the first one, I would imagine is what they release. Scarlet Monastery was teased and I think that they will do something with Scarlet Monastery because they are changing a couple things and adding a couple of other bits and bobs throughout the game, such as an Ashbringer, which is really really cool. I would imagine you're allowed to get the Ashbringer with the new Scarlet Monastery raid if there is ever going to be one or the new dungeon wing anything along them lines. Um, they will be putting this all in and, let's face it, there are so many things that you can look forward to.
Speaker 1:
In phase four. You have a possible ashbringer or, like different legendary items, you have new tier sets from molten core. The bosses will be different in terms of their mechanics, so people will have to relearn molten core, which is really good. It's not going to be like you know, dragonfly or legion or bfa shadlands mechanics, but they're going to be decent, I would imagine, I would like to hope any maybe cataclysm sort of mechanics the best way to put it um, but honestly, I think he's going a bit dramatic with I'm losing my mind. I think that it is ridiculously saying that and he kind of needs to get over it and he ends with and why on earth isn't hyjal the new featuring zone? Instead of keeping incursions, you had a moment here to make a real and big max level 60 zone when everyone can be and do different things.
Speaker 1:
Use your creativity. They did with the blood moon. They did with what was the level 25 version. I've forgotten where that level 25 version is. Am I going crazy? I think I'm going crazy, but they have added a lot of different things. They're adding an ashbringer. They're adding multiple things to new raids. They've added sunken temple as a raid. They added gnome regon as a raid. They revamped what was the very first one. I can't remember the level 25 one whaling cavernss, no, blackfathom Deeps as a raid.
Speaker 1:
Like they are, using their creativity, it just takes a lot of time and the thing is, mount Hyjal is a zone there. It is a zone already in Kalimdor. The problem with the zone is that there is bits of it that have been fleshed out in terms of like the pathing up towards the uh, the world tree of nordrasil, but it's just an incomplete zone. It's about 50, not even 50, actually more like 20 complete zone and it's just a copy and paste from the battle for mount hyjal raid from tbc. So they would have to change it. And if you put Mount Hyjal into the game, people would complain that it isn't classic because Mount Hyjal wasn't in classic. So you're never going to win.
Speaker 1:
But I think that they should have put Hyjal in because it is a fun zone. I think they'll do that in a later patch and I think that with the zones that you have already at max level, um, you have the plaguelands, you have sylathus I would imagine they do something with sylathus, um, you have these types of zones that are very iconic for level six players. I think that these are fine enough for now. Whilst they're dishing out all of the molten core differences, all of the like updating a potential ashbringer, updating legendaries, updating tier sets, updating runes, removing runes, you know, nerfing and buffing certain classes. I think with all of that, it is, you know, fair to say that they are doing a lot for season of discovery. I feel like they should have done it a bit quicker, but it is what it is.
Speaker 1:
And you know, classic players do sometimes have to suffer through that fate, because retail players know that pain with waters of draenor and even towards the end of, uh, dragonflight, with arenas, and, you know, class tuning barely happening at the moment within the drag, within dragonflight. That's because the war within is coming up, so a lot of their thoughts are going into the development of patches and expansions, if that's the best way to you know understand it. So he goes a little bit overboard, but everyone does with their forum posts. It is what it is. Some things I do agree with him, though I feel like the runes being purchasable. I do think that that will eventually be a thing in the game in season 2, discovery anyway. And I'm not sure about the pvp stuff. I cannot comment on it at all because I don't know if they've changed the ranking system for pvp as in discovery. Now this one is going to be a bit different.
Speaker 1:
Is once again someone crying um, hard mode, molten core is a terrible idea? All right, let's hear why it's a terrible idea. I know some people have been asking for harder content in sod, but harder content just doesn't work in vanilla slash classic because of the of the way consumables work every now, even now, a raid night in sunken temple costs you anywhere from 100 to 200 gold per raid night, depending on your class, and it's going to become way worse in phase four due to inflation. We are really expecting jimmy the casual down the street to spend hundreds of gold per raid to progress. Hard mode, molten core. Okay, hard mode molten core is not going to be your mythic 20s. It's not going to be a mythic raiding okay.
Speaker 1:
Hard mode molten core is three people get a living bomb on Barangetton instead of one person. So three people need to spread out rather than one person. Move to the side and blow up. It's that that's hard mode, molten Core. Hard content in Classic will just turn into an expensive arms race of reconsuming after every wipe, and that's not even counting the amount of fire resistance gear you need for progression, which will cost a lot as well. We also don't have the quality of life of later expansions, so every wipe means doing the long ghost walk and fully rebuffing, which in turn into a frustrating experience really fast.
Speaker 1:
I thought this is what classic players wanted, is it not? They want the classic experience. That is the classic experience. So what this guy is saying is saying he doesn't want hard mode because it doesn't work in classic, but he is getting the classic experience by wiping and having to rebuff everything like consumables, buffs, etc. Again, okay, makes sense. Um, agrend. Agrend said we want to maintain the soda and pretzels bill of vanilla raids and now we are getting hard modes all of a sudden. Okay, that's not the biggest like step, is it? It's not like.
Speaker 1:
Okay, magma dart has two abilities. All right, he throws fire on the floor. Oh, sorry, three abilities. He everyone within a certain range of him. He throws fire on the floor and sorry, three abilities. He fears everyone within a certain range of him. He throws fire on the floor and he enrages. And a hunter simply tranq shots. The enrage, that's it. Move out of fire. That's the boss. Okay, in a, what boss do I know? What boss do I know recently in farrakh?
Speaker 1:
Okay, in dragonflight of the latest raid in mythic, you have three mechanics within the first five seconds alone, something along them lines. You have stuff that you've got to heal, like during the fight, during a certain phase. You have stuff that you've got to dodge. Then you've got to pick up these seeds and if these seeds get hit by any fire at all, it will one shot your raid, and there's like eight seeds when you drop the seed. That person can't pick up the seed again for a certain amount of time. So you've got to transfer it and you've got to drop it at certain times so that you can soak mechanics as well. Like there are so many different mechanics you're not dealing with. That in classic hard mode is just simply maybe a bit more health and one extra mechanic. It's not that tough, okay.
Speaker 1:
Um, this just shows that the dev team have absolutely no direction for season of discovery and it's just throwing gimmicks from later expansions at the wall and see what sticks. Well, yeah, that's kind of what it is. It's taking a dungeon and turning it into a raid sometimes. Okay, that's fine. Everyone liked Sunken Temple, everyone liked Blackfathom Deeps. People didn't like Gnomeregon, that's fine. No one likes Gnomeregon anyway. People like you know the runeses and the runes are just simply spells from later expansions. Now, given there's a couple of uh exceptions that aren't spells at all in the game, but they are mostly spells from later expansions. And then, um, home, I'm pretty sure you're gonna have uh pain sup. You have well growth, you have a starfall for boomies. You have hurricane no, not hurricane, you have um star surge. You know, it's all from different expansions. So, yeah, they kind of have to see what sticks.
Speaker 1:
Um, please just can the hard modes and scan the hard modes and let the community find their own way of making the content difficult with speedruns, slash passing, if they choose to do so, they can still do this all right. The hard modes are not going to restrict that. The casual player base in sot phase 4 dwindle nothingness. If you are putting hard modes in the game and ask the average joe to fork up hundreds of gold a raid night in consumes to progress hard mode at, you don't have to do hard mode. You can just do normal mountain core. Okay, it will be a toggle switch, all right, you just toggle it on for hard mode, toggle it off for non-hop, simple. And I know you can say just do normal modes. Oh, let's see his argument to this then, but that just doesn't fly in.
Speaker 1:
Classic, the stigma surrounding doing normal modes is so strong that people pretty much every guild is pressured to attempt hard modes, just not to bleed players from their roster and lose them to better guilds. That's the most ridiculous thought I've ever heard. We do. We did our very first cataclysm dungeon or raid, uh, this weekend past. We did all normal. Okay, because what we do for normal is gauge how we are as a guild in doing these mechanics and these bosses and we see how we get on with heroic next week. We feel no pressure at all because of the people that are in the guild, like they are mature people who understand that we just are there to have fun and play a game. They understand that because we're doing normal doesn't mean that we're shitter than everyone else.
Speaker 1:
Like I would argue that I'm better than quite a lot of people that play the game, like a fair amount of people the average joe I would argue that I'm better than Because, well, just because of how long I've played the game, what I do in the game and how long I play the game for, etc. Etc. But we do not lose any members due to this. It's a ridiculous fact. It's a community-based thing and it's clearly gotten to his head that, oh, you only need to do hard modes. No, it isn't. Enjoy the game, just enjoy the game. That's all it is You're trying to get. You're trying to get these false narratives pushed on you by the community. When the community of wow are wrong Most of the time, we are wrong Most of the time, like I've been wrong about what, like certain wow points of view, everyone has. It's crazy to think this is the norm. It just isn't. Um, let's see. Okay, there we are, there we are.
Speaker 1:
We saw what happened to normal guilds in wrath. A majority of them disbanded because their players left their normal guild for better performing guilds that are doing heroic. And the exact same thing will happen in season of discovery. I can literally give you an example of my guild not disbanding and people not leaving to go and join bigger guilds who are just doing heroic. Because bigger guilds yes, you might be able to do heroic, like yes, yes, you might be doing 25-man heroic, which means that you're getting better loot in total, but the probability of you joining a bigger guild means that it's a higher chance of there being dickheads. And the people in our guild realise that. And, like the small community we've built and the thing is, we are good enough to do the heroics as well we just start normal and then we progress heroics. Like it gives us that non-rushed feeling within an expansion. It means that we're constantly looking towards something.
Speaker 1:
We killed Heroic Lich King, like in Cataclysm pre-patch. Now we're very upset that we didn't kill him in Wrath of the Lich itself. We were very close. We were like 2% off the week before Cataclysm pre-patch but we didn't do it, but still killing him in Cataclysm pre-patch. We were very happy, all right as a guild, you know, we slowly progressed and we only managed to start doing a heroic lich king them last few weeks of icc because of certain issues in the game um, whether it be people were on holiday, couldn't get the roster towards the end as icc had been out for a while by then.
Speaker 1:
Um, but yeah, like we were perfectly content with how we played it and people need to realize that if you find the right people in your guild, you don't need to adhere to these stereotypes of you have to do hard mode, you have to do heroic. If you're not completing every raid within an hour, you know you're not doing it right or you're shit or you know all of that stuff, all of that stigma and like bullshit that everyone spouts. Like you play the game how you want to. It's a game, enjoy it with the people that you're playing with. Like you don't have to adhere to these stereotypes of you do this and have to do that in the game.
Speaker 1:
It's crazy, it's absolutely crazy, unless you are playing your class wrong, in which case you kind of do need to be told hey, you should be hitting stuff to do your healing as a disc priest now in cataclysm, rather than spam flash heal or spam shield like you have to actually do atonement healing and do damage. And you have to do damage as a restoration shaman to get mana back. Due to your like talents as well, you know that sort of um. Yeah, it's absolutely crazy that people go off of these stereotypes and don't just go against them. Because you can go against them, it's OK to do so. It's crazy. It boggles my mind, but I'm going to call it there. Thank you all very much for listening. As always, you check out all of the socials down below, constant stuff happening over there. But thank you all very much once again and go with valor, friend, goodbye, thank you.
