RSS TCG Blood of Gladiators Loot Cards, Blue Posts [Archive]

Azel

03/03/2009, 16:12

PTR 3.1 - WoW TCG Blood of Gladiators Loot Cards The next World of Warcraft Trading Card Game expansion, Blood of Gladiators, will launch worldwide on March 24th. Blood of Gladiators also contains new Loot cards, giving World of Warcraft fans access to exclusive online items! The Loot items will be live with Patch 3.1 but players can try them out on the Public Test Realm now! Sandbox Tiger This super common Loot card brings out the kid in everyone, offering playground-like rides on an adorable toy Spectral Tiger. Once you place the tiger, anyone can join in the fun and ride the Tiger. But be sure to share! Take the Sandbox Tiger for a test ride on the PTR by entering code 1111 with Landro Longshot, a goblin on the docks of Booty Bay. <div align="center"><object width="560" height="370"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/N589tjObBtA">Blue posts <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from Blizzard staff</div><div class="blizzquote">Achievement - Wintergrasp Grand Black War Mammoth It's quite a possibility that this will be removed from the meta achievement at some point too, we'll have to wait and see. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/20/15211004531-grand-black-war-mammoth.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Achievement - Immortal-style achievement in Ulduar We will see what achievements we decide to make for Ulduar, but honestly I would not be surprised if an immortal-style achievement was one of them. There can be some frustrating scenarios that cause this to fail like disconnects, but unless it is a mass disconnect it can be worked around a lot of the time. Overall, in my experience, it is almost always a player's fault for failing on Undying/Immortal by getting a little careless and not remaining focused on the achievement goal. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/20/15443185789-no-immortal-in-ulduar-please.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Random Number Generator and its effect on the game This is a good summary. We have no problem with RNG to a point. WoW is an RPG and we think part of that is having a random component to the outcome of some events. We realize some players would like to remove most RNG from the game, but that isn't our stance. Where RNG is a problem, especially in PvP, is when the outcome has too much influence. RNG is bad when it feels like who wins or loses an Arena match too often comes down to a single random roll. A few examples: -- The dispel system started to feel too random. Chance are you wouldn't be able to dispel something, but once in awhile you could, and that changed everything. -- Random stuns became a problem. An ability with a 100% stun chance can be balanced around say its cost or cooldown. Random stuns are just an unpredictable bonus. -- Too much random damage. Sudden Death (the Arms warrior talent) was a problem here. It approached the point of having a percent chance to kill a target or a percent chance to do almost nothing. (Don't confuse the fact that Arms damage is too low at the moment with their burst being too high before we changed this ability.) One of the keys is whether you are talking about a few random rolls or many. If it is many random rolls, then the probability tends to even out over time. A 50% chance to proc something will happen about half the time as you approach infinity. We don't think the RNG nature of Windfury is a huge problem because it isn't always coming down to a situation where if WF had proc'd, you would have won the match. (Having that happen once in awhile is fine -- that is probably the definition of a very close, exciting match.) Over the course of an Arena, WF tends to proc with about the same frequency. If WF was a 2% chance to boost damage by 50X, then that would be too much RNG. The balancing problems we've had with Windfury have a lot more to do with its total contribution -- whether it does too much or not enough damage overall, and less about the random nature of the proc. We have also backed off the design where all certain specs bring to PvP is MASSIVE DAMAGE LOL. We have been trying to give more specs more utility-based abilities (say on-demand CC, or on-demand CC breaks). If Enhancement is not competitive in PvP, we'd rather address the problem through this direction. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/15443287511-why-arms-and-not-shamans.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) PvP Itemization and resilience budget We increased the budget of resilience because we felt like PvP gear was too attractive in Burning Crusade. Because of that, and because this gear was initially too easy to get, it forced a lot of players to feel like they were supposed to head to the Arena to improve their character, even if they had no business or interest in trying to compete in there. The problems we feel like we had with resilience at the start of Lich King were different: 1) We launched relatively easy PvE content before PvP gear was available. As a result, players entered PvP with really awesome Naxx gear. 2) Introductory PvP gear was too difficult to get and not available from day one. As a result, some players were going into Arenas with almost zero resilience and getting blown to bits. 3) Burst damage was initially too high, which 1 and 2 just compounded. We think it will be in a better place when 3.1 ships. We are already seeing plenty of "invulnerable healer" threads, which suggests that just burning people down is harder now. (And I don't mean to imply that is our sole measurement on how balance is working out.) 4) BC brought a lot of free stamina to almost everyone. We didn't increase health as fast as we increased damage in LK, which ended up making players feel a little fragile initially. Ideally (and what we very well might do next time) is to try and launch the first tier of raid content at the same time as the Arena season, or at least give players a head start on accumulating PvP gear before the season starts. It's also likely you will see player health increase more, and PvE content balanced accordingly. Now resilience is a tricky thing. Some players are going to blame any loss in Arenas on resilience being too weak. It is sometimes difficult to sort out the effects of skill from the effects of the game balance. You are going to die in Arenas a lot, even if you are a great player and everything is working as intended (which as I said above, is not currently the case). (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/15443407952-still-nothing-for-resilience.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Dual-specialization and raid composition requirements Our design direction is not to change our designs at all as a result of this change. We are going to design instances and talent trees while pretending this feature does not exist. Examples of things we will NOT do: 1) Have a fight that requires 8 tanks, because you know, half the raid can change specs. 2) Have a fight that requires some obscure talent, because surely someone can afford to swap into it. 3) Let Arms be the PvP tree and Fury be the PvE tree, because warriors can just switch out. 4) Have a buff spec with low dps and a damage spec with high dps, and expect players to buff then swap specs. While realistically we predict almost every high level player will use a dual-spec, we aren't assuming you have access to it. Furthemore, all the feature does is make it easier for you to do something you could already do, which is hearth back, respec, and get summoned back. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/27/15443527502-i-think-ill-keep-my-1k-gold-thanks.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Replenishment is causing strange acrobatics to be taken with regard to regeneration balancing. Blizzard has made an assumption that all raid group members will have access to a replenishment buff. If that is ...</div></div></div>

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