RSS Q&A: Crusaders’ Coliseum and Isle of Conquest [Archive]

Azel

31/07/2009, 19:52

Q&A: Crusaders’ Coliseum and Isle of Conquest <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from: Ancilorn (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/10222324845-qa-crusaders-coliseum-and-isle-of-conquest.html" target="_blank" style="color: white;">Source</a>)</div><div class="blizzquote">Community Team: Joining us today to answer some player-submitted questions about the Isle of Conquest and Crusaders’ Coliseum coming in patch 3.2, Call of the Crusade, is Game Director Tom Chilton, Lead Encounter Designer Scott Mercer, and Lead World Designer Alex Afrasiabi. Let’s begin with a collection of questions we’ve received from players around the world about the Crusaders’ Coliseum, the latest 5-, 10-, and 25-player content coming to Wrath of the Lich King. Q: For clarification purposes, what are the official names for each of the new dungeons coming in patch 3.2, Call of the Crusade, and what is the style and format of each dungeon? Development Team: Right, so the Crusaders’ Coliseum is the name given to all different versions of the dungeon. Trial of the Champion is the name of the 5-player dungeon, both for normal and Heroic difficulties. Trial of the Crusader is the name of the 10- and 25-player normal raid dungeon, and Trial of the Grand Crusader is what we are calling the 10- and 25-player Heroic version. For those familiar with the Ring of Blood and Amphitheatre of Anguish, the format and layout of each Crusaders’ Coliseum dungeon are similar in feel. Each vile creature or group of creatures will be introduced one at a time in a gladiator-style format. Players must best each encounter before beginning the next one. Of course, there are a few twists along the way to give a bit more of an epic feel. Q: How difficult do we expect the normal and Heroic versions of Trial of the Champion to be compared to other 5-player dungeons; and will the normal version have a lockout like that of a Heroic dungeon? Development Team: For the most part players will find that the challenges of the two respective 5-player difficulty settings are roughly on par with 5-player instances already available in Wrath of the Lich King. The quality of gear players are wearing may be a slight determining factor for difficulty when comparing Trial of the Champion to other instances. There is no lockout on the normal version of the dungeon and no daily dungeon quest associated with it. The Heroic version will be included in the daily Heroic dungeon quest rotation. Q: Do we have plans for the Argent Warhorses in Trial of the Champion to scale based on characters’ gear (similar to the Oculus and Ulduar vehicles)? Development Team: No, there are no plans for this and frankly, it’s not really necessary. The jousting phase of the first encounter in Trial of the Champion is very similar in difficultly to jousting champions on the Argent Tournament grounds. Q: How will achievements work for Trial of the Crusader and Trial of the Grand Crusader, and will there be four different types of achievements to be completed? Development Team: There aren’t four different categories of achievements where you’ll have 10-player normal, 10-player Heroic, 25-player normal and 25-player Heroic achievement categories. There will be 10-player and 25-player achievement categories, with achievements for normal and Heroic modes in each of these categories. So, for instance you’ll have an achievement in the 25-player category to defeat a boss on normal difficulty and an achievement in the same category to defeat that boss on Heroic difficulty. There will also be your standard fun achievements for defeating bosses under specific criteria which will apply to normal or Heroic modes. Lastly, there will be some special achievements for tribute runs that can be earned depending on the raid’s performance. Q: Will there be any kind of reputation and titles associated with the Coliseum and will there be a 310% mount meta-achievement reward? Development Team: As with other Wrath of the Lich King dungeons, players are welcome to wear faction tabards to gain reputation with factions of their choice. Champion’s Seals will also drop through the Heroic 5-, 10-, and 25-player versions of the Crusaders’ Coliseum. With that said, players will not gain reputation simply for completing objectives in the coliseum, whether on normal or Heroic difficulty. There will be no 310%-speed mount offered through a meta-achievement reward, as the current 310%-speed mount offered will not be removed when path 3.2 is released. Going back to achievements though, we will be offering some great feat of strength rewards for those who truly master the tribute run. Community Team: There are currently four separate modes of Coliseum raids: 10-player, 25-player, 10-player Heroic, and 25-player Heroic. Q: What is the reasoning behind this raid setup? Development Team: We love hard modes and we’ve seen that they are a very popular addition to World of Warcraft. What we’re doing here is making the distinctions between the different difficulties more clear, which also allows us a better opportunity to balance encounters. Difficulty settings are still relatively new to the game, particularly for the raiding scene, and we’re constantly looking for ways to improve and iterate upon this system. Q: Since, in the current Wrath of the Lich King raids, switching to a Heroic mode means switching to 25-player mode, how will players turn on the new Heroic modes? Development Team: It will function very similarly to the way in which dungeon difficulty is chosen for 5-player instances currently. If you are in a raid group, the difficulty setting will now have four options, one for each raid group size and difficulty. Q: What are the planned item levels for the gear that drops in each of the new Coliseum instances and how will the gear differentiate from one instance to another? Development Team: Trial of the Champion will drop item level 200 and 213 items in the normal and Heroic modes respectively; Trial of the Crusader (10-player) will drop item level 232 items; Trial of the Grand Crusader (10-player) and Trial of the Crusader (25-player) will drop item level 245 items; Trial of the Grand Crusader (25-player) will drop item level 258 items. For those working through a tribute run, there might also just be a surprise or two in the chest at the end??? if you have what it takes to master this run. Q: What is the breakdown for emblem drops in each of the Coliseum instances? Development Team: Two Emblems of Triumph will be awarded for each encounter in the raid dungeons, while one Champion’s Seal and one Emblem of Conquest will be awarded for each encounter in Trial of the Champion (Heroic difficulty only). Q: Since we’ve been discussing the tribute system a bit here, can you go over how this new system for the 10-player and 25-player Heroic dungeons will work, including how to activate it and what kind of extra rewards players can expect? Development Team: Sure. Firstly, at least one player in the raid group has to have cleared Trial of the Crusader to unlock Trial of the Grand Crusader for the raid. Speaking to an NPC will do this. Players working through Trial of the Grand Crusader will automatically be working through a tribute run. A counter will be displayed in the interface monitoring the raid’s performance by tracking unsuccessful attempts. A maximum of 50 unsuccessful attempts will be allowed per week. If this number is reached the encounters will no longer be accessible by the group until the instance resets during scheduled weekly maintenance. If the instance is cleared before hitting this limit, the raid will be awarded according to their performance during the tribute run. The items players can expect are good. That’s really all there is to it! Q: Are there any particular ways in which the Coliseum encounters will be new and unique compared to previous encounters? Development Team: Well, given that the tribute run system and new ways of executing normal and Heroic difficulty settings have been added, we expect players will see a very different dynamic in the encounters. The tribute system provides for the first time in raiding a way of awarding players, not simply based on what bosses were killed, but how well the raid performed attempting each boss. We don’t want to go too much into fight mechanics, but we expect players will see quite a few interesting new challenges. To give one example for those familiar with Magister’s Terrace back in The Burning Crusade, there will be an encounter similar to the Priestess Delrissa fight. This time it will be on a raid scale with many more foes against which players will square off. Oh, and crowd-control effects will be subject to diminishing returns as well, so you’ll just have to manage your abilities wisely! Community Team: We’ve seen a great deal of mixed feedback about the design of the tier-9 sets available with the release of the Crusaders’ Coliseum. Q: What reasons led to the decision to develop PvE sets that differ between the Horde and Alliance more so than they differ between classes and gear types (i.e. cloth, leather, mail, plate); and is this a new set design philosophy players should expect going forward? Development Team: We wanted to do things a little bit differently this time around, though it’s not entirely unl...</div></div></div>

Fonte (http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=85973.0)