Tyiliru

Coming to the PTR in the near future will be a new designation of item type in Normal and Heroic raids for non-tier pieces. Each 5.2 raid boss will have a chance of dropping this new designation of a particular item that’s 6 item levels higher than their counterparts. These higher quality versions will be called “Thunderforged”. This means that there will be five variations of some items. You’ll now see a 5.2 raid item of LFR quality at item level 502, the same item in Normal quality at item level 522, the item in Normal Thunderforged quality at item level 528, the Heroic version of the item at level 535, and the Heroic Thunderforged version of the item at level 541.

This new item designation is being added for a couple reasons, but first and foremost to make loot drops more interesting overall, especially after you have earlier bosses in Throne of Thunder on farm. As you’re working on progression, those first few bosses can now continue to provide a chance at upgrades, making repeated kills potentially more exciting and rewarding. Those additional upgrades can then help to slowly raise power, and boost you over whatever progression roadblock you may hit.

We’ve also received a lot of feedback regarding 25-player raids, and have been looking for ways to address some concerns. Ever since we changed 10-player raids to drop the same item level as 25’s, we’ve seen a steady decline in 25-player raiding. This isn’t surprising. A 25-player raid takes an extra level of logistical commitment for the officers of those groups. It’s unfortunately easy for a 25-player guild to collapse down into a 10-player guild, but very unlikely for the opposite to happen. However, we like 25-player raiding and don’t want to see it go away. Like many players, we love the epic feeling that comes with banding together more massive groups to battle powerful foes, we love that there’s opportunity for those groups to try out new players or unusual comps without causing a huge burden, and we want to support the larger raiding guilds. That said, we’re also concerned that over-rewarding the 25-player guilds—if, for example, we went back to a higher item level across the board for 25’s, as was the case for Icecrown Citadel—would feel like a slap in the face to the many 10-player raiders out there, who are the majority of our Normal and Heroic raiders.

To attempt to navigate this minefield, we’re going to try having Thunderforged items drop more frequently in 25-player raids. They’ll be somewhat rare in both cases compared to the standard versions that’ll drop, but they’ll be even rarer in 10’s. Overall, a 25-player group will be more likely to end up with a slightly higher item level after several weeks of raiding.

It’s important to keep in mind that this only affects 10- and 25-player Normal and Heroic raids, and tier-15 armor pieces won’t be available in Thunderforged quality at all. We’re curious to hear your thoughts about these changes, and what you think once you begin seeing them on the PTR.

Update 3: We have now resolved the latency and loss of connection issues that have been affecting some realms. We will be continuing to monitor the situation and hope that this did not disrupt your play experience.

Update 2: The issues with Cyclone battlegroup appear to have been sorted and we are now working on resolving some remaining issues that have appeared for Outland.

Update 1: The issues with the Vindication battlegroup have now been resolved, it seems however that issues have now arisen for the Cyclone battlegroup. We are currently investigating and will update you when we have more information.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Due to technical issues players may experience latency or loss of connection on the below realms.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience while this is being resolved. Realms possibly affected:

I also had a real fun time. Loved DreamHack and all the great chats I had with you.
It was a bit chilly though. I hope I can come back in summer sometime. :)

This thread is outdated.

/closed

This is a pretty old thread. Please rather look for a new one to discuss this topic.

/closed

Please discuss such topics in more appropriate forums. These forums serve to discuss World of Warcraft.

/closed

Every week this summer, we’re challenging you to get together with a few friends to explore a part of Azeroth that you may not have seen in a while, or perform a feat that you may have never done. They're World of Warcraft Summer Challenges, and we’re going to be playing along with you as we hunt down rare achievements, get screenshots of amazing bosses, and try to find some awesome gear for our transmogrification sets.

This week’s challenge is: Trial of the Crusader.

Find out more about this week's challenge in our blog:
Summer Challenge - Argent Tournament

Clouds blanket the skies of Icecrown and heroes gather beneath battle-worn banners in preparation for the coming storm. They say that even the darkest cloud has a silver lining. It is this hope that drives the men and women of the Argent Crusade: hope that the Light will see them through these trying times, hope that good will triumph over evil, hope that a hero blessed by the Light will come forth to put an end to the Lich King's dark reign.

Hooray! \o/ Welcome to the team, Nakatoir. Good to have you.

Don't let those trolls bite you.

Welcome to the answers thread for our World of Warcraft "Ask the Devs" global Q&A. These answers are in response to the round #4 questions, which can be seen here: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1874673768

The next questions thread, Ask the Devs #5 - Achievements, can be found here: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1917973825

1. Is there any chance we could have caster weapons involved in casting animations? It would look cool to be holding a staff and casting a spell through it, at least as a customization option. - Dromanthis (NA/ANZ)

This is something we would dearly love to do. We agree that melee specs get to see their weapons a lot more often in combat while it’s easy for casters to forget about them. It’s definitely on the list, but understand that we have so many races now (and two sexes for all existing races) that the animations take more time to do right/well.

2. Would it be possible for city quartermasters to sell the same equipment that guards wear? Stats wouldn't matter. - Pokemonmasta (EU|English), Tajit (NA/ANZ)

Cool idea. We’ll talk about it.

3. Are you planning to return to the original principle of designing the Tiers, when the sets were themed with the classes, not with the bosses that drop them? Do you have any plans to make the tier items visually different depending on your spec? - Анви (EU|Russian), Trafalgarlaw (Latin America)

We try and alternate the themes in order to keep things feeling fresh. Players can get bored if things feel too formulaic. The Firelands raid has a really strong theme, so the tier sets are based on the various creatures that live on the elemental plane: for example, fire spiders for the warlock set. Other tiers don’t have as strong a unifying theme so we go back to the classes for that. In the Call of the Crusade patch, we did faction-specific armor to solidify the military feel and Horde vs. Alliance rivalry.

Varying tiers depending on spec is a cool idea, but it does add more work to the individual armor which usually means we’ll get less of it. Color shifts are one option, but tend to already use all of those. We have more unique art these days than ever before, but the number of items overall has grown tremendously faster.


4. I like the creative items that are dropped from Icecrown Citadel such as Nibelung, Heartpierce, Deathbringer's Will. Can I see more of such items containing unique proc-effects in the near futuer? - Whitewnd (Korea)

Yes. We think the procs are a good way from keeping the weapons from just feeling like a predictable bag of stats. There will be more in Firelands.


5. Will enchanters be getting back the ability to make wands? - Trustybee (Taiwan)

We have been discussing what role in the game wands are supposed to fill. We generally consider it a failure these days if a caster ever wants to wand for dps instead of using their spells. Working the wand into the cast animation (as in the question above) is one idea. In any event, we want to figure out what we want wands to do before we give them any more prominence.


6. Any chance we can start heading away from WWE-esque belts? - Catriona (NA/ANZ)

Azeroth is stricken by a terrible plague that inflates the size of shoulders and belts over time. Our artists like the belts because they have more room for detail when they’re larger. That said, your concern is duly noted.


7. Do you have plans to make is so that the tabards don't suddenly cut off whenever we wear long vestments? - Hôwl (Latin America)

This is a technical issue that’s fairly nasty to fix and ultimately trimming the tabard ended up looking better, at least as a short-term solution.


8. Can we see gear won via need rolls become soulbound? - Lorinall (NA/ANZ)

Yes. We plan on implementing a system where winning an item via Need (when using the Dungeon Finder Need Before Greed loot system) will make a BoE item soulbound. We hope to have this working for the 4.2 patch.

To expand on that idea in case it’s not obvious, we don’t think players should be able to claim certain loot drops based on their class if their only intent is to sell the item. If you want to use the item yourself, awesome, go ahead and roll Need on it and you’ll get preference over players who can’t use that armor type. But if all you want to do is run to the Auction House, then everyone should have equal dibs.


9. How do you plan on normalizing Legendary weapon acquisition rate between 10 man and 25 man raids? If the drop rate is the same for 'shards' in 10 and 25 man raids, this may 'force' 25 man guilds to run 2-3 10 mans in order to maximize shard/legendary acquisition. If the drop rate for 'shards' in 25 man raids was 2.5 times than that in 10 man, it could take a 10 man guild say, 2.5 months to gain a legendary whereas a 25 man guild would take 1 month. - Deathsaint (NA/ANZ)

Our main goal is to offer the Legendary in both 10 and 25 without requiring say a 25-player raid to feel like they have to switch to running 10s for the sole purpose of Legendary fragment acquisition (and the same is true for 10s). Our plan is to make Legendary completion take longer to acquire in 10-player raids. The exact ratio will be somewhat obfuscated because of the variation in the amount of fragments dropped per boss based on both raid size and raid difficulty. However, you can plan on it being maybe 2 to 2.5 times faster for the 25-player raid. It should feel analogous to number of Valor points or gold dropped in 25s, and is being treated the same.

Without giving too much away, the Firelands legendary weapon has an amazing story and quest chain associated with it. We think it truly delivers on the fantasy of a legendary weapon.


10. I feel that the current item drop ratio per part for caster’s is little bit weird. While belt slot items are very common, wrist and ranged (wand) item are drastically rare. Now players don’t like going to Throne of the Four Winds because belt and pants are so easily acquired via other way. What if the drops of Throne of the Four Winds changed into rare slot items, such as wrist and wand? -빛그리고사제 (Korea)

There are a few issues embedded in this question. One is that while we like the random nature of the Throne of the Four Winds gear overall, it occupies a strange niche in the current itemization scheme. Al’Akir for example is fairly challenging, but so are Cho’gall and Nefarian. The net result is that many players lack epic legs, heads or shoulders and so have a strong incentive to spend Valor Point on their tier set of legs. By the time they defeat Al’Akir, nobody wants his legs. We plan on tweaking those loot tables a little for 4.1; Al’Akir will drop some random necks and cloaks as well as helm or shoulder tokens in addition or in some cases instead of his current loot.

As far as some items being rarer than others, that is the kind of thing we vary so that every tier of content doesn’t feel like a photocopy of the previous tier with bigger numbers. Our PvP gear for a variety of reasons has become very formulaic, and we don’t want the same thing to befall PvE. Bracers are hard to get now (though the trolls in 4.1 have a lot!), but next tier it might be a different item that becomes precious.


11. What are the criteria you use to design the loots in a certain dungeon/ raid? Is it the backgrounds of the encounters, the preference of the designers, or basing on the existing models? - Kiolds (Taiwan)
All of that and more. As in the question above, if the dungeon or raid has a really strong visual kit, then we definitely jump on that. When you consider say the Cataclysm dungeon tier, there was a really diverse set of environments with no strong unifying theme. We could have tried to plan ahead of time that say Corborus would drop a certain weapon so we should theme it like a ring worm. That kind of rigid planning though doesn’t allow us a lot of room to maneuver if we decide to add a boss, change the source of certain items or so on. Naming the items can come from a variety of sources. Sometimes we play off of the boss (Symbiotic Worm from Magmaw), but there are pop-culture references (License to Slay), inside jokes (Chestplate of Hubris), and words that just sounded appealing together (Battleplate of the Apocalypse).


12. Is there any plan to allow Account Bound items to be transfer to other realms? This could really give meaning to the phrase “Account Bound”. -텔레토비아스 (Korea), Деадхил (EU|Russian), Åtchøûm (EU|French), Tellua (NA/ANZ)

Yes. Some day. It will take a lot of programmer time to implement, but it’s something we want to do.


13. Is it possible to let the players create/ edit their own looks? - Zed Loft (Taiwan), Vysha (NA/ANZ), Ráchel (EU|German)

As we said in an earlier Q&A, we definitely hear loud and clear from players that they want more customization for their character. This is something we want to provide, but we want to do it in the right way. Consider the Barber Shop feature. It lets you change your character’s hair, but there’s not a lot of gameplay to it. We’re not sure that feature really added a lot to the game in retrospect. Is WoW more fun for you now that you have a Barber Shop? Are you more likely to keep playing because of it? Maybe, but it wasn’t a cheap feature to add in terms of development time. Dumping a bunch of dyes on the game might have a similar effect, where some players might have fun playing around with the system for a bit, but a lot of players might change their colors once or twice and then forget about the feature after that. Now, not every aspect of the game needs a ton of depth and a lot of interesting decisions, but we tend to attract more players to a feature the more robust the feature is.

We also think it’s fair to argue that the game just needs more armor and weapon art. As we said above, we deliver a lot of art these days, but we also produce an enormous number of new items every expansion or patch and it’s understandably disappointing whenever items use the same art. It would be really cool if not every mage or priest converged on the same look after a given expansion or patch.