Why so much QQ about scaling when...

#0 - Jan. 15, 2009, 11:08 p.m.

...when there is no content, and not going to be for a LONG time, that has any gear to consider to scale anyone? This is starting to frustrate me quite a bit, and I am starting to realize, after the 10th week of Naxx, what people meant when they said the expansion was rushed.

The Burning Crusade launched with tiers 4-6 worth of raid content in 4 25-man instances (karazhan, serpentshrine, tempest keep, and black temple were all in at launch!) and had the 'extra' 3 raid instances introduced in the following content patches. Also at the launch of BC, there were the 2 raid bosses of Gruul and Magtheridon, and also the often-forgotten world bosses such as Doomwalker and Kazzak.

Moving into Wotlk, we have 3 1-boss raids, 1 raid instance, and 0 world bosses. Wait, what? It's taken over 2 months just for the PTR of 3.08. Ulduar is at least 3 months more off, and any following raids obviously even longer.

The TL;DR: Don't fret over how your class scales so much, cuz you ain't gonna have anything but lots and lots and lots and lots of Naxx to do for quite a while to come; and I, for one, am extremely disappointed in the lack of content in WoTLK (at 80, that is.. levelling was as much fun as it can be, I suppose.) Off to more of those extremely well balanced and finely tuned arenas till then! Or maybe to level an alt - so then I can do naxx 4 times in a week, every week! Or, well.. maybe off to find something else to do :(

Ghostcrawler

#8 - Jan. 15, 2009, 11:33 p.m.

I think the concern is because we were slow to fix some balance problems in the past so players are concerned that if we don't fix the problem now that they will be dealing with it for many tiers to come.

It is a totally valid response given our history, but we are making a big effort to make changes in a more timely manner.

Ghostcrawler

#22 - Jan. 16, 2009, 12:32 a.m.

BC launched with more raid content, but I think it's fair to say that it required a lot of polishing after we shipped. Balance was not great. We had to change some item stats. I think the SSC trash respawned in 45 minutes or something.

We designed the current content to be easy and I think we were pretty up front about that before ship. While we can all laugh about Karazhan being srs bzns now, at the time a lot of players wiped on the boney horses and never went back. That's a shame because it was a cool instance and a gateway to a lot of additional raid content. Some of the best moments in WoW occur in these raids. You see unique art (and hear unique music!), scripted events and some amazing lore moments. It makes me sad to think of players who will never even step foot in Naxx. But that doesn't mean all of our raid content needs to be at the introductory level. If you're looking for a challenge, I suspect you will find it in Ulduar.

We know some players can chew through content pretty quickly. It is one of the biggest challenges of MMO development to provide enough content. Players always want more. Always.