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Q u o t e:

A lot of people have no choice. Read up on the t8 set bonuses and you will understand.

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That's a flaw with the gear itself, not a flaw with the system. I'm talking about people where the set bonus were an obvious upgrade and still they wait.

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Q u o t e:
It also kinda discourages taking the token now and sitting on it, holding back people that have really put in the hard work.

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Agree. One other thing that has come out of the T9 system is "Don't roll on the trophy unless you have the emblems to buy the gear right now."

Also kinda disappointing that you can't get the 258 tokens until you clear the hard mode instance. I mean, by the time you're geared enough to clear the instance in the first place, you probably have no need for the 258 Tier items to begin with.

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Q u o t e:
As other players have pointed out, the "medium" difficulty comes at doing some of the easier bosses in heroic mode. ToC only has 5 encounters, so there isn't a ton of granularity. Icecrown has more (though not 31) so we can provide more granularity.

I also have a hunch that some of the bosses on normal mode are going to be more challenging than the final boss of ToC normal for the same reason.

We have a couple of tweaks to the trophy system for Icecrown that we think capture the best of both the Ulduar and ToC systems.

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My real problem with normal versus hard modes is that the mechanics (especially in ToC) feel basically the same as hard-mode. It's just that you have to do more damage & healing to beat hard modes.

It just doesn't feel rewarding to wipe on the same encounter again after you just killed it on normal mode the day before. If there was enough of a "new" feel to the hard-mode encounters, they would feel a lot more rewarding.

The analogy I used in a comment to someone's blogpost is that for the "medium" people, they can easily get through the normal modes. For them, however, when doing hard-modes, it just feels like doing normal modes, just with one hand in a blender while trying to play the game. There's nothing rewarding about doing Hard-Mode ToC if you aren't in the top 1to 5% of guilds in the world - because wiping on the same encounter you just did isn't rewarding enough to keep members of raiding guilds interested in learning how to beat those encounters.

So, the easy modes cater to the lower 30%, hard modes cater to the top 5%, and everyone else in the middle kinda just feel left out with the ToC structure.

It is nice that the devs are using another tool to keep players engaged in a development process, but is there a way it could NOT be on Twitter...maybe using some sort of 'ticker' box on the PTR forum.

I think theres a million ways to make developer feedback easier


I think the developers themselves just hate giving feedback cuz inevititability it pisses someone off

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Q u o t e:
Early rising crab is early rising :(

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I'm fairly confident that he's an insomniac that just doesn't sleep more than 3 or 4 hours a night tops...

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Q u o t e:
There's so many Emblems available I don't see how this is a problem. You can get 50 a week just for doing both 10-mans, the normal 25 man, Onyxia and Vault. Add heroic dailies on top of that and you can get a tier piece each week.

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It's a problem because you have to run the same damn boring instance 4+ times each week, and do laughably pathetic outdated content every day.

25 man raiders shouldn't feel forced to run 10 man raids and heroics to get 25 man level tier gear.

This new hybrid system takes care of that because now the badge price can be set without assuming 25 man raiders need to have a bloated badge income rate.

Well, if the tier system is going to be staggered like they are intending, then it could be unnerving when people are trying to get 25-man HM tier.

a) We are introduced to T10 through badges; Say I get my shoulders for whatever number of badges
b) I win either the 25-man normal or 10-man hard tier shoulders I upgrade to the next level
c) I win the 25-man HM tier shoulders and upgrade to that.

This is how I believe the devs want us to use the tier system as. However what about this scenereo?

a) I get the T10 token from badges
b) keep losing rolls for the 25-man normal or 10-man hard tier shoulders so I don't get the shoulders
c) I win the 25-man HM tier shoulders

Now in this scenereo am I going to be able to skip from 10-man badge gear to 25-man HM gear directly or do I have to wait for my 25-man normal or 10-man HM tier to drop before I am able to upgrade to my 25-man HM tier? Currently this is the ONLY thing that will discurrage raiders from attempting those bosses, especially the top-end guilds. They are going to want to attempt those HMs starting the second week.

Week one - mage a, warrior a get 25-shoulders
Week two - dk a, priest a get 25 -shoulders
................. - Mage a, dk a, priest a, warrior a are currently the only ones who can roll on the 25-man HM tier gear.

I really like the ToC badge system. Only thing is I wished 10man Hardmode dropped Trophies, and I feel they should because the difficulty level of heroic warrants it.

Other then that I think the ToC change in the badge system was awesome.

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Q u o t e:

We have a couple of tweaks to the trophy system for Icecrown that we think capture the best of both the Ulduar and ToC systems.

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The best of both systems would be to drop 2 tokens, slot-specific, but not class specific in 25-man, per boss. 1 token in 10-man. Hard modes can drop 1 additional token.

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Q u o t e:


It's a problem because you have to run the same damn boring instance 4+ times each week, and do laughably pathetic outdated content every day.

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That's a problem with the instance being boring and the content being outdated, not a problem with the system itself.

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Q u o t e:
The dev chat itself was ridiculous. Lots of good questions were ignored for one-liners or joke responses.

That said, I love the idea of the new badge system and particularly want to see more ways to get hardmode-level tier, cause very, very, very few players see that in t9 content and it's frustrating cause you may have a better item for the slot but it would break tier so a lot of 258s go to rot. It would be as simple as adding a second token to the hardmode bosses.

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same can be said about the normal version

There are pieces that would be side upgrades but the Heroic version is a definite upgrade and people are waiting for the Heroic version and the normal one goes to rot. How I am with the cloth chest piece from 25 Beasts. The normal one would be a side grade but the Heroic one is an upgrade. Yet the normal one no one wants so it gets DEed

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Q u o t e:


They are harder in an absolute sense because they hit harder and have more health. They are not harder (for the most part) in a relative sense because you probably have better gear now than when you first went into ToC. Our goal is not to let players raid all the up until Icecrown and then throw a gate in front of them that says "Must be this elite to ride this ride."

Now, if you are that elite, Arthas heroic says hi.

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What if I've got some elite platform shoes to carry me into this Icecrown. That would be alright, correct? (not to mention sexy.) Maybe I could even wear a top hat and monocle.

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Q u o t e:


They are harder in an absolute sense because they hit harder and have more health. They are not harder (for the most part) in a relative sense because you probably have better gear now than when you first went into ToC. Our goal is not to let players raid all the up until Icecrown and then throw a gate in front of them that says "Must be this elite to ride this ride."

Now, if you are that elite, Arthas heroic says hi.

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I lol'd =) Thanks GC.

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Q u o t e:


They are harder in an absolute sense because they hit harder and have more health. They are not harder (for the most part) in a relative sense because you probably have better gear now than when you first went into ToC. Our goal is not to let players raid all the up until Icecrown and then throw a gate in front of them that says "Must be this elite to ride this ride."

Now, if you are that elite, Arthas heroic says hi.

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I for one like the way you implemented T9.

*voices from the back* of course you would, you haven't even done one boss in ToC!

Well, I likes me some relatively difficult gear to obtain while not having to be top-of-the-line. AND the hardcores get their day in the sun by still having better gear! Hot dog!

So anyway....thanks to the devs for that one. :)

Here's to hoping arthas' fight is challenging even on normal in the way that vashj and kael were. Require teamwork, strategy, and make people wipe.

Yogg did a pretty good job at that for middle of the road guilds before all the nerfs even with 4 helpers.

The new tier system really makes sense. I was very discouraged from buying tier pieces with badges when i would have to spend even more when i got my trophies. I felt like i was throwing out badges (and gold, in turn).

My major wish would be that the ring and trinket rewards could finally be geared towards hunters for once. Also, the presence of throwing weapons and relics doesn't make hunters very happy when we have to elbow melee out of the way for melee weapons. The excess of crit-absent gear makes for sad hunters (its impossible to drop enough hit to use the current badge trinket)

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Q u o t e:
Only thing is I wished 10man Hardmode dropped Trophies, and I feel they should because the difficulty level of heroic warrants it.

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I'd love this, too. If heroic 25-man raiders have to clear ToGC for their tokens, though, then I guess I can be patient and wait until we clear ToGC10 for trophies. :-)

I just hope there is a difference at least in color between the normal and hardmode sets unlike ToC so you can tell who did the harder encounters and put the most effort forward..