Goodbye Cruel World

 

 

Goodbye cruel world,
I'm leaving you today.
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
Goodbye, all you people,
There's nothing you can say
To make me change my mind.
Goodbye.

 

Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)

 

How long have we waited for this day to arrive? Whilst I am disappointed that Theramore is not going live in patch 5.0.4, it does allow everyone a little time to get familiar with the class changes.

 

In the spirit of the occasion, what are we going to miss about the Cataclysm? In the words of Eric Idle, "I mean - what have you got to lose? You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!"

 

Seriously though what was Cataclysm all about? Taking the patch notes as a guide I am going to review the major parts of the expansion.

 

Patch 4.0.1

 

Reforging:

This was a game changer and allowed for most people to become hit capped and to stack the minor stat of choice. Win

 

Flexible Raid Lock:

This system provided the opportunity for a character to defeat each raid zone’s encounters once a week. A character may now complete the encounters during the week with different raids of either 10 or 25 players. At the time this seemed like a good idea to attempt to curb the raider excesses of WotLK. The result was the near death of 25 Man raiding and takes away choice from the raider. Many raiders make up for the shortfall now by doing LFR which appears not to be intended use of LFR. Of course LFR did not exist at this point in the game. Lose

 

Patch 4.0.3a

 

The Shattering of Azeroth:

 

"Without warning, the corrupted Dragon Aspect, Deathwing, erupted from the stone heart of Deepholm, the domain of earth within the Elemental Plane. Jagged fissures were torn across the earth, and monstrous waves pummeled coastal regions. From Thousand Needles to the Blasted Lands, the surface of Azeroth was reforged through violent upheavals. Now, the Horde and the Alliance must defend their homes against Deathwing and his minions, burdened by the unsettling fact that the world as they know it has changed... forever."

 

A large part of the expansion was the changing of the landscape and the leveling experience from 1-60. However much you might have loved the old world, this was very much needed. Vanilla WoW was jaded and the process for new players leveling from 1-85 presented very different experiences between the expansions. Since the Shattering, it is the Outlands that now looks like the jaded tired world.

 

For those that enjoy leveling and sampling each zone, the leveling experience is too streamlined now and experience points are awarded for mining, herbing and archeology. Any venture into an instance will take your level up by at least 1.5 levels. Win

 

New High Level Zones:

 

Hyjal, Vashj’ir, Deepholm, Uldum, Twilight Highlands, and the PvP/Dailies zone of Tol Barad. Much has already been written about this zones already, the usual comments are that the phasing let to a very linear leveling experience, Uldum had way to many cut scenes, and Vashj'ir was long and tiresome with very poor mapping for the cave entrances and the difficulties of 3D combat. The general consensus is that the zones were not interlocking and resulted in a very disjointed experience. Lose

 

Two New Playable Races

 

The Goblins and Worgens have proved to be very popular. Worgens in particular have managed to capture about an 8% share of the Race makeup according to WoWcensus. Goblins on the other hand have continued the trend of the unpopular smaller races at 5%, which puts them on a par with Dwarves but above Gnomes. The new zones were generally well received. Win

 

5 Man Heroic Dungeons

 

Blackrock Caverns, Throne of Tides, Vortex Pinnacle, Stonecore, Grim Batol, Tol'vir, Halls of Origination and the remade Shadowfang Keep and the Deadmines. Not one of these is fondly remembered, and for those that can still remember the hassle of leveling through normal versions of the 85 instances to get the gear to finally attempt the Heroics, which were set at too high a difficulty for the iLevels with people in greens and blues and the changes to healing (anyone remember Triage?).  Lose

 

Raiding

 

3 new introduction Raids were introduced, Throne of the Four Winds, Bastion of Twilight, and Blackwing Descent. The pattern of difficult healing, increased use of crowd control and the small numbers of people able to work through Heroic Dungeons gave these raids a slow start. The normal versions were hard and the Heroic versions are killers. 3 raids gave plenty of options for the raiding community. Draw

 

PvP

 

2 new Battlegrounds, Battle for Gilneas and Twin Peaks. Although these new BG's had a sticking resemblance to Warsong Gulch and a cutdown version of Arathi Basin they proved to be very successful. Win

 

Tol Barad the new version of Wintergrasp, proved to be desperately unbalanced, and early trading for uncontested wins was a big problem with this battle. The zone in the end for all Blizzard's manipulation proved not to be as popular as Wintergrasp and is probably the reason why there is no equivalent in the MoP expansion. Lose

 

Rated Battlegrounds

 

"Rated battlegrounds will be an alternate way of earning arena points, arena rating, and other rewards. There will be a limit on how many points you can earn each week through this method, and the amount of points able to be earned will be based on your rating. The higher the rating the more points you can earn. Points will be awarded after each win and you will not suffer any rating loss. There will be 2 types of ratings: personal and (internal) match-making."

 

The biggest issue, with the rating systems was getting a rating in the first place. Finding groups was difficult and established groups would eat up fresh new teams. The Principle behind it was good and it provided an alternative to Arenas for the accumulation of Conquest Points. On the plus side it made the normal BG's more competitive. Draw

 

Archaeology

 

Archaeology the new secondary profession started off very popular and very quickly wore people down. This is a very grindy profession with lots of flying time, inaccurate quadrants and an inability to deal with digsites on multiple levels. Rewarding to Lore nerds but most of the rewards were cosmetic, vanity or appeared too late in the game. One particular issue was not being able to find digsites in Uldum for the canopic jars. Lose

 

Guild Advancement and Achievements

 

This proved to be a big motivator for joint Guild activity. 25 Levels and lots of lovely perks for being in a high level guild. This was possibly a one trick pony and the co-operation it brought will be difficult to recreate in future expansions. Most Guild banks are now overflowing with riches from the invisible tax levied on all monetary loot. This resulted in alot of Guilds offering very attractive repair bills which served to help with one of the Guild achievements. This also now presents a barrier for people to leave Guilds, and will in time stop new Guilds from flourishing unless they can find a niche. Draw

 

Patch 4.1.0

 

5 Man Heroic Dungeons

 

Rise of the Zandalari - reintroduced former Troll raids into 5 Man Heroic Dungeons. The newly reworked dungeons were Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub. Only Players with a minimum average item level of 346 or higher could access these dungeon via the Dungeon Finder. This was a further problem compounded by the original 5 Man Heroic Dungeon strategy implemented by Blizzard. A large percentage of the player base could not achieve 346 without cheating with PvP gear, this then caused further problems with players trying to PvE with PvP gear. The difficulty level was set reasonably high, but the real problem was the length of time it took to complete. Lose

 

New Quest Chain: The Zandalar Representative

 

This was a short quest chain to introduce the Troll Heroics. Making use through phasing, in the now under utilised area of Stranglethorn Vale, it provided the lore as to why you should help smash a few Troll skulls in the new Heroics. Win

 

Patch 4.2.0

 

The Regrowth and Molten Front

 

"A large assortment of all-new daily quests and rewards are now available in Hyjal, where players can help the Guardians of Hyjal push back the allies of Ragnaros and establish a forward operating base in the Firelands! In order to partake in the Regrowth and Molten Front daily quests, players must have at least completed Mount Hyjal up to and including the quest Aessina's Miracle. Once this quest has been completed, players should speak with Matoclaw in the Sanctuary of Malorne to take part in the Regrowth efforts."

 

The Molten Front was a nice idea badly implemented. The idea was to provide extra end game content that was not PvP or Raid orientated. It was an idea based on the Argent Tournament Grounds of setting up a hub for dailies. Also it allowed for the first time in the expansion a chance to obtain decent Epic items.

 

The phasing was badly implemented and created spoof mining nodes and herbs and the leveling process was quite frankly long and tedious. It required daily activity and took weeks to complete. The zone has been dormant ever since, and it was just too damn mindnumbing to drag all your alts through the same process. Even if there was Blacksmithing and Engineering plans available. Draw 

 

New Quest Chain: Elemental Bonds

 

"A New quest line is now available to level-85 Horde and Alliance characters, bringing brave adventurers to Thrall's aid. The Call of the World-Shaman, the quest which will point players toward Thrall and The Nordrassil Summit, can be obtained at the Earthshrines in Stormwind or Orgrimmar."

 

A nice quest chain to help Thrall, which sets the scene for the new Firelands Raid. Win

 

New Raid: The Firelands

 

"Located within the Elemental Plane, the Firelands is an all-new 10- and 25-player raid featuring normal and Heroic difficulties! Battle-hardened veterans of the Horde and Alliance now have an opportunity to strike at Ragnaros the Firelord and his loyal servants by venturing into their domain via Sulfuron Spire in Mount Hyjal."

 

A difficult level Raid in which many over geared raid teams still cannot defeat Heroic Ragnaros. The trash in the Raid is very heavy and a trim down would not have gone a miss, but overall it was challenging and interesting but with too many barriers to entry in terms of gearing. Draw

 

New User Interface Feature: Dungeon Journal

 

"A host of dungeon information is now built into the user interface via the all-new Dungeon Journal. This feature can be accessed via a new button in the Navigation tray from anywhere in the world. Boss background story, encounter details, abilities, and loot can be viewed with the Dungeon Journal for all bosses which have been integrated into the new system (this includes bosses for all Cataclysm dungeons and raids). Additional dungeons are planned to be incorporated in future updates."

 

What is often forgotten about Cataclysm is the huge improvements in the UI. The Dungeon Journal is like having an in game WoWHead. The downside to this is the little oiks who always say, "I hope the Sword of Uber Warrior drops off the 2 headed Zaphod Beeblebrox". Why people need to know what loot is on which boss is beyond me? Can they not have a little mystery in their lives. Win

 

Patch 4.3.0

 

New 5 Man Heroic Dungeons

 

End Time, Well of Eternity and Hour of Twilight, these 3 Heroics had the feel of WotLK Heroics Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflections. They were short runs and gave good loot  and allowed people to skip the Firelands Raid and jump into the Dragon Soul Raid. Well designed and finally providing the length and challenge that is expected of an Heroic Dungeon. Win

 

New Raid: Dragon Soul

 

"Players have the opportunity to take the fight to Wyrmrest Temple and beyond, assisting Thrall and the Dragon Aspects as they seek to bring an end to the Black Dragonflight once and for all. 10- and 25-person raids will get to take on Deathwing himself, with three levels of difficulty to consider and epic gear to claim."

 

This Raid turned out to be shortest challenge of any Raid I can remember. The Normal version was considered to be too easy by many and the real challenge was by doing the Heroic version. Should normal be achieveable in the first few weeks of an expansion by non hardcore guilds? Draw

 

Raid Finder - LFG

 

"This new grouping feature allows players to quickly and easily form a pick-up raid for a specially tuned version of the current tier of endgame content: the Dragon Soul raid."

 

LFG is one of Blizzard's best features, like the Dungeon Finder before it, however in practice this in the hands of the player base turned into a hellish nightmare. All content can be seen by all players, the problem is how enjoyable that experience is. Draw

 

Transmogrification

 

"This new feature allows players to customize their gear like never before: copying the appearance of one magical item onto another.. You’ll find Transmogrification, Void Storage, and Reforging vendors in Cathedral Square, Stormwind and The Drag, Orgrimmar."

 

This is the one feature that nobody ever expected to see. It was not even on anybody's wishlist until we actually got it. Win

 

Void Storage

 

"In addition to the bank, players will now have access to a new "deep storage" system, allowing characters to free bag space by setting aside coveted gear. You'll find Transmogrification, Void Storage, and Reforging vendors in Cathedral Square, Stormwind and The Drag, Orgrimmar."

 

What to with those items you kept from travels around Azeroth? all those Tabards that we keep and never use. Void Storage has been another quality of life experience that we never expected. Win

 

Darkmoon Faire

 

"Make your way to Darkmoon Island during the first week of every month to take in the new Darkmoon Faire, complete with new quests, shows, games, recipes, toys, balloons, souvenirs, snacks, beverages, achievements, and titles."

 

The Darkmoon Faire was old and tired and in need of an upgrade or removal from the game. It was used only to pick up your trinket in exchange for a completed set of cards, or by the occasional Goblin buying cheap herbs and selling frogs. The Faire has very quickly become tiresome but with 5 skillups on offer is a very useful place to visit once a month. Nice idea with not much content, I think its time to implement the Killer Rabbit. Draw

 

Summary

 

In summary this was a very poor expansion in most peoples opinion. Some of the minor improvements have proved to be the most important, like Transmogrification and Reforging.

 

The difficulty settings have been up and down and have probably settled at the level of Dragon Soul for the foreseeable future. The game has been short of end game activity and many have taken to PvP for something to do, and others have left the game, some for good and some will return.

 

We know the direction for the game for the next expansion is one of a more casual nature, with different options at end game. Lets hope its as good as it sounds with more options all round.

The State Of The Union

The above graph is from Wowinsider who in turn stole it from GuildOx. The Graph is very interesting and focuses on those people who have obtained an average PvE iLvl of over 400 (heroic Dragon Soul). The runaway class partaking in Heroic is the class with Dual Wield Legendaries, big surprise for all those that dusted off their Rogues.

The middle ground is occupied by Priest, Paladin, Druid , Hunter and Shaman. No real surprise for the 2 true hybrid classes of Paladin and Druid, or for the ever popular Hunter class, however Priest and Shaman is a bit more of a surprise, though I guess there is more need for Healers than Tanking classes.

The ugly ducklings are Warrior, Death Knights, and Mages, bringing up the rear is no surprise Warlock. Cynwise has recently been writing an excellent series of articles on the reasons behind the dearth of the Warlock Class.

The graph above is a census of Level 85 classes pulled from Warcraft Realms.com. The 2 most obvious points are that Rogues are massively over represented in DS Heroics compared to the percentage of Rogues at max level, and that Warlocks really are in a very bad place. Also it is interesting to note the normalising effect on Death Knights during the course of Cata. The number of max level DK's is only 11% compared to their hugely popular status during WotLK, and they are not well represented in the Heroic Dragon Soul category.

The graph on the left shows the breakdown of the class specs and provides a real insight into what is going on in the raiding world at the end of this current expansion.

Warrior

Although difficult to judge it would appear that Protection Warriors are just about holding their own in the Tanking stakes. Arms Warriors are viable, but Fury Warrior is in a very bad place.

Warlocks

Cynwise has suggested that there is not a lot to choose between the 3 specs, with all 3 viable and none of them outstanding. Maybe if one was outstanding people would return to playing the class.

Shaman

Resto Shaman is by far the dominant spec for raiding. Elemental makes a reasonable showing with a poor showing for Enhancement.

Rogues

There appears to be a slight leaning towards Combat Rogues with more than 3x the other 2 specs put together.

Priests

Possibly the most interesting class in this study, is the fact that for a class with 2 healing specs it is the Dps spec that is the dominant Raiding Spec. The once dominant Holy Priest is consigned to minor spec, with Discipline taking over as the healing class of choice.

Paladin

The Healer of choice for the raiding fraternity. Once the creme de la creme of the Tank Healers, Now coupled with a useful toolbox for AoE healing, they are the most popular single spec healers. Retribution is positioned as a middle of road Dps class, and Protection is an average Tanking class.

Mage

Fire Mage is the stand out spec, with a handful playing Arcane and Frost are sat on the sidelines in a bucket of ice.

Hunter

They have been up and down in the popularity stakes for 2 expansions, but Survival is now the top dog. BM has been buffed to be as good as MM, and MM has been nerfed to be as bad as BM. Now they have both been deserted in droves.

Druid

This is one class with equal participation throughout. The one issue is Feral, are they Cat or Bear, and the answer is we don't really know.

Death Knight

Last but not least, the once skeletal masses have moved on to other classes, but it looks like Blood is the number one tanking spec.

Summary

Tanking and Healing looks to be in an alright position, but the Dps specs seem to be all over the place. Combat Rogues, Fire Mages, and Survival Hunters are sitting pretty at the top, one assumes that the Dps charts mirror this picture.

At the other end of spectrum Fury Warriors, Enhancement Shaman, Subtlety Rogues, Assassination Rogues, Frost Mage, Beastmaster Hunters and Marksman Hunters need some tender Blizzard love.

The classes needing some attention as a whole are Warlock and Death Knight. In case anyone needs reminding there is a new class on the way that needs balancing.

 

Blizzard Hero

I am not a Blizzard fanboy, and most of posts have been very much in a negative vein, but Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, WoW's lead systems designer is my Blizzard Hero. As the front for a company he is very articulate and incredibly knowledgeable about the game and the playing population. One can only imagine the number of blogs and forum posts he reads, on top of holding down a daytime and probably playing the game of an evening. His postings on forums was a joy to read and it was much sadness when the trolls forced him to take a less direct approach. The Dev Watercooler series as been utterly brilliant, the only criticism would be that there are not enough of them.


The recent 3 part Cataclysm post-mortem blog series has been very interesting with the possible exception of Scott “Daelo” Mercer who wrote about how wonderful the expansion has been. This is somebody who needs to take his head out of his arse and conduct a full scale SWOT analysis on the Cataclysm expansion. Ghostcrawler and Dave “Fargo” Kosak are both capable of seeing a funny side of some of the expansions failings. The following example from Kosak is a prime example,


"Overwhelmingly, players have told us that they want more quests where you have to flap a giant bird around a cave while targeting creatures in a 3D space."


The interviewer either didn't grasp Kosak's sarcasm, or has never attempted the achievement, The 'Unbeatable?' Pterodactyl: BEATEN. My wife nearly bashed me over the head with keyboard\monitor when I told how to fly the bird, without sinking like a gold brick. She never did work out the ability to change direction in midflight.


Cataclysm Successes


Ghostcrawler rightfully slaps himself and the team on the back for the work they did with the 1-60 revamp. I think everybody can agree that the game was old and tired and no longer held any interest for people leveling up. It is the main reason everybody has a Death Knight, do a short quest chain and then hop through the portal to the Outlands. Since the update it is the Outlands that is the main graveyard of alts, most of them suffering trenchfoot in Zangarmarsh.


The next item that Ghostcrawler highlights is the success of Looking For Raid. I know most of the raiding community likes to look down rather unfavourably on the ease of LFR, but in my opinion this was one of the great features introduced by Blizzard. This is likely to become de facto in all MMO's from this point onwards. My game time does not allow for set raid nights with strict start and finish times. With an army of Alts and in particular 3 healers I can queue and be in a raid in less than a minute most times of the night. Besides the limited amount of dancing they really are good training exercises for the normal modes. After doing the normal raid I now fully understand the fights that previously I was just able to wander through in LFR.


The other item highlighted by Ghostcrawler in a single paragraph was Transmogrification. Now this is not something I have made a great deal of use of, but I can certainly see its attraction. My Ret Pally is the only winner so far with this feature, and she now sports a tremendous 2 Hander which looks suspiciously like Sul'thraze the Lasher and this alone makes me very happy. Now if anyone can remember the clown suits we used to wear leveling through the Outlands, this feature makes perfect sense. Pit Helmet and Peach wellies on a Death Knight not any more. Now I just need to find something sensible to transmog my Spiritwalker's Mantle so my Shaman can stop walking around with two T-Rex skulls attached to his shoulders.


Cataclysm Failures

First up Ghostcrawler identifies that the new zones were disjointed feeling and existed mostly at the other end of a portal provided by your major city. Whilst being different than all the other expansions, I didn't see this as a huge problem. What is more of a problem is the death of the other Cities in the game. I never had any feelings towards Darnassus or Exodar, but it saddens my heart to see Ironforge empty of any players.


The following quote is worth a blog post on it's own.


"The difficulty at which we pegged our heroic dungeons and raids was controversial. They were designed to be about as tough as the dungeons were back in Burning Crusade, but the game has changed since then. Coming out of Lich King, we'd gotten the message loud and clear from players that they wanted tougher challenges. They liked the convenience of Dungeon Finder, but they missed using their crowd control and survival abilities and having to strategize about how to beat a given encounter. We designed the Cataclysm heroics with that in mind, and the players who wanted challenging content were thrilled."


"The problem was that we had this whole group of players who felt like they couldn't make any progress on their characters. Even if they wanted to end up raiding with their friends, they couldn't earn the gear they needed to get into those raids (especially in the absence of Raid Finder). I don't believe that the instances were too hard; it's obvious there are players who enjoy that content. I believe the problem was that there were no alternatives. "



The Burning Crusade Heroics came in two distinct varieties, the reasonably difficult, but very doable, and the very bloody hard. The level 70 Dungeons with an heroic version were absolute stinkers. The mojority of people stuck to doing heroic Underbog and heroic Ramparts. Nobody enjoyed Heroic Shattered Halls, it was just too damn long and too difficult. There is no way you would do more than one heroic a night, there was no LFG in those days and most people would only venture in with a handpick team of guildies. So open up the need for CC with a random group of strangers and introduce a method requiring carefully crafted heals designed to keep the team just above dying. This was a recipe for disaster, and disaster is exactly what we got. The hate coming from the DPS to the healers was enough to stop me and probably some others from healing 5 mans until the ethos changed and epics became the norm. Is it any wonder why the LFR's are desperately short of healers.


Maybe there is a problem with distribution of roles:


5 Man Heroic - 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 3 DPS

10 Man - 2 Tanks, 2-3 Healers, 5-6 DPS

25 Man - 2 Tanks, 5-6 Healers, 17-18 DPS


So a shortage of Tanks at 5 Man LFG and a shortage of Healers at 25 Man LFR. Let's hope for some more slots per server and loads of new baby healing Monks for the next expansion.


Another major issue with the Heroic 5 Mans, was the duration to complete. I did Heroic Deadmines on only one occasion, which was an instance I was looking forward to. After battling our way to the ship for 60 minutes, you then get ported back halfway through the dungeon to do it again. Thanks for the memory Blizz, the next time I see the early Cataclysm Heroics will be when I can solo them midway through the next expansion.


Even worse than that was the Troll Heroics. The Zul' Gurub abomination says it all, and Zul' Amman was half decent but I am afraid that if I had not discovered PvP or else I would have stopped subscribing during Patches 4.1 and 4.2.


As always Blizzard know when something is wrong and they normally go full tilt in the other direction and eventually get the right course by zig zagging a course through an expansion. Quick heroics, LFR are the future for the majority of players. The elite can bang their heads against heroic Raids, and the rest of the playing population, with more stable playing time can do normal mode raiding. Of course the Rogues, Death Knights and Frost Mages can continue to pwn each other in the BG's and Arenas.


Ghostcrawler's personal loss at the absence of Abyssal Maw, is probably a huge sigh of relief from the playing population. Anybody who had the misfortune to quest through the 130+ quests under the sea in Vashj'ir will be more than happy. The zone was was probably the most beautiful created by Blizzard, but 3D swimming, fighting and trying to find bloody cave entrances is just way too much.

The new Cataclysm profession Archeology gets a special mention.


"Archaeology had too much travel time. It could be punishingly random, especially for players who imagined that it would be a guaranteed delivery mechanism for Zin'rokh (which was never the intention). Players missed a lot of the lore, which was delivered in the Archaeology journal and not as part of the survey or digging experience. We think the Mists of Pandaria expansion will be really good for Archaeology. "


Archeology was long and very boring, in my experience the only sensible way to do it was when you had other things to do and could spare 5 minutes every 20 minutes or so. Fly to digsite, find three items, fly to nearest flight point, go and clean bathroom. Repeat and peel potatoes. I would suggest browsing the internet as an alternative but my version crashes out if I am not 100% loyal to WoW especially if I am flying, I am sure it sense my flirtation with over things social like e-mail or Facebook.


The only other useful aspect about archeology was the huge amount of xp available, especially if you had a character with Herbing and Mining. Why skinners got such a rough ride in cata I am not sure, especially with the terrible droprate of Pristine Hide. Why no xp for skinners?


Mists of Pandaria and beyond


The general gist for the expansion is progression by doing what you want to do. It’s your game, play solo, play in a random group, play with your guild, kill monsters, kill other players. Get rewards your way and have fun whilst doing it. If Blizzard gets this right, we are in for a treat and maybe just maybe those subscriber numbers might  go creeping back up again