When I’m driving, my mind wanders. I mean really wanders. There’s no rhyme or reason to what I’m thinking about or where it takes me, but you can safely bet that WoW comes up moderately often.
Sometimes I end up driving someplace different than I intended. This is probably not safe, and really I can only credit my ninja-like reflexes that I’ve only ever been in one accident. I mean, I think I drive safely, but rationally I have to acknowledge that when my mind is so far removed that I actually go different places than I meant to, my concentration is maybe not where it should be.
Sometimes I’ll think about tweaking talent builds, or crazy soloing ideas that may or may not be possible, or just plain cool things that they should add to the game. Of course equally often I’m thinking about the ramifications of the speed of light, or how fast I could accelerate if I really went right up to the RPM redline on my car (never been close), or what my plan would be in the event of the zombie apocalypse.
But it’s really only the WoW thoughts that have any bearing here.
I’ve mentioned recently my whole Guild Hall plan (sparked by driving to GenCon and talking with Arust) and long ago the Pet Collar. Here are a few of the others, gems and duds both:
- Dying Armor: I’ve never had any interest in the “dressing room” feature, or the barber shop. But damn I often wished I could change the color of my armor. I think this feature would have to be ten times as popular as the barber shop, wouldn’t you? However, I think it should be fairly expensive, to keep people from changing their armor color every day. Perhaps tie the cost in with the repair cost of the item (if fully broken) as a way of scaling (and thanks to Hrist for that thought).
- Easier Alts: If you have a level 80 character, let us start any alt at level 55, like the Death Knights. I appreciate that they keep speeding up the leveling process and I want WoW to continue to attract new players. But I’ve leveled already, and I despise it. I might be more willing to make a healer alt or whatever if I didn’t have to start at zero. And it might be worth it to have access to another set of professions. Which brings me to…
- Less Painful Professions: If you’re level 80 and you switch professions, let that new profession start at like a 300 skill level. Don’t make us wander all over the starting zones to level our mining. It’s lame, and frankly it sucks for the actual low level characters when an 80 zips by on their epic mount to steal their node. But let’s be honest, I’m don’t really care about them, I care about the pain that it is to level yet another profession from 0 (and I’ve leveled mining and skinning at least twice each – on one toon).
- Hunter Scaling: Implement stat scaling from hunter to pet on ArP, Crit, and Haste. Lower pet base damage to compensate. Thus we should see MM and SV pets net a slight boost at good gear levels (taking care of our gear scaling problems) and BM hunters net a huge boost, to take care of their huge dps gap. This one they are now talking about possibly looking into maybe doing. Exciting!
- Moar Boars: it’s just a serious lack in the game atm.
- Simplify SV: by simplifying Black Arrow. Give it no cooldown and almost half the benefit – that alone would make life easier. Bonus points for making a talent that gives some other shots a chance to refresh it. Also consider changing sniper training to make it less evil.
- Make deterrence work. That means it should stop dots and aoes, and word from all sides. I mean, come on, it’s just 4 seconds. Make disengage jump you forward, and add an extra 5 feet. Just going forward alone is a huge benefit. This still makes these abilities far worse than the equivalents that other classes get, but might help your hunters representation in arenas.
- Guns vs Bows: When you have a best-in-slot ranged weapon in the game, make sure there are equivalent gun and bow options.
- Changing Views: Give the option to set your screen center point at something other than the center of your character. Will allow for some cooler screenshots, and occasionally a much more useful POV for some boss fights.
- More Portals: Every city should have level 80 portals to other major cities. We spent hours and hours wandering the landscape while leveling. We’ve seen it. Now cross-country travel just detracts from the game experience.
- Nostalgia Raids Viable: Find a way to make the old 40-man raids doable again. Give all those new people the real experience of downing Onyxia, and Ragnaros, and Razorgore, Vael, and Nefarian. Easiest is probably to just retool them for lvl 80. But you know what, keep them 40-man and hell, make them on the easy side like Naxx. Make their loot tables like archevon — you aren’t getting anything better out of them so they aren’t really a part of the progression, but you’re getting a massive loot table about one tier below progression. So while they aren’t absolutely cutting edge, they’re massively fun and challenging and still worthwhile.
- Everyone’s Dream: And finally, the much demanded: remove non-dwarf races from the game.
hmmm… you have a lot of good ideas. Have been playing WoW for about 3 years now as hunter (alt paladin) with a very good friend of mine. When we are questing and hanging on vent a lot of frustration appears… and we did discuss some of your ideas too;) especially the alt lvling, gear scalling and prof thing is really good.
I too have wished that i could change the color of my gear:( I think a simple “dye job” would be cool:D
Leave it to frost to post a desire for ethnic cleansing. It starts with hating elves, in the end its CThun’s tentacles for everyone but dwarves. The only way to be safe is to get rid of all the dwarves. Im sure the Draenei have a spare ship somewhere they can load the dwarves onto, smash the controls, and send them hurting into space/time (with the help of Chromie and his bronze dragonflight buddies of course)
Warhammer online has armor dying and it’s pretty cool and doesn’t cost too much. It’s an easy thing and keeps you from looking like the Goobers in the back of MMO magazine (the “Skittles” armor page).
Easier Alt leveling would be great- On that note:
** I would like to add to the list: Allow “Heirloom” items to be sent to YOUR “opposite faction” toons- they DO say “ACCOUNT bound” after all. I’d be much more likely to start an Ally alt if I could send my heirlooms (I have like
to them.
that was supposed to read “I have like 8″ NOT smiley shades = /
Of all people, you should know that “Easier alts”, “Less paiful proffesions” and “More portals” are never going to happen. It will mean less play-time, less in-game time and that’s one of the top things that Blizzard is avoiding like a plague. Also, say bye-bye to old content and never ever think it’s going to get renovated just simply because making new content will take just as much work (money) but will bring a lot more new and renewed accounts (money).
But “pet scaling” ….. honestly, i don’t understand why it is still not done. Probably because hunters are so all-powerful already (try to prove me wrong, i dare you).
Well, if you’re going to remove the other races, at least leave their females.
Except for gnomes, undead, and taurens. They can all go. One has size issues, one has smell issues, and one has both.
Alamae,
I respectfully disagree, at least partially. Easier stuff: Blizz has been steadily making leveling easer and faster for years. Heck, just today they announced yet lower level and cheaper mounts just for that reason. And another portal. There are a billion DKs partially ’cause of how easy it is. So far it is not hurting subscriptions (by the way: it’s subscriptions that matter, not play time. The ideal customer never plays and always pays).
Renovating old content is certainly easier than building entirely new content. Also, I suspect that the unveiling of “MC and BWL lvl 80″ would probably be as popular and consume as much time as the unveiling of a brand new instance. Never underestimate the value of nostalgia and legend.
Pet scaling: they said the reason they haven’t done it already is when they implemented the scaling that pets have now they coded it in a clunky way that makes it really hard to add other things to. The implication is that they’ll have to recode it all from scratch in a more flexible way.
Agreed on most counts. Except for dying armor. I thought we were interested in dps on this site, not aesthetics. That sounds like an idea spawned from a Night Elf.
I think if it was easier to revamp old content, they would do it more often. Inevitably the way you USED to do stuff sometimes makes it more difficult to convert to the new way than just starting from scratch with your new methodology. I have experienced this first hand
actually, the more portal thing is sorta happening. 3.2 plans ot have ports to stair of destiny in SW and Org. its astart anyway.
and one thousand times yes to the easier alts. even with the mount changes coming up (mounts at 20? wtf) i still despise levelling to much to do it.
I always liked the concept of mounted combat. I am not sure how hard that would be outside of the tournament vehicle system.
Heh, travel form and aspect of the cheetah at 16, man twinks are going to go nuts with all the changes.
wow frost…you really do come up with some good ideas while on the road. Anyway, my favorite is the ability to start alts at level 55. that would really make things easier for alot of people that have one or more 80′s that want to play diffrent classes. It REALLY would make the game more enjoyable not having to start from level one again.
i wish they would implement the lvl 55 starting alts or at least let us lvl for 1-20 give us a magic 38lv skiping flask then go straight to the outlands
I think they have to increase base hunter dps since our pets cant survive in most of the Ulduar boss fights anymore. I dont know if any of hunters’ pet can survive in Razorscale fights but mine can’t. Whenever i send the pet into fight, it dies so quickly. Thats why i am putting it in passive just to get the Call of the Wild buff when Razorscale drops to the ground.
We are hunters. Whether we are bm, mm or sv; our dps still depends on pet dps. I dont know yours but my pet’s dps is like % 10 my of total raid dps and when my pet dies so quickly or i am forced to keep it on passive by my side, i lose dps a lot.
Fun ideas.
Also, yay GenCon!
leandor touched on one of the reasons im not all that keen on the pet dynamic. its a cool touch and a nice aesthetic, but when it dies, there goes 10% of our dps. i dont know about other pet classes (lock, dk) but how many other classes have the problem of managing 10+% of dps health? a pet for us is not much different than another weapon or ability. give it a repair cost, not a health bar
WTB edit feature
let me clarify an above statement “how many other classes have the problem of managing 10+% of dps health that is separate from their own?” maybe they made some fights a little more unforgiving to pets to balance things? idk.
my dream remove all dwarfs, tauren>dwarfs oh and belfs i hate them soooo much
For MM and SV, pets are about 10% of our dps – and frankly, I think that should be a bit higher, maybe around 15%. Hunters *should* care about our pets and they *should* contribute a significant part of our dps. We should have to pay attention to them.
Only done the first half dozen or so bosses in Ulduar; however, no problems keeping the pet alive – though I do have to pay attention to the pet – not just send him in to attack and ignore him. But that’s the way it should be, otherwise it’s just a free 10% dps. On Razorscale you gotta keep your pet out of the blue flame – that’s what kills it. If your keeping your pet on passive – then at least send him in to attack when Razorscale is down and pull him off during the adds phase.
Love all ur ideas, especially about the armor dye. Sorry to care about aesthetics an all, but anything to personalize our character would add more interest. If we didn’t care about aesthetics, would you still play the game if you ran around in the same crap as ur level one character did? No, u wouldn’t.
Again, great ideas, love the way you think and I thank you again for keeping my hunter “SMOKIN!!!”–wouldn’t have time to keep my little guy top notch without you!
Armor dye is a bad idea, period. I was playing EQ when they introduced it. Suddenly every juvenile idiot was running around in either 1.) all black or 2.) garish neon clown suits.
Frankly, most level 80 gear looks pretty sweet as-is, from what I’ve seen. And who cares about levelling gear because……
….. the level 55 starting point is a drum I’ve been beating for months. 1 free level 55 per 80 per faction per server.
i think it’s the sentinels doing the whirlwind that 1 shots pets on razorscale mostly
hi frost, a lot of talk about armour penetration taking over from agility and people stacking armor pen, how about a post?
Pet’s ignore 75% of sentinel damage, but you certainly shouldn’t send them at the sentinels anyway (they’re typically tanked away from the rest in most strats).
Armor Pen weight is kind of covered in the EAP article. It’s much better now, but Agility gems are certainly better than armor pen gems (AP gems for BM).
I dunno about armor dyes. Really its mainly a problem that stems from all level 80s of a class looking the same due to the tier armor system. At lower levels, theres a good enough variety in gear that you dont notice. I think each tier having 3 (or more) art/model variations could be a nicer alternative. With the token system, the one token could buy any variation, and it would give characters at level 80 a more “customized” feel.
Well, we have defeated 7 bosses in Ulduar 25 man so far including Flame Leviathan. I had no problem keeping the pet alive except Razorscale. Even i kept him on passive, only sent him when Razorscale is down, poor creature still die.
However,i f you have challenged Thorim and Freya in 25 man, you will see that, it is really hard to keep the pet alive without the healers’ aid. I mean it is nearly impossible with that mess while challenging these bosses and if there are any hunters out there keeping the pet alive during those boss fight i mentioned above, i am going to clap my hands for them.
I’ve had an idea I think is, albeit simple, pretty good.
You know how you can link your profession in the trade chat etc. Well how about being able to put that link in your characters guild notes? That way you can click on your guild list and see what everyone can make
Make disengage jump you forward? Oh please no advices from raiders on PvP skills.
Disengage jumps backwards and that’s the way it should work. Jump, concussion and nuke that bastard
If it were to change, they should make it so, it would NOT work even when you got a ‘lock’ on you preventing you to move. When you are stunned by a rogue, you cannot trigger the ability, which is annoying for me, but fair to the roque that is killing me. But when I got ‘icey feet’ or so, it allows me to trigger the disengage – triggering the time-out – but no jump at all. In the heat of battle, this happens too often …
I do agree fully however with the bow vs guns. Gun’s always seem to have the advantage for almost all gear-levels in PvE, but not in PvP. Probably this is therefore intended, but I don’t see the point.
My #1 wish is the option to create one-man raids without bothering friends or (mis)using DC. If you are allowed to two-man wipe BT, why not allowing it solo-wipe?
Armin, the reason Frost wants disengage to jump forwards and not backwards is the same reason mages have trouble with blink… a pebble stops you. So if you are jumping backwards, then its harder to “aim” where you go and it tends not to work right.
Add in walls, corners, specks of dust, and its a neigh worthless ability to use. He touched on this in one of his guides.
I can see his point there. However I can see the designers POV too. Hunters are primarily “ranged DPS”. So, jumping backwards puts more distance between you and the target- hence more range to PEW PEW!
I HAVE known a MELEE (least that’s what he called himself) hunter before though, so for him maybe jumping forward would be good. (he’s not right in the head!)
The problem is that you don’t use disengage just to get to shooting distance – you use it to get the hell away from the melee. You want to be kiting — but it’s too difficult to determine exactly where your ass is facing in the middle of pvp combat. Going forward it’s intuitive to make tweaks to your facing. Backwards is ridiculous.
I went into detail about this here: http://www.warcrafthuntersunion.com/2009/01/the-problem-with-disengage/
I fully understoof why Frost/you wanted forward as I read the article. At least we agree that its main targeted use is PvP.
But sure, you don’t always know where you’re behind is, but that’s part of the skill. Knowing exactely where everything and more important everybody and is. It’s not supposed to be a free-escape-ride. That would not be fair towards the other classes. I mean, I can nuke most cloths/leather very easily down and I then also get a jump-and-escape freecard!?
In addition to that in many BG’s fact forward is often not what you want as that’s were the enemies are. As a hunter you’re skill is to position yourselve right … and your teammates are supposed to prevent the healers and canons (which is you) not to get pinned and nuked down. If you are in a corner, you’ve messed up before you got pinned down and you actually don’t deserve a free-escape anyway
But more important: BG has never been balanced in terms that each class can beat every other class easily if you just use the proper tactics. It’s like the rock-sciccors-paper game. It’s not one2one. That’s why teams in BG are just as important as they are in raids.
I fully admit many BG’s don’t turn out that way and many are in fact loners. But that’s why there are also PvP guilds and pre-made PvP BG’s …
personally i like disengage jumping backwards and the aim just takes practice. its saved my but plenty of times when razorscale kills the tank and im about to get breathed on, disengage and feign death, move then keep shooting. works great on ignis to after being in the pot.
Oh, and to critisise some more (Just kidding as I love your site!
), I do believe Blizzard will introduce pet scaling (as I read at your site first).
However also realise that in your favourite MM talent build you only use 1 point in ‘Go For the Throat’ and you use a Wolf which uses Furious Howl. This is a buff that benefits not just the pet, but also you. Overall this gives more damage than e.g. the cat’s Rake (More focus needed: 10 sec cooldown vs 20 sec Howl), but just looking at the pet it is less damage.
Would one switch to a non-wolf – just hypotheticaly of course, I’m not recommending – and you’ll see a few % higher pet damage if you feed it enough focus. The MM hunter’s with cat’s e.g. do reach the 15% mark by using 2 points.
In raids my pet doesn’t run out of focus (just lots and lots of crits) which is why I only have 1 rank atm.
Frost, you’re of course 100% right, but my point was, that’s also because you use a Wolf, not e.g. Cat (and possibly have high enough crit). Else, it would be nice to consider the second point in exchange for e.g. a point in barage or the imp. steady shot as those give very little anyway. EJ’s sheet – which is not holy of course, but stilll – shows with a Cat for most gears and also on actual dummy testing higher damage that way.
BTW, some bad news: We already knew patch 3.1.3 broke our Hunter’s Mark. It increased damage to 500 AP base, but now a SV hunter which decides to spam his mark (wasting his mana en GCD) will overwrite our MM mark causing all the hunters to lose 150 AP (or 250 AP with glyph). Since most SV hunter’s have the mark hidden deep in their macro’s, this is bad news. First Blizzard response: We’ll look into it, but now:
http://www.worldofraids.com/wow-blue-tracker/us-forums/17367815397-bug-hunter-s-mark-being-overwritten-3-1-3.html
http://elitistjerks.com/f74/t37654-marksman_questions/p66/#post1278688
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17730263662&sid=1
So if you’re in a guild raid with a SV hunter educate him or lose the three points.
I would start Alt’s at 58 not 55….55 was just so DK’s could go through the whole epic starting quest series….they were at 58 when they went out into the world……..lets start alts out in outland…….
personally I have gotten to a point where I hate leveling…..it is so hard to get motivated to do 80 levels…..starting at 58 at least you see the faint light at the end of the tunnel
I have spoke about the alt start level thing a few times with people in my guild, i think blizz are insane if this dosnt get added at some point! I think the requirments should be either you need 2 80s before you get 55/58 alt, or for every level 80 you have you get a level 55/58.
Another idea i threw around in tbc in the official forums but understandably was un reply’d too……WTF is with the fact that when i started playin wow on day 1 there were x million players and we were all happy paying x amount per month…….over the years i have seen blizz flexing their epeen via ads on how many players now play…..11million is it now?? like almost 10fold what was there at the start…..yet we ALL still pay the same amount a month!?!?! i feel after 5 years or so we are 100% deserving some form of reduction…..i dont know or care too much how this would work…..x% for each full year ect? i just find it very unjustifyed that we pay exactly the same and theres is such a hugly greater number of players now. I know how buisness works….but comon….give the dogg a bone^^
I would love to see upgradable weapons / armor, especially the epic class and legendary stuff. All you hunters remember the effort it took to get the epic bow, staff and quiver from the original game, just to throw it away with the first green drop from BC? Maybe I wasn’t as good as some, but that epic set took me a LOT of time and effort. I still have it in the bank, can’t bring myself to throw it away. Wouldn’t it be cool to do another quest chain to increase it to BC (and now WotLK) standards?
BoS gun vs. BoS bow? Doesn’t matter much to me if it’s BoS
–> Although I think one could be BoS for MM & SV perhaps and possibly the other could be BoS for BM depending on the stats.
Level 55 alts for people with a level 80 character or something of the like needs to be implemented! Leveling an alt to endgame content takes too much time if you are invested in a main character already.
Heh, I think deterrence should just be a bubble–I am fed up with paladins who stun-lock hunters, and then bubble & heal themselves.
LOL…no one should have to suffer rolling a dwarf.
Playable races that need to altered/removed from the game:
1. Gnomes (utterly rediculous–oompa loompas in WoW?)
2. Dwarves (hairy drunken gnomes lmao, now they’ve gone too far!)
3. Trolls (They look like they have a spinal injury, and troll feet look silly on every occasion)
Note: Undead are rather ugly, but they’re basically walking skeletons, so it can’t be helped. Orcs are also rather silly, but they’re forgiven since it’s not easy being green.