Nostalrius Begins - Quality wow vanilla realm (1.12)

Hey there. I'd like to talk a bit about the current release line & blizzards difficulty system in vanilla. While most strive for a "Blizzlike" solution, which is the way to go in the majority of cases, I'd like you to consider this with neutral eyes
Today’s world is entirely different, we're not only talking "Retail <> 1.12" here, the internet, technology, and general knowledge of the game is by far the same as it were back then. I'd suggest we make this server adapt to this, I'm not suggesting anything crazy like a dungeon finder, heroic items & dungeons etc., so stay with me for now. I'll do my best at being thorough, as if this is to be implemented; it requires a great amount of work from the developers' side.

As far as difficulty goes, most seem to ignore how easy vanilla actually is. Players in 2015 aren't retarded anymore. Most fixes and changes that were made through the release of vanilla and up to 1.12 in general made them superior to those earlier in the game, e.g. 1.12 talents are superior to those in the earlier patches. Then there are buffs, gearing, raid setup, etc. People in 2015 know how buffs and elixirs affect their performance; they use flasks and so on. In 2005, vanilla, people using flasks (beyond the 1-5 players that brought their own) was an unknown concept until like late AQ40. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLGYqDbMW7Y – Look at this guy, Ascent holds the world first for a lot encounters, such as Ragnaros, Vael, Bug trio (http://www.sk-gaming.com/content/16397- ... first_list) – seriously, look at him, he’s keyboard turning, clicking, not pre healing and literally unbuffed except class buffs (all he has is trueshot, bloodpact, AI, stam, soulstone, divine spirit and motw) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br1hXGXJ7Tg This is their world first kill. Check out the general setup of the raid, no Ventrilo (read video description) – Show me a world first video from today’s world where the same… “lack” applies. You'd be hard pressed to find a guild on a private server that doesn't have all locks and mages running spell damage flasks, all tanks running titan and everyone else running 2-3 elixirs and potions, and the server’s top guilds using literally all available buffs for progression. Additionally there is also gearing, glancing hits and how they work wasn’t theory crafted up until halfway through vanilla, paladins running around in T1, inefficient methods were in general in full effect, and naturally this made encounters way more difficult, today, you’ll see players having theory crafted the absolute best setup for their class at certain content, thus affecting the difficulty of encounters. Futhermore, there is also our times' super computers which can handle 10 clients, access to hundreds of addons, knowledge of both game, not only theorycrafting wise, but also what content is going to be released and so on so forth.

A friend of mine played on Scriptcraft where they threw a flat 20-30% HP and damage increase on most bosses and their abilities “and it was the shit” - although they still one shot 6 of the bosses in MC but first time they went Ragnaros it actually felt challenging. I’m quite certain it wasn’t intended that it was possible to kill bosses before they even used their abilities (e.g. Ragnaros’ Submerge, requires 244 DPS per damage dealer, assuming there is 25 of them at normal HP, 1.01M). I’m not saying a flat increase of DMG & HP is the solution, in some cases I’d even say it would destroy the raiding experience - wipes would in general be because of random DMG spikes. Each encounter would require an adaption, I’d especially highlight the idea of increasing the effect of “standing in fire”, in other words, bosses’ abilities which affect players who are doing stuff they’re not supposed to, e.g. Baron Geddon’s Bomb, the dmg of Gehennas’ Rain of fire, Ragnaros one shotting people when there isn't anyone in melee range. So.. it’s a very delicate matter, increasing Chromaggus’ damage by 30% would just result in inevitable instant tank deaths, rendering raiders hopeless as far as progression goes. If this idea is considered to be implemented, I am volunteering to do a more thorough brainstorming of how the encounters could be changed so they adapt to the world of 2015.

Moreover, the current progression line once more content would have been released, has proven to be flawed on other vanilla projects. The current situation on Warsong (Feenix’s realm with all content released) is that Naxxramas get pugged until Sapphiron with a GDKP system, ie, you’re able to buy Naxx gear/Tier 3 with gold(GDKP is another point which has to be considered). Once later content is released, previous content is more or less completely ignored, there is no such as a path with Preraid -> MC -> BWL -> AQ/Naxx, it evolves into Preraid (just to show dedication) -> AQ/Naxx. This also ignores the consequences it has to the PvP system. I won’t dig into this issue that much, if you’re interested in this see http://www.wow-one.com/forum/topic/9099 ... xx-happen/. To new players joining a server and there are 0 guilds doing MC and BWL and if you want items from there you're going to have to spend 20k gold that situation is a little discouraging. Point being, Nostalrius’ current content release line is 6 months from release -> Naxx, assuming everything is cleared and done immediately (which isn’t possible, ie. War effort), but in case the encounters were adjusted to a point where they aren’t oneshot anymore by the most hardcore raiding guild, it would prolong the already fine-tuned release & progression timeline.

Assuming these ideas are implemented, different difficulty implementations and encounter changes, would result in content which no longer will be pug able and oneshot to the same extent. People will therefore consistently be able to restore the true vanilla feeling together with a server that won’t die in 6 months or result in corruption, like it has been seen with several of other vanilla projects.

EDIT:

This is added as a reply, so now I'll just add it for reading purposes.
This an example of how the encounters could be modified.

While I have no insight into the kind of work it requires to implement different kind of scripts and adjustments to the current scripts, let me give an example of how I see for instance the encounter Gehennas could be changed. In most cases an encounter already has interesting abilities which doesn't shine through, such as the Flamewakers' Sunder Armor, yet they have so low HP that it doesn't affect the tank as much as it could.

Gehennas's HP: 351,780 - New: 422,136 (20% increase)

He has 3 abilities: Shadowbolt, Rain of Fire, Gehennas' Curse.
These are the current values (based on wowwiki, so they might be off, but these values are just to plant the idea)

Shadowbolt:
"2000-2500 point shadow bolt on one non-tank target."

New:
"2500-3000 point shadow bolt on three non-tank targets"

Rain of Fire:
"Calls down a molten rain, burning all enemies in a selected area for 925 to 1075 Fire damage every 2 sec. for 6 sec. - Range: 40 yards, Radius: 10 yards"

New:
"Calls down a molten rain, burning all enemies in a selected area for 1388 to 1613 (50% increase) Fire damage every 1,5(formerly 2) sec. for 6 sec. - Range: 40 yards, Radius: 10 yards"

Gehennas' Curse:
Reduces healing effects for nearby enemies by 75% for 5 min.

New:
Reduces healing effects for nearby enemies by 75% for 5 min. Increases the affected target's damage taken from Shadow and Fire by 25%

This means that curses no longer can be ignored (incase the raid is properly divided into a healer and ranged DPS grp, if its left on targets, it will make them take 25% more damage from the shadowbolts and rain of fire, wanna ignore curses and rain of fire? You'll be dead in 3 sec. Rain of Fire will deal more damage and faster, making people who stand in the area for a longer amount of time take a lot more damage, even though they dont have the curse.

Additionally, you can adjust the adds aswell.
There are the 2 flamewakers next to him.
Flamewaker HP: 77,700 - New: 101010 (30% increase)

Fist of Ragnaros
Stuns nearby enemies, rendering them unable to move or attack for 4 sec.Radius: 8 yards

New:
Stuns nearby enemies, rendering them unable to move or attack for 3 sec.Radius: 20 yards

Sunder Armor
Hacks at an enemy's armor, reducing it by 1000 per Sunder Armor. Lasts 20 sec. Can stack up to 20 times.

New:
Hacks at an enemy's armor, reducing it by 1500 per Sunder Armor. Lasts 20 sec. Can stack up to 20 times.

This means that if the raids' ranged players position themselves wrong, they'll now be stunned, if a ranged player also overaggros the adds, they will run into the group and now stun a great amount of people, ie. punishing people who dont handle their threat properly. You also have to spread all 3 targets, (so you need more space, and cant skip as much trash) so they dont stun unnecessary players. I didn't have any info about the frequency of the abilities, you could make the adds impossible to taunt and therefore force them to apply Sunder Armor to the same target, forcing a raid to either swap tanks (Like with Burning Adrenaline on Vael in BWL), or DPS the adds down fast enough. Currently, the encounter is really short, I've been on several kills (with BWL as highest content released) where the total encounter lasted 20-25 seconds, 20% more boss HP and 30% more to adds means the adds will now play a larger role in the encounter. Ideally, it could be a lot longer, but the added damage from abilities means it will be more healing intensive, so we'd have to be careful with not making it too tough and rendering the healers oom and impossible to heal for a new MC guild. Moreover the white dmg of the Flamewakers and Gehennas could be increased.

The decent thing about this, is that there aren't added any new abilities, you've simply adjusted what Blizzard already made, the encounter will feel the same, only difference being, you're now punished harder if you ignore the mechanics of the fight.

Alternatively, instead of affecting raid encounters something like gear could be adjusted.

Related topics:
Level 60 Naxxramas Veterans?: (How hard was it, was it fun, was it craxy hard?)
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2098120195)

I basically agree with all of this. Players have evolved quite a bit from 2005. You used to have keyboard turners and mouse clickers, now any raider is going to be much more effective, efficient, and competitive. We also have technology for servers and computers that is much better than what we had in 2005. Back then, the game ran terribly. No one, not even Blizzard, had a decent enough computer or internet connection for the game. Raiding meant playing at <10 FPS with 300+ MS. Now, running the modern game at 60 FPS with gutter MS(I was at 40 MS in Cata during raids), regardless of however players are on screen, has made the game easier than it used to be, forcing Blizzard to made newer content harder and expect faster reflexes. Running the old 2006 client will have the same issue, as any modern computer should stomp all over that old client. But the old difficulty won't have taken this into account... The 2006 game wasn't designed to be run on 2014 machines that can run it flawlessly, unlike any of its players back then.

Nostalrius has some decisions to make regarding difficulty, and may want to make things harder to slow the progression of its players. Having locked/timed releases won't fix this problem, if it is one.

Drain wrote: No one, not even Blizzard, had a decent enough computer or internet connection for the game. Raiding meant playing at <10 FPS with 300+ MS.

Did you played with an amstrad in the jungle ?

The particularity of Vanilla is that it was designed to work on most of the computers

the difficulty is not how 1 person plays the game in vanilla, its how you can get a raid of up to 40 people playing "good". considering the timeline on Nostalrius, have you ever played WoW vanilla back in 2005 before ZG was released? fresh servers that didn't even have the pvp gear upgraded or 20 mans released. raiding MC in Dungeon set gear was actually more difficult than it looks.

Feenix is exempt from anything blizzlike especially since you can pay to win on that server and the economy is so messed up, it literally takes the challenge out of it. try farming for hours all the mats required to make a couple flasks for a raid night. with a working economy and 0 exploits of gold(instawin button) that feenix has.

Theres a huge difference between the servers on feenix. If you know feenix you'd know that. ED doesnt have pay to win either. ED is more blizzlike than most of the other projects out there, if you really believe its that broken and pay to win, feel free to enlighten me.

The way I wish it to be is the timeline being stretched 3-4 times.

We all came here to experience vanilla. What's the rush in releaseing the content so quickly. Just to satisfy hardocre players going for world firsts? They will come and go elsewhere not long after Kel'thuzad is down disallowing 80% of server population to fully enjoy the game.

Netherfrost wrote: Players in 2015 aren't retarded anymore.

Sure, difficulty in games have risen since 20 years...has become more hardcore than before !

People in 2015 know how buffs and elixirs affect their performance; they use flasks and so on.

Same as in Vanilla...it was just expensive to craft.

In 2005, vanilla, people using flasks (beyond the 1-5 players that brought their own) was an unknown concept until like late AQ40.

Wrong. We did used, most of other guilds on 2 servers (we transferred with free xfer) used. Huge costs was the limit to full flask each time. Then you learned the fight, got better gear, and pots weren't need anymore.

not pre healing

Healers pre-healed back in the days....all Healing routines were invented before Wow kiddy.

no Ventrilo (read video description)

2006 vocals were in the basics of raiding...

and the server’s top guilds using literally all available buffs for progression

.
Onixya buff too ? progress will be short...

they work wasn’t theory crafted up until halfway through vanilla

,
Elitist jerks forums anyone ?

Futhermore, there is also our times' super computers which can handle 10 clients, access to hundreds of addons, knowledge of both game,

If your computer couldn't handle Vanilla back in time, your gaming experience was probably limited to tetris and minesweeper. Requirements were super low...

Drain wrote: Raiding meant playing at <10 FPS with 300+ MS.

Wow was not designed to be played on Gameboy.

(I was at 40 MS in Cata during raids),

Ping # good comp...omg

While I agree with Netherfrost's post, as to me it seems pretty common sense and perception of how WoW, and its' community has changed over 10+ years, as well as on privates.
The issue is like you said, it's hard to pinpoint how you would actually make these encounters harder.. While the flat HP & DMG increase, could be "neat" on some bosses, it certainly like you said, will not fly in the long run. There will be many scenarios where that just won't do, and would only harm the experience, if anything.

So, really, as nice as this would be, I'm sure it's something that has flown through everyone's mind by now, but it's just a really tricky thing to execute on, from a developer's standpoint, it's a ton of extra work, testing, taking feedback, theorycrafting, etc... I think it's really too much hassle for anyone to bother, even though, it could be very sweet if done right and with A TON of care.
But, it's almost like asking too much, it's such a far-fetched dream idea, if you ask me. I'm not against it, I don't get why anyone would be. It's just that it's a very daunting task to ever do, or even start to attempt.

On another note, I also agree with mierzyk above me here, about the timeline release dates. I wouldn't mind seeing it slowed down a lot, and - pardon me if I'm brash here: I highly doubt the timeline that is currently laid, would actually be pinpoint on release times with no little errors, bugs, glitches or complaints.

Really, I wouldn't mind if the progressive release was 2 times slower. Wouldn't bother me one bit. If anything I think the devs should take as much time as they need to make the content as crisp clean, smooth, and functional as it can be on release.
How much content they already have made and prepared, who knows - There is no progression bars or anything, so really, we're all going into this server blindly. Apart from the tests, which have had excellent feedback and debugging and fixing so far. Definitely helps the server, community, and devs to try and make the server as good as they can for release.

But I don't think the future content releases should ever be rushed. If you can't deliver let's say.. BWL on the exact day, and need 1-2 more months.... Then use those extra months, to make it like you want it to be.
No one wants to be disappointed, but a bit of waiting, the people can tolerate... They're already doing it right now.

Honestly it is not that hard; tuning situations that are already functional is a pretty basic game design exercise... And if for some reason "that one fight" can not be changed without becoming unbalanced, just keep it as it was. The overall difficulty of a raid will change even if you only edit half of the fights. The hardest parts become the easiest, etc... It does not have to be radically different anyway. Totally can be done. However, I really don't see them modifying fights they spent so much time to reproduce, and especially because it goes against the sacred blizzlike...

I would be a lot more careful about a slower timeline though. This server already died from lack of content released. People got bored and left, population dropped and got stuck at the bottom because nothing was happening anymore. A lot of players were already sick of MC almost 10 years ago, and it's not any more exciting now... MC and BWL are fine, so the devs have plenty of time to focus on AQ40 and Naxx but there is no reason to wait too much either.