Progression, raid difficulty and release timeline

[DKD]

Hey guys I'm sure you get this question day in and day out but do you guys have a rough idea on when the server is releasing to the public? As in this month next month etc. I have read "soon" a couple times but I was wondering if I could get something less vague for an answer? Thanks in advance really hyped for release regardless of how long it will be

[Netherfrost]

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.

[mbf]

There is no estimate date of release even. Ofc this is important but i pretty sure after 1-2 years waiting (like for other new projects) u will be agree for any options xD

[Keftenk]

I think adjusting the difficulties to the point where they are still "recognizable" and appropriate is a cool idea, but then again. How many people would have problems with that? A lot of people are really sensitive to these kinds of things -,- Not to mention. If the dev's don't want it, then we won't see it.

[Askental]

Yeah that is the idea. However adding all of this at once might be a little bit brutal for the early raids, the fight has to be doable with pretty much only dungeons and UBRS gear too... No ZG, not even DM at first. Anyway, I don't think this kind of changes will happen here...

[Zetox]

I think the timeline regarding how quickly they are going to release content (if done exactly as stated) needs to be looked at and Increased. I think that one or two months isn't much time at all...many people are hoping to play on this server for not just 1year but hopefully 2,3,4 years.
But if Nax is relased with 8 months what are people going to do for the next 3 years?

[Moxey]

Would be nice to have it on hard mode. Vanilla truely is easy for modern people. Very good post.

[Lyndis]

I never played on private server before (not totaly true, tested with some lvl 15-20 but ...) and i'm waiting this one with excitement when i see the bugs on current private servers and the work devs are doing on this one.

I hope the timeline will not being too short because i would like to take my time and not only try to " rush " like i have done since several years onofficial release.
In an other hand, i can understand the people who want to try a progress on this serv, for the competition (first on severals servs ?), because they don't want to " loose " too many time on the game anymore etc ..
So i am for or against the timeline, just prefer a no bugged content, who is actually the biggest problem when games are released.

For the raid difficulty, it will always being the same, no matter the mmo. Once you have the stuff of the current tier, the tier is easy to clean. When you have next tier gear, the old tiers are just a joke without challenge. That's the mmo principe.

The question is : does the release content will be hard enought since everyone knows addons, TC, etc ?
Maybe it will be too easy when full optimized, but think about all the time you need to be " full buff ".
Maybe people like to be casual and enjoy old raids without the need to farm again and again just to have fun with friends.

If you really like challenge, i don't think try boss when you have allready all strats and tips of release (not beta like official wow progress) is the thing you need.

But like Moxey said, i think when naxx will be release, an " hm " version of old raid could be cool, expecting a full t3 gear scaling, but only after all the content will be release.
A simple portal near the actual could be enough for the "hm" instance if it's too hard to include it on interface, or a special place with all the portals for not " breack " the harmony of the game.

It would not being totaly " blizzlike ", but who really matters ? it would be a content only availlable for people who cleaned several times all the blizzlike content, and just whant to try something a bit more hard, but WITHOUT ANY LOOT, just for the " fun of hardcore ". And why not specials bosses created by the devs with specials techs ? :p
Could be fun to be raped by a stormwind sheep with laserbeam ! x)

[Enrage]

NOT BLIZZLIKE FOR VANILLA

If you want a hard mode, go in raid with a not so good gear, you'll have difficulties

[Ghostly]

If you want a hard mode, go in raid with a not so good gear, you'll have difficulties

Yeah, nah. Raiding MC with badly itemized gear and poorly made talent trees would not be "a hard mode" (i.e. way to do thing harder than originally intended), it would be perfectly blizzlike, cause that's how it was in early patches. 1.12.1 item stats and talents make everything MUCH easier, so there's an obvious need of some difficulty boost. This all is perfectly explained in OP.

But I'd guess any slight change in difficulty is a grave offense towards the oh-so-holy Blizzlike ideal, huh? Especially if you don't consider the fact that having MC or BWL or AQ as endgame content in 1.12.1 WoW isn't blizzlike at all.